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Know Your Sexual Shadow
We all have a sexual shadow. What is your sexual
shadow? How can you learn about and from your
sexual shadows? Is it standing in the way of
finding real love? Can knowing it help you find a
partner? Yes, it can help and hinder
relationships.
Your peak erotic experiences and fantasies have
coded information about you that can help you
understand yourself better.
The easiest way to know if you’re in shadow
is to consider what you most admire or dislike in
others. So in sexual terms, that would equate to
your peak erotic sexual interest. What sexual
desires and fantasies do you most admire or
dislike? Your peak erotic experiences and fantasies
have coded information about you that can help you
understand yourself better. It can even help you
find the right partner for you, if you can decode
the erotica of your desires.
There’s a saying that you can tell a lot
about a person by knowing who his friends are.
Well, if you understand your sexual fantasies and
desires, you’ll learn a lot about yourself as
a person. Sexual fantasies are not separate, but a
result of your psychological makeup—a part of
you, an extension of your psyche.
In archetypal terms, this chapter addresses your
Lover energy—that aspect of you that carries
and releases your passion, sexuality, sexual urges
and fantasies; your emotions, sensuality, and
erotic energy; and unconditional love for yourself
and others. For us gay men, this is the source of
perhaps our biggest wounding. As men, we are
squelched by patriarchy to act like an unemotional
and unaffectionate male. On top of that, the covert
cultural sexual abuse we suffer as gay men
squelches our Lover archetype.
What is healthy sexuality and what isn’t?
In various ways, nonsexual material gets coded into
sexual fantasies, desires, preferences, and
behaviors. Many of my clients have unlocked their
Lover energy, discovered more about themselves, and
integrated it into their whole person. This
chapter, I hope, will let you understand your
erotic landscape and how your erotic mapping
directs you to the right partner for you as well as
how you relate sexually with a partner, and how you
and he negotiate sex within your relationship. This
chapter is about getting the gold from our sexual
shadows.
Sexual Fantasies and Integrity
Sexual fantasies allow us to be out of
integrity. Things we would never do or say in
reality we get to do in our fantasies. Pay careful
attention to your sexual desires, erotic needs, and
sexual fantasies, and you can learn a great deal
about what you’re looking for in a partner and
want to receive in a relationship. The details of
your sexual fantasies don’t matter as much as
their themes—an important distinction, lest
you get lost looking at the details and not be able
to see the forest for the trees. Following the
themes is like interpreting a dream. The details
seem silly, but the symbolism is full of
information about you. Whether you have healthy or
unhealthy sexual desires, fantasies, or behaviors,
it is in your benefit to understand what they
represent for you. Believe it or not, you can
improve your romantic relationships from making
logical sense from them.
The guy seeking out Leather Daddies might be
looking for a father figure. There’s nothing
intrinsically wrong with that, unless he’s
looking for someone to take care of him so that he
needn’t be accountable for his own life. As a
child, he may not have had a father in his life, or
the father he had was weak, passive, or abusive. A
partner cannot make up for what he didn’t get
as a child; seeking this out in the nonsexual realm
could therefore lead to relational problems.
In sexual fantasy and play, however, this desire
can be satisfied on a temporary basis. That is the
cleverness of erotic moments. Another guy may get
aroused by twinks because he came out late and
longs to recapture his own youth. His driver’s
license says he’s in his late thirties or
older, but in “gay years,” he’s
still in his early twenties. And he may find that
while sexually erotic, a true relationship with a
guy that young is not effective or even possible.
(There’s nothing wrong with dating someone
that young except if it’s only about erotica
and nothing more.) The answer might then be to
recapture his youth with a younger partner but
without the enormous age difference. He might find
other ways to recapture his youth outside the
relationship as well. His self-help work in this
case is to find ways to recapture his youth and
mourn for those lost younger years.
If you asked a hundred different men about their
sexual fantasies and preferences, you’d get a
hundred different answers—many quite
different. Certain things—even trivial
ones—may be important to arousing one man,
whereas the same fantasy might turn off the next
guy. That is because everyone’s history,
childhood, and socialized imprints are different.
Each of us has his own erotic thumbprint. Later,
they become the erotic blueprints for arousal,
cleverly reenacting to the original disturbing
event, this time with a happy ending.
Unfortunately, fantasy does not translate into
reality. Therefore, the more bonded you are to your
fantasy, the harder it is to learn from it and
bring it into actuality. In other words, if you let
yourself be ruled by sexual arousal instead of
being in control of it, it can interfere with
finding a partner and entering a relationship.
There’s nothing wrong with fantasy and
nothing wrong with play-acting it out. But I want
to help clients explore—in a positive, not a
negative way—why they’ve developed that
particular fantasy. And what about incest
stories—which can be found in both gay and
straight porn? Sexual fantasies about family
members ensure that attention is paid and
connections are made. Having pornography serve as
one’s initiation into gay manhood can feed a
man’s impression that being gay is forbidden
and underground. Sneaking around to a
“dirty” bookstore can make him feel
shameful, but also add to the excitement. Recall
that during sexual arousal, phenylethalimine (PEA)
is released into our system, causing us to feel
excitement, ecstasy, and euphoria. The higher the
risk and danger involved, the stronger the fear and
consequent “hit” of PEA—which would
logically increase the sexiness of porn and
potentially hook gay men—all of which can all
lead to sexual addiction.
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
What about gay men’s sexual obsessions with
real straight men? I’ve heard countless
clients tell me of their interest in “getting
sexual with a straight man” for one night.
Some clients talk about wanting the man to remain
straight all the way through the fantasy while they
“service” him without reciprocation.
Others want him to participate by talking or
telling him what to do, while still others want him
to lay back and be worshiped. Others want the
straight man to humiliate them, while still others
want the straight man to suddenly become sexually
interested back toward him. Whatever the case, it
gives you more information about yourself.
I see sexual fantasies about straight men as
longings for being accepted by straight men in
general or your father. Straight men can be
stand-ins for your fathering figures—a dynamic
very similar to that of the fag hag who flirts
heavily with gay men, knowing nothing will come of
it.
Gay men have been wounded, bruised, beaten down,
and humiliated by straight men— resulting in
straight men, particularly those in a position of
authority, being recipients of both positive and
negative transferences from gay men. We hear over
and over that these men would never accept a sissy
boy—which we have accepted that we are.
Because of this, gay men often fear straight men.
As children, we do love these paternal figures and
we want their acceptance; as adults, we sexualize
these straight men because it unconsciously offers
a way to feel safely and pleasantly attached to
them. In the sexual fantasy of pleasing a straight
guy, you finally get a chance to make contact with
him and get the approval you have always
wanted.
Some gay men have fantasies of overpowering
straight men—seducing or forcing gay sex onto
them. Again, while these fantasies can make for
exciting fun, preoccupation with them or acting on
them—even with a willing straight
male—won’t help you find Mr. Right in the
long run, if that is in fact what you are looking
for. It can also be a distraction from examining
your own issues around straight males.
Objects of Passion
Objectification fantasies also can get in the
way of getting real love with a partner when
they’re compulsive. These include fetishes and
fantasies where body parts and objects are desired,
rather than a whole person. I’ve heard clients
fantasize about being a guy’s footstool,
table, chair, ashtray, or toilet; doing his chores,
cleaning his house and car, and being totally
humiliated and submissive to him. This can signify
that while growing up, the gay male was treated
poorly, like an object.
Again, as sexual fantasy and sexual play,
there’s nothing wrong with this if you enjoy
it safely and sanely with those willing to
participate. But if you want a relationship, then
you need to somehow incorporate this sexual fantasy
with a partner.
©2009 by Joe Kort
Related: Issues,
Books
Psychotherapist
Joe Kort, MA, MSW, has been in practice since 1985.
He specializes in Gay Affirmative Psychotherapy as
well as IMAGO Relationship Therapy, which is a
specific program involving communication exercises
designed for couples to enhance their relationship
and for singles to learn relationship skills. He
also specializes in sexual addiction, childhood
sexual, physical and emotional abuse, depression
and anxiety. He offers workshops for couples and
singles. He runs a gay men's group therapy and a
men's sexuality group therapy for straight, bi and
gay men who are struggling with specific sexual
issues. His therapy services are for gays and
lesbians as well as heterosexuals. His articles and
columns have appeared in The Detroit Free
Press, Between the Lines Newspaper for
Gays and Lesbians, The Detroit News, The
Oakland Press, The Royal Oak Mirror, and
other publications. Besides providing therapy for
individuals and couples, he conducts a number of
groups and workshops for gay men. Now an adjunct
professor teaching Gay and Lesbian Studies at Wayne
State University's School of Social Work, he is
doing more writing and workshops on a national
level. He is the author of 10
Smart Things Gay Men can do to Improve Their
Lives and
10
Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Find Real
Love.
www.joekort.com
or E-Mail
*
Gaydar
(gay'.dahr, n.): (1) The
ability that lets gays and lesbians identify one
other. (2) This column--where non-gay readers can
improve their gaydar, learning more about gay men's
psychology and social lives. Also, (3) a regular
feature where gay readers can discover the many
questions and hassles their straight
counterparts--and themselves--must face!
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