Matt here. Putting off the end of the series I've been working on.
Like my profile says, I was seventeen when I first thought about not marrying a woman. I was sitting on a floral-print couch at LDS Family Services, talking with my young and bald counselor, Curtis. He asked me to imagine my life at forty—married, children—and then to imagine what I would feel if I realized at that point in my life that I was gay.
Leading question, right? It was needed. I'd honestly never considered it before. It just wasn't a possibility, being gay. Not for me. But then in that safe, weirdly antiseptic Curtis-space I thought about it and I knew that I would hate that situation and that it was entirely plausible. I also realized that my complete lack of sexual feelings for women meant that I wasn't straight.
The thing is, I didn't want to have sex with men either. That's kind of a buzzkill in relationships. Maybe that's why I just don't see myself having a family. Sometimes it looks almost possible and I try to convince myself that somewhere out there is a guy I'll love who either shares or ends my weirdness, but most of the time I think I will probably stay single. Maybe that's why when I come across things like the Night Watch in Game of Thrones* I think, ah, I could work with that. Celibacy is my element.
Unfortunately, it seems to be a pretty useless element. The only brotherhoods that require it in the real world seem to be religious, and I'm not interested in religion. There's no sword-wielding, ice-wall-guarding group of mostly badass misfits for me to dedicate myself to and feel at home in. (Not that I'm particularly badass . . . but I could be!) There's just the same sex-crazed world everybody else has, and in that world, a lack of interest in sex is just odd and problematic.
It doesn't make me particularly sad. Just restless. All that energy the other guys put into the quest for sex . . . what to do with it?
*It's possible that my love for fantasy novels is as detrimental as anything to my search for a mate, but Game of Thrones is cool now, right? Thanks to HBO? Right?
Maybe you could look at it as a quest for someone to share your life with. Someone who is your reason for getting up in the morning. I was never looking for sex, but I found love and then I wanted sex.
ReplyDeleteI'm leery about making love a quest, but if I find it and I end up wanting sex, that would be a great surprise. Glad you found it, though!
ReplyDeleteThere's definitely many of us for who sex is not a priority/desire. Like you commented on my post this past week, live life as it is now, and see who will fit in with it in more ways than just sex.
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