Lesson 1: I need men.

 

I stumbled across this picture in this (http://www.brainjet.com/world/9625/23-powerful-images-revealing-the-real-men-and-women-behind-the-uniforms#slide/4)  photo essay contrasting servicemen and women in their uniforms vs. their everyday lives.
    It's become one of my favorite images, as it illustrates the essence of the first lesson that my homosexuality has taught me:

 I need men.


    This image abundantly communicates the need these men have for each other. Not just in an acquaintanceship-y, business partner-y, I-don't-know-anything-about-you-except-that-you-have-assets type of need, I mean, they NEED each other, deeply and consistently. They need, love and want each other, as men, as brothers, as friends, as partners, as lovers, as beings. Their position indicates committed boundaries of respect, while simultaneously conveying a deep, familiar closeness and enjoyment of one another. These men need each other.
    My homosexuality is a teacher. And the greatest lesson it has taught me is that I need men. Not an acquaintanceship-y, business partner-y, I-don't-know-anything-about-you-except-that-you-have-assets-y type of “need.” I mean a deep, complete, from the core of my being, now and forever need for men. I need men as brothers, friends, partners, and I'd even go so far as to say lovers, within the bounds that the Lord has set. It is only in the context of such a brotherhood that my full power and health as a man is possible.
    Before I continue, I want to make clear that I believe and support the Church's teachings on the Law of Chastity. I don't advocate that men seek out romantic relationships with men, and don't believe that such are necessary in order for men to fill their need for each other. However, while I don't condone sexual relationships between members of the same sex on the grounds of morality and conscience, I have learned that these loving romantic relationships between members of the same sex, like that portrayed here, can still provide insights on life, love and relationships. An odd claim coming from someone with my religious perspective, perhaps, but true nonetheless.
    And the foremost lesson that I have learned from homosexuality, both my own and from the broader culture, is that men need men.

    Why would this lesson be so significant, as to make it number one on my list?

    Despite what many deconstructionist voices in the modern world would say, gender is not simply a pattern of “normal” behaviors forced on men or women by the broader culture, (though that does play a part.) Rather, gender represents a pattern of thought and behavior, tied to our biological, spiritual and evolutionary wiring, that develops as a deeply intrinsic part of human nature. Because gender governs how a person relates to other beings, and because humans are social creatures, the pattern of thought and behavior represented by gender cannot develop and exert itself to its fullest extent in isolation. It needs relationships with others in order for that to occur. There are significant cultural patterns extant across human society, from the great warriorship camaraderie of the American soldiery to the priesthood authority binding the men of the Church to one another in common discipleship, that clearly show that the powers of thought and behavior represented by gender can only be fully wielded in the context of a deeply connected brotherhood. Without that deep brotherhood, men cannot fully develop their potential.

    Without homosexuality, I never would have cognicized this principle until much later in life.

    This is a truth that I did not glean from my upbringing. We live in America, as peculiar and odd a culture as any, and while the religious conservatism that has governed American culture for much of its past gets many things right, it is deeply and entirely wrong on many other things. The way it approaches a man's need for connection with men is foremost among those. It's simply just not normal for men in America to need and deeply connect with other men.
    I'm no sociologist, but I can see some pervasive societal expectations of manliness and masculinity here in America that have combined to greatly inhibit the powerful connections that need to develop between men in order for them to reach full health and strength.
    First, men in American culture are expected to be independent. Their modus operandi is strength, autonomy, and self-fulfillment. They are capable of getting what they need for themselves and their families without the help of anyone else. Dependence is weakness.
    Second, men in American culture are expected to be competitive. We love our free-markets, we love our politics, and we love businessmen and politicians (mostly men) who can beat out other businessmen and politicians (also mostly men.) This spirit of competition sets men up to treat most, if not all other men as a potential enemy.
    Third, men are expected to be stoic. Though men are deeply emotional beings, they are taught from a young age that to manage emotions successfully means they must shut them down completely. Emotions are treated as weakness and men who exhibit them belittled. Ever heard a man be told to “Grow a pair?” Case in point.
    Fourth, American culture has been extremely homophobic. It's one thing for a man to set boundaries that prevent other men from exploiting him sexually or emotionally, and quite another to scorn as a “homo” any man that shows desire for love and closeness with other men.
    Fifth and lastly, American men are taught that they must look to the woman for emotional need fulfilment, affirmation and intimacy. Romantic relationships and marriage are the source of these things for adult men. Intense, intimate relationships with other boys and men are expected in boyhood but also expected to discontinue with age, as though they were a sign of immaturity.
    These factors have combined within the past 100 years to create an unusual, perhaps even unique occurrence among the societies of the Earth: a society where depth of connection and love between men is abnormal.

    The human need for love is met through connection. Connection, with all the admittance of weakness, dependence, and the spiritual, emotional and physical intimacy it needs, is antagonistic to all five of these characteristics of American masculinity. Authentic, loving relationships with other men require an admittance of need. They require dissolving walls of competition and antagonism and establishing trust in its place. They involve an understanding and utilization of one's emotions. They require being vulnerable to those men, an especially scary thing for any man who has been taught to be stoic, strong and independent.
    Don't get me wrong, most of these typical expectations of masculinity (independence, competition, stoicism, looking to the woman for intimacy and need fulfilment) are good things in and of themselves. I simply take issue with the fact that they are used to draw a rigid box around masculinity that prevents men from connecting to one another with depth, and thereby prevented from achieving full growth. I don't claim to know a whole ton on this subject, but it's clear to me that both boys and men are generally taught not to relate to other human beings, and ESPECIALLY not other men, from a position of needing, trusting and feeling love and closeness. This is a damaging expectation. A family cannot entirely provide a man's need for intimacy and emotional health. Further, they cannot provide the strength a mature man needs in order to continue well in his familial roles. Strong brotherhoods are required for a man to reach his full stature, in family roles as well as in all other roles he takes on in his life.

    How did homosexuality teach me this principle?

    My personality in connection with my homosexuality taught me this lesson by A) preventing me from connecting with other men without a great deal of difficulty, B) giving me the drive necessary to surmount that difficulty, and C) preventing me from striving to meet those needs for connection through relationships with women.
    By my nature, I've always been more feminine. I'm sensitive and emotional, shy away from competitiveness in favor of cooperation, and was never that much into typical boy stuff. I just was not the typical male! When I was four I would run around wearing sweatpants on my head tied up with a rubber band and call myself names like “Shelly,” for heaven's sake. I enjoyed playing with dolls, preferred to stay in the house and read, and cried a lot...I was almost exuberantly dramatic. In addition, I've always been highly sensitive to rejection and ostracizement (which are almost universal scars of boyhood) and needed a great deal more affection and reinforcement from men than would be “normal.” It all combined to prevent me from connecting effectively with my “normal” male peers throughout my life. I simply couldn't relate with them, nor they with me.
    Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of wonderful male friends and family. I have a good father and grandfather, friends, and scout leaders whom I have loved and been loved by. But I always felt I had to....perform, somehow, in order to find these connections. Fitting in took a lot of effort and has never come naturally. I was usually the one taking initiative to connect. Deep down, I always suspected, that if I hadn't've been there, they really wouldn't've missed me. I honor them forever for filling an incalculable role in my life that has blessed me immeasurably. But there was always something missing in those connections, and they never completely filled my need.
    It was only until after my mission and I was invited to join North Star, a support group for gay Mormons, that I finally began to feel accepted and desired as a man. How sweet that was to experience! To be certain, gay Mormon men aren't any better or any worse than other men. They have their strengths and weaknesses, but one strength they have that most men lack is they know how to enfold someone in love just for being there. I'd never experienced that with a group of men up until that point in my life.
    It was only until this happened that I began to fully realize my worth and potential as a man. As I felt accepted into this brotherhood where I understand, am understood, can meet needs and have them met, and can give and receive strength, an inner sense of masculinity began to relax into place, a sense I never possessed as a teenager.
    Had I never known homosexuality, I would have bought wholesale into the societal distortions that have shut down male connection in our society. I would have continued on to marriage and family like I was “supposed to,” and gone through much of my life knowing something was missing but never knowing what.
    Because homosexuality diverted me off the typical Mormon cultural path for young men, I was forced to question why normalcy never worked for me. Through that process I came to understand just how deeply I need men, in order to enable my own inner sense of masculinity, crucial to a sense of balance, wholeness and strength, to flourish.
    I know this all sounds vague, and I wish I could ground my perspective in something more concrete than just personal, subjective experiences, but I can't. All I know at this point is, that in order to be my full, healthy self, I need men. I need men as eternal brothers, friends, partners, even so far as to say lovers within the bounds the Lord has set. And I am so grateful to Jesus, the Lover of my soul, for granting me the experience of homosexuality. Without it I never would have known how much I need other men...and just how achingly much I need Him.

Thank you, Teacher.