My time leading up to this year's YOBBERS Retreat came with mixed emotions. I knew a few familiar YOBBERS wouldn't be returning, but I also knew I'd recognize many other guys attending. Anxiety lingered. Had I really built the kind of connections that would help me feel at home this year?
Simon joins Tom to share their experiences of living alone for these last several years! Has it been an independent person's paradise, or have there also been emotional difficulties? How did the pandemic impact living alone? Simon also shares his experience of growing up with a twin brother, in addition to living previously with female friends, including the challenges of perception amongst any Christian onlookers. Will Simon and Tom live alone for the rest of their lives, or do they pine for a shared living space once again? Finally, Simon shares his experience from our recently held European YOBBERS retreat and how his first event with other men has factored into how "at home" he feels in his masculinity!
Matt returns to discuss his home life: always living with his family even as he enters his late thirties! He explains the importance of family within his Navajo culture, sharing why he enjoys regularly going home to the reservation after moving away from it. But Matt also shares why he doesn’t disclose anything about his sexuality with his conservative family. Despite this withholding, Matt feels at home with his churches and friends, particularly his male friends, claiming he’s never felt more masculine and comfortable in his body than he does now. Will he always live with family, or does he aspire for another living situation in the future?
Was I in love with him? Did we have the deepest friendship, or was it actually something more? This is for the lot of us who have gone from strangers to friends to kin to nothing.
Looking back on those bro cuddling blogs years later, after experiencing much more bro cuddling, how does it all hold up? Have any of my thoughts or feelings changed around the subject? Or have I perhaps received some new insights, especially after a lot of cuddle mileage?
It's no secret that the LGBT+ community has a complicated history with the Christian church. This culture war has bled into the church for decades, resulting in those who experience same-sex attraction in their congregations to feel uncared for, unloved, and at worst, excommunicated from the church community. These experiences create soul wounds.
Once upon a time I wrote about five times I've felt like a man. As we wind down the theme of "Love Month" at YOB, I started thinking about some instances when my heart has swelled, or exploded, or some other symphonic verb meant to translate the depths of safety, care, and affection I've experienced with other men. This isn't a "top 5" or hardly exhaustive list, but these are five stories that come to mind...
Even if all the sexual stuff with men is wrong in God's eyes, I still just want to be with a man physically from time to time. Is that wrong too? Does God really care if I share my bed with another guy, as long as there's no sex?
Alex is announced as our newest YOB contributor! We dive deeper into his blog about holding hands with his straight guy friends: one story in which a friend reached across a restaurant table to hold his hand, and another in which Alex extended his own hand toward a friend while walking with him in the park. What fears came up with expressing such open touch?
I always feel this nervousness attached to holding hands in public. If I want to hold hands with a friend, what will others think of me? What will they think of us? Will they assume we are a couple? Will they say something? Will they be aggressive, or will they ignore us?