JohnnyAnger
OOOG AKBAR
This is copied from something I recently posted elsewhere. It is not very good and is, as yet, unedited, so probably completely useless.
In the last few days I have been reading through Stephen Fry’s excellent autobiography Moab Is My Washpot, and it got me thinking about a problem I always get when I read books written by fellow gay men. It always tells a story of the isolation of being a queer teen and the furtive attempts at sexuality with peers and their youthful beauty play a key part for them, like a hearkening back to an innocent time when they discovered themselves.
Well, you may ask, what is making you feel bad when you read this stuff? Surely it’s a rite of passage for young gay men to fall hopelessly in love with a childhood friend, to have strange sexual play (I call it this because it is not normally fully formed in the mind’s of the actors that what they are doing is sexual – more it is just naughty) with pals. Well the problem for me is that I was always falling for much older men. By this, I do not mean men in their late 20’s or 30’s, as is so often shown. Nor in their 40s as the most risqué tales may show, but all 50 years and older.
Ah, the chorus will scream, daddy issues! I remember the first time I was confronted with this claim; I was in a car with a lover I had met a day earlier on the internet and he was quizzing me why I would be interested in him – a grey haired man in his late 50s. “So tell me about your father then? Did he not love you enough?” Fuck you I thought, I am hear to have sex with you as I find you attractive, don’t bring my relationship with my father into this – it’s hardly the thought I need in my mind before we go back to your house and we fool around (horrible term, just sex felt too clinical and I did not know what else to put).
“Well, actually, no; I had a perfectly reasonable relationship with my father and we are still close”, I shot back at him. He did not raise he pseudo-psychologist wank with me again after that – although I only saw him that once. Through a strange coincidence1, however, I did learn that the man in question had a string of affairs with much younger men – clearly there are a lot of us broken “daddy-less” boys out there. Or, perhaps, if we were being perfectly honest our understanding of beauty and attraction is much wider than we are honest about.
As I have mentioned, this attraction has been ongoing since I can really remember (well since sexual attraction started – I don’t think 6 year old me was wanting to play, in the childish sense, with 50+ year old men outside my grandfather). The first real strong understanding of this attraction happened on a holiday to Malta, and although I cannot remember the year this happened in, I cannot have been older than 13. One day we went out to some religious ceremony or another in the streets of a town – a very Maltese affair I assume, statue of a Catholic saint carried down the street and fireworks set off on all the roofs around us. There was a massive crowd and I remember being forced against strangers as we walked through the throng, and the young pervert in me realised that this was a perfect moment to start rubbing my hand against unsuspecting men’s crotch. If they notice, I theorised, the men will assume that this stupid young boy done it by mistake and no trouble will come off it. So off I set, targeting these hairy Mediterranean men, rubbing against them – all terribly innocent now, as no actually groping even happened, my hand simply touched the outside of their trousers. But my god, the thrill of it, having my hand so close to something I knew I wanted to touch and play with. This was the last sexual thing I did for at least the next 3 years when I was 16 – I never saw a naked body, never thought about boys my own age – just the odd parent and teacher.
I have another memory of around the time watching the news with my family and too my shame where I felt an immense attraction to a Catholic child abuser on TV2, and in the closest I have come to a religious moment, decided I should become Catholic – luckily I was not brave enough to raise this with my parents at the time and remain an unbeliever of any sort. If I had all the internet available to teenagers these days I would have probably been leading on all kinds of perverts without any thought on how dangerous this would have been for all involved.
But, you rightly should ask, is all this jumbled mess of an essay getting at? You’re attracted to older men, so what? Well I still don’t feel as an out gay man, in a long term loving relationship with an older man, confident enough to speak out in public. More often than not we pass under the radar of most people who tend to conclude we are father and son or something similar, rather than a happy couple.
When I read expressions of homoerotic beauty, it is always tied to youth. I cannot think of any novels or films (my failing I am sure) that involve a younger man chasing after an older man, rather than resigned indifference to a sexual relationship with an older man (always older chasing after younger), and never the younger man openly wanting and desiring the older man. The closest I can get is the longing eyes of Tadzio – but that could have been the imagination of Aschenbach leading us to believe that.
It is a very strange second coming out, and one that has kept me silent for a lot longer than my sexual orientation. I create lies about his age to friends and family that do not know about my partners age. You can be openly gay, but only if you like men the same bloody age as you, or, perhaps you are the older man in the relationship. My motives to liking older men is questioned – am I out for money, is it a trap, am I a prostitute? No, it is simple – I am after love and, failing that, a romp. Or both.
I cannot, I pray, be alone in this. I know online we have forums and websites dedicated to “daddy hunting”, a term that fills me with dread! I am not hunting for my father, his at home with mum quite happy. Yet, where are our stories? When can we be open and not be viewed as a freak who must, just must, come from a broken home. I just want to be allowed to be open about my feelings and not have to live in fear of being mocked – I have never expressed an honest opinion to friends (except older men I am involved with or have been involved with in some manner) about what I am sexually interested in due to the huge, stultifying, shame of being attracted to one seen outside of the sexual norm.
Fuck all that and let love just happen – no questions asked. If you are not attracted to older people (I realise I have made reference to gay men as it’s all I know) do not question, don’t assume his just my father, and don’t give me a confused look if I hit on you just because of my “youth3”!
1 An ex-lover of mine was dating an ex-lover of his, despite a rather large geographical distribution of all involved. I have noted that these things seem to happen rather often in the gay world – maybe we are lower in numbers than we believe at times!
2I know my view of what child abuse is at the time, was at best, incredible misdirected. It is a horrible thing that I would never wish on anyone.
3At 24, my time claiming to be a youth or youthful is either over or close to finished.
In the last few days I have been reading through Stephen Fry’s excellent autobiography Moab Is My Washpot, and it got me thinking about a problem I always get when I read books written by fellow gay men. It always tells a story of the isolation of being a queer teen and the furtive attempts at sexuality with peers and their youthful beauty play a key part for them, like a hearkening back to an innocent time when they discovered themselves.
Well, you may ask, what is making you feel bad when you read this stuff? Surely it’s a rite of passage for young gay men to fall hopelessly in love with a childhood friend, to have strange sexual play (I call it this because it is not normally fully formed in the mind’s of the actors that what they are doing is sexual – more it is just naughty) with pals. Well the problem for me is that I was always falling for much older men. By this, I do not mean men in their late 20’s or 30’s, as is so often shown. Nor in their 40s as the most risqué tales may show, but all 50 years and older.
Ah, the chorus will scream, daddy issues! I remember the first time I was confronted with this claim; I was in a car with a lover I had met a day earlier on the internet and he was quizzing me why I would be interested in him – a grey haired man in his late 50s. “So tell me about your father then? Did he not love you enough?” Fuck you I thought, I am hear to have sex with you as I find you attractive, don’t bring my relationship with my father into this – it’s hardly the thought I need in my mind before we go back to your house and we fool around (horrible term, just sex felt too clinical and I did not know what else to put).
“Well, actually, no; I had a perfectly reasonable relationship with my father and we are still close”, I shot back at him. He did not raise he pseudo-psychologist wank with me again after that – although I only saw him that once. Through a strange coincidence1, however, I did learn that the man in question had a string of affairs with much younger men – clearly there are a lot of us broken “daddy-less” boys out there. Or, perhaps, if we were being perfectly honest our understanding of beauty and attraction is much wider than we are honest about.
As I have mentioned, this attraction has been ongoing since I can really remember (well since sexual attraction started – I don’t think 6 year old me was wanting to play, in the childish sense, with 50+ year old men outside my grandfather). The first real strong understanding of this attraction happened on a holiday to Malta, and although I cannot remember the year this happened in, I cannot have been older than 13. One day we went out to some religious ceremony or another in the streets of a town – a very Maltese affair I assume, statue of a Catholic saint carried down the street and fireworks set off on all the roofs around us. There was a massive crowd and I remember being forced against strangers as we walked through the throng, and the young pervert in me realised that this was a perfect moment to start rubbing my hand against unsuspecting men’s crotch. If they notice, I theorised, the men will assume that this stupid young boy done it by mistake and no trouble will come off it. So off I set, targeting these hairy Mediterranean men, rubbing against them – all terribly innocent now, as no actually groping even happened, my hand simply touched the outside of their trousers. But my god, the thrill of it, having my hand so close to something I knew I wanted to touch and play with. This was the last sexual thing I did for at least the next 3 years when I was 16 – I never saw a naked body, never thought about boys my own age – just the odd parent and teacher.
I have another memory of around the time watching the news with my family and too my shame where I felt an immense attraction to a Catholic child abuser on TV2, and in the closest I have come to a religious moment, decided I should become Catholic – luckily I was not brave enough to raise this with my parents at the time and remain an unbeliever of any sort. If I had all the internet available to teenagers these days I would have probably been leading on all kinds of perverts without any thought on how dangerous this would have been for all involved.
But, you rightly should ask, is all this jumbled mess of an essay getting at? You’re attracted to older men, so what? Well I still don’t feel as an out gay man, in a long term loving relationship with an older man, confident enough to speak out in public. More often than not we pass under the radar of most people who tend to conclude we are father and son or something similar, rather than a happy couple.
When I read expressions of homoerotic beauty, it is always tied to youth. I cannot think of any novels or films (my failing I am sure) that involve a younger man chasing after an older man, rather than resigned indifference to a sexual relationship with an older man (always older chasing after younger), and never the younger man openly wanting and desiring the older man. The closest I can get is the longing eyes of Tadzio – but that could have been the imagination of Aschenbach leading us to believe that.
It is a very strange second coming out, and one that has kept me silent for a lot longer than my sexual orientation. I create lies about his age to friends and family that do not know about my partners age. You can be openly gay, but only if you like men the same bloody age as you, or, perhaps you are the older man in the relationship. My motives to liking older men is questioned – am I out for money, is it a trap, am I a prostitute? No, it is simple – I am after love and, failing that, a romp. Or both.
I cannot, I pray, be alone in this. I know online we have forums and websites dedicated to “daddy hunting”, a term that fills me with dread! I am not hunting for my father, his at home with mum quite happy. Yet, where are our stories? When can we be open and not be viewed as a freak who must, just must, come from a broken home. I just want to be allowed to be open about my feelings and not have to live in fear of being mocked – I have never expressed an honest opinion to friends (except older men I am involved with or have been involved with in some manner) about what I am sexually interested in due to the huge, stultifying, shame of being attracted to one seen outside of the sexual norm.
Fuck all that and let love just happen – no questions asked. If you are not attracted to older people (I realise I have made reference to gay men as it’s all I know) do not question, don’t assume his just my father, and don’t give me a confused look if I hit on you just because of my “youth3”!
1 An ex-lover of mine was dating an ex-lover of his, despite a rather large geographical distribution of all involved. I have noted that these things seem to happen rather often in the gay world – maybe we are lower in numbers than we believe at times!
2I know my view of what child abuse is at the time, was at best, incredible misdirected. It is a horrible thing that I would never wish on anyone.
3At 24, my time claiming to be a youth or youthful is either over or close to finished.