TikTok Post 46

Post 46 Posted Monday, January 6, 2025

         Many boys who become gay have not participated in physically challenging activities with other boys, particularly in team sports. In these activities, each is called upon to forego reservations and instead boldly immerse himself physically and emotionally to reach a shared goal. It is healthful and requires mutuality. However, youthful competition can be so great that those not prepared in advance are set up to fail and feel inferior.

Various issues can render boys less secure about their bodies or abilities. Many men have felt violated by being circumcised. They report feeling different, less normal and manly, and mourn their lost foreskin. Andrew Tobias was embarrassed because of the enlarged vein (varicocele) in his scrotum. Gay rights advocate, Andrew Sullivan suffered asthmatic attacks which may have discouraged him from wanting to play soccer, the sport all his school chums enjoyed. Both he and Tobias envied their peers’ effortless athleticism, their insouciant manliness. Tobias reported: “…In camp I was kind of a loner. I was good at the solo sports and developed a menacing good build… I was respected, maybe even feared a little bit––but not exactly loved or accepted.”

Sullivan wrote of his late maturing and of a time returning to school following a long summer break. He and a boy on whom he had “a crush” were undressing together in the gym locker room. Sullivan described being greatly unsettled as his friend slowly removed his clothing revealing no longer the body of a child, but rather a handsomely endowed male physique, with rippling muscles and a hairy chest, evidence of manly maturity and strength he himself desired but did not possess.