We kick off a new summer series, AT HOME: how our current life stages and living situations impact our faith, sexuality, and masculinity. Join us each episode for a new member of our YOB community sharing his story from various life stages and living situations. We start with our “plain old gay” Matt, who has been living with other gay men, both affirming and traditional, after 15 years of living by himself. We learn Matt’s home environment growing up, including how that shaped his view of what the future would look like. What have been the joys and challenges of sharing his current and recent homes with other gay men, and what does he think of the “optics” of having fellow gay roommates, if anything at all?
For this first entry on masculinity, I want to share my experiences with masculine leadership, including how the lack of positive, consistent examples of masculine leadership has affected how I interact with and think about the men who are supposed to lead me.
I honestly don't know the meaning behind dreams – whether they're because of the subconscious, or for something God wants to tell us, like He did for people in the Bible. Are dreams, in part, resulting from what's happened to us, things that we need to relive, or are they something altogether different?
From day one, I found my teacher attractive – not in a physical sense but in how he conducted himself. He told us, "I want you all to know that I love you. I don't care what you may think or what others tell you, but I love you."
It's hard to classify some of my attachments to other men as "crushes," per se. Emotional fixation is a more accurate term, I think. When I fixate on a guy, I'm not imagining him as a lover or sex partner. I'm more imagining an ideal life where he is a close friend or, yes, even a brother.
Looking back, I cringe at the sheer childishness of some of these entries. I may as well have been giggling and kicking my feet and drawing little hearts while writing them. There's no unifying "type" to these physically diverse male crushes beyond "he was nice to me for longer than 30 seconds and feels safe."
How does this "normal boy" turned "normal man" feel about his naked body? His penis? I'm still unsure of many of the answers to these questions. From the inside out, I've struggled to feel normal (comfortable) in my own skin. This masculine body. Starting with that particular appendage.
My biggest takeaway from this year's retreat was simply continuing to do this Side B life with other believers. One of the central themes of that Mary of Bethany message was "Jesus is the vision." I love that statement so much. It's probably going to be written numerous times in my journal, and I imagine it will find its way into future blogs. I'm so grateful for brothers also pursuing this same vision of Jesus.
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.