unedited.

my mother woke me up this morning with some exciting news.

"a new york times best selling author wants to post an exerpt from your blog on his blog and wants to post a link to it on his page."

you see. my mother is friends with someone who happens to be friends with this author. my mother also reads my blog, and becauase she too is dealing with my molestation, she had a friend read my last entry and commiserate. the entry was passed along to this author and, subsequently... here we are. my mother told me that he wanted to post an edited version of the my entry entitle "what we lost in the storm". one word struck me. edited. the author who has so graciously complimented my writings and offered to post, has written many many books. among them, religeous self help books. the reason he is interested in the entry in question is because his lates book deals with sexually vicitmized young men. in his blog he recounts his own story of being vicitmized and gives commentary on coping and homosexuality. he himself is not a homosexual and holds the opinion that homosexuality is a choice made by the individual. i do not believe this to be true. i believe that homosexuality is predisposed and that the only choice made in the matter is whether or not to act on the feelings and thoughts that are already there. in which case, you could get married, have kids, and lie to yourself about who you are for your entire life. clearly not the road i took. people can say that i was gay because i was molested. im not so naive that i dont think it had an effect on m e, but i recall having crushes on boys before the first incident. i was playing the pink ranger on the playground in kindergarten.maybe i didnt know what it was then, but i was gay. the people who say that i couldnt have known i was gay until i had an experience with a man are the people who believe that being gay is solely sexual. its not. it is emotional. it is phyisical. for some its natural. what the molestation did make me feel is worthless. but that is not what this blog is about. this blog is about a word.

edited.

i am a gay man. therefore my behavior, by some, may be characterized as efeminate. that is not the case for all gay men but each one is different. my entire life i have heard things like "watch the way you walk." "dont hold your hand like that." "watch the way you talk." "stop acing like such a sissy." all in an attempt to edit the way i am. no. being gay is not all i am. i am so many other things. but being gay is a part of me. it is what dictates my attractions. my likes and dislikes. my relationships. it cant be edited away. i shouldnt have to watch the way i do anything. i dont do anything with the intent to offend people. its just in my nature. its like asking a dog not to bark. its programming. the author, to my knowledge, has no intentions of editing away the fact that im gay, clearly if he has read my blogs he can gather that. and he intends on posting a link to my blog on his page. its just a word that carried a lot of weight today for some reason. i dont want to be made to feel like a rough draft when it comes to my feelings and emotions. the intention of sharing is not so that i can be checked and crossed out and marked with a red pen. its like therapy for me to just write it all down.

i gave permission for my blogs to be used, and am honored and proud that my writing was deemed good enough to even garner the attention. i just had some concerns, thats all. maybe it does have to do with the fact that im going to be the gay blog on a religeous self help page. thats fair. this blog is all about my thoughts and i should not have to apologize for that. it wouldnt have gotten the attention if i had censored myself. so. let it be posted. like always, i will continue to be an open book.

unedited.