Looksism

I have been saying this exact same thing for decades.

For the ninety percent of us who do not look like models, or TV and movie stars, or porn stars, this is an issue that affects self-esteem, self-confidence, and even suicide. It has a name, and that name is looksism. It's the same kind of judgment based on appearances that lies behind sissyphobia, which is hatred and fear of effeminacy in males, and ageism, which is the worship of youth and the dismissal of age and experience.

These are all rampant within the gay community. And for no good reason. It's all shallow and superficial.

And if you're worried about your looks, don't worry: I promise you, they won't last.

So maybe it's better to stop worrying about it entirely.

Dream Sutra I (Vajrayana)

I dream of awakening in a bright new green day
in the third world, in tropical summer, visiting with friends;
I dream I go exploring through the market,
the swarm and riot and crowding of all the senses,
exploring with my brother/lover,
and both of us wear native dress,
only a wrap-around sarong and sandals,
loose and comfortable in the heat and light
as we walk through the bustling village and nearby jungle,
and I dream that even though our lighter skin and taller frames
mark us as londos and cheles and aliens from the north,
the people ignore us or treat us as friends
because we try to fit into their way of life,
and because we wear their kind of clothes,
and because they all know and like my brother/lover,
who has been here longer and is more deeply tanned than I;

and I dream of the touch of the equatorial sunlight
falling on my bare shoulders and back,
so strong it’s an actual weight,
and I dream of a common language,
new tongues that spread fire on my mouth,
hot like the taste of fermented red pepper paste
spread thick on rice and greens and a little meat;

I dream of being in love in a land I love,
of being loved in ways I’ve never let myself be loved,
relaxed and easy, the heat unfreezing my body, my soul;
and everything is permitted here, and we lounge
in a kind of tropical indolence, taking our own moon
and palm trees wherever we go;

and I dream of music,
structured like a force of nature,
something you bathe in more than merely listen to,
washing over us in all-night concerts in the village hall;

I dream of walking in the light, in clear mountain air,
ocean spread blue below us, miles away and still
close enough to imagine diving into;

and suddenly we’re naked and flying high into the sun,
and we arch our beautifully-muscled sun-warmed backs
like dolphins at the apogee of leaping,
then plunge like seabirds
into the blueness of the sea,
diving from the highest cliffs in the light,
leaving our sweat-strewn sarongs behind to bathe
in the salt of the waters, the world’s sweat,

and I dream the ocean water tastes just like you

That Loneliness Thing

So, in this small town I live in now, pretty much nobody really knows me, or wants to. You get to feel so lonely at times. I do have friends here, but most of them were friends of my parents first, and only became my friends when I moved back here to be my parents' live-in caregiver for their last years of life. Only one or two of those is really someone I can count on as a real friend. Most of the rest have grown casually distant. People are generally friendly here, but not very intimate.

In moments of crisis, I'm almost always in the role of caregiver. When I'm having a crisis, it's almost always impossible to find anyone to turn to. It's like they all evaporate. Some are no doubt uncomfortable with seeing moments of vulnerability, weakness, and doubt in someone who they have turned to, who they rely on: the illusion of invulnerable competence is what they cannot bear to see disproved.

That has been a lifelong pattern: People turn to me for support, but don't usually reciprocate. I have one friend I can turn to, when I need a shoulder, but it's almost always on the phone, not face to face. Those late night things, from across a few state lines.

How do you define success? Is it happiness? Wealth? Having fun? Love relationships? Surviving one more day? Being married for decades with your partner? I define success in very small terms: I survived one more day. Most of the time that's all I can manage. The truth is, there are lots of times when I get so alone that I don't feel like there's any reason to go on living. Some nights you don't care if you live or die. Yet I've always been stubborn. Even if it hurts, which it can, a lot, I'm too stubborn to give in. It's not that I have any hope that "things will improve." I have no faith in that at all. I just go on enduring. Most of the time it's not much fun, just to go on enduring.

Lots of people think that their love relationships, or their religions, or their work, are the solutions to all their problems, all their difficulties, unhappinesses, and sorrows. They flush themselves with pride in their connections. They rely on their partner for all things emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical. Many such relationships crack under the strain of trying to carry too much in one container. Marriage is a container, but not necessarily a good container for all things.

Whenever I post a personal ad looking for some physical contact, sex, jerking off, massage, with another man, in this small rural area I invariably get a majority of responses from married men. Guys who want boys on the side. It gets annoying, after the first few rounds. You end up not wanting to post a personal ad, because of the predictable responses, which tend to make you feel even more alone. Some of them are recognizably from the same men, time after time. That can get boring, which can also add to the loneliness.

I'm not a sentimental person, not even slightly. I don't drown by choice in the romantic fantasies of blissful married life (no matter who you're married to) that seem to be the stock fantasies of most. I'm romantic, actually very romantic, but it takes awhile to get there, so if you were to come digging for it, you'd have to dig awhile before you struck gold. Mainly I don't like clichés of romantic love, etc.

That's one more thing that sets me up to be alone: Not conforming to the mass fantasy of romantic love. Not caring much about the painstaking reaction in real life of such fantasies. Caring even less for reenacting fantasy scenes from novels and poems and movies.

Although I can be swayed with flowers. Or a kiss on the back of the knee. We all have our erogenous zones.

I don't confuse loneliness and solitude. Most people are afraid of solitude because they're afraid they'll feel lonely. Frankly, most people are pack animals. I'm not afraid of solitude. I seek it out. I do enjoy sharing my favorite places of solitary sojourn with one other, on occasion. You like to share the places you love, hoping that your lovers will love them, too. But as an artist I'm used to be alone a lot of the time. Alone and in silence is how best I hear those voices that lead me to poetry, to music, to visual art.

Loneliness is yearning in a way that solitude is not. Being solitary is complete of itself. Being in solitude is recharging, for people like me. When I'm alone, I usually don't yearn. I yearn more for company when I've had a recent fight with someone I care about, perhaps; and I yearn more for comfort when I'm suffering; and I yearn sometimes when I want to engage in something other than solo sex.

Loneliness is part of the spectrum of life, though. If it comes over you, savor it, experience it to the hilt, don't hold back. It's one of the bitter, more alkaline emotional flavors. Savor it. Don't try to mask it, or cover it over, with sweeter flavors. That does neither justice, and makes both hollow, in the long run. People who pretend to be happy all the time when clearly they're not do not serve themselves.

If I need to weep, for my own sake I must let it rain. And sometimes you get so filled with unspeakable joy, so full of feelings, that you can't say anything, words fail you. Don't hold anything back. It's only in letting it all happen, clean and honest like rainstorms and summer winds, that you cleanse yourself, and keep yourself from becoming mired.

I have to relearn what I once knew: Let it all out. Get it out of the body. Don't stifle it, and don't let it fester. Let it flow, in the moment, of the moment, and then when it's done, it's done. Harbor nothing. Save nothing. Just spend it all.

I know that lots of people in the rural culture I live in view that as impossible for themselves, that emotional flow, and they spend most of their lives suppressing their deepest feelings, especially in public. Not too much salt, never too much pepper. I know that I'm a heretic of deep feeling and intense living, here where I live. I've learned that I can't be any other way, and survive. For my own sake, I have to let it rain. And even when I'm feeling lonely, I have to feel lonely with every fiber of my being, knowing full well that I'll feel differently later, tomorrow, or some other day soon arriving.

How Do You Choose?

One of my biggest problems in gay life is that I appear not to be shallow enough. I don't go out of my way to judge people on their appearances, kinks, or preferences. Instead I go to the core of the matter, as quickly as possible. The man with x-ray eyes.

When I spend time reading online personal ads, which I don't spend a lot of time on, one thing I note is how often men put out, in an occasionally desperate tone of voice, a long list of criteria and demands that one is expected to meet, or conform to, in order to get through.

Now, it's one thing to state preferences and desires. it's entirely different to set so many conditions on people that no-one can actually live up to them. Setting conditions creates borderlines, creates prejudices, creates the very kind of judgmentalism so many of us claim to dislike when we encounter it directed at ourselves. Yet we turn right around again and make our own judgments. That's a clear double standard: don't judge me, but I can judge you."

It's hard for me to take anybody seriously who sets so many conditions on even a first date that one must navigate a maze of ideals in order to reach the prize at the center: an actual conversation, an actual date. Eye contact seems to be optional.

I've always tried to make it clear that when I state my preferences, they're just preferences. They're not demands, they're not requirements. They're just likes, or dislikes. For example: I prefer non-smokers to smokers, but I've dated, kissed, and made love to smokers. It doesn't mean I like smoking, it does mean the person is more important than the things they do.

Another example: I really like skinny younger guys, but I've been with lots of larger, older men. Older men seem to be attracted to me, and a few younger men. I had to laugh out loud one time, years ago, when a lover said goodnight to me from the sidewalk, near dawn, as I stood naked in the doorway, wishing him a goodnight after a long evening and night of orgiastic sex; he said to me, "Good night, Adonis," and he seemed to mean it. I was pleased. But I've never thought of myself as an Adonis, and I haven't been "height/weight proportional" since my 20s.

If you keep setting so many conditions on your own loving, it's no wonder you're alone.

Love with those you can genuinely name as lovers is meant to be unconditional: without conditions. Love with conditions is usually fantasy-love, the actual person hidden behind a fantasy-filter you project onto them. If you really want a long-term relationship, then you'd better let go of the fantasies and meet the actual person. As the saying goes, "Domesticity isn't pretty."

So much gay dating is unfulfilling precisely to the extent that it is conditional. We reject everyone who doesn't measure up to some standard of perfection, then wonder why we've either spent the night alone, or had another emotionally-empty one-night stand. Even if the sex itself was good. I never want to have sex where one person ends up crying afterwards.

There are many people in the personal ads whose criteria and conditional expectations I can't live up to. What they don't seem to understand is: Nobody wants to try to. If you make the barriers too strong, too precise, you will be alone. If you put up walls that are too thick, or have no windows, you might be safe in your castle, safe from the world's chaos and unpredictable dangers, but you will most certainly be alone. I've known young men who were abused, even raped. They have problems with trust, and with letting people in—understandable problems—yet paradoxically some have no clear boundaries about what they will or won't do in bed. Some of these have the courage to cry afterwards. Mostly they don't reveal anything really important about themselves, ever. Once burned, thrice shy.

The reason I state preferences instead of conditions is precisely to leave the windows and doors open to the unexpected, pleasant surprise. I've had encounters with loving men that matched none of my preferences, and we had a wonderful time together. You have to remain open to the possibility that something unpredictably wonderful will come into your life, when you least expect it. That's why putting too many conditions and criteria in the way ultimately does more harm than good: as well as blocking out the people you know you don't want to meet, it also blocks out the wonderful men you might have met if your criteria weren't so judgmental. It's okay to make people work a little to get through to you. But you do yourself no favors by making that work so hard that no one wants to take it on. There are plenty of men who I would like to get to know, as friends if nothing else, but they put so many barriers in the way, it's too much work to try to get through to them; only to get rejected because you don't match the fine points on their lists.

Prickliness doesn't serve us well. Neither do fantasies of the perfect soulmate or lover. Romantic delusions keep us from seeing what's really there, right in front of us, that could be wonderful, and genuine, and loving, and true. The flower doesn't close itself in the sunlight, it opens. The flowers take what it is given, as it is given, even as it seeks more by rising ever higher into the light and air. The flower doesn't demand sunglasses to filter out the UV rays; it adapts.

Now, to be clear: It's no bad thing to know up-front what someone's boundaries and limits are: knowing one's desires, borders, edges, dislikes. It's no bad thing to be honest and clear from the outset.

It takes a level of self-knowledge and self-awareness to know your own boundaries, and likes and dislikes. What I'm talking about here is when men go looking for a body first and foremost—for appearance rather than essence—when they do that, they miss many good men of good wit and character.

While it can save time by "weeding out" the replies to your personal ad that don't interest you, having a list of criteria can also be used as a bludgeon to put people down, to reject them for essentially shallow reasons—and it can be used as defense mechanism: as walls, as barbed wire, as fortress battlements. A list of criteria can be used to try to force the world to live up to your expectations, or to pretend not to see what you don't like seeing. It can be used as a tool for denial.

I've been rejected based on someone's criteria as often as anyone else has. My response is: Too bad; you don't know what you're missing, and now you'll never experience what I have to offer. Something good might have come from it, and now neither of us will get the chance to find out.

If you are clear about your criteria, chances are eventually you will someone who matches your criteria. If your criteria are all appearance-based, ageist, sissyphobic, or similarly internally-homophobic—and don't think your readers can't tell—you eliminate any possibility of meeting and being with someone who could blow your mind. You closed that door before it could ever open.

That's a missed opportunity most men aren't even aware of, but they still can't fill that empty void in themselves. Their deepest desire may well be a fantasy about a body type.

Here, I'll give an example of why they will remain forever unfulfilled, if that's all that attracts them:

I was once at a Radical Faerie Gathering at Short Mountain, TN. There was this guy, nice enough, who was after me; he kept coming up to me, pursuing me. He was a definitely a chubby chaser; in several years of seeing him interact with men at Gatherings, he was always with a heavier, older man. (Gathering boyfriends or fuckbuddies are fairly common. Two men make a couple all during Gathering, but may never see each other elsewhere, or ever again, because Gatherings draw people from all over.) This year, he was pursuing me. I could have had a boyfriend for the whole Gathering, and as much sex as I wanted. But when I looked into his eyes, and watched his body language, I saw an emptiness in him, a deep void, that he was trying to fill. I turned him down. Later on, I saw he'd found another man to be with during Gathering, and we said hello courteously enough, but that was it. I chose not to spend my entire time trying to fill his emptiness; I had better things to do.

I'll tell you who your perfect lover, the one we all look for online and in the bars and everywhere else, who your soulmate is: Your soulmate is the person who drives you crazy, who makes you grow, and grow up. Who doesn't buy into your games, but loves you for who you are.

A person of character. The problem with having too many appearance-based criteria is that you're never likely to meet that person. It's probably impossible, because he can be camped out on your threshold for years but you'll never let him in the front door.

And that's too bad.