I think that it’s best that I don’t write about relationships. It tends, as so many people read this blog, to upset the very people I love most.
So we must bid adieu to the continuing adventures of Lamb Head and the 18th Century Man. We must set aside our interest in the comings and goings of my complicated love life and concentrate on politics, goats and all things beyond my immediate inner circle.
So, let’s talk about George Rekers.
You know, well most of you do who read this blog regularly, that I am all about individual choice. Particularly, the choice to determine our own sexuality and how we choose to describe it. Sadly, there are so few words to describe the extraordinary range of sexual choices on offer to the average man/woman.
And, of course, we all tell so many lies about our sexuality. Let’s put it this way, most of the men I know who describe themselves as straight have had their fingers in the gay honey pot. I have no reason to doubt their description of their sexuality so why don’t they just celebrate their sexual diversity?
Well, we all know just how narrow-minded people get when they are asked to describe themselves sexually, mainly from fear of how they will be treated by their peers. The gays are all too willing to accept anyone who has occasional same-sex relations into their gay camp and the straights are just as eager to throw that same anyone out of their frat house.
If George Rekers wants an erotic massage from a rent boy does this make him gay? If a man drinks to excess does this make him an alcoholic? The answer to both of these questions has to be NO.
As I have said many, many times before: we live in sexually prescriptive times. It is not up to me to tell you that you are either gay (or an alcoholic) it is up to you to make that choice and deal with the consequences.
It has to be up to the individual to decide what he is and how best to describe himself. If you are a man who loves men and their bodies and all things homosexual would the word gay properly describe what you are?
If I had another choice of word rather than gay to describe myself would I? YES. This is not about me being a self hater, this is about me feeling like I am a bit too old to be gay, a bit too sober, too few sexual partners, a vague interest in the gym and not in tune with the collective who describe themselves as gay.
Just as I now no longer call myself an alcoholic preferring to call myself a sex addict. It best describes the specific disease of addiction from which I am in recovery.
Of course I find George Rekers despicable, not because he vacations with pretty rent boys or refuses to be associated with the gay word but because he so virulently attacks the unalienable rights of others. He makes life uncomfortable for those who choose to describe themselves as gay. He peddles hatred and disinformation.
He has been described as a hypocrite. Does the fact that he likes erotic massage make him a hypocrite? No. If he were living with his husband and children in suburban Tallahassee and telling others that they shouldn’t now that would be hypocritical.
I’m not sure that he is gay. Is he? He’s certainly not living a life I would describe as gay. He is probably just desirous of erotic massage.
Being gay is surely not simply about sex? Is it?
Are we doing ourselves a disservice calling George Rekers gay? By claiming this man as one of our own are we throwing the net too wide?
After I was on Sex Rehab somebody wrote to me telling me that if ‘Duncan Roy doesn’t like sex with men then he isn’t gay’.
I felt rather reassured by this. It was a complex accusation and one that I had oft considered myself. Am I gay if I don’t like sex with men? Am I gay if I believe in monogamy? Am I gay if I don’t drink or take drugs or, and I expect to be hounded for saying this, if I am not HIV positive?
Very recently I HAVE started to like sex with men-well one man who I no longer have sex with. I still don’t like the word gay.
So, George Rekers vacations with rent boys. Elena Kagan looks like a lesbian but is she? And, in the UK the Liberals and the Conservatives and making a very big bed to share after the inconclusive general election.