Healthy Sexuality

" Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant. " -- Henry Miller

Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 –– June 7, 1980) was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms, developing a new sort of novel made up of autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association and mysticism, one that is distinct always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller, and yet is also fictional. His works of this kind are, Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn and Black Spring. Henry Miller also was known to write travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis.

It is good and healthy to laugh about sex - as long as the laughter is on the side of life. Sex, after all, is part of the life force, and if it is surrounded by caring and honesty, it leads to a joyous intensification of our relationship with others and with the world. Then sex, like laughter, integrates.


Too often, laughing about sex betrays uneasiness, shame, disgust, and the desire to hurt. We talk about "dirty jokes" and consign sex to the bathroom. We split off sex from other feelings and surround it with taboos and rituals and mockery. Viewed in this way, sex isolates us.
We need to learn to talk about our sexuality in a proud and affirmative way. Talking and laughing in a group, or with a friend, or with a loved one, is one of the steps we take to bring sex into the open to take its place as part of the diversity of life. Own your sexuality. Talk about it without shame and claim it a vital part of life.

Onward and Sideways

I am bipolar and within the last year or so, have begun to experience severe anxiety and panic. In late December I had meltdown of incredible proportions. The extreme anxiety disorder is new for me; haunting me for a little more than a year now. Anxiety so strong, and triggered by the actions of my partner. For several years, he has promulgated a new behavior, "Babe, I’m just running up to the 7 Eleven to get some cigarettes; I’ll be back in twenty-five minutes." As he walks out the door I always say, "Take your cell phone with you," which he already has in hand.

That promised "twenty-five minutes" turns out to be days that he is away from home, not answering his cell phone or even calling. I refer to it as my partner "going missing." My reaction begins with worry. Then I may happen upon something on the computer exposing the person he would be meeting and what they would be doing. A friend of mine has a husband who has nearly identical behavior. She calls this type a "player" explaining that these types of men want to still run the streets, cheat on their partners or spouses. The "player" behavior is incongruent with the committed relationship my partner and I have. This friend’s advice to me was to be proud that it is me he eventually comes home to, giving me parts of himself his hookups never see. To this I say, "bullshit."

Player my ass. My worry then turns to anger. I can’t sleep. I start calling my partner’s phone over and over again. He calls it "psycho dialing." The anger then turns to tears. I cry as I wander through the house, "What did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything wrong." My speech becomes so slurred and difficult to understand that it has been described as though I had a stroke. Lately, I noticed a pain in my chest along with a rapid and what I describe as "fluttering" heart. Irritability for me is a sign that I am swinging toward the maniacal part of bipolar. Then deep depression, laced with that wicked anxiety and panic. I began taking a prescribed anti-anxiety medication called Ativan. I was eating it like candy.

This most recent December meltdown grew so out of control I felt as though the only way to be free of it would come through ending my life. I have been in this cold place before and placed a call to the behavioral health crisis line associated with my health insurance. I was referred to the Maricopa County Hospital. There I was checked out and cleared medically and it was suggested I sign myself in to St. Luke’s Behavioral Health. I’ve been there before too. St. Luke’s worked for me before. Back in 2005 I nearly ended my life with a mantra in my head, "I hate my life, I hate my life." After two months they helped me see the world differently and I left there with a new mantra, "I love my life, I love my life!" I felt safe returning there.

I worked hard over the next three weeks, finding that each time I told my story, I felt more at ease and could see the flaws in my relationship. I realize the degree of my co-dependency and made a commitment to attend CODA (a twelve step group for co-dependents). I was placed under the care of the psychiatrist who followed me last admission. He wanted to take my treatment further than I agreed to last time. In my first admission, he suggested ECT (Electro Convulsive Treatment.) I refused it then because of the loss of one’s short term memory as a side effect of the treatment. But this time felt different to me and I agreed to begin the treatment.

IS MY RELATIONSHIP ABUSIVE?

Domestic violence can be difficult to identify, especially for the person experiencing it. I have been hoping to blog about my own personal experience in an abusive relationship. For reasons I am still trying to understand, I have been in this relationship for more than three years. How is it that I finally have the strength and courage now to share this part of my life? An abusive relationship clouds one’s thinking and ability to discern fact from fiction in addition to the creation of doubt, shame and blame. This is my chance for serious introspection during this time when I see my life clearly.

The abuse I experience has not caused me to enter into a phase of denial but rather a very introspective time during which I spent a vast number of hours researching this topic of domestic violence, specific to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered communities. I hope that within several blogs I will be able to break my personal situation down to a series that will take the reader along a path from the more general, almost research type approach I take when attempting to understand new information, to a more specific view of my own personal world.

I have come to know that people sometimes misunderstand domestic violence and think it is only physical abuse when actually, it can be emotional, financial and/or sexual abuse as well. Abusers often manipulate victims so that they feel they are to blame for the abuse. Sometimes gay abusers will try to tell their partners that “this is how it is in a gay relationship”. Abusers often promise to change their behavior, and the hope for that positive change can keep a victim from identifying the pattern of abuse in the relationship.

Am I Being Abused?

How can you determine whether you’re being abused? Every relationship is different and many relationships have rough patches with arguments and other turmoil. Though some behaviors may be hurtful, no one behavior determines whether a person is being abusive. Also, intimate partner abuse takes many forms, including physical, emotional, sexual, identity and financial abuse. Review the following list of signs of possible abuse:

Are you in a relationship with someone who:

• Keeps you from spending time with friends or family members?

• Makes you account for your time when apart from him/her?

• Is excessively jealous and possessive?

• Makes unreasonable demands for your attention?

• Blames you for all the arguments or problems in the relationship?

• Wants to make all the decisions?

• Invades your privacy – opening your mail, reading your e-mail or going through your personal belongings?

• Gets angry for no apparent reason?

• Seems like two different people – one is charming or loving, the other is mean and hurtful?

• Lies in order to confuse you?

• Criticizes, ridicules, humiliates or belittles you?

• Controls your finances or feels entitled to your financial support?

• Damages your property?• Harasses you at work or school?

• Threatens to out you at work, to your family or to others?

• Criticizes your body and appearance?

• Prevents you from practicing safe sex?

• Forces or coerces you to have sex or hurts you during sex?

• Becomes angry if you don’t go along with his/her sexual demands?

• Blames his/her behavior on alcohol, drugs or his/her own history of abuse?

• Pressures you to use alcohol or other drugs?

• Threatens you with physical harm or makes you feel afraid?

• Pushes, shoves, grabs, punches, hits or strikes you with hands or fists?

• Threatens or assaults you with weapons, such as household objects or knives?

• Manipulates you with the constant threat of mood changes and impending rage?

• Has you “walking on eggs” or living with constant stress, anxiety or fear?

Get More Information

If you answered “Yes” to any of the questions above, you may want to learn more about partner abuse and take a serious look at your relationship. Start by reading and educating yourself at your local library or the Internet specific to these topics:

Definition of Domestic ViolenceThe Types of AbuseThe Cycle of Abuse

A very helpful book is Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them by David Island and Patrick Letellier.

What to Expect

An abuser has two goals: one, to hold his/her partner in the relationship and two, to control his/her partner’s behavior so the partner meets the abuser’s needs. Abusers can be astonishingly devious in creating tactics to meet these goals, but there are some common maneuvers:

It’s More Than Physical

Most people think of abuse as physical but there are four other types of abuse: emotional, sexual, and financial and identity. Even if he/she’s not hitting you, he/she could be abusing you. Verbal or emotional abuse, for example, is almost always used even if physical abuse is not. Abusers can be extremely creative in the types of abuse that they use. Also, abuse usually follows a cycle with standard phases: first he/she is nice, even super nice; second, he/she starts being mildly abusive; third, there is an abuse attack; fourth, he/she is apologetic, loving and contrite. But the cycle just starts all over again and again and again.

“It’s Normal”

Abusers will try to convince their partners that their abusive behavior is “normal” or “normal for a gay (G), bisexual (B) or transgender (T) relationship”. This tactic is especially effective with people who are inexperienced in gay relationships. Abuse is not normal in any relationship, including gay relationships. Abuse has no part in a healthy relationship.

“You’re the Abuser, I’m the Victim”

Partners may defend themselves against abuse, such as physical abuse. An abuser may assert that this self-defense is abuse and that the partner is the abuser. Or the abuser may claim that the partner is “mutually abusive”.

A common characteristic of abusers is the lack of responsibility they take for their own behaviors. They may accuse their partners of being the “abuser” and they, sometimes, genuinely believe that they are the “abused” party. They may use this claim to manipulate friends, service providers and law enforcement. An abuser, for example, may seek a restraining order against his/her partner, claiming the partner is the abuser.

“You’re to Blame”

Another ploy is to blame the partner for “making” the abuser abuse. The abuser will claim that he/she would not abuse if only the partner did X or if the partner didn’t do Y. Again, the abuser is trying to shift the responsibility from him/herself to his/her partner. Unfortunately, this tactic is all too successful. Partners often assume too much responsibility not only for the abuser’s behavior but also for the relationship as a whole. The reality is that the partner can not stop the abuser from abusing.

“It’s the Stress, Drugs…”

Abusers sometimes claim that some circumstance forces them to abuse and if only the circumstance were to change, they would stop. They blame their abusive behavior on such circumstances as stress, lack of a job or the use of drugs (especially crystal meth) or alcohol. These are only excuses. There always will be some circumstance that in their minds justifies their abusive behavior.

“Promises, Promises”

Abusers commonly promise to change – to stop abusing, to stop using drugs, to stop whatever. These promises often follow an abusive incident. The goal of these promises is to win back the partner and to hold him in the relationship. The abusers may believe their own promises, but the goal of the promises is not to reform their behavior but to keep their partner. Once the partner indicates that he is staying in the relationship, the promise is forgotten.

No Legal Protection

Abusers may attempt to convince their partners that no one will help them and that they are not entitled to legal protection from abuse. There is help available.

Ending the Abuse

Experience has shown that once abuse begins it is very likely to continue and become more frequent and more severe over time. Research suggests that abusers are also very unlikely to end the relationship. Partners who are abused have two choices, either to stay and be abused or leave. Partners can and do have compelling reasons to stay in an abusive relationship. Abusers rarely end the relationship because in most cases they psychologically need the partner more than the partner needs them. They can be quite successful at hiding their dependency on the partner and their fear of losing him, and they often work to convince the partner that he would be lost without the abuser. Whether a partner stays or leaves, it is wise to have a safety plan to maximize his safety.

If any of these maneuvers sound familiar, you may want to not only get more information, but seek assistance from a resource knowledgeable about domestic violence.

What to Do

Reach out for help! There is help available!

Gay men often do not reach out for help because they believe there is no help out there for them. Services specifically for gay men are limited but they do exist. There are gay-friendly services of all types such as mental and physical health care providers, counselors, social service agencies and support groups. One way to find these resources is by contacting a local, gay social service agency. Friends and family also can be a supportive resource.

About Abusers

The most frequently reported reason why partners stay in abusive relationships is “hope for change” or their “fear of being alone.” Partners believe the abuser’s promises to get help or to change. Experience shows that once a person begins to abuse, the problem is likely to get worse. Get a perspective on your own experience. Abusers may feel guilty and apologetic after an abusive incident and promise themselves and their partner that they will change. Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, most abusers do not stop being abusive.

About Love

"Loving v. Being In Love"

Christopher said to me this morning that he believes it to be true, that I love him; however, he feels that I’m not “in” love with him. Now this isn’t the first time in our relationship that he has stated his belief. So, I wanted to venture off to do some research of my own on this “Loving versus “Being in Love” concept. I would have said being in love is the single most wonderful and important thing. It’s an arbiter of chemistry.

However, I have found that like Christopher, some may argue being in love is a short-lived sensation that is not sustainable. Perhaps loving and respecting someone are more important.
Being in love is short-lived:

At times I wonder if the sensation of being in love is a chemical imprinting phenomenon perhaps even exclusive to heterosexuals. The coveting, jealousy and exclusiveness might stem from the nature driven side of sex for reproduction- the desire to perpetuate ones offspring at the exclusion of competitors.

In our society, the traditional heterosexual marriage model is the only socially supported model for establishing and maintaining long-term sexual and affectional relationships among gays and lesbians. This model has never been really appropriate or functional for same- sex relationships. Although many same-sex couples still try to adapt the marriage model in one form or another, most now avoid relationships that completely conform to it in favor of relationships in which roles are not so rigidly formulated on the basis of gender role stereotypes.

Naturally, this movement away from the marriage pattern, along with the realities of same-gender relationships, makes for differences between gay and nongay partnerships. There are also differences between kinds of relationship characteristics typical of gay male and lesbian couples because of differences between genders and the ways men and women are socialized. These differences create different problems and raise different issues. In spite of these differences, however, there are some general relationship issues that are common to both gay and nongay couples.

Same-sex relationships are similar to opposite-sex relationships in that they are both built on love, mutual caring, and trust, communication is an essential element to the continuing success of the relationship, and both must negotiate roles, rules, and expectations. One of the biggest differences between gay and nongay relationships, however, is that same-sex relationships lack roles models.

This may sound unromantic but I think questioning the basis for behavior is at times important to evolve either into or beyond a state. All that you say resonates to be sure, yet too often have I seen madly passionate in-love individual’s burn out of their passions. “Quick to light, quickly to burn” I believe the old adage goes… And with it yes- the pain and fear…

Be assured I am not at all questioning our desire to feel in love; we all have this aspiration. I question only for myself, since my partner has communicated to me on several occasions that this kind of passion has changed for me and with it the feeling of being in love. I agree love and respect - are a given. Now rapture for someone must extend to a sense of great potential for that person as an individual and as a partner. Coveting and jealousy have evolved into deep feelings of contentment of knowing that you are watchful of and watched by someone. I can’t quite approximate the sensation with language but I am aware of the rare quality of a person from whom I seek to give and receive that type of attention; their vision and affection becomes integral to one’s evolution, not simply supportive of it. I recall the time when Christopher and I met, and those weeks and months in the beginning of our relationship that he and I were unable to make even simple eye contact with one another because the rapture, the overwhelming brilliance and joy seemed blinding. We could not look at each other without seeing a future- and yet, has that feeling not lasted? Was it meant to? Are all states of “being in love” eventually replaced by a deep mutual love, respect, affection, and (if lucky) persistent attraction.

Being in love is foundational:
Without a doubt, love and respect are centrally important. Without respect and trust you have nothing, maybe just some hormones.

However, there’s something Freud called ‘the over-valuation of the love object,’ and I think that’s essential. That’s the phenomenon of believing your love object is incredibly special, even if rationally you know that all people are imperfect. Your beloved’s eyes shine brighter, their remarks are cleverer, their smile is truer, their insights are more insightful, their comfort more comforting - generally that the world is a better place simply because they, apart from all others, are in it. Your life is a better and finer thing because that person is sharing it with you.

You have to feel that no substitute is possible because of the ineffable uniqueness and specialness of your loved one. And that feeling of eminence is partly delusional, and partly based on the lock-and-key-like fit of two unique yet compatible personalities coming together as they deepen their mutual understanding over time. To me, that set of feelings is “being-in-love,” and I believe no relationship can survive without. Without that feeling, you’re constantly aware that the world is full of adequate substitutes. I also believe that this sort of being-in-love is not short-lived but foundational, even if it goes through fluctuations and phases.

Love, on the other hand, is by comparison a relatively non-relational way of caring for someone: it means that you care about and are committed to someone else’s happiness and wellbeing around equally to your own, and are willing to put in work toward achieving that. This sort of love is altruistic and relatively selfless but it doesn’t draw you to someone and make you want to inhabit some kind of private or exclusive sphere. That love you could have for a mother and a brother and humanity in general. It’s non-possessory. Does that make it a ‘better’ sort of love, higher, more virtuous? Perhaps, but also more tepid & impersonal, and lacking in any compelling sense of why you give love and effort to one person and not another.

In-love love is exclusionary, jealous, protective, devoted, involved, inspiring, and covetous (among other things). The flip side of being in love is the potential for real hurt and loss. And nearly everyone becomes more loss-averse and risk averse over time, as well as - more detrimentally - more self-protective and resilient. There are benefits, yet it means one build walls on all sides. So over time there’s a gap between one’s conceptual view of being-in-love and one’s ability to do it - or, really, to allow it.

The fact that it becomes harder or rarer doesn’t make it less real or less important.

Conclusion

As I get more experienced I find myself willing to compromise less and less. I know what works for me and even more so what does not. As for love, I have never been as hurt as when I have been in love. Similarly, I have never unintentionally hurt someone as much as when that person was in love with me and I was not (despite wanting to be). For that, I cannot apologize enough. In spite of my outward rationality and coldness, I am a romantic at heart. And, as an eternal optimist, I continue to believe in the archetypal importance of being in love.

Coupling

My brother Scott and his fiance Amy will be marrying this month. Their beautiful engagement photos have recently been posted by their photographer on Blogger (http://frphoto.blogspot.com/2008/05/amy-scott.html). I blog often about relationships; primarily from the gay perspective, but much of what I have learned can be shared by straight, gay lesbian or bi couples.

I am 46 years old, and since coming out at the age of 18 in 1979, I have been in three significant relationships. The first ended after 16 ½ years, the second lasted 10 years and I am now nearly 2 years into my third relationship. My two previous relationships ended for the same basic reasons; my inability to be honest, my inability to be monogamous, and a pattern of dishonesty throughout the relationship. I am fortunate that I have been able to have some degree of ongoing, present day relationship with both of my former partners; however the hurts and the resultant emotional damage linger and prove to be a barrier to any deep or lasting friendship. In retrospect, there are many things I could have chosen to do differently in both relationships, though that is no guarantee that the outcome would have been different. In both prior relationships, my partner and I attended couples counseling which ultimately served as the platform for dissolution of the relationship.

Very few of us gays and lesbians have been fortunate enough to have had homosexual parents who could model for us the ideal gay or lesbian relationship - caring, growing, fun, mutually supportive – all within the context of a burgeoning gay culture. Most of us were stuck with parents of the heterosexual variety - good, bad, or indifferent as mates to each other and parents to us, but no help at all in fashioning our gay love life. Lacking marriage manuals, parental guidance and models of conjugal bliss on film and television, we've had to “wing it” when it came to putting together workable love and life partnerships. Intimate relationships are a tricky business at best. Without the sanctions and supports of society's institutions (no positive messages at all), same-sex coupling presents a special challenge to the courage and ingenuity of lovers trying to build a life together.

At times, that challenge involves the same hassles that bewilder every couple trying to make a go of it. At other times, it involves bedevilments seemingly reserved only for gay lovers in an uptight and intransigent straight world. Same-sex couples?

“Unnatural”,
“Unsanctionable”,
“Unconscionable”,
“Immoral”,
“Sick”
“Immature”,
“Can't work”,
“Won't last”,
“Doesn't count”.

These are the negative messages that I believe undermine, subvert and scare us into pale versions of our dream of love. Sometimes, I know from my own life experience, I internalize these types of messages and once the tapes of these messages begin to play in my mind, they work against me from inside.

"I'm immoral”,
“I'm sick”,
“I'm immature”,
“My relationship can't work, won't last, and doesn’t count."

I find myself undermining my own efforts by echoing society's baseless pronouncements about us. Too often I allow these clichés to become self-fulfilling prophecies. The prophecy of doom comes true, in turn; reinforcing the clichés and making them appear as truth. I have swallowed these nontruths and the cycle becomes complete. If I, along with my fellow gay and lesbian peers are ever going to bring order, reason and sense to our lives as gay people, we must learn to interrupt that cycle. We must learn to identify our own homophobic messages. We must become alert to their presence in our thinking, to the ways in which we incorporate them into our view of ourselves and other gay people.

"It was so gay of him," I heard someone say recently when describing the inconsiderate behavior of a peer. I believe we must catch each other at this, work together to break the vicious cycle. Only then will we be able to really honor our deeply felt need to love and affiliate with persons of the same sex. Only then can we learn to believe in the rightness of gay love relationships because they are, for us, the morally correct, emotionally healthy and socially responsible ways to live our lives. Many nongay people would argue with this statement I have just made. Some gay people would probably even argue with it. Going against prevailing beliefs is always threatening, even when doing so is ultimately to our advantage.

Why Couple?
What is the motivation to be in a coupled relationship in the first place? Why do it? When my last relationship ended in June of 2005, I promised myself that I would wait two years before considering a committed relationship. But on October 15, 2005, just four months after making that vow to myself, I met and fell in love with Christopher, my present partner. I met Christopher on a gay men’s hookup site called Manhunt (http://www.manhunt.net/). Is it that subconsciously I believe variety to be the spice of life and satisfy that need through hookups? Courtship is exciting. But the freedom and independence of being single for the first time in my adult life felt good too. So why couple up? Am I just afraid of being alone?

The reasons I feel for coupling are very much the same in the gay and nongay communities and they produce the same problems. Being alone has never been a valued condition in American society, being paired is, and the pressure to do so is almost as great in the gay world as in the nongay. So, people seek coupling because:

It's important to find a partner so others (and you) will know that you can do it
Searching is boring - all that small talk game playing, insincerity, superficiality.
Searching is risky. You can get set up, ripped off, done in by strangers who don't know or care about you.
Searching is time consuming. I could be building, earning, learning, planting, painting ...doing.
Searching is nerve-wracking. You can be put down, found out, written off.
Singles are socially out of it - unsafe to have around a carefully homogenized couple’s scene.
Loneliness feels bad.

When the partner search is motivated by such pressures, chances are the selection process will be short and probably short-sighted. That's not a disaster, since the willingness to work on a relationship can overcome such a beginning. The real problem is that short-circuited partner selection too often results in the fallacy of "if only I had a partner, then . . ." turning into the follow of, "now that I have a partner, I will . . . ": be loved, involved, safe, using my time constructively, emotionally supported, socially sought after and lonely no more. And then you aren't. At least not enough, not often enough.

Each time I have entered into a committed relationship, I have invested my partner with enormous, usually unwanted power over my life. Few of us hold up under such a burden. If it has to be because of my partner that I feel adequately loved, meaningfully engaged, safe from the cruelties and crudities of boors and evil-doers; if it because of him that I will be enabled to meet the intellectual and creative challenges of my own potential, feel comfortable in your dealings with the world, invited to the most desirable parties and freed of the pain of aloneness, well, I don't think anyone can handle all that responsibility. If all of this is happening in the underground of a relationship, we don't have a chance to deal with it, to become aware of it, to understand it, to express how we feel about it, to divest ourselves of the awful responsibilities of it. So, we have to find a way to make these implicit expectations we may have of one another explicit.

What I have learned I must do is open up awareness of my own and my partner's expectations and learn to communicate about them. This is particularly important for gay and lesbian couples whose relationships have to be made strong from within, since the culture without contributes so little to our stability. So how do we get to our fantasies and illusions about each other? Here's one approach that I have begun to consider:

Every human relationship is flawed. Each individual brings to the relationship a plethora of accumulated behaviors, good and bad. Also brought into the relationship are tools and coping mechanisms that may be current or, outdated. In my present relationship each of us has brought major health challenges as well as mental illness. In all of my relationships, past and present, I found it frightening to fight. In my mind, discord might be signaling the end of the relationship. The tape in my head plays, “Can't work. Won't last. Doesn't count. And we're dancing to their tune again!” But turning away from conflict is turning away from reality.

Denying anger, until it explodes unexpectedly at a later date, is bewildering and potentially very damaging to a relationship. Dealing with it as directly as possible, when it is happening, is strengthening though it may be painful and frightening to do so. Fighting is a necessity in a thriving relationship. Fighting fairly and to the finish is essential to the continuing growth of any partnership.

Unfinished fights are usually aborted because of fear of losing or fear of exposing hurt feelings or concern over letting go of one's emotions totally. Most of us have experienced all of these fears at one time or another. But unfinished fights leave the participants tense and anxious. If I may share with you what I have found to be true in my life, if you feel tense and anxious when you stop fighting, your fight is probably unfinished. You should continue trying to work through to the finish - that is, until the real, underlying issues are confronted.

When my partner and I experience a good fight, we as partners are aware that we are risking ourselves and we are willing to experience the discomfort that brings resolve to the conflict. In a good fight, we trust each other enough to be honest about our feelings, about our grievances and what we want to be different in the future. The good fight ends in negotiation, with both of us being clear about what is being asked for in terms of change. There is accommodation on both sides. Nobody loses. Everybody wins.

We must be willing to fight with each other to discharge the tensions that relationship building inevitably brings. We must be willing to fight in order to work through the control issues that are part of every partnership. The more openly these issues are dealt with, the better chance my partner and I have for a lively, satisfying, and enduring life together.

Much of what I have written about so far is applicable to both male and female couples, for that matter, to nongay as well as gay couples. There are some ways, however, in which liaisons between two women and between two men are unique. I believe these differences are, primarily, outcomes of the ways women and men are differently socialized in this society.

With only three primary love relationships in my history, two of which ended in very negative ways, I have been able to come away from those relationships with some new knowledge of myself, and the intricacies of being in relationship. In the minds of my former partners, I will never be able to get out from under the thoughts they may have of me, or their reactions triggered from their past experience with me. However, I know that people can and will change. I have. And along with this change comes my own perception of how to make a relationship work and that is what I am happy to share openly with you.

Congratulations to my dear brother and his fiance - to Scott and Amy!

Hello World!

My first blog on Blogger! I am so excited to be able to share my blogs with a whole new audience. I've been blogging for almost two years now on my 360 page on Yahoo! as well as to an even larger audience on WordPress.com (http://christophersmark/wordpress.com). My experience blogging has been very positive. I started blogging on Yahoo! after my partner, Christopher created my 360 page as a surprise to me. He did all the initial "setting up" of the page, and added as much of his own creativity as he possibly could. I had been telling him for months how intrigued I was by the concept of blogging. I've always been a conscientious one to journal on a daily basis. For my journal, I must have the most luxurious of bound papers and I treat myself to the most expensive pen I can afford. Journaling to me, is a release. It's a way for me to look back on feelings, experiences and emotions. It's a valuable way for me to review the lessons I've learned, and a chance to discern what I could have done differently in a given situation. When I journal, I write as though no one will ever see those pages but me. Honesty comes forth easily.

Honesty has become a theme in my life. I haven't always been a person of integrity or honesty. It's taken me a long time and its been a very difficult journey to get to the point where I am today. My blogs are all about honesty. My honesty. The lessons I am learning in this life, the fears I face, about my willingness for greater spirituality in my life, about my addiction to methamphetamines, my experience with mental illness and much more. There are individuals who may read this and find the level of honesty to which I subscribe well, unbelievable! Unfortunately, I have either run out of chances with them to prove myself, or they are unwilling to let go of the resentments they hold on to so tightly. To them, I shall always be "guilty until proven innocent". I know the commitment I make each and every day when I first get out of bed; I commit to being rigorously honest in this new day, honest in every thought, word and action. I realize of course that I am human and prone to error, but by making this simple promise each and every day, I have grown into making honesty a habit and part of the under girding of my life.

The sharing of my honesty and my path of personal growth began on Yahoo! I quickly began making "friends" around the globe, all of whom were sharing such valuable feedback regarding my blogs. Eventually, I realized that I was nearing 700 "hits" per day on my 360 page! I yearn for ways to be more creative with my blogs and take my writing more seriously. I began taking a look at my options, and none seemed better than Wordpress and now Blogger. Blogging has helped me grow in my writing, as I have even stretched a bit through my first attempts at writing poetry and short stories. Through Wordpress and Blogger I have an even greater audience, still from around the world, and still offering that valuable feedback. I look forward to building a following of readers who are perhaps on the same path as I am, or maybe considering making changes in their life. I don't set out to change anyone with my blogs, but rather show myself for who I really am. I'm no different than you...