04-25-2024, 12:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-25-2024, 01:18 PM by gayprojectforum.)
The title of this post, “Gay sex and depression”, may sound strange, because it brings together two concepts that are often considered opposite and irreconcilable, as if sex could be the medicine for all ills. Normally, it is precisely the young people who do not have the possibility of accessing couple-sex who consider it to be a medicine for all ills. When those young people then get to live their sexual couple-experiences, they realize a truth that is as elementary as it is denied, that is, not only is sex strongly inhibited by depressive states of various origins, but it can itself be the cause of depressive states.
Saying sex, in a generic way, means putting radically different situations together in a single category. If two guys are truly in love with each other, their first sexual contacts take place under the pressure of a very strong and mutual sexuality and affection. A situation of this kind has very little in common with the sexuality experienced by two mature or even elderly men, perhaps during an illness. Sex is not a pure fact, but has a weight and value depending on the meaning it takes on in the specific case. Sex experienced with the conscience and desire to betray one's partner is very different from sex experienced as reconciliation between two partners who decide to get back together after a period of separation.
So let's ask ourselves a question: "When can sex induce depressive reactions?". We are not talking about disappointing sex, tolerated but not authentically wanted or about sex with the wrong person or with a person who is proving to be or has proven to be the wrong person, we are talking about depressive sex, that is a sexual contact at the end of which we are objectively worse off than before, we have the impression of having lent ourselves to something that essentially does not interest us if it does not even repel us. Depressive sex ends with the question, “What am I doing here?”
I underline that there is generally no coercion on the part of others, the depressed person who perhaps sought sexual contact an hour before asks himself: “Why did I do it? What did I expect?” Depressive means accompanied by demotivation, i.e. depressed person has no rational responsethe to the question “why did I do it?”, the depressed person finds only a single answer: "The motivation basically wasn't there, I created it for myself, as if sex were the answer to a real need, which however doesn't exist." In other words, sex is a false need, which once satisfied demonstrates all its lack of significance.
The true depressive mechanism does not have an external motivation, it is not a reaction to the behavior of others, but it is the systematic devaluation of one's own motivations and derives from the idea that there is nothing that makes sense, not even sex, which is devalued and emptied from the inside because it is deprived of any possible communicative value. Depression already significantly reduces the tendency to verbal dialogue, which is understood as a vehicle for possible accusations and aggressions, and favors languages based on presence, enriched where appropriate by significant behaviors or by a few very clear words cleaned up from any rhetoric.
The depressed person does not avoid sex, the depressed person does not refuse sex, the problem is not there, the problem is in the absence of motivation, in having sex as if it were just anything, which does not create a better form of communication or better does not create any communication at all, but it is pure fact. The depressed person doesn't feel the emotion of waiting before meeting his boyfriend, he doesn't feel the feeling of emptiness when his boyfriend goes away for a few days, he doesn't really want emotional contact with his boyfriend, he experiences all these situations in substantially detached manner.
Often the disinterest is not shown and the partner of a depressed guy does not even realize that his partner is depressed and, in cases where he realizes it, he does everything to show his concern for his partner, often in an anxious and invasive way. Often the depressed person's lack of reactivity is mistaken for disinterest or even rejection.
It should be underlined that in many cases, in young guys, depression is a transitory phenomenon and does not have marked pathological characteristics. For these guys, an anxious and worried climate about their state of mental health is certainly harmful. The depressed gay guy at this level seems to escape company but certainly likes to feel at the center of another guy's attention, but it must not be the attention that would be given to someone who is considered a pathological case.
Within certain limits, the mild forms of non-reactive depression most common among young people are not true pathologies but normal variants of the character which can also have, in certain periods of life, a depressive polarization.
The depressed guy must under no circumstances be marginalized, not even when he himself seems to be trying to distance himself from the group. To a proposal for a meeting or an activity with a group of friends, the depressed guy spontaneously tends to say no, but that no must be followed by a certain insistence from the group. If the group, at the first negative response of the depressed guy, puts him out of the group, it does serious damage to that guy, because it supports the depressive tendency and the feeling of exclusion.
The depressed guy generally tends not to do, but not to destroy what already exists. A depressed guy who has a couple-life won't demolish it in the name of his depression, he will live it as something that exists but has no real motivation.
Special attention must be paid by the partner to requests for sexual contact from depressed guys, because being told no to a request for sexual contact is seen by a depressed guy as a refusal, still in some way permissible, if the rejection does not come from one's usual partner, but when the rejection comes from one's usual partner, it clearly appears as a rejection of the person.
We must not forget that a depressed guy struggles to build strong interpersonal relationships, because his behavior displaces the other guys, who remain perplexed and turn away. Only in some cases is real contact created, but when this happens, generally, the resulting relationship is strong and also mutual. The depressed guy may also devalue sex with his partner, but the relationship he has with his partner is really fundamental for him because the alternatives would be few or anyhow very improbable.
Depressed guys generally maintain long-term relationships with their partners. The meaning of these relationships cannot be easily understood from the outside. A relationship with a depressed guy cannot be considered in any way trivial or unrewarding a priori, it all depends on the personality of the other partner. I can say that I have seen stable couples, lasting decades, with one partner tending to be depressed. It should be underlined that many forms of depression resolve spontaneously, many times even if not always, because guys are placed in an authentically affective environment.
A relationship with a depressed guy must be approached with responsibility and awareness, because the feeling of frustration is always lurking. The sense of dealing with something ease to deal with, that hides behind the naive but gratifying declaration "I will save you!" is destined to clash with a reality that only rewards long-term efforts and true commitments. Most guys quickly distance themselves from depressed guys because they don't feel them as possible friends or partners, but those very few guys who manage to build a real relationship with a depressed guy and are able to recognize its value, beyond the common categories used to evaluate a relationship, not only feel gratified but discover a kind of parallel universe, in which there is also depression, but there are many other things and above all there is a real relationship, even if apparently subdued, a relationship that does not fade, which may be light, non-exclusive, but lasts for years.
Building a relationship with a guy means accepting him as he is, not trying to change him, and this rule applies even more to depressed guys who want to be accepted as they are, with their depression, with their mood swings, with their refusing to speak, with their emotional needs, always denied, but still present. The smile of a depressed guy is very rare, but when it appears it is actually a ray of sunshine and it is the best reward for the guy who has dedicated if not all at least a good part of his life to that guy.