New Year, New Direction

Over the last six weeks or so, I've published comparatively little on my blog. That's because, through our recent home renovations and the Christmas holiday season, I gave considerable thought to what I want my blog to be.  

In the past, I've used my blog as a means to work through some of the stuff I had on my mind about being gay (for example, how sexual orientation relates to a man's sense of his masculinity).  In dealing with this, I hope I helped you, too.  At the very least, I hope you realized you're not alone with some of the thoughts and feelings you have. And maybe the words I wrote prompted you to look at something a little differently.

Most recently, I wrote a series of three extensive posts in response to a reader who went to considerable length to prove homosexuality is a moral issue.  In the process, I addressed many negative stereotypes I knew about--and some I didn't--that I never thought I would, and I was happy to have that opportunity. Through that process, my readers got to know me a little better and learned where I stand on specific subjects.

But defending myself as a gay man was difficult and tiring work, just as slogging in the negativity and writing many of the other posts that have appeared here have been, too.  In the end, I realized, why defend myself, and gay people in general, to someone who already thinks I'm immoral, since persuading her otherwise is impossible.  As long as we continue to appease others, in a futile attempt to convince them to accept us, we'll never give ourselves the attention we deserve, and we'll stay stuck in the same place.        

So, now is the time to move forward.    

Above all, I want to avoid rehashing the same negative thing over and over again. Many of my posts in the past were negative because my thoughts and feelings, about being gay and consequently about myself, were negative, and I no longer want to look at being gay that way.  I no longer want to look at it as less than or second best.    

Because being gay is what I am; I will never be anything else.  Why should my life be any less because of my sexual orientation, because I have this conscious or unconscious impression I'm not as good as someone else?  

As I've written many times in the past, I'm a human being first and gay second. My focus should always be on having the best human experience available to me regardless of being gay.  Who knows?  Maybe being gay will make my best human experience even better.

It's time to take being gay to the next level.  We deserve it.  I hope you'll join me.