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Guilt seems to directly define our worst fears.
How lucky am I that I wasn't raised Catholic? I had enough guilt as it was, having been raised Protestant, especially when it came to my sexuality. So, whenever I was sexually active, both guilt and my imagination fueled my paranoia.
What if the guy I was having sex with was actually a vampire? What if while he was, um, "goin' downtown to pleasure me," he sprouted fangs and decided to slake his sudden thirst for blood, right in the middle of it all?
I have never gotten through an entire Anne Rice novel. But I have always thought that the Christianity and homosexuality conflict would make a good background for a vampire story.
Being bitten by a vampire and then being turned into one seems to make a good symbolic parallel for blood infection, and for contracting HIV and AIDS. What if, in a fictional story, there was a support group for Christian men who had been bitten by vampires when they had sex with these night creatures? I could write the gay-Christian version of "The Lost Boys."
In real life, it would be too simple to say that ex-gay ministry teaches self-hate. It doesn't fit into that convenient of a nutshell, at least not with the support group that I had been involved in. But I'll confess that my time with them helped to influence the view of myself as something a bit monstrous, like the poor, deformed Phantom of the Opera, a soul not quite guaranteed salvation.
I don't miss ex-gay ministry. I'm glad that I checked it out, and that I made an honest effort toward achieving their goals. But I'm also glad that I'm past that part of my life, years past the self-pity of that time, and that I have been able to reach a point of being at peace with--and acceptance of--myself.
Thank you, Jason Phoon, for encouraging me to blog about this!
5 comments:
I've always found vampires sexy, and if Anne Rice is right, being bitten by one is better than sex. So being bitten, right after sex would be like, orgasmic.
I like how in that painting, the guy on the left is like, drop knees the other guy. Very dominating ...
oh , gettting carried away with the imagery here are we ... heheh
If a vampire does bite someone with a blood disease, would it affect him? He's immortal.
I'm just wondering.
Because, really, this was a very thought provoking piece of writing and I'm going to have to step back and digest it all.
But thank you for putting it out there.
wow, this is a great post! I am going to share it with folks on my blog. Thank you. And if you haven't done so yet, check out www.beyondexgay.com
I've come to believe that vampires have become a gay metaphor. They're people driven underground, their urges a sin, and Christianity is a weopon against them. And Vampires, unlike the wearwolves or zombies always manage to look kinda glamorous and sexy. Some famous vamps include Brad Bitt, Tom Cruise, Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Grace Jones.
i always thought theda bara was the first vamp.
go figure.
great post, my gay-domestic-partner-for-life (take THAT golfwidow!)
i heard this quote that i'm loving.. and it's all here, in your post..
"it's the things you don't deal with that control your life"
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