Several gay men are attracted to me. And I ask them why? Every day one or the other man comes to my life and knocks at my doors of emotions. They declare their love for me and some literally stalk me, of course over Facebook.
I ask myself even when I ask these gu/ays why they like or love a person so much. I tell them that they have not even met me. What they have seen are some profile pictures. And from no angle I look attractive. Like many others who post intellectual stuff, trivia and classical music on the walls of facebook to seek attention, I too change my pictures, perhaps with the same intention.
But I seek attention mostly for my writings; anyway not for my looks. So often, when I get soliciting chats and phone calls from my gay friends, I wonder what makes me so attractive to men who come from different countries.
They don’t have too many words to explain that. Some say that they like me ‘just like that’. Some say, ‘I have finally found the one I have been waiting for all these years’. Yet another lot say, ‘You look hot’.
I wish more women said all these things about me. But I am not disheartened by my gay friends. In fact I enjoy their attention.
There is this young man happily married and settled who wants to see me every day. He takes care of me in this virtual sphere as if he were my wife. He asks me whether I had breakfast on time, lunch on time, whether I am feeling headache, pain on shoulders and shall he come over and massage me. I send endless smilies to him.
Once in a while he calls me. He speaks to me when am I going to meet him. I say, ‘soon’. I don’t want to hurt him.
The other day a young man in his early twenties came and started chatting with me. He wanted to have a ‘relationship’ with me. I told him that I could be his uncle to which he responded with these words, ‘I like forty plus people like you.’ I spoke to him at length, tried to dissuade him and told him that I did not find his behaviour offensive but I could not entertain it. He said he was in love with me.
I wonder how people could fall in love with a profile picture.
I don’t judge them. In fact I like them. Not because they give me too much attention and they tend to pamper me but just because they too are human beings caught in a different zone with no escape.
But why gays only articulate their existence through sex? Can’t there be a normal relationship between two human beings? Why they drag everything into sex?
As a man of forty plus years I am not a stranger to same sex relationships in my personal life. Growing up years had seen me too in sharing beds with friends and cousins, exploring our sexuality through imagined penetrations and abundance of foreplay.
In Trivandrum a few gay friends had begged me to sleep with them. I thought it was strange to sleep with a friend with an intention to do sex. Often it happens when you don’t intend to do it.
I had broken the heart of a man who was in love with me. He became an enemy. And he still remains one.
A well known gay activist and intellectual friend of mine is terribly in love with me. Jokingly I asked him what he was going to do with me. I don’t know whether it is good to write it here, but what is there to be curtained and curtailed? So I write as he said:
“I will suck your dick, I will do everything for you. I will massage you. I will do all what you boring heteros don’t do.”
I laughed. I told him: “These are exactly the same things the ‘boring’ heteros generally do.”
I am not averse to the idea of getting pampered. But that’s not just limited to gays.
Of course not all gay men articulate their existence only via sex. But many seem to do, especially when younger. I think the sex-obsessed become the most visible (or annoying) in social relationships. For myself I very much still identify as a gay man, but as for the matter of actual sex I have become rather notoriously uninterested. Would much rather discuss art or politics.
ReplyDeleteYou contradict yourself when you say that all these gay men are in love with you and yet only want sex. It seems to be both.
ReplyDeleteIf, historically, gay men are more overt about sex it is because they are denied it, denied spaces for it, denied any validation of it in culture. You see straight images validating straightness everywhere. Where is the cultural space for gay men to have their desire validated?
I think gay men harassing you and stalking you also should give you a sense of what women feel everyfay with unwanted advances from straight men. You need a dose of your own medicine. And you can afford, as a strong straight man, to be kind and patronising to the gay men interested in you. Women can't and often face violent forms of intrusion on their bodies and minds by 'admirers.'
If you call these men your friends, surely you know them better than to say they only want sex? As one of your gay admirers, I take strong objection to being thought of as only interested in sex with you, though I do not deny that I desire you. I think you are a very hot guy but also a creative, thinking, warm and intelligent person.
Yu have chosen monogamy, marriage and many other confining forms of sociality. I think instead of commenting on gay men as if they were flies hovering around you, you need to ask yourself a few questions: how do you see these 'friends' in your life? How much do you engage with their subjectivities, their lives? How much do you understand what they feel for you and to what extent are you engaging with that feeling and what do you feel for them? I found your post not at all reflexive, somewhat unthinking and also narcissistic. I think you need to understand what male desire would mean for/to you? Coleridge and a whole tradition of thinkers characterise the creative imagination as bisexual. What do you think of that/ Please write more thinking and reflective posts instead of such nonsense.
Also, I can only surmise that you are fishing for compliments when you say that from no angle you are attractive. I think you know very well, Johny, that you are a very handsome man and also a very warm and humane person. This is also what gay men find attractive in you. At least I do. It is nice to meet a straight man who knows how to take a compliment, who does not panic when flirted with. But most of all, it is the fact that you are a warm person that attracts gay men.
ReplyDeleteAnybody remember M Butterfly? A popular Broadway show several years ago? Based on a true incident involving a French diplomat who carried on an affair for 18 years with a man the diplomat thought was a woman.
ReplyDeleteM. Butterfly begins in 1964 Beijing when French foreign service employee Rene Gallimard becomes smitten with Chinese opera performer Song Liling.
My point: human attraction outside the original intent of procreation, evolves from the combination of individual energy mass...sexuality is incidental.
That said, I attended a book reading at an eminent gallery in NYC last week with my very accomplished and attractive girl friend who is looking to meet a man. I was a few minutes late in arriving, she reported excitedly that the author introduced himself to her "very nicely", eventually, during the talk, we both noticed his immaculately trimmed eyebrows and flamboyant attire and soon his sexual orientation became implicit. My friend's disheartened response next, was, "Oooh, that's why he was so nice to me, I told you, the whole world is going gay"!
"But why gays only articulate their existence through sex? Can’t there be a normal relationship between two human beings? Why they drag everything into sex?"
ReplyDeleteIs that a question or an insight?
If it is a question, then the answer is "bcoz gays are after all men, and men will be men." Heheh...
And if this is an insight, I think I know why you would have this opinion. Clearly it is only at the physical level that you have had interactions with gay men. And when they try to communicate at a more humane level, like for instance wanting to care for you, you assign them the role of a "wife". There is no way out for them than to completely ignore you, is there?
same things happen when a man approaches a woman /vice varsa... mostly are interested in sex in the guise of'falling in love'. Am not a puritan or conformist but still believe 'love' just has to happen.... and the reasons do exist ... only we are too busy to analyse at that particular moment :)
ReplyDelete