Going into this retreat, your boy was stressed. Stressed just from day-to-day existing. Looking back and evaluating my spiritual condition at the time, I could not slow down long enough to have one simple conversation with God. Long enough for my brain and my heart to catch up to each other.
This complicated relationship with masculinity has followed me throughout my life, especially as I've gradually come to terms with what it means to be a gay man following Jesus. Even now, I struggle to use the word "man" to describe myself. I can come to terms with the word "gay" or the word "Christian," but "man" doesn't feel like something I am.
We finish our SPANNING THE SPECTRUM sexuality series by learning more of Tom’s story as Erin returns to take over hosting duties! Tom shares a new term he’s still feeling out for himself: androsexual, or an attraction to masculinity. Tom and Erin look back on the previous 9 episodes of this series, giving love to all our wonderful contributors!
Erin returns to help us SPAN THE SPECTRUM of our community from a woman's perspective! Sexuality aside, Erin discusses a general resonance with queer culture and then explains how her sexuality most aligns with pansexuality: an attraction for people regardless of gender. She also discloses being somewhere on the asexual (ace) spectrum. Erin shares some of her journey of self-discovery with sexuality, growing up in purity culture as a woman, living in Cambodia doing missions work, eventually dating men, and getting back to America on the other side of a pandemic.
Matthew's been active in the YOB community for years, but why did it take so long for him to share his story publicly? He opens up about his long road of coming out to himself before he could ever come out to other people, referencing his Enneagram Three shame with authenticity and difficult emotions. He talks about taking metaphorical trips to the desert to lament his dreams of marriage, family, ministry, purpose, and influence, and he also beams about his sexuality's blessings, including a moment leading worship at his first YOBBERS retreat in 2021.
When I finally acknowledged my sexuality as something God could use for His glory and my good, it became something that endeared me to others rather than only alienate me from them. Sexuality was no longer just a source of shame; it became a catalyst for connection.
I was just about to graduate and launch out into the world, and I couldn't hide from the truth any longer. I'm homosexual. That was the only language I had for it at the time. There was no way I could have used the word gay, because I sure wasn't happy; quite the opposite, in fact. I was devastated.
I found myself getting sucked into a world of fantasy. Porn was way better than watching some blockbuster: I could still be with guys without actually being with them. After all, I never cared about those guys anyway. It was all about me and getting off. The more I watched porn, the more I was hooked.
Ah, body image. I suspect nearly all of us wrestle with it in some form or another, and in different ways – whether we’re gay/same-sex attracted or straight. These days for me, that wrestling with body image is around aging.
You know, after fifteen years of blogging about gay things and masculine things and all the other intermingled, messy faith things, I often feel like I've run out of stories to tell here. Gay kisses, wet dreams, fetishes – what on earth is there left to say?? Ah, but then I wake up one day and suddenly remember that time another "Side B" guy from a Facebook group asked if he could do something to my genitals. Ah, yes – a new story to tell. Glory be.