Maybe a grid....

Married Men.

I have talked about them before and I know I will again. They make up just over half of my clientele so it is something I talk about a lot.

They have given a better understanding of the Kinsey scale and the whole gay straight argument. A wise person once told me to "never believe everything you think to be true." What this means is just because you believe it based on whatever your experiences have been, does not mean that it is what is really happening. The world looked flat, any fool could see that, but it was not to be true.

The same goes with my preconceived notions of gay, bi, straight and what married men want. There is no easy answer to any of this.

We are familiar with the three common titles:
Gay: people who are attracted physically and emotionally to the same sex.
Straight: people who are attracted physically and emotionally to those of the opposite sex.
Bisexual: people who are attracted to either sex emotionally and physically.

Now, what about the rest.
What about people who are attracted to the same sex physically but not emotionally?
What about people attracted to the same sex emotionally but not physically?

I think these two are far more common than we realize. I see many men who are interested in the sexual aspect of gay men but not the emotional, their hearts and minds belong to women (though their sex lives there may be a bit faulty).

Also, I have met men (not clients) who have deep emotional attachments to specific individual men but no interest in sex with them at all. Likewise I have know several women who fall into this category.

This then begs the question whether these are learned or natural differences and can we slide from one category to another?

If the Kinsey scale was a line between straight and gay physical attraction, perhaps a cross line needs to be made to measure straight and gay emotional attraction forming a grid.

Are we selling ourselves short by not acknowledging these differences? The Greeks had four types of love: Philios, Eros, Agape, Storge.
Philios was a dispassionate, virtuous love.
Eros was passionate love, with sensual desire and longing.
Agape was a pure idea of love.
Storge was a natural love for your fellow man or your offspring.

Maybe this is our problem in our society. We are labeling acts and not emotions. We need more words for love! We need to be acknowledge our feelings for one another in a safe and comfortable way.

The married men I see often ask me if they are gay or bi or what. I usually tell them that those are just words that someone made up. Just try to be true to yourself and not do harm to others.
Truth be told, about half the married men I see should not be married to women since they are emotionally and physically attracted more to men. Another third would rather have sex with men but could never have the emotional attachment with another man that they have with their wife. The rest fall in between somewhere.

Occasionally I meet a man living a gay life who has real problems trying to form the emotional attachment with another man, but that is who he is sexually attracted to (I am sure that many of my readers have seen them as well). They would be quite happy setting up house with a woman but with seperate bedrooms so they can have sex with men.

I have no answers as to what can be done for these people. They are not "broke" just different and falling between the cracks in our society. I am sure there are many women who fit these parameters as well. Keep an eye out for them and befriend them if you can. It can be a big lonely world out there if you feel you are all alone.

- Jack