Part 9 - Gay, Straight or Something Completely "Other"?

For every male survivor of childhood sexual abuse, you will hear a story unique to that individual. Although we all seem to have quite a few side-effects in common, our different cultural, social and economic environments affect how we reacted and acted out in response to the abuse.

One of the side effects very commonly experienced by men, especially when the abuse was perpetrated upon them by another male, is a sense of gender confusion. I wish I had known how "normal" my feelings were back when I was still a kid. It would have saved me a great deal of grief, to say the least, because for me, the question of gender identity tormented me for most of my childhood and continued to haunt me as an adult heterosexual male, even after years of marriage and raising children.

At the time the abuse began, I'd like to think I was just a typical little boy. To the best of my memory, I was average size and weight and looked and acted just like the other boys in my school and neighborhood. I don't remember when the bullying started other than it was before the 5th grade. I know that, because that's when I began to intentionally overeat. It sounds sound both funny and foolish now; but at the time, I was tired of getting picked on and beat up and had the idea that if I was bigger than my tormentors, they would leave me alone. The irony was that, although I stopped being physically beat up at school, I found myself now being ridiculed for being FAT. When I entered Junior High School, it went from being teased about being fat to being teased about having "baby titties". Yeah, that was one of my nicknames: BT, as in Baby Titties.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Growing up in the Midwest during the 70s, it was common for boys to tease one another with words like fag, faggot, femme, queer, girl. I got called those words a lot. It started with Gary the Fairy and proceeded to Gary the Fruit, Gary the Fag or simply Faggot. I was not a homosexual then or now; but those were the words used to taunt me. As I've already written, I was bullied as a kid. I got beat up a lot: in the home by my abuser, in my neighborhood by the kids across the street and on the school playground. Kids who get bullied get a reputation for being weak. Expressions like "fruit", "fairy", "femme" or "faggot" implied that a boy was weak...weak like a girl. Considering that I got beat up by girls as well as boys, I guess I must have been really, really weak.

The teasing continued even after the physical bullying ground to a halt. It actually got worse for awhile, the teasing that is, in 5th and 6th grade when I failed to impress with my lack of athletic abilities. I remember being lined up to be picked for teams and me being one of the last...me being the kid nobody wanted. I was weak and I was a freak. I remember competing for the President's Physical Fitness Award and how badly I failed. My Gym Teacher made a point of telling his other classes they couldn't do worse than Gary. I could only do 3 sit ups at that time. In the eyes of my peers and even my teacher, I was weak and I was a loser.

So at this time, I'm being teased with words like "faggot", "fruit" and "gay", I'm no athlete, I'm shy and a bit nerdy and my biggest brother is anally raping me at home. What conclusion would you reach if you were me? I was about 6 years old when the abuse started, with little understanding of gender roles other than boys became Daddies and girls became Mommies; but by the time the abuse came to a halt I was mired in phrases, accusations and the realization that I did not measure up to the ideal of manliness perpetuated in that culture. Was I gay? Did these kids know what was happening to me behind closed doors? Could they see right through me? Was it that obvious to everyone else but me?

As I already shared, upon entering Jr High I got saddled with the nickname BT or Baby Titties. Partly due to my new-found obesity; but also a genetic trait inherited by quite a few of the males in my family regardless of body fat. The official medical term is gynecomastia; but it's more commonly known as man-boobs. I didn't know either of those terms when I was a kid, and I didn't know any other boys with my same problem. All I know is that when I came home crying about my condition, I was told it was spoken of in my Dad's side of the family as a "curse" and there was nothing I could do about it. My mother told me that by the way, not my father. I don't remember him ever speaking about it.

So picture me as a teenager being called a "girl" by the other boys, a failure as an athlete and consequently having little interest in sports, weak and easily beat up, having been sexually abused by an older male for a period of years and then having continued for a brief time by my own choice with my fellow victim. I had baby titties. My parents had told me for as long as I could remember that they had wanted me to be a girl since they already had 1 girl and 2 boys. I had all kinds of thoughts, most of them completely non-rational but at the time serious as all get out and deeply troubling to me. I didn't know if I was gay. Looking back, I'm sure I wasn't; but at that time I wasn't sure. I questioned if maybe I was a freak of nature, like a hermaphrodite. No disrespect towards people who truly are born with both sets of sexual organs; but at that time I really didn't understand the term, I just knew it meant half man/half woman. Jr High to High School we're talking the late 70s here and talk shows about sex change operations with people saying they were born the wrong gender had become very popular. Was that me? Was I born the wrong gender? Was I half boy and half girl? Did my parents wish that I be born a girl come partially true? Was I a man with breasts? Did I have female hormones inside of me battling the male hormones for dominance?

"I wish my brother George were here"

I feel so stupid writing this now; but these thoughts dogged me for years. I really didn't  know what I was. All I knew was that I was not normal. For a couple of reasons, I made great efforts to at least publicly identify myself as heterosexual; but on the inside I was never 100% certain. Looking back, I realize a lot of my difficulty was due to unreasonable stereotypes. My father joked about homosexuals and hippies. Believe it or not, there's a connection there. Dad was a redneck, and proud of it. He always made fun of hippie guys with their long hair, questioned if they were really men since they looked like ladies from behind and he loved making fun of homosexual men, talking with a high-pitched voice and a lisp. My father impressed upon me the difference between a real man and a faggot. The problem for me was that in my mind, I didn't measure up to the stereotypical real man...so I must have been a faggot or something "other".

But back to those stereotypes and how they messed with my mind for so many years. The stereotypical homosexual, in my mind, was effeminate, spoke with a lisp, tended to be weak (limp wristed), preferred Fine Arts over sports, enjoyed doing things considered woman's work (like cooking), didn't date girls, were always somewhat "queer" (in the sense of being eccentric), tended to be artistic, etc.

When I was in 1st grade, I went to speech therapy to correct a lisp. I was not athletic and sports bored me. I preferred to read a book rather than watch football. I was weak and easily bullied. I leaned towards being artistic without ever actually being an artist: I was a musician, I acted, I wrote plays and poetry. I enjoyed cooking and liked to help my mom in the kitchen. I didn't date girls and I was a bit on the weird side. On top of that, I had experienced gay sex both as a victim as well as by my own choice (with my fellow victim). With all the kids in my neighborhood and school teasing me, saying that I was gay...while I earnestly tried to reject that label, I kept struggling with whether or not it was the truth. I know. I know. I'm beating a dead horse here. I've already pretty much stated the exact same thing 2 or 3 times above. It's just, the reality is that the roots run deep and it has taken a very, very long time to reconcile my self-image with the Truth. Thank God I've got some really terrific GAY friends who have helped me work through this. And I do mean THANK GOD!

Reading about the propensity of men sexually abused as boys who struggle with questions of gender identity helped me a lot. Also, realizing that the "gay sex" I experienced as a young boy wasn't really gay sex at all. It was much more like prison rape than anything else. The older boy who sexually abused me did not then or now self-identify as homosexual. He used heterosexual pornography to inspire himself, even though gay porn  was available (or in the very least, Playgirl magazine which could be bought over the counter). HE WAS NOT GAY...so him imposing himself sexually upon me does not, in itself, make me gay.

A friend of mine explained it to me this way: "When you're at the beach, who's butt are you looking at? Hers or his?" That may be a bit simplistic; but at least as far as my own self-identity goes, I have always and only been sexually attracted to females. Regardless of how one defines homosexuality (born that way, a choice, or something else), I have always been heterosexual in my desires. Always. The struggle over my sexual identity was in my head, not in my loins. But being that it was, indeed, in my head; I have suffered mentally, emotionally and spiritually greatly. Very greatly.

Rock Hudson was QUEER??

Again, I thank God for my good friends who happen to be gay. Having struggled for years...decades!...wondering if I was in denial about my own sexuality/gender identity, I find myself emotionally and spiritually connected to my gay friends. I know the pain of being regarded as "queer" ...of not fitting a worn out, broken stereotype of masculinity. I also recognize that the homosexual stereotype is equally worn out & broken. By now, I suspect most of us realize a lot of gay men don't fit the gay stereotype (Rock Hudson anyone?) I'm still waiting for the rest of the world to recognize that a lot of straight men also don't fit the typical, macho, heterosexual stereotype. The stereotypes have failed have done a lot of damage along the way...as those of us who've been through it know all too well.


So while not every male survivor has had the same experience I had growing up, with myself questioning my manhood all along the way...nevertheless, it is not uncommon for adult men to struggle with questions about their gender identity. I read a professional, psychological article about this a few months ago stating that straight survivors often question if they are gay and survivors who identify and have primarily same-sex attractions struggle with questioning if they are really gay or if they're really straight and the sexual abuse made them gay.

I'm not going to get into the argument of what makes someone gay or straight. Right now, I feel there are far more important issues at hand, and as a Christ-follower (i.e. Christian), I have no interest in condemning to hell men and woman whose struggle is eerily to similar to mine. I thought I was gay, and finally concluded that I was not. I've got friends who have concluded that they are gay, and have struggled with that for their whole lives. It's a very painful struggle. At one time I would have written this as "I feared that I was gay"...but now, I realize that "I feared that I would never know what I was". As such, I don't write this as a treatise on homosexuality; but to spell out some of the psychological damage suffered by male survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Survivors of abuse, straight or gay, feel like freaks, outcasts, unacceptable, aliens, untouchable, unforgivable, marked, branded and hopelessly out of place in a world of black and grays which foolishly argues about shades of white.