Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2002 - 10:10 p.m.
Remedies

Writing about insecurities and fears here always makes me feel vulnerable, but it seems those are the entries folks most respond to. I have had several emails from readers—many of them gay men around my age—and it would appear I’ve struck a chord. (Or a nerve?) That makes me feel good, not only that I am not the only one going through (putting myself through?) this shit, but also that others out there might feel less alone too.

I’m not going to worry so much about crafting entries over next while; there aren’t many stories to tell about my daily life right now, and in my handwritten journal I’m doing a lot of free writing about all this self-esteem stuff too. I’ve come to sense, once again, that this “mid-life” crisis is mostly in my head. I’m not nearly as old or unattractive as I’ve been feeling lately.

But more than that, there’s a terrific opportunity here. Because I have been depending too much on my body, my—for a thirty-six year old—youthful good looks. Although this is less true than it was, say, three or four years ago, still much of the sex I look for and sometimes find is a way of hiding, of keeping myself small, safe, apart. It’s time, again, to look at what might be underneath all that, at what, exactly, it is I’m hiding, or hiding from.

I suspect that what I’m hiding—and hiding from—is love. Big surprise eh?

So, no, I’m not used up, over the hill; I have not, overnight, turned into some repulsive old troll. Sex is going to continue to be an excellent adventure for years—decades—to cum.

But the challenge, now—as my still-relatively-youthful visage gradually ages, as it becomes more and more difficult to sustain a body which strangers might want to lick—is to open myself more deeply to those wondrous, elusive slices of life where sex and love overlap. This is not anything particularly new; much of the journey I’ve been chronicling in this journal concerns that interstice. I feel that there are two choices before me: I can focus more determinedly on linking my heart up with my hard-on, or I can shrivel up into a bitter old queen. (No doubt there are other options, but those are the most obvious.)

So, while a part of me—that embarrassing sliver of psyche that identifies with Nazis, strident feminists and even, heaven forbid, Bible-thumpers—is eager to renounce everything I’ve thought or experienced about sex up till now, I am not going to do that. Because that’s bullshit. I want to graduate—literally, graduate—into a more loving life, sure; but that shall come, I suspect, through opening more to sex, too.

It’s silly to make sharp turns in a life path. I am deeply suspicious of conversion narratives. Too, however, it’s easy to fall into the trap of preoccupying yourself so intensely—so intently—with one particular dimension of life that you no longer see its most obvious truths.

That’s where I’ve gotten myself to about sex. I wince at this recent bout of adolescent angst and insecurity, and those entries have also been some of the most emotionally true in a long while.

It’s time to explore, ladies and germs. Reading and writing, as much if not more than actual sex. I may not have much sex for a while; I’m not going to impose any rules, but I do sense that sex qua activity shall temporarily be on the back burner.

So once I finish this mega-novel I’m reading (Zadie Smith’s White Teeth), probably in about ten days, I am going to read a few books about sex and soul. And I will write about what I find there, what my reading triggers, what questions it opens up inside.

Any of you who are interested in reading along, I plan to start with David Nimmons’ recent The Soul Beneath Skin: The Unseen Hearts and Habits of Gay Men. You can read about it here and also check out Nimmons’s webpage here. Then I plan to have a go at The Red Thread of Passion: Spirituality and the Paradox of Sex by David Guy; I don’t know too much about this one, just picked it up recently; here’s a little bit about it.

I’ll start writing responses to Nimmons’ book on or about September 1st.

I had a lover once, a lover whose body was broken; our love—although ultimately flawed over the longer term—taught me so much about what bodies are for.

I’ve forgotten a lot of that.

And it’s time for some remedial reading, writing, living and fucking.