men.
I have spent several essays exploring my love for a man. Well, let me be accurate, I have explored my love for my soul mate that embodies the divine masculine. I have skirted what I think about the broad term of men. And as a highly selective individual of inviting anyone into my emotional circle, letting in anyone was going to be interesting. But I am choosing to let in the lover of my soul. And he is a man. And for the most part, I am fine with the masculine but I am not one hundred percent fine with the man.
I am open about my love for gay men. But since it was not put into an essay, let me make it clear, I love gay men. Gay men are a pure delight to my heart. Gay men are truly amazing. Gay men make my fucking day.
Why?
Gay men are happy to be men. They, as a collective delight in their own masculine. I LOVE that shit. They enjoy exploring the variants of the divine masculine. They take pleasure in cooking for their mates. They interior decorate and enjoy inhabiting their personal spaces. When they embrace their sexual exploration, they are safe and ensure their partners are okay. And they shower daily. And moisturize their skin. Glory! That level of care for their personal temple is breathtaking.
And when I am around their shades of masculine, I become enchanted by their joy in being vessels of pure maleness. There is a high in their gift of accepting one’s personal kind of masculine. When I visit their space, I want to dive into their joys and worship the gods of the divine masculine. In these hard-won spaces, I grew to love men and marvel at their sacred gift to women and the mystic of the divine masculine. Through this lens, I was able to savor the aspects of masculine of center women that I was seeking in cis men. It is a shame I could never find it in many of them.
In the bars of gay men, I came to delight in my own feminine. I did not need to be anything but my gloriously extra self in their space. My outfits, which would be seen as a temptation in cis spaces were viewed and valued as explorations into my own sensuality in the gay realm. I could wear a short skirt or corset in a gay club and have drinks bought for how awesome I looked. It would not be inflated as some suggested invitation to mate. I would be able to celebrate in the simple delight of being deliciously attuned to my own interpretation of sensual. And my sensual would be valued as sensual. In the gay men space, I can dance, flirt and sing and have that be more than enough for the free drinks they chose to provide.
Having acceptance in that space is a contact high to me.
When my friendships in the kink community and the relationships took me deeper into the male spaces where these variants of gay/queer/bisexual men choose to practice parts of their sexual artistry, it was a gentle delight in being allowed to showcase these aspects of their community. I honored their gateways and was invited to learn more about how they had to build these community spaces for themselves. In some ways, their relationships mirrored the way I have seen a circle created for the sacred feminine.
For some reason, my culture loathes or suppresses the mystic of men. I find the jealousy of heteronormative men who look at the beauty found in the culture of homosexual men enjoying their masculine, depressing. Men of that caste participate in enforcing their own impressions of the masculine by destroying it in their own sacred spaces. I look at the examples of the locker room in this sense as it was the space America’s current commander in chief used as code space to extol the virtues of his dominance over the women who are supposed to be the heart of his home. It is a shame how the use of dominance will limit how both parties can be loved in their own home. Equally sad is when women, the nurturers who participate in raising and encouraging the structure of the heteronormative male, engage in the same damaging practices in reverse and compound that limitation of the kind of masculine they will accept by regulating men to a corner or cave where they can indulge in their personal adversest.
As I prepare to enter a more common denominator private relationship, I question the suggestion of other cis women to restrict a partner to a specific need or outlet of how that mate is allowed to be within the home. I look at relationships the same way I look at pieces in a museum: the individual who made the frame is equally important as the creator of the work. That dance of the divine partnership is manifested in that way that makes sense to me- both items are lovely individually but collectively, they will take the breath away.
In my interpretation of the male/female dynamic, men have been socialized to provide the framework to the artist in a relationship. Much like pride in the structure of the home is placed on the money maker in the household, the quality of what makes the house a home is equally valuable if not more so in some cases. I have entered several seemly heteronormative houses and my favorites are homes where both partners are blended throughout the space. Homes like this I long to visit again. They tend to belong to some of my favorite relationships as well. But entering spaces not built in this make is akin to going to a museum and having no frame to indicate where the artwork begins and ends. Regardless of who holds the role, the same partnership is needed regardless if the players are different. Like all people, we long for the freedom to just be. Whatever that be may manifest itself to be, private romantic relationships should be built to support individuals to enjoy all states of being regardless of how that shapes out for the individual. It is support and support is vital in making a vital relationship.
Some unwanted advice to the parents that choose to read this as I have low expectations for people set in their ways willing to change. Instead of raising little boys and girls, we should be raising children into adults and let them decide what it means to be boys/men and girls/women. Because who wants/wants to be a project man?
