sw00227a-sexuality

Sexuality



"The Salchertian Scale"


There's a good chance I have already written about this
somewhere herein, but my view is based solely on what
I have learned about myself in my going on 67 years of
being Earth-alive.  It could not, honestly, be any other
view of sexuality.  However deeply we as humans inter-
connect with each other, the fact of the each other can
not go away so long as we are allowed to exist as an
each.  When I emerged from my mother's womb, I 
became a separate being physically; and I have lived
and expect to die as a separate being.  Is it a lonely 
trek?  Yes it is.  Yet that is not all it is.
-
So, what have I learned about my sexuality?  The first
truth is:  I cannot be exact about it.  The second is that
there is a position I maintain which many others do not
share:  One's sexuality is determined more by how one
feels (by what excites one) than by what one does.  As
I passed through my childhood, I discovered--partly due
to a certain incident about which I wrote in veiled terms
in one of my poems--I was attracted to my own body,
wimpy body that it was and is; and that I was attracted
to other males more than to females; but, mostly, that
in the end, I actually wasn't much interested in physical
sexual activities.  That being so, I recently attempted to
determine to what degree I was each of these.  Here is
a possible rating:  60% a sexual non-participant; 25% an
autoerotic; 12% a homoerotic; 3% a heteroerotic.  Such
a rating of myself--what I "know" about myself notwith-
standing--may be quite not right, just as I am quite not
right*.  It is, however, an honest attempt.
-
During my elementary and high school years I had,
roughly, 12 puppy love attachments to males, none
of whom were--to my knowledge--ever aware of
my desire.  During that same period of my existence,
I was attracted to 3 different females, one of whom I
eventually married.  There is a semi-tragic story at
the core of that union, but I do not wish to reveal it
at this time.  Besides, I have written and spoken of
it often enough, and it will come to light again when
some of my diary entries appear in this weblog.  In
the meanwhile, certain aspects of it can be gleaned
from a number of the sonnets in my 1976: in 2006 work
online here.  About my encounters with myself, I'll say
only this:   There were times I nearly did things that
could have ended this physical existence I yet have
or damaged it and other realms of my being in ways
I do not care to dwell on.  About my encounters with
other males, there were not that many, though a few
of them had mystical qualities I have never understood.
What I consider to be my "coming out" experience was
the first such, and I did years later write a poem about
it.  I will say that my being easy to fend off while I was
young was a blessing.  When I was older, there was no
need to fend me off because I was never the aggressor.
Even when I was in my thirties, I was still a twink; and
that was when I became visible.  However, I do suspect
classmates of mine, especially when I was in high school,
had already determined how to label me.
-
To those of you who have read this far I now suggest:
Go read D. H. Lawrence's "The Ship of Death".  You 
should also read James Weldon Johnson's "The Creation".



- - - - -
* I have frontal lobe and generalized epilepsy which 
  a certain medicine has been keeping under control.


Brian A. J. Salchert