10-21-2023, 09:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-21-2023, 09:20 PM by gayprojectforum.)
This post, based on the experience gained in Gay Project, will analyze the uncomfortable situations related to sexuality typical of gays. It is appropriate to organize the discussion following the time periods of life and the different possible living conditions.
Discomforts of gay adolescence, from 12-13 to 17-18.
Discomforts of gay youth, from 18-19 to around 35-40.
Discomforts of mature gay age, from 35-40 years old, up to around 60-65.
Discomforts of gay old age, from about 60-65 years onwards.
It goes without saying that the time limits reported are merely indicative and that the boundaries between age classes are very elastic. Here I'm going to to talk only about discomfort, it is therefore appropriate to clarify what is meant by discomfort.
DISCOMFORT
The Treccani Vocabulary (one of the most accredited dictionaries in Italy) defines discomfort as follows: "Sense of pain and annoyance felt due to the inability to adapt to an environment, to a situation, also for moral reasons." The term discomfort therefore implies a situation of maladjustment, "feeling outside", "feeling different", "difficulty or impossibility of integration into the group".
The center of the discomfort is the difficulty or impossibility of homologation, that is, of convinced and not merely formal adaptation to commonly accepted rules, customs or social behaviors. It is clear that the discomfort understood in this way can derive either from individual factors (life conditions, personality, character, family, educational, small group factors and, unfortunately, also objectively pathological factors, which when present require the intervention of specialists) or by social factors (irrational collective adhesion to a single form of thought, dogmatic and authoritarian thinking, absence of critical thinking, tendency towards strict and even forced homologation, repressive education), or by a mix of individual factors and social factors.
It should be underlined that in the rest of this article I will focus on forms of discomfort not linked to pathologies but originating exclusively from a more or less distorted and forced application of traditional patterns of social interaction.
Homologation means formal inclusion in a group following the recognition of possession of all the requirements needed to be part of that group. Homologues feel part of the group, they see their opinions shared and strengthened by the group, that is, they feel at least in certain respects "equal" to the other members of the group and tend to perceive and characterize non-homologues as "different", strangers to the group and not integrable.
The more dense, analytical and prescriptive the list of characteristics required to be approved in the group is, the more closed and "exclusive" the group is, that is, it tends to rigidly keep out those who are not approved, to therefore exclude any form of integration of the "different ”.
There is no need to say that sexual orientation and sexual behavior are among the most common and most important elements for the purposes of homologation in a group. These elements are also conditioning in groups in which, formally, it is not possible to make any reference to them or they are explicitly excluded, one could say that they operate underground and unconsciously.
Already from this concept of social discomfort it is easy to understand the origin of the discomfort of gays, to whom the category of "different" is attributed par excellence, hence the social invisibility that has historically characterized gays for centuries, precisely as a persecuted group, invisibility which, although attenuated in recent decades, still exists heavily at a local and family level.
EDUCATION AND DISCOMFORT
Attention to the educational phase of the new generations can show and has historically showed different, if not opposite attitudes in societies characterized by different political regimes.
In societies characterized by dictatorial regimes, education has been aimed at "educational homologation", that is, gradually induced through a dogmatic education in which belonging to the group is everything and freedom of thought and individual freedom itself must also be sacrificed to that belonging. The individual exists as a function of the group and not the group as a function of the individual. All stages of education are socialized, individualism is repressed, blind and absolute obedience is considered the highest virtue. Education in Nazi Germany was organized on this basis.
In societies characterized by pluralist democratic regimes, i.e. in societies that did not promote a single and dogmatic thought, but dialogue and confrontation between different opinions, education enjoyed significantly greater levels of freedom and parliamentary dialectics itself was an example of group organization widely used locally. Non-repressive education does not tend towards forced homologation, it does not valorize obedience but the autonomy of thought and respect for pluralism, that is, it tends to integrate the "different" by requiring minimum homologation criteria such as adherence to widely shared constitutional principles, completely excluding non-social but individual characteristics such as sexual orientation. In many Northern European countries this educational model has been applied for decades and has significantly limited situations of discomfort.
DISCOMFORT AND EDUCATIONAL TABOOS
When we talk about education we tend to overlap two distinct concepts, that of education proper and that of instruction. The two terms concern decidedly different areas. Educating means encouraging the natural development of an individual's tendencies. Instructing means first of all providing knowledge and integrating technical skills. The difference between the two areas is manifested for example in the fact that we talk about "technical education" (knowing how to do something specific, at a professional level) but we talk about "sexual education" (i.e. accompanying the psycho-sexual development of an individual so that he has greater awareness of himself and others in the context of sexual contacts).
Unfortunately, sex education often turns into sexual instruction, that is, into the mere transmission of minimal knowledge regarding contraceptive precautions and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, in order to technically manage sexual contacts in a non-risky way. This is certainly an important and necessary thing but a thousand miles away from a sexual education capable of undermining perverse mechanisms such as those that lead to feminicide.
Education, at an institutional level, increasingly tends to transform itself into instruction for the preparation of trained technicians for their entry into the world of work, and in this way the individual dimension remains highly marginalized and the need for education is silently forget. It is as if in reality there were educational taboos, which institutional education must be careful not to deal with and sexual education is the most classic of educational taboos.
Sexual education, neglected at an institutional level, is in fact delegated to other educational agencies, which do not appear to be such but which carry out, for better or for worse, a decisive function in the educational process of the new generations, I am speaking in particular of the churches and religious communities on one side and pornography on the other.
The almost without exception abandonment of sexual education in the hands of these agencies is quite like a blank delegation issued to suspicious entities due to "conflict of interest". Sexual education should not be delegated either to churches or to pornography because churches (all churches, albeit to varying degrees) have dogmatic views of sexuality and pornography has exclusively commercial purposes (with enormous turnover). Due to their very constitution, these realities lack a secular and pluralist vision capable of reducing discomfort and increasing the level of integration even of the so-called "different".
With these premises in mind we can move on to a specific topic.
DISCOMFORTS OF GAY ADOLESCENCE
A guy who faces adolescence gradually becomes aware of his physical change and the progressive development of his sexuality, something about which, among other things, he cannot talk seriously with anyone, neither in his family nor outside (educational taboo) and at the same time time is subjected to educational pressures especially from the family or the church (much less from the school) which place various kinds of expectations on him and tend to propose and enhance socially accepted behavioral models, at least in theory, but strongly oriented towards homologation.
If a heterosexual guy is pushed by family talk to look for a girl to feel grown up and in this (in a more or less immature way) he can find real gratification, a guy who feels attracted to guys and not to girls, in a similar situation, will not be able to help but feel profound discomfort and this will lead to very early access to pornography with the risk of considering it a true model of sexual behavior.
But if the discomfort exists and is already significant for a gay guy interested in his peers, the discomfort will be much stronger for guys interested in adult men or in particular sexual practices, which are not very popular and are considered (often completely prejudicially) significantly pathological. These guys actually risk not finding acceptance or understanding even in gay environments where, contrary to what one might think, certain forms of prejudice are still present. Paradoxical as it may seem, even gay environments may not be inclusive.
The discomfort is even stronger on the part of trans people for whom the integration process is still in its infancy and still encounters enormous difficulties. For persons with experiences of this type, adolescence is a very difficult age, because their reality, in fact, must develop without any external support and indeed in clear contrast with family or social environments which tend to require if not demand forced homologations.
There are both forms of discomfort typical of gay adolescence and complications of the forms of discomfort also common to straight kids, linked specifically to gay sexuality.
A gay guy, if he feels that his family has homophobic attitudes and wants to avoid misunderstandings or disruptive clashes, must avoid talking about homosexuality, must not have books or newspapers that talk about homosexuality, must behave externally like a straight person, or at least must avoid displaying attitudes that could be interpreted as signs of homosexuality, for example having a special friend, spending little time with women, showing signs of nervousness or rebellion when faced with homophobic attitudes from a family member, etc. etc..
The problem of masturbation and attempts to repress it to respect more or less shared religious precepts is also common to straight guys, especially believers or presumed believers. Even for straight guys it is embarrassing to confess to the priest that they have masturbated, but for them the problem ends there. When a gay guy understands that the problem for him is not reduced to confessing that he has masturbated but that he should tell the priest that he did it thinking of a man, the situation of discomfort becomes deeper and the circumstance that it was about masturbation with gay fantasies is in fact often omitted, which causes other scruples of a religious nature.
Many behaviors that in a heterosexual context are absolutely not anxiety-provoking and do not cause uncomfortable situations, such as going to gyms and swimming pools and taking a shower together with other guys, can instead cause anxiety and discomfort in gay guys, because for them those things have some clear sexual implications.
Another typical form of discomfort for gay guys in adolescence consists in finding a possible relationship with the female world, because those guys realize that they are the object of sexual attention from girls and if on the one hand they are tempted to create a relationship with a girl, which would favor integration into the peer group, on the other hand they are aware that this is not what they are looking for and that sooner or later with a girl there will also be sexual contact, which could also work but which, in this case, would still create even stronger constraints from which it would then be traumatic if not impossible to free oneself.
DISCOMFORTS OF GAY YOUTH
A young gay man, after emerging from adolescence, i.e. from a state of substantial dependence and control by the family environment, tends to build his own emotional and sexual world, has his own experiences and, inevitably, realizes that the transition from the world of fantasy to that of reality, however natural and deeply desired, can be traumatic because love stories or stories that resemble love stories have nothing to do with fairy tales and real guys, those with whom we must build a relationship, are not at all a copy of ourselves but have their own story, often much more complex and problematic than what appears on the outside, they bring with them conditioning and complexes linked to their sexual stories, which may not emerge or not show themselves in their problematic aspects for even very long periods of time.
Young gay people must also realize that everyone has their own sexual archetypes and has their own personal repertoire of fantasies and sexual behaviors and that therefore "real" sexual interaction with a guy, i.e. sex experienced with a deep emotional exchange and with at least the prospect of lasting, it is not at all an easy thing to manage. It should be added that many gay guys have a vision of the gay couple built on the marital model while others do not conceive of any kind of constraints and have a non-monogamous sexuality which however is absolutely not a form of betrayal because it is shared by the partners.
These issues, which I have summarized in a few lines, actually occupy a large part of the lives of young gay people. Experience matures slowly, helps to overcome prejudices and inevitably proceeds through trial and error. It should be underlined that those indicated above are the typical problems of a standard young gay man, because the presence of less common or of problems structured over time can also make the youth of a gay guy particularly complicated. It should not be forgotten that sexual addictions are established in this period of life and that some reading of university psychology texts (i.e. objectively scientific) can help young gays to frame their lives and to rationally understand their reactions and mechanisms of interaction within emotional relationships.
Regarding young gays, a fundamental observation emerges: perhaps the most important phase of the development of the adult personality, the one linked to the achievement of mental, emotional and above all economic independence, is completed with entry into the world of work. The young gay adult who works and has economic stability also has substantial autonomy. Paradoxical as it may seem, the strongest trauma, at this age of life, if we exclude serious illnesses and bereavements, is not the breakdown of an emotional relationship but the drama of unemployment which pushes the young gay back to the level of adolescence, i.e. it brings him back to a state of not only economic but also emotional dependence and substantial deprivation of freedom as a result of returning to his parents' home.
If studying and quickly entering a stable work situation is important for a straight guy, it is even more important for a young gay man, for whom freedom and independence from the family are indispensable conditions for realizing his own emotional and sexual life, as well as to obtain rewards from the world of work.
Obviously, entering the world of work is neither a given nor without traumas. The ability to manage relationships with colleagues and superiors matures with experience and at the beginning, the absence of concrete experience can lead to errors which then must be payed, I am referring in particular to the fact that the working environment it is just a work environment that must be managed as a work environment and that colleagues and, even worse, superiors are not friends to whom one can talk freely about oneself because with superiors there is a hierarchical relationship (i.e. one is evaluated by superiors, and you are evaluated with their categories) and with colleagues there is a competitive relationship and therefore a conflict of interests that makes a true friendship impossible.
We often learn traumatically that we must keep the world of work and that of private life separate, because a confidence made to a colleague mistakenly considered a friend can remain an absolutely confidential fact for years "if there is no concrete utility in revealing it ” but if such a usefulness will manifest itself, the alleged friend will be able to put aside scruples of confidentiality and use what he knows to his advantage, obviously covering himself in the anonymity of "it is said that...".
DISCOMFORTS OF THE GAY MATURE AGE
The mature age from 35/40 to 60/65 years is generally characterized by work and economic stability, when this does not happen the problems become particularly serious because daily life comes to depend on random mechanisms which only increase the anxiety and insecurity and cause self-esteem levels to collapse. Recovering from these situations is not easy because the first need that must be addressed is to obtain a stable job, which may not compromise long-term pension prospects and therefore an at least minimally peaceful old age.
To limit ourselves to situations in which a certain level of work and economic stability has been achieved at a mature age, we can say that the gay adult has now become an old fox, and has accumulated enough experience to allow him to calmly manage the work environment. Emotional life is now on a well-defined track from which it would in any case be difficult to move away, in other words the age of choices is over and the gay adult has just to manage the choices already made.
There are gays who have married and had children and for them everything depends on the level of awareness of their wife and the levels of freedom that family life allows, even if reconciling life as a married man with children with different emotional and sexual choices is not easy at all, but if the family is there and the children are there, all this cannot be put aside and must coexist, as far as possible, with gay tendencies.
There are gays who have built stable gay couples and for them the problems are similar to those of straight couples without children, cohabitation is stable, but the temptations can be many, fidelity is in principle acceptable but it is difficult to make it coexist with a tired and worn-out relationship or with a strong external temptation, if the couple relationship is not yet worn out by the years.
Unfortunately, in this period of life, not to mention the most serious and disabling illnesses, the first typical age-related ailments begin to emerge and prevention becomes an obligatory chapter in the life of gay adults, unless one wants to get involved in politics of the ostrich. Appointments with doctors, rare at age 40, become more frequent as you get older. In a couple, when one of the two has more frequent medical needs, the other partner may show signs of impatience, as if the illness were a choice or a fault, because moving from the role of partner to the role of nurse or care giver represents a radical change of perspective to which not everyone is willing. Abandoning your partner in such a situation is seen as the worst form of betrayal.
Stable friendship relationships are often created between adult gay couples, even if with rather distant meetings. It is a phenomenon that I have encountered many times: once couples are formed or the idea of a couple is put aside, friendships are rediscovered, the simple pleasure of being together, of feeling like they belong to the same tribe, of speaking freely even about gay things as one can only between gays. These friendships are often a not at all banal alternative to couple relationships, some would say that they are a surrogate because they can also take on sexual connotations, especially when it comes to friendships within groups of singles, or quasi-singles, that is, men who also have a sexual life, however episodic and with different partners, generally two or three and always the same.
DISCOMFORTS OF GAY OLD AGE
Over the age of 60-65 it is necessary to realize that life is largely gone, if there are no particular economic problems, the thoughts of elderly gays progressively focus on illnesses but not on the illnesses in themselves, which at a certain age are in fact unavoidable and now constitute a constant in life, despite good prevention practices and the attempt to live a healthy life, but because disabling diseases entail the need for assistance as one may no longer be able to carry out without help even the essential acts for daily life, such as taking a shower or eating or going to the bathroom independently.
At this point the old gay without children feels in a worse condition than the old man who has children and grandchildren and thinks that for a gay, freedom from family ties, which has been a pillar of adult life, will lead to substantial loneliness in last stage of life. Either you will end up entrusted very precariously to grandchildren who want to safeguard their freedom in any case, or you will end up, if there is the money to realize such a hypothesis, being managed by a male or female care giver, or in the worst case you will end up in some old people's home. A gay person, in general, does not have the prospect of remaining in the family until later in life and hopes that death will arrive when one is still in conditions of relative independence, so as not to bother anyone. Naturally this reasoning applies to old gays who have not built a stable couple relationship.
For those who have built a stable couple, the prospect of mutual help is less traumatic, but in this case, unfortunately, they have to deal with the trauma of widowhood, which sooner or later will take away one of the partners and leave the other in a situation of abandonment similar to that of gays who have not built a couple, but aggravated by the fact that those who have lived as a couple have difficulty accepting solitude. Even for gay couples, as for long-term straight ones, widowhood is the worst trauma.
From what I have personally experienced, I can say that a strongly stabilizing element in the life of an elderly gay is having friendships with gays of all ages, it is as if something similar could slow down the race towards death by keeping a person tied up for a long time to all phases of gay life. I hope that this safety net can last for several more years, at the moment I can say that it is very important.