06-15-2018, 04:45 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-15-2018, 05:15 PM by gayprojectforum.)
Being comfortable with yourself
This chapter is dedicated to feeling good about yourself. When one is not comfortable with oneself, one feels a generalized sense of inadequacy, of inability to cope effectively, not to some specific difficulties but more generally to the problems of ordinary life or a sort of progressive disinterest towards very important sectors of social life or even of affective life or towards sexuality, these are the typical depressive manifestations of a malaise under which there is the belief that the situation can not in any way change. In these cases the malaise leads to closure and isolation. In some cases, however, not being well with oneself does not take depressive aspects but rather manifests itself in a frantic search for solutions and therefore in a marked availability to emotional and sometimes sexual contact, often without adequate rational control, which entails the risk to get into situations that are not really wanted and difficult to manage.
Self-esteem
The fundamental causes of not being comfortable with oneself are essentially two: low self-esteem and feelings of guilt. Self-esteem derives from the overall equilibrium of the personality and is undoubtedly related to many social, educational and family factors and, in particular, to the successes or failures achieved and to the esteem we enjoy from other people.
Low self-esteem is often a dysfunctional response to states of social exclusion or to an education that tends to emphasize individual's insecurities.
Although the low self-esteem has in most cases external substantive motivations due to the environmental conditioning, the search for its motivations in almost all cases is addressed inward by the people who experience it. Those who experience discomfort tend to identify the cause of it in one or a few well-defined elements, physical or of the character, which we can consider centers of polarization of the low self-esteem. Some of these elements have nothing to do with sexuality, while others are explicitly affective / sexual. I try to list some, based on what emerges in the chats with the gay guys.
Low self-esteem linked to one's physicality
First of all the elements linked to one's own non-sexual physicality must be mentioned: "I am too fat", an expression that is frequently heard; "I am too thin", a much rarer expression; "I am flabby, I have no muscles"; "I'm too short"; "I'm too tall"; "I'm too hairy"; "I'm really hairless". These expressions, which in themselves indicate only the perception of a presumed inadequacy become symptoms of being uncomfortable with oneself when they take on a fixed idea character that interferes considerably with ordinary life. When this happens, the perception of the inadequacy leads to a more or less consciously exasperated search for solutions to what begins to present itself as a problem and sometimes as the problem.
Often boys who call themselves too fat or too flaccid are not at all such and the perception of the inadequacy is completely subjective and unrealistic, it is the case of slender guys who feel too fat and follow a strict diet and of boys who, despite having a body sculpted by the activity, even daily, in the gym, resort to anabolics to increase muscle mass. These elements indicate states of discomfort of a certain extent that may require specialistic intervention.
The dimension of discomfort in the perception of the inadequacy manifests itself as well as in the exasperation of presumed problems, in the search for pseudo-solutions that can be much more harmful than the illusions that they should hypothetically remedy.
Low self-esteem linked to one's sexual physicality
The elements linked to one's sexual physicality must also be stressed. A small number of gay boys ends up putting aside the idea of living a couple sexuality for reasons related to the sense of inadequacy of their sexual physicality. Even in these situations, as in the previous ones, the perception of the inadequacy can be absolutely subjective and not realistic and the search for solutions to alleged problems can also create serious drawbacks and sometimes, when a guy thinks that the solution to the alleged problem is not there or it is unattainable, the answer leads even to the renunciation of couple sexuality. This renunciation, in general, is not explicit but is manifested through continuous postponements or, when the situation can no longer be postponed, through the multiplication of hesitations and reservations that end up exasperating the partner, who is not aware of the real cause of those hesitations and those reservations.
Sometimes the renunciation of sexuality involves even the refusal of masturbation, the exercise of which, especially if carried out with reference to images coming from pornography, becomes an important although unmotivated cause of sexual frustration.
It is not uncommon for the guys to subconsciously end up hiding the true motivation of the sense of inadequacy and covering it with other motivations in which the reference to sexuality is completely removed.
On the problem of the size of the penis has grown a thriving business of pseudo-remedies of a medical and surgical nature, which promise rapid and apparently non-dangerous solutions, with prices that fluctuate in relation to the social category object of promotional messages.
Low self-esteem for character reasons
Among the centers of polarization of low self-esteem must be considered also elements linked to the personal character that individuals identify as their weaknesses or fragility. I mention only some of the most common ones: “I am very weak and I have not character, I can never make a decision, I get carried away by what others say, I am listless and inert and I let others choose for me."
Both the elements linked to one's physicality (both sexual and non-sexual) and those linked to the personal character, recognized as individual weaknesses, are experienced as insurmountable impediments to the construction of social relationships and even more of affective and couple relationships.
The premises to recover self-esteem
To feel good about oneself, one must accept one's physicality at all levels and, of course, one's overall personality, and it is necessary to begin to understand that couple life is not just sexuality and that couple sexuality has an essentially emotional rather than performance dimension. It should never be forgotten that many deep affective relationships are not based on what we consider the strongest part of us but on our weaknesses. It is from the integration of the weak sides of two people that a common dimension can be born, which is basically a form of mutual adaptation, that is, a renunciation of individual affirmation. In general, people who have a very strong "I" are not the best couple partners.
Talking often in a chat with guys who have never experienced the reality of couple life, I can observe how, for them, life as a couple is thinkable only as a total symbiosis in which everything is and must be common and the reciprocal dedication must be absolute at the limit of identification: partners must have the same friends, must always go together to the cinema, to parties, on holiday and so on. But all this, which is only theory, and unfortunately it is a false theory, leads to the re-proposition, in the real practice of the couple life, of the model of couple as the subordination of the other to oneself or of oneself to the other.
The life of a couple is seen, in essence, as the realization of a perfect communion of ideals but to this perfect communion of ideals we try to arrive not through a real balance of interests but through an attempt to bring the other into our world and to keep him in a condition of substantial dependence putting in practice more or less consciously a series of emotional blackmail, or accepting a role of dependence on the other, that is a form of substantial subordination motivated, in theory, by a feeling of love but in reality by a profound lack of self-esteem.
Parity and dependence within the couple
It should never be forgotten that couple life, and gay couple life in particular, finds its foundation in the equality of the two partners that leads to the construction of a “we” that is objectively a new reality and not the result of a radical sacrifice of the interests of one to those of the other. It makes no sense, and indeed causes great unease, to identify love with the total acquiescence and absolute obedience, that is, essentially with dependence on the other.
The mechanism that creates addiction is simple and is analogous to that which manifests itself in the relationship between a child and the parent, which ends up being dependent on the child: the child wants a certain thing, the parent says no, then the child cries and the parent says yes so as not to see him crying, the child is more gratified for having realized that he has a power over the parent than for having achieved what he wanted. These mechanisms, however, are natural only when they act between subjects who are not on the same level but, between two gay guys, who should love each other on a much more solid and equal basis, such mechanisms are basically the sign of a strong asymmetry and couple suffering and, in essence, of a relationship of psychological dependence.
Formalization of relationships
Those who don’t feel good about themselves tend to formalize relationships to make them clearer and more understandable, substituting an almost economic or quasi-contractual logic to an affective dimension that has largely failed. Typical, in these cases, is the tendency to dictate the rules that must define the relationship and to request the respect for them in any case.
The tendency to formalize the relationship and therefore to live the emotional life as a chess game with precise rules, in which one must always make the right move and can take advantage of the error of the other, reduces the spontaneity of behaviors that to guarantee greater security must be standardized.
Often those who don’t feel good about themselves think that their spontaneity must in some way be substituted with more adequate behaviors and even that spontaneous discourses must be replaced by speeches that seem to be theoretically more adequate. Sometimes it happens in a chat to meet guys who strive to say only things that they think can give a positive image of themselves and can make them look like good guys.
The most typical element of these behaviors, on the sexual level, is the sublimation of sexuality and its total removal from the discourse. In this way a dialogue is created that has the evident flavor of the lack of spontaneity. When guys succeed in overcoming the wall of sublimation and managing to speak freely of sexuality they tend to emphasize the strange if not pathological dimension of certain behaviors, such as masturbation and sexual fantasies about their friends, as if these things were the clear sign of their inadequacy. In substance things that are perfectly normal are experienced as anomalous and strange, and here the weight of the educational conditioning is evident; I mean that guys try to give a personal motivation of their low self-esteem on the basis of behaviors that are not at all related to the low self-esteem.
After a finally serious talk, the result of a strenuous sincerity, I notice the amazement of the guys who expect some strong reactions and they only hear: "Ok, but where's the problem?" Basically these guys perceive their being gay as a strange thing and their sexuality as something unique and very far from the sexuality of others, and in particular from the sexuality of other gay boys, that they don’t know except through representations that are decidedly unrealistic if not even misleading.
Many times talking serenely about sexuality helps to resize, to see things in more objective terms and makes us understand that sexuality is an ordinary dimension of everyone's life and that being gay essentially means simply falling in love with a boy instead of a girl.
Heterosexuals and (obsessive) fear of being gay
Particular attention should be paid to the discomfort deriving from the very idea of being gay or being about to become gay. It happened to me more than once that I was contacted by straight guys who had doubts about their sexual orientation, that is not from gay guys who had problems with acceptance. For some of these guys talking to me really had the sense of clearing up ideas to overcome doubts. With some of these guys, good relations have been maintained even after many years. For other guys objectively hetero, however, overcome doubts was much more difficult. Although they had a sexuality that had absolutely nothing that could be considered gay, these guys couldn’t reassure themselves and contacted me several times because for them the idea of being gay was a content basically obsessive that, even if objectively completely unfounded, deeply disturbing their sexuality.
An very significant example is that of a straight guy who has never had gay masturbation fantasies, but who cannot satisfactorily masturbate thinking of a girl because the idea of being, perhaps, a gay who doesn’t accept his homosexuality always intervenes, and this idea ruins his sex life, but it must be stressed that all this happens to a guy who has never had any emotional or sexual interests oriented towards other guys. Such cases, which present themselves as problems of sexual orientation, in fact, have nothing to do with gay sexuality but are triggered by states of distress often linked to heterosexuality or hetero-affectivity, family relationships, relationships of work, economic insecurity and many other factors, as well as obviously a certain predisposition to obsession.
These situations can be at the border of true forms of OCD, that is obsessive compulsive disorder, and can also be the manifestation of the OCD itself.
Gays and discomfort of being gay
Even for gay guys, that is, for guys with exclusively gay masturbation fantasies, being gay can be a source of discomfort, sometimes even serious. Gay sexual identity can be unknowingly rejected or in some cases it can become the object of a conscious and determined self-repression. In these cases, gay masturbation is experienced with feelings of guilt that are deep, such as a giving in to evil or slipping into a pathological dimension, and the hypothesis of emotional and sexual correspondence with another guy is systematically set aside, avoiding a priori all the occasions in which a minimum of intimacy could be created (traveling with other guys, sleeping at a friend's house, etc.). This is the case of the "I don’t want to be gay!" These situations of discomfort are a sign of dependence on the judgment of others and of need to be accepted within a group (family, friends) to which one ends up sacrificing one's own sexuality.
The pressure exerted by the search for the homologation can be so strong to push a gay guy to make the so-called choices according to nature (heterosexuality and marriage) that are radically against nature for a gay guy.
Pessimism, depressive attitudes and self-esteem
They must also be considered the pessimistic and depressive psychological attitudes that manifest themselves as a symptom of low self-esteem in expressions like: "the others at my age have already achieved everything", or: "I will never combine anything", or again: "I know that sooner or later I will give up everything".
Often the elements of a psychological nature that lead to discouragement and to the vision of oneself as a weak element intersect with elements of real or presumed physical inadequacy. The idea of disengagement or of the uselessness of commitment occupies in many cases the minds of young people who feel psychologically inadequate, the choices become problematic and the irresoluteness ends up prevailing.
These guys, in general, don’t enter into love stories because, for them, making an important decision is difficult but they fall in love in a serious and essentially one-sided way with impossible guys or almost always straight guys or gay guys who don’t give them any satisfactory response, in any case with guys with whom, therefore, a true couple relationship is in fact impossible.
Low self-esteem and search for the ideal partner
Particular attention should be given to the tendency to involve others in solving one’s own problems, or even to rely totally on others in an overly confident manner and without the support of adequate rational control, a tendency that manifests with expressions like: "But if I had met a boy, things would have gone another way", or: " With a guy near me, I would not be afraid of anything" and the like.
I often see undecided guys, with low self-esteem and easy to discourage, engaged in a frantic search for a partner to try to find an answer to their problems. These are guys who, in general, from this research end up getting further frustrations due to the fact that, because of their insecurity, they pay little attention to the choice of their partner and are willing to give too quickly confidence to the first guy who shows them some form of availability and with that guy they try to create very close relationships, which are seen on the other side as suffocating and for this reason are not welcome.
An insecure boy who tends to involve others in the solution of his problems, needs a constant reassurance, he asks, he requires, he reacts badly when he doesn’t find such a reassurance, tends, unconsciously, to compel his companion to listen to him for hours, besieges him with a storm of SMS and e-mails demanding continuous confirmations without offering any.
A characteristic of these situations is the one-way speech, the insecure guy speaks and his companion must listen, if this doesn’t happen the insecure guy feels victim and demonstrates it very clearly, in an attempt to recall the attention of his companion, but this mechanism only exasperates the situation.
In some cases things are more complex and the search for the solution to one's discomfort through the total entrusting to another person leads to the construction of true dependency relationships that have the appearance of affective relationships but are only dysfunctional responses to the low self-esteem, because they lack a true rational control. In these situations, the guy who experiences discomfort is willing to do anything to have an affective response or an alleged affective response on the part of the person to whom he is totally entrusted and from whom he is essentially dependent.
Frenetic phase and sexual embarrassment
Often, especially for non-youngster guys, situations of discomfort are created when acceptance comes after 25/30 years (and even beyond). The guys who find themselves in these situations are in many cases obsessed with the idea of recover the lost time (frenetic phase) and they live belatedly the affective and sexual experiences typical of adolescence. In these circumstances, the first contacts with the couple sexuality can create embarrassment and not small conditioning, because the a priori models of gay sexuality interfere heavily with the search for the real balance typical of the specific sexuality of each couple. It is the so-called sexual embarrassment that comes from the “myth of sexuality” and from inexperience.
There are older guys who are in crisis because of the lack of erection in situations where in theory there should be, or because they have difficulty in achieving orgasm even in individual masturbation practiced in the presence of their partner, even if they reach easily the orgasm in individual masturbation. In these cases the real fear is that embarrassment and inexperience can condition or even destroy extremely important emotional relationships.
Sexuality doesn’t get along with anxiety and getting used to talking about sexuality with one’s own partner in a simple and direct way helps to reduce anxiety and thus promotes the free expression of sexuality.