CHAPTER EIGHT
Roots are hard to dig out. The longer the tree has been there, the deeper and wider and more firmly set they are. When digging up a tree, one has to do it at the right time. For a rose it is when all the leaves are lost. The flowers are gone and the leaves have fallen. It’s then that one must delicately dig around the plant to get a big ‘root ball’ out and to support the plant as much as possible. It is then gently wrapped in hessian and transported to be replanted into a large hole with beautifully nutritious compost, and watered plentifully, so when the sun comes out and the temperature rises in spring, the plant can, through photosynthesis, bring energy and life to its stems. Buds will form, and insects and weeds must be kept firmly and methodically at bay, but once those buds begin to open, the flowers can produce perfume-like smells, nectar and life for bees and other insects, which in turn create life through pollinating other plants. The newly planted and restored plant as it flourishes not only has inner nourishment as well as outer beauty, it will also have long-lasting and far-reaching effects it could never dream of.
Before we move into looking at our internalised shame, we have to get to a point where we have shed the outer layers that have protected us. This is when modified forms of behaviour and being no longer work. Gently peeling back the layers of pain and hurt can lead us to feeling we are losing ourselves. We don’t know who we are. We don’t know the world we live in. It is then that we need to find support, nourishment, understanding and guidance. We need it to navigate our way through the pain and fear of processing our inner world to make sense of the outer world, both past and present.
Connections and support networks delicately dig out our roots; they put a warm layer around us, and move us into a place of nourishment, allowing us to see and experience an environment that will allow us to shine. We learn new protective measures, and through living authentically and truthfully to ourselves, we end up exporting love and empathy into the world, which lives on, constantly regenerating and re-energising.
Today I am off to my local charity shop, which raises money for people with HIV and AIDS. I started bringing clothes into the shop when I moved to the area. As I slowly drip fed the place with every item of clothing I possessed that didn’t fit me anymore (I was on a Marie Kondo blitz), I began to realise I felt really safe there. It’s solely occupied by LBGTQ+ people, but also people who have mental health obstacles. As soon as I walk in the door, it’s like stepping into a haven for me.
Traditionally, of course, the clubbing life was an area where one could feel safe. And safety was and is essential. It’s essential to be in a space logistically where one might meet other gay people to form relationships with, be they sexual, loving, or a friendship. However, nightlife can become very murky. It can allow us to lose inhibitions, but also to fall down a slippery path of escape and denial, running away from our pain and hurt, and indulging in toxic behaviour. It can also be a lot of fun, and for those who are not using alcohol, drugs and sex simply as a plaster to cover old wounds, it is a wonderfully uplifting and resourcing thing. I have to admit, my relationship with alcohol and drugs has, at times, been one of avoidance rather than one of simple pleasure.
As I’ve got older, I’ve realised the importance of connecting with other LGBTQ+ people on a level that doesn’t involve clubbing, sex or mind-altering substances. In my younger years, the idea of being in a gay choir or playing for the gay water polo team filled me with dread, and actually stirred up a lot of internalised homophobia in me. I couldn’t think why people would do that kind of thing; it all felt rather student-like. I realise now, however, that it is essential to be around other LGBTQ+ people, in a space that hasn’t been enforced by a heteronormative society.
Going into other realms of safety and connection is a really positive thing for me, so today I’m dressing the windows of this local charity shop. I admit, I feel some shame writing this. I have become the type of person who needs to be around other broken people. How has my life got to this? What a loser! Actually, it’s more about connection than anything. I don’t trust people because I wasn’t brought up to trust people. Consequently, I sometimes feel lonely, uncertain and unwanted. These feelings are natural and often come up as we move towards healing. I even feel shame writing this down, which is why it’s important.
It’s important because the shame is always lurking there and can rear its head in what seems the most innocuous of situations. We have to, time and time again, bet it out of our bodies, out of our nervous system and out of our psyches. Old wounds create neural pathways that fire off well-trodden routes in our bodies. These well-travelled roads are deep grooves that have repeatedly run to dead ends of shame. The good news is we can create new roads that lead to healthier and wondrous destinations. We can put in gentle yet firm roadblocks on the historical routes and create new exit points. I promise you this is biological fact!
A way of creating ownership and an understanding of our tougher feelings is to build our self-esteem and self-belief by owning our truth and remaining authentic to ourselves. By not being true to ourselves and showing our inner world, we are actually shutting the people we love out. It takes time to realise that what we feel and think is valuable and completely valid. How we act on this is a different thing. This can be anything from daily issues with people we know to moving into a public space. We must always feel safe to be able to express ourselves and something I have learnt is to check myself.
Being a public figure, I don’t have to shove every little detail in people’s faces, but, on the other hand, I shouldn’t have to modify my behaviour just because it makes others uncomfortable. For me, it is a moveable feast. It’s about a balance and maintaining a sense of empathy and forgiveness, along with a desire to perhaps educate.
While I was interviewing Skin, the frontwoman of the band Skunk Anansie, she said the most wonderful thing. Talking about being a black woman living in the countryside, she commented that many of the locals would never have even experienced living with a black woman in their community before. She made the point that people sometimes get things wrong: using the wrong language, or maybe displaying a lack of understanding or open-mindedness. She said we should ‘give people a minute … ’
In other words, rather than rushing in, feeling outraged and disgusted and going on the attack, just give them a minute to catch up. This phrase has really stuck with me.
The reality is that on a wider more public level there is a shit ton of homophobia and prejudice that lives under the surface. I could get outraged every minute of every day. There have been times when I have felt extremely militant in my anger towards heterosexual people, but this isn’t useful, and it’s normally driven by fear.
The second time I interviewed Skin was on the radio, and we spoke about Pride and the idea of it becoming corporate, with big companies using Pride as a marketing tool. Skin was very pragmatic and measured in her response. She said that many countries she’s travelled to long for such exposure and financial support from businesses. She believes we are in a privileged position in the West that we can even debate these issues, yet it is making the LGBTQ+ community turn on itself, and causing segregation within the community: transgender, bisexual, black and ethnic groups etc. We are privileged to be in our position, but we sometimes talk ourselves into loops and dead ends, which end up creating conflict and a lack of love and support. We need to recognise the privilege; recognise how wonderful it is that we have freedom of expression, and then consolidate as queer people.
I actually have a problem with the word acceptance. Now, aged 41, I don’t want to be ‘accepted’ by others. I don’t want to be accepted by people who merely attempt a begrudging U-turn. In fact, I couldn’t give a shit what people’s inhibited thinking is. The actor Andrew Scott has spoken of not wanting to be known as ‘freely or openly living as a gay man’ and I completely agree with him. It denotes that there is some sort of other option – to NOT live openly and freely, hiding and being fearful of rejection and acceptance in the winder world.
If there is a lack of acceptance, we have to look at why some non-LGBTQ+ people feel threatened. Is it because they feel insecure about their own sexuality and gender? Is there something about a gay man that forces certain people to question themselves? Damn right there is! By not being within the heteronormative world, and indeed not adhering to those rules, I believe we spark something in some heterosexual people. We make them feel uncomfortable, forcing them to look at their own desires, and to experience people who aren’t conforming: who have to beat their own drum, and who are brave enough to own that part of who they are, despite it leading to a life of exposure and vulnerability. Suddenly, especially for some straight men, their masculinity is tested. The shoe is on the other foot. They’re confronted by a man who sleeps with men. Their power has gone. The power of lusting after and ruling over woman with masculine prowess and athletic dominance is threatened by a man who lusts after men. They are put in a position where they imagine they might be ogled or be objectified. The patriarchal order is being challenged and they are terrified. Gay women are even more of a threat to some straight men; they challenge their masculinity by not being interested in them sexually. I believe gay women suffer from latent prejudice because of this.
The reaction to these challenges has, in the past, been to put LGBTQ+ people in their place. Exclude them from legal rights and human rights. Belittle them and make damn sure they cannot rise up to dethrone the chauvinistic rule.
Luckily, there are plenty of heterosexual men who are secure and accepting of themselves, their vulnerabilities, their humanity, and therefore of others. Those men have no problem with difference. In fact, they often welcome it.
The introduction of civil partnerships, and ultimately, gay marriage, were wonderful things, and great leaps forward. I can’t remember if I was in a relationship at the time gay marriage became legal, but I do remember thinking how amazing it was that I was now free to marry a person I was in love with, just like my straight friends and family. My theory about gay relationships, prior to that, was that you’d be with someone for a while, then you’d move in together, get a dog, and after that you’d start sleeping around. To me, gay marriage made it possible for same-sex relationships to progress past getting a dog. There was an end point, whatever that might be; something to aim for. With gay marriage came empowerment and visibility. There was also protection under the law and the recognition that gay couples could be a legally recognised family. Now, if something happened to one’s partner, their family weren’t able to swoop in and make all the decisions, which had been the case before. Of course, some queer people still believe that marriage is a heteronormative thing that they shouldn’t have to take on, and I understand that argument too.
The problem with shame is that it leads us into the very place that stops us wanting to connect. As gay men we are prevented from being our authentic selves by a deluge of disgust and fear that is thrown onto us, which, in turn, becomes internalised. We turn in on ourselves, believing that it must be us that’s at fault, the evidence thrust upon us leads us to no other conclusion and a ‘shame vortex’ is created.
Our lack of safety and ability to freely express and be supported and nurtured allows shame to set into our very soul. To expunge all these painful feelings and belief systems we need to see that now we are able to be safe. How we are not the ones at fault and, in the present day, we are able to validate ourselves and disseminate the system of the heteronormative world that has led us to such toxic and debilitating states.
When we try to connect authentically, we will always come up against the things that have stopped us connecting in that way in the first place. It is the pain and the suffering that held us back; the feeling that we don’t belong. In finding our strength and our own personal power we will have setbacks. It forces us to face our shit.
I have so much desire for the future. I think that we are letting down our young people by not educating and supporting them in schools. Too often we rest as adults on how far we have come, yet we forget the atmosphere of shame and quiet toxic prejudice that still percolates in the education system and is completely negated by government. I also feel that transgender people are now being attacked and experience prejudice as people see that as a new acceptable form of homophobia, and this is one of the key things to focus on. Right now, there are not enough much-needed support groups out there, but interest and awareness around gay shame is growing. Still, more could be done. We must connect with our brothers and sisters, and, together, with support and guidance, be led through the sea of shame so that we might embrace our vulnerabilities and, through this, find true empowerment to recapture our souls.
I would like to see groups set up for LGBTQ+ people to work through their shame and to heal wounds that they neither asked for nor deserved. There is a huge lack of these types of restorative collectives, and I have a desire to help create some.
I had no objectives in this book other than to connect with my own story through rediscovering what my experiences have been throughout my life knowing I was a gay person. Through my connection with myself I had some hopes that others might feel they aren’t alone. Hopes are different to objectives, or perhaps better explained expectations. A friend told me once that to share one story in a pure and authentic way with no expectations of how the audience or reader will react is THE BEST WAY to connect. It would be manipulative of me to try to affect what you the reader will feel and get out of this book; it is however my hope that you will get something. Comfort, joy, clarity … it is for you to have that experience. Whatever it is I thank you for taking the time to read my story on what it has been like to be a gay man.