The shame over my SSA made me feel that I was something evil, repulsive, and unlovable. My loneliness and lack of friends seemed to prove it.
I never sought out pornography; it found me. With technology these days, it was practically inevitable. It all started with soft-core pornography.
The other guys told me about the Korean spa and how those experiences helped them. This sounded like something right down my alley.
I am not interested in a new machismo, finding a new way to be a man, a new way of determining what a real man is and isn’t.
Is it really acceptable for men to cry? American culture has told me and countless other boys and young men that crying is not manly.
I realized something while mowing my lawn: I was the only one pitying myself. The only person doubting my masculinity was me.
He's an attractive cashier but he's more than just an attractive cashier. This attractive cashier personifies much of my struggle for the past 20 years.
And then my wife came up the stairs and saw me in my deplorable state. I was attempting to fix the bathtub plumbing. And losing.
"How could you take a bath?" The question seemed ludicrous to me. I walked a lot that day. I was tired. My legs were sore. The bath was hot. This guy is a genuinely nice guy who loves God. But he's bought into a delusional sense of masculinity based more on actions than identity.
If I strictly fly the flag of my sexuality, I view the world solely through my attractions. I see everything in life as related to homosexuality.