Post 46 + Posted Wednesday, January 6, 2025
It is true that many gay men enjoy sports and play them well. However, early unprepared exposure to team sports is a hot spot for boys to find themselves lacking and less than others whom they esteem as deftly superior. Finding oneself not on par with others invites ridicule and rejection. Many gay men report having been the last chosen for a team or always lost in “left field.” Nevertheless, being a jock does not make one straight. Witness the Gay Games or refer to Posts 39 and 40 concerning football hero, David Kopay. Football feats did not discourage him from seeking sex with other males. Gay baseball teams may play ball well, but that activity alone will not miraculously change any gay person’s inner sense of being. Neither will a wardrobe, fashionable garb or pose, whether or not the scene involves bikes and leather or cloning the man from Marlboro country. Basically, gay men cannot affirm each other’s masculinity or find it in those they seek for sex. Little boys gain assurance of their male core and worth through lived caring relationships with their fathers. Masculinity is definitely not instilled through being sodomized, the experience gay historian, Martin Duberman acknowledged pursuing to salve his persistent feeling of not being sufficiently a man.
Freudian analyst, Harry Gershman, articulated the psychodynamics of homosexuality. He wrote: “The male homosexual, through his obsessive act, is attempting to incorporate that which he feels he is lacking... . Patterns of behavior are, therefore, more intimately connected with the experiential character development rather than the underlying biological drives. ... The act is reparative and is calculated to allay the anxiety of inadequate individualization.”
The bedrock of homosexuality can be understood as consisting of an incomplete or devalued and distorted sense of self, a deeply held conviction of being inadequate and inferior. This frustrates social connections and personal growth. The developmental arrest which follows means that although these men may be in adult bodies and often excel in many areas of their lives, they are, in the deepest recesses of their being, very young, vulnerable, and needful children. The most elemental sense of being, the "I am," lies at the heart of the issue. The relational loss may be so great that their valuing of other well-identified individuals goes beyond wanting to be like them or be them. At its deepest level, this urge may entail a total rejection of self, a strong impetus to not be, an abnegation of one’s very existence. Innocent children have naively bought into a life-altering lie. Each is marvelously made and neither inferior nor incapable.
The feelings of inferiority and rejection of self are in place long before there is anything approaching “internalized homophobia.” Gay men may be highly capable and strongly affirm having had close positive bonds with their fathers. However, emotional wounds from early untoward events can continue to exert their influence despite not being remembered. We need to take these reports of gay men regarding their childhood seriously and learn from their message.
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