Sacred Secrets

Jamie's got secrets he doesn't confide And I'm still hurting
-"Still Hurting" from "The Last 5 Years"

The worst kept secret in the world is that everyone has a secret and that usually, it in itself is poorly kept. The fact that you share it with someone lessen its entity as classified information and that once the words escape from your tongue or fingers, it exists as its own entity. Free from your own constraints and exists as a secret that your confidant must bear. Until of course, the confidant chooses another confidant, which again, renders your prized kernel of truth, less sacred.

Thus there are secrets that we must keep hidden, even from our closest and dearest of friends, and sometimes even from ourselves.

Any gay/bi man who ever struggled with his sexuality knows this.

Keeping that part of you that you probably didn't want to acknowledge in the first place proved to be a feat of wrestling with your own Nemean lion. Since you are no Heracles, the lion probably one and that's why you're reading this blog.

So we're gay. Big fucking deal. We probably wanted the lion to win anyway. Most of us probably want to be dominated at one point or another anyway. Such are the nature of the secrets we keep from ourselves.

Clearly, it if the secret is on the foremost part of our consciousness, it is far easier to share and to divulge. At least, we have already accepted it to one degree on another.

However, what about our subconscious? When dreams grace and plague our listless sleep, are they stirring such emotions we have long buried in our subconcious? By what machinations of the id do we wake sweaty and bothered by the dancing images of full-bodied, lusty sex with partners we never thought we'd dream of.



Like coming to terms with your own sexuality. Most of the time, the initial reaction is one of repulsion.

Possibly the repulsion stems from the physical attributes of the person. We're simply not attracted to the person. Maybe he/she is quite hideous and our personal tastes are compromised by engaging with him/her in a compromising coital situation.

However the truth is that most of the time, when lustful thoughts of unlikely people penetrate our conscious mind, they're more likely to be remotely attractive to us. Deep down inside, beyond the cogs of our rational mind, we admire something in them. Still, the very thought of kissing, much less make love, that person is beyond consideration.

Why the guilt? Is it a betrayal of our own sensibilities? Like Oedipus, do we have our own Jocasta? Why do the stirrings of such thoughts make us want to gouge our eyes out and mourn for our warped sense of passion?

Does it mean that we secretly harbor lustful intents for our genetic progenitors? Our comrades? Our superiors and inferiors? Surely we can just brush such thoughts aside with one flick of the superego. However, what if - and this is the dangerous what if - what if we actually enjoy it?

That lingering kiss, that swipe of the tongue - the taste of that which has been forbidden, they all come together and form the ideal we have conditioned ourselves not aspire for, but rather avoid.

What then to do? Do we run down the road and follow them? Do we pretend they don't exist?

Neither way is right. They could be, just like any emotion, just some random chemical process and this does not merit any further exploration. However to supress such thoughts would also render us vulnerable. Rather, we should just keep it at that. Accept them for what they are.

So we remain silent. Let it pass like the icebergs in the North Atlantic. In the attempt to keep ourselves pure, let's keep the self sacred.

I'll keep my lips pursed and sealed.