Saturday, December 31, 2011

Wishing You a Happy and Prosperous 2012

There is no doubt many of us are more than happy to say good riddance to 2011. It has been a rough year throughout the world.

Yet, even in 2011, most of us had much to be thankful for. One thing I'm very thankful for is all the fellow bloggers who have been so willing to help me learn the ins and outs of blogging. When I started blogging, I never dreamed that I would meet fellow bloggers who would be so helpful and willing to share their knowledge and offer their help in promoting my blogs. As an older guy who is self taught in using a computer, it is not second nature to me. It hasn't been too long since I didn't even know what a blog was.

Another thing I'm very thankful for is all of you who have read my blog and found it helpful or supportive of your sexuality. Frankly, when I started blogging, I expected to get a lot of hate mail since the message I offer is usually one many find controversial. I do, in fact, get hate mail; but it is only a small percentage of my mail. By far most of my mail is from those of you who find my blog helpful even if you don't totally agree with my thinking. Actually, that is the purpose of the blog - to help people think about their own situation and find their own answers.

I hope 2012 is a great year for all of you. I hope it is a year in which you find happiness, prosperity and answers to the questions that have bedeviled you leading you to peace of mind and self acceptance.

Jack Scott

Friday, December 30, 2011

Thank God for Fools

The following article was posted in this morning's "Houston Post." I felt it was too good not to pass along.

I have too long been aware of  the (so called) "reverend fred phelps" and his (so called) "westboro baptist church" in Kansas. The actions of this man and his family have made me, a life long Christian, embarrassed to claim the description, but I have to admit I had never once thought of him as contributing anything good to the country or to anyone in it. However, I think Mr. Loewy may be onto something with his theory. I was raised as a Christian and all my life I have been reminded that God uses each of us for his purpose. He prefers to use our good acts for his purpose, but if he must he will use our bad acts for his purpose too. The (so called) "reverend phelps" is no doubt the epitome of a bad example of a Christian.

As anyone who reads my blog knows, although I consider myself a Christian, I have little in common with fundamental or evangelical Christians. Generally instead of spreading the Gospel of Christ to the world as Christians are supposed to do, they have perverted the Gospel and turned what is supposed to be the Good News of redemption for all of us into a false message of judgement and damnation.

The "reverend phelps" has become so vociferous in his message of hate, judgement and message of damnation that he has actually alienated and embarrassed even the fundamentalist and the evangelicals. He has forced them to step back and proclaim their rejections of both his message and his tactics.

Phelps has called attention to a long standing problem for the fundamentalists in his use of Romans 9:13 to proclaim God as a hater, for in the very same book in Chapter 8:35-39 is the proclamation that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Obviously, both of these verses cannot be the literal truth and fundamentalists make a great deal of the supposed fact that the Bible is without error and without contradiction. It simply is not so, and any thinking person sees contradictions throughout the Bible.

As a Christian who sees plenty of hate and condemnation in the world, I fail to see any need at all for a religious philosophy that only talks about more hate and more damnation. If God is not a God of unconditional love, I have no need of him. I certainly have no need of the "reverend phelps" of the world.

Sometimes, my own belief in the unconditionality of God's love is inconvenient; for that belief means that God loves the reverend phelps as much as he loves anyone else. But love him or not, I can't see a loving God allowing a hater such as phelps to enter into the Kingdom of God. That's a problem for God to work out, not me. But I think the "reverend phelps" may have to spend a few thousand years in some kind of remedial Hell contemplating his sins and his hate and making amends to all those he has hated, scorned and saddened.

Jack Scott
(I added the photos to Mr. Loewy's article below.)


A Stupid Enemy Can Be Best Friend 
By ARNOLD H. LOEWY 
Almost a century ago, Woodrow Wilson famously said: "I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man be a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise that fact by speaking." I would add a corollary to President Wilson's aphorism: A movement's greatest friend may be the stupidity of its worst enemy. 
Those in my generation remember Birmingham Police Chief "Bull" Connor attacking civil rights demonstrators with police dogs. That stupid decision by the chief may well have been the moment when the hearts and minds of most Americans were won over to Martin Luther King Jr. and the other demonstrators. Of course, Connor's conduct was not protected by the First Amendment 
Now, let's fast forward to modern times, where the gay community has its own "Bull" Connor, none other than Rev. Fred Phelps, and his tiny Westboro Baptist Church, The church seems to think that picketing funerals of heterosexual servicemen to show how their death is punishment from God for America's toleration of homosexuality will cause America to be less tolerant of homosexuality. In fact, it has had precisely the opposite effect. 
A short decade ago anti-gay jokes were rampant, it would have been unthinkable to support gay·marriage and the "don't ask, don't tell" military policy was absolutely the most to which gays were entitled. Today, several states permit gay marriage, "don't ask, don't. tell" is a thing of the past, and our president has even threatened to discontinue foreign aid to countries that discriminate against homosexuals. 
What has happened? My answer is Phelps. His anti-gay rhetoric has been so over the top that it is no longer socially acceptable to be antigay. Undoubtedly there are still some people who are uncomfortable with homosexuality, but thanks to Phelps and his cohorts, it is those opposed to homosexuality who are now "in the closet." From their perspective, it is better to suffer homosexuality in silence than·to be associated with Phelps and his church. 
So the Westboro Baptist Church, by exercising its free speech rights, has done for the homosexual rights movement exactly what" Connor, did for the civil rights movement. 
Although this is the major example of our time, it is not the only one. Recently at Suffolk Law school, during a campaign to send care packages to the troops, one law professor sent a five-paragraph email arguing that it was immoral to send care packages to those whose job is to kill others. While his colleagues and,administrative superiors defended his right to free speech, they also indicated their intent to send care packages. 
I've imagined what I would do if I were a member of that faculty. I suspect that when I first received the solicitation to send the care package, I may or may not have been sufficiently moved to do the right thing. But once I received that email, I am quite sure that I would have sent the package! 
Wilson spoke of the wisdom of maximizing free speech. If Wilson was correct, and I believe that he was, Phelps and his church are surely exhibit A. 
Loewy is a professor of criminal law at Texas Tech School of Law.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Best Wishes for Christmas

My thanks to all of you who made 2011 a great year for my blogs.

When I started blogging I had no idea how many great people are bloggers and how willing they would be to help a new blogger learn the ropes. I thank each and every one of you.

Christmas has long since become a secular as well as a religious holiday. To me that seems fine and actually quite in tune with the spirit of Christmas in which peace and good will to all peoples is the wish of the day.

I know 2011 has been a hard year for many all over the world. Here's wishing each and every one of you a great 2012.

With family home for Christmas and the New Year, I'll be taking a few days off. However, Jack's Favorite Guys for January 1, 2012 will be posted at 12:05 a.m. on January 1st.  I think you'll find some guys that will make you feel like ringing in the New Year.

Jack Scott

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

DESIDERATA


I have always enjoyed poetry. There is a lot of great philosophy expressed in poems. The poem below has important words for everyone. It's remarkable how much it has to say directly to those of us who are struggling with our bisexuality. I hope you enjoy reading it. I hope you take it to heart. You'll be a better man in doing so.

Jack Scott

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, 


and remember what peace there may be in silence. 


As far as possible without surrender, 


be on good terms with all persons. 


Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. 


Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit. 


If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. 


Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. 


Keep interested in your own career, however humble; 


it is a real possession in the changing forlunes of time. 


Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. 


But let not this blind you to what virlue there is; 


many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. 


Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; 


for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. 


Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurlure strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misforlune. 


The Angel of Peace
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings; 


many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. 


Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. 


You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. 


And whether or not it is clear to you, 


no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. 


Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors or aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. 


With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. 


Be cheerful. 


Strive to be happy. 

M. Ehnnann 1927


Monday, December 5, 2011

On the Shoulders of Giants

Last week I posted an article from the New York Times entitled, "Keeping Marital Secrets Closeted," by Jane Isay. Click here to review that article.

Today, I'm posting another article from the New York Times by her son, David Isay entitled, "A Mic on the Margins." It's a long but fascinating article that is must reading for every GLBT person.

I admit that I'm not much a fan of National Public Radio. If it had to depend on Texans for its contributions, I'm afraid it would be bankrupt quickly. Generally it is a sickly sludge of left wing liberal drivel. David Isay is a definite bright spot in an otherwise dull radio network. The New York Times article lays bare the fact that Isay himself has had his own battles with the big wigs of the network who are determined that the public morals should be protected and that they are the arbiters of public morals.

David Isay discovered as a young adult that his father was living an actively gay life. Though he was stunned by this discovery he determined to understand it. That determination ended up spurring his career into National Public Radio and to award winning broadcast journalism.

Stonewall Remember premiered on July 1, 1989, on Weekend All Thing Considered. It chronicled. Many believe that the Stonewall event laid the foundation for the acceptance of GLBT people that has taken place in this country since the 90's. You can click on the MP3 URL to hear the July 1, 1989 program MP3.

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecutedsexual minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries] Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.

David Isay has a brilliant mind. And in using it to understand his father's homosexuality, he has helped millions to understand homosexuality within American society. It can truly be said that David Isay is a giant on whose shoulders all of us as GLBT people stand and by chronicling the stories of the first GLBT people to begin coming out of the closet he has given all of us other shoulders to stand on.

No one would suggest that the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people has been won. It hasn't. But people like David Isay have definitely helped in the battle. The tens of thousands of people who have left their closets have created a reality in which almost every family in the country is touched by homosexuality. Almost no one can rail against "those" people any longer. We are now openly their sons, daughters, grandchildren, husbands and fathers. That has changed the outlook of many.
The battle is not over, but it is clear that the victory will be ours.

My thanks to Greg and Bruce for calling this story to my attention.


Jack Scott

David Isay: A Mic on the Margins

by Samuel G. Freedman
New York Times
November 8, 1998

One afternoon in 1988, when David Isay was 22 years old and just stumbling into a passion for radio, he paid an unannounced visit to theManhattan office of his father, a psychoanalyst. There he encountered a man who seemed to be living in an anteroom of the professional suite. At first, Mr. Isay's father explained away the stranger as a patient.

Then he told the truth: he was gay and the man was his lover.

Stunned by the disclosure, Mr. Isay set about understanding the surreptitious life his father had led through years of marriage and parenting. There was nothing autobiographical, much less confessional, about his approach. With microphone and tape recorder and the license both objects conferred to ask questions, Mr. Isay began interviewing veterans of the Stonewall uprising, the 1969 brawl between homosexuals and police outside a Greenwich Village bar that catalyzed the gay-rights movement.

Six months later, the 25 minutes of "Stonewall Remembered" were broadcast on National Public Radio, becoming the first of Mr. Isay's documentaries to play on the network. Listeners heard from those exhilarated by the insurrection: a Vietnam veteran, a former convent girl, a drag queen, a lesbian now residing in a center for the elderly.

They even heard from the public-morals investigator assigned to police the Stonewall Inn. Only at the very end, though, did they hear the producer responsible for the program intone simply, "I'm David Isay."

David Isay
In the decade since that documentary, Mr. Isay has produced an acclaimed body of radio journalism that still hews to the paradoxical style of "Stonewall Remembered." Whether assembling pieces about ghetto teen-agers or Appalachian snake handlers, Bowery denizens or gospel quartets, Mr. Isay has made himself both determinedly absent and fiercely present, imprinting his sensibility while silencing his voice.

Mr. Isay (pronounced like the two words "I say") has won or shared in numerous awards, foremost among them two Peabodys for broadcast journalism.

Working more as an oral historian than a newsman, he has influenced other radio documentarians even as he has occasionally tangled with the editors of National Public Radio. In the latest nod to Mr. Isay's stature, WNYC-FM (93.9) … [presented] a two-hour retrospective of his work ... on Nov. 27, simulcast on WNYC-AM (820).

His success serves as proof that even a half-century after television should in theory have rendered radio obsolete, this relatively primitive medium provides certain satisfactions not even the highest technology can match. National Public Radio's flagship broadcast, "All Things Considered," draws a nightly audience of 7.7 million, not much less than the viewership for any one of the television network newscasts, and has created stars like Cokie Roberts, Susan Stamberg, John Hockenberrry and Robert Krulwich. That Mr. Isay remains far more obscure than they to a general audience says less about public radio than about his own taste for invisibility.

"I find other people's stories so much more interesting than my story," he says. "I know my story. And I know I'm not much of a talker. I'm a much better listener. So I try to be the vehicle through which people's stories can be heard. What I'm looking for is poetry on the margins."
Ken Mueller, the radio curator of the Museum of Television and Radio, puts it this way: "Just like Frederick Wiseman is cinéma vérité, David Isay is audio vérité."

Even before entering radio, Mr. Isay had learned much about the meticulous editing that characterizes his work. He grew up, first in New Haven and then in Manhattan, with the example of his mother, Jane Isay, a book editor who has worked with authors like Harold Bloom and Melissa Fay Greene. "She taught me the ability to cut down to what's most interesting," he says, "to be brutal with yourself."

From his father, Robert, Mr. Isay says, he took "a real sense of the courage of people who are out of the mainstream and of the cruelty of the mainstream."

Still, both Mr. Isay's social conscience and incipient technique waited in latency as he graduated from New York University in 1987 and headed into medical school. During a break from class, he wandered past an East Village store specializing in books and supplies for 12-step programs. When Mr. Isay chatted with the owners, both recovered drug addicts, he found they were planning to open a "museum of addiction." They already had blueprints and a scale model made of tongue depressors.

Mr. Isay raced back to his apartment, threw open the Yellow Pages and began calling television and radio stations, trying to interest anyone in the story. Finally, he reached Amy Goodman, the news director at WBAI-FM, the Pacifica station known for its iconoclasm. "Sounds great," she told him. "I don't have anyone to do it. Why don't you?"

With a borrowed tape recorder and editing help from Ms. Goodman, Mr. Isay patched together a six-minute piece. On the day it was broadcast in 1988, a National Public Radio producer named Gary Covino happened to be visiting New York and listening to WBAI. Mr. Covino had earned his own reputation on NPR for assembling audio portraits, most notably one of a street demonstration against the Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos, from vast volumes of first-person testimony. Now he heard a kindred spirit. "It was rough," he recalls of the Isay piece, "but listening through the roughness I could hear this sensibility that intrigued me."

Through Ms. Goodman, he located Mr. Isay, a gangly, bespectacled fellow with, appropriately enough, very big ears. Mr. Covino re-edited the WBAI piece so it could run nationally on NPR's "Weekend All Things Considered." Then he paid the neophyte $50. "I was apologizing that it was so little," he says, "and Dave was flipping out because he didn't think he'd be paid at all."

So began the education of an acolyte. As Mr. Isay developed "Stonewall Remembered," he spent months immersed in tapes that Mr. Covino had sent him and in the broadcasts of "Weekend All Things Considered," which Mr. Covino produced. From those models, Mr. Isay learned to eschew the NPR formula of "acts and trax" -- slang for alternating sections of the ambient sound called actualities and vocal tracks -- in favor of using editing and overdubbing to create a dense aural tapestry.

When Mr. Isay began producing more pieces, Mr. Covino took sole responsibility for editing them. Justifiably or not, he depicted NPR's editors as "narrow minds who wouldn't hear the potential for terrific stories in his ideas." To this day, he proudly asserts, "We violated all the rules of NPR editorial apparatus."

Yet NPR broadcast virtually everything that Mr. Isay developed, bringing both the network and the young producer renown. Between 1990 and 1993, Mr. Isay traveled the country for the American Folklife Project, profiling characters from death row inmates to a Pullman porter to a minister with a 34-million-word diary. The series captured a Peabody honor, and the death row segment won the Livingston Award for excellence by a young journalist. Subsequently, Shanachie Records released highlights from the series and W. W. Norton published a companion book.

"These were stories of sacrifice, of quiet heroism," Mr. Isay wrote in the book, "Holding On." "There seemed to be eternal qualities shared by all of these subjects, but we couldn't pin them down. Was it the sense of loneliness? The bravery? Individuality? Resilience? Was it that oddly wistful feeling we were left with each time we visited one of these people?"

The impact of Mr. Isay's next major documentary, "Ghetto Life 101," was anything but ineffable. In 1993, Mr. Covino hired Mr. Isay to contribute to a yearlong series of broadcasts on race relations for WBEZ, the NPR affiliate in Chicago. Inspired by "There Are No Children Here," Alex Kotlowitz's book about two boys in a Chicago housing project, Mr. Isay created an aural equivalent -- except that he actually turned over the reporting to two 13-year-olds, LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman. The pair kept taped diaries and interviewed friends and family members, and Mr. Isay pared down more than 100 hours of material to an excruciating 25 minutes.

At one point, Lloyd Newman caught neighborhood children taunting his alcoholic father by daring him to spell "fool." Later in the broadcast, LeAlan Jones asked his older sister how many of her friends had been murdered. "Maybe a little less than 30," she replied. In still another scene, the two boys wandered into a downtown hotel as the lounge pianist played the theme song from the Peanuts cartoon series, surely not the soundtrack to their youth.
"Ghetto Life 101" won a Livingston Award and a Society of Professional Journalists prize, among others, and was translated for broadcast in several foreign countries. But Mr. Isay's protégés were not, as it turned out, finished yet. In 1996, a 5-year-old boy from the same housing project as Le Alan and Lloyd was pushed out a high-rise window to his death by assailants ages 10 and 11. With Mr. Isay again editing and producing, LeAlan and Lloyd reported a 25-minute documentary entitled "Remorse." Perhaps its most harrowing moment came in this exchange about the murdered boy:
LeAlan: Dude, you think they got a playground in heaven for shorties?
Lloyd: Nope. Ain't no playground in heaven for nobody.
LeAlan: I don't know, man. How you figure there ain't no playground in heaven for little kids?
Lloyd: God didn't make it special for nobody.
LeAlan: But, man, what Shorty gonna do up there? He wasn't old enough to do nothing bad enough to go to no hell. What he doin, just kickin' it? Or is he reincarnated? Maybe he be a little bird or something.

With "Remorse," Mr. Isay won his second Peabody and the only Grand Prize ever given to a radio program in the Robert F. Kennedy Awards for coverage of the disadvantaged. Scribner published a book compiling the transcripts and many outtakes from both "Remorse" and "Ghetto Life 101." Mr. Isay established his own nonprofit organization, Soundport, for which he currently raises $200,000 annually, enough to support himself and several employees and to cover production costs.

As important, Mr. Isay had found in the use of surrogate narrators a form that suited his temperament, one that began to be imitated in public-radio circles. He employed the trope most recently in "The Sunshine Hotel," a 25-minute portrait of a Bowery flophouse that was broadcast on "All Things Considered" in September. Mr. Isay chose Nathan Smith, the hotel manager, to introduce listeners to some of the 125 men who pay $4.50 a night for a 4-by-6 cubicle topped with chicken wire: the Russian immigrant with a weekend heroin habit, the former band boy with Tito Puente, the loan shark, the drug dealer, the senile 80-year-old abandoned by his son and living on Oreos.

Such a cast, far from disturbing Mr. Isay, elicited his friendship.

"He comes with a particular innocence," Mr. Smith says. "It disarms people. You don't think he's going to cut your throat or rob you. It was a heartfelt, honest thing he did."

Compassion and engagement, however, yielded more than 70 hours of raw tape. Which it fell to Mr. Isay and his digital editing machine to reduce in a manner that his mother might well have appreciated.

"He is a compulsive editor," says Stacy Abramson, Mr. Isay's associate producer. "It's enough to make you insane. He'll sit there and fine-tune and fine-tune and fine-tune. He'll make sure the timing of the phone call fits seamlessly over Nate's narration. It's so seamless you don't notice it. But it's been gone over and over and over. When you spent a year on a piece and boil it down to 25 minutes, every second has to be perfect."

Despite Mr. Isay's perfection, or perhaps because of it, he has at times feuded with NPR. "All Things Considered" turned down his 1995 audio diary of a prostitute dying of AIDS, though the segment later was broadcast on "Weekend All Things Considered" and took a Kennedy Award. The network withheld broadcast of Mr. Isay's 1991 documentary on a hospital for the criminally insane. The facility's director claimed, based on an advance script that Mr. Isay had provided her, that the report overemphasized the patients' violence. John Dinges, then NPR's managing editor, ordered it revised to address "serious questions about both accuracy and balance." Mr. Isay instead withdrew the documentary. It later was broadcast on another NPR show, "Soundprint," and, paradoxically enough, received an award from the American Psychological Association.

"There is always a prickly relationship with highly talented independent producers and the network," says Bill Buzenberg, who was NPR's vice president for news and information from 1990 through 1997. "It stems from the fact they are independent, don't want to work for the network, want to do radio art to the nth degree. So a mutual distrust gets in there sometimes." Mr. Isay himself acknowledges the periodic tensions. "I've been viewed with suspicion," he says. "There's a feeling that when you do a non-narrated piece, when you don't write, when you do something like oral history, that you haven't done the research, that you don't know your facts. There's a feeling that you're cheating."

Those feelings have not lasted long, even among Mr. Isay's few critics. Mr. Buzenberg hails him as "one of the best radio artisans in the business." After "Ghetto Life 101" was broadcast, Mr. Dinges wrote in a memo to the NPR staff that "pieces like this will revolutionize documentary radio."

Mr. Isay, typically, lets his subjects speak for him. There comes a moment in the American Folklife Project series when a Colorado man, who has built a castle atop an isolated mountaintop, delivers what could be Mr. Isay's own manifesto.

"They go on and on about Buttafuoco," the man says. "Did he ever build anything with his hands? Conan O'Brian? Where do they come from? I've heard of Imelda Marcos. I've heard of Saddam Hussein. I've heard of all these other people. Have they heard of this?"

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company


Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The Old Man

I have said it many times, I am fortunate to have lived the most blessed of lives. I was born to parents who were very poor in terms of money and property, but who were incredibly wealthy in terms of spirit, pride, the willingness to work and pursue dreams for a better life for themselves and their boys.

I was close to both my parents. As a young boy my Dad often worked shift work which meant that two weeks out of three he worked nights. On those nights, I would refuse to go to bed until he got home around midnight. I would vow to wait up for him but I would always crawl under the coffee table and go to sleep. When he got home he would carry me to bed, and I would never know.

As I got older my Dad took seriously his duty to prepare me to be a man. Even as a very young boy I had chores to do and the chores got increasingly harder as I grew older. Sometimes, I thought my Dad was the worst Dad there was because often it seemed my friends didn't have to work near as hard as my brothers and I did. Yet, with a job well done, my Dad always saw to it that there were rewards. Even the rewards though often had a dual purpose as when my Dad bought me and my brother a horse. We had lots of fun with that horse. It made us mobile and let us roam far and wide in the countryside.

But any of you who have ever been around horses, know that it takes a hell of a lot of work to feed and water and brush a horse. Looking back, I know for certain that the horse was a reward for hard work, but more than that, my Dad saw it as another step in our learning responsibility and the reward of a job well done.

When my Dad worked days or slept days because he had worked the night before, there was always work assigned which had to be completed by the time he got home from work or by the time he got up. Woe be it, if the job was not accomplished; and woe be it if it was not accomplished well enough to pass Dad's inspection which always came.

By the time I was ten years old, I was not only expected to do my chores around the house, in the yard or in the barn yard; but I was expected to work to provide my own spending money. By that time my family had moved solidly into the middle class due to the hard work of Dad & Mom, but you'd never know it from Dad's attitude.

"Son," he'd say, "The world is a cruel place and it doesn't give a damn about you. Anything you get from the world you're going to have to work for and be willing to work hard." At age ten working hard meant mowing lawns for the neighbors throughout the summers. By the time I was fourteen years old I was working part time after school and on weekends in a local business. I hated to have to work while my friends were out having fun, but as far as Dad was concerned it was work or don't eat.

But as always, there were rewards. Dad came home with a new boat one day. My brothers and I were on cloud nine. He took us all out to the lake and taught us how to water ski. I took to it like a duck takes to water. It became my favorite sport. There were other times when Dad took me hunting or fising. There were trips to the mountains which the whole family enjoyed.

Though I didn't always appreciate Dad's attitude about work as a young boy, looking back now, I realize I owe Dad and Mom for everything I have. All my achievements in life, I owe to my Dad's unbending requirement to work and work well. "Anything worth doing is worth doing well Son," he'd say.

Looking back on the life I've lived and the achievements I've made, I realize now that I'd never have made them if I hadn't understood the necessity and the joy of hard work and the rewards it can bring. Learning that work can be fun was a gift my Dad gave to (forced on) me.

Dad has been gone almost 30 years now. It doesn't seem possible. He was such a force of nature and such a presence in my life, I never dreamed he could die. It just didn't seem possible; now, 30 years later, it still doesn't. But I know Dad would be proud of me and my accomplishments. He probably wouldn't approve of my retiring at age 63. He was too much into work for that. But on the other hand, he'd be very proud that I accomplished enough to have the ability to afford to retire at age 63, and he would be happy to note that while I've retired I still work for the pure joy of it.

As I've mentioned before, I learn a great deal from music and poetry. Some of the best philosophy I've ever read has been in the lyrics of a song. One of my favorite groups is Celtic Thunder. Everytime I hear their song, "The Old Man," I think about my Dad. The You Tube version of the song is embedded below. Listen carefully to the lyrics.


I have mentioned many times that human males are complicated beings and male sexuality is a extremely complex. It is true. Just from observing life, my own as well as others, I have seen how vital a father is to a boy. I am convinced that much of the turmoil we see in the younger generations today is because too many boys have been raised by single mothers with no father figure in their lives.

An appropriate father figure is an absolute necessity for a boy. He can survive without it, but he cannot flourish. Absent a real father, a boy needs a grandfather, an uncle or some other older man in his life who is honestly interested enough in him to teach him to become a man.

Boys who never have a father figure in their lives, more often than not, are at some level aware that something is missing in their lives. From a psychological standpoint the lessons learned from a father figure are critical. But it's more complicated than that. The boy must not only learn the lessons his father teaches him, he must also at some point in his mid to late teens break away from his father and stand on his own two feet. This breaking of the old father/boy bond and the beginning of a new adult son/father bond is an integral part of becoming a man. Sadly, the average 30 year old is now still living in the home he grew up in, his mother is washing his underwear and his Dad is supporting him financially while the boy/man often does nothing more productive that play video games. It is doubtful that such a man child will ever become a fully and properly functioning man.

For men, the absolute need for a bond with other men does not end with the bond between father and son. The need for bonding with other men remains strong all through a man's life. Unfortunately, American society and American wives in particular do not recognize these male/male bonds as necessary or legitimate. Too many women today have the misguided opinion that their husband should be their best friend as well, and he should be content to involve her in every aspect of his life. This misguided view on the part of women is perplexing because at the same time women make this demand of their husbands, they are more often than not, quite demanding that they be allowed to spend a great deal of time with their girlfriends. For some reason girls' nights out and lunch with the girls is considered normal. It is also considered normal for a woman to tell her girlfriends the most intimate information about her married life, but a guys' night out and a desire to spend time with other men outside of work or perhaps other than on the golf course is not considered normal at all.

I am convinced that the internet and the information age it has ushered in is going to change the way men see themselves for ever. More and more, men are beginning to realize that men are naturally wired to run in packs. They are naturally wired to bond with other men, and they are even wired to form an intimate bond with a particular man who has something to contribute to their life and whose life they can contribute something in turn.

More and more often young men in their twenties and thirties are forming special bonds with older men in their fifties and sixties. I think this is the result of so many boys having been raised with no father figure or a father figure who didn't take enough interest in them, spend enough time with them or demand enough of them. The need for a bond with a man is so strong that such men are driven to form it even as adults. I believe it is something they instinctually understand they need.

I am the most blessed of men. I had a father who taught me to be a man. I have had bonded buddies and a wife who understood my need for such. If I could wish one wish for each of you, I'd wish for you to find that special buddy for yourself.

I miss the Old Man. I thank him for all he did for me. I'm thankful I got the chance to raise my own son in the same way my Old Man raised me.

Jack Scott


Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Keeping Marital Secrets Closeted


As a married bisexual man, I was extremely fortunate that when I decided to tell my wife about my bisexuality. She was, if not happy about it, at least understanding of the fact that I had made no choices in the matter.
I was also fortunate that at the time I told her our children were well adjusted and successful adults with children of their own.
Because of these things, the impact on our strong, long-term marriage was slight. That is not to say there was no impact. There were things that impacted her and things that impacted me. Interestingly enough the things that affected us were feelings rather than facts. She had trouble adjusting to the feeling that I might decide I'd rather live with my buddy than with her. I had trouble accepting that she could be so understanding. I worried about the pain she might be feeling but not expressing.
At about the same time I told my wife about my bisexuality, two of my close married friends were having to adjust to the self realization they were not married bisexual men but married homosexual men. Each of them initially tried to mitigate the impact of this realization by vowing to stay in their respective marriages until their children were out of high school. In both cases it simply did not work. In both cases, it was their youngest daughters who finally asked them when they were going to get a divorce. Both daughters had observed the increasing malice each marriage partner had for the other and they certainly observed first hand the shouting, the anger and the fighting.
In all of my talks with married non-straight men, I have found there is always an excuse why divorce is not possible. What I have never seen is a valid excuse. The reality is no matter how many times one partner threatens to divorce the other, many times it is a power play and a misguided attempt to gain concessions from the other spouse. 
In particular, almost any marriage counselor will confirm most women will never really pursue a divorce until they have someplace to go, either to another man or to a career that will support them and their children. The same marriage counselor will confirm that many men will not leave until they are forced out my their wives. Men are often content to live with the fighting and the bickering. The truth is they can often more effectively block it out than can their wives. For men, the devil they know is often preferable to the devil they don't know. Every man has a fear of growing old all alone. Their marriages may be shams but at least they are not alone.
But no matter the circumstances, a failed and broken marriage can seldom be hidden from the children. They almost always have an idea of what is going on.
The following article is reprinted from a recent opinion piece in the New York Times. It is must reading and must thinking for every couple who fight.
Jack Scott

OPINION

Keeping Marital Secrets Closeted


THIS summer, soon after gay marriage became legal in New York, my sons held a wedding for my former husband and his partner of over 30 years. The grandchildren were flower girl and ring bearers. The wedding thrust me back to the time when we faced a terrible choice and decided to stay married for the children. That’s what motivated my then husband and me to carry on our incomplete marriage for its last nine years, and that’s how we explained our actions after the divorce. It was a convenient truth, and also a self-serving one.
Ruth Gwily

The year was 1980. I was waiting for my husband of 15 years to return from the last party of a psychiatry convention. I could hear voices from down the hall, happy men enjoying their time together. When he came in, his face was grave. He sat down on the bed and said, “I have something I need to tell you.” He took a deep breath. “I’m homosexual.” At that moment I saw my future collapse before my eyes. I got the chills and ran to take a hot bath. It gave me time to think and warmed me, but not for long. We spent the night talking and lamenting. On the plane home, we held each other and sobbed and planned. By the time we landed, we had decided to keep his sexual orientation a secret and stay married for the sake of the children.
Of course we both wanted to protect our sons, who were 10 and 14. Divorce was not uncommon then, but the circumstances surrounding our relationship were controversial and would have created a scandal in our small university town, so staying married for the children helped us both feel better about ourselves and our lies. We thought they didn’t notice any change, and we were mistaken. Secrets have a way of seeping into the atmosphere. Kids are natural observers. They watch parents like hawks, and they know when something is wrong, even if they don’t know what. I desperately wanted the charade to work at home — we were doing this for the children. So covering for my husband on his two nights a week out, and his two vacations a year became second nature — he was a busy man with many meetings.
I paid a price for my silence with my closest friends, because a secret of this magnitude builds barriers. I just couldn’t bear to show them the spot I was in. And I was leery of advice. When I felt so alone, I could always remind myself what a good person I was being, sacrificing for the children.
The other reasons for staying married were not so charming. If I had thought, I’m staying for the money, I might have questioned the lies I told my sons about where their father was on the nights he spent with his future husband. Or if he had thought, I’m staying to promote my career as a psychoanalyst, he might have felt a little heavy on the ambition scale. Or if we both had realized that we were just too scared to face the world alone, I might have given up some of the pretending, and he might have realized the gravity of his original secret.
But never mind. We had an explanation that made people admire us when we finally went public. Other truths might have evoked pity or suspicion: what’s the matter with her radar? How could she accept a half a marriage instead of a whole one? Who is she, really? To say we stayed married for the children put an end to uncomfortable questions.
If I had faced the other reasons to stay in the marriage, the burden of our lies would probably have been harder to bear. But the burden on our sons might also have been lightened. It’s not so great for kids to be told they are the cause of their parents’ behavior, especially when that’s only part of the story. When they finally learned the truth, our sons were more disturbed by our deception than by the facts. Our reasons didn’t seem to matter anymore. Truth trumps lies every time.
The phrase “we stayed married for the children” is like a silk duvet on a complicated and imperfect marriage bed. Nobody really wants to turn back the covers, the unhappy spouses least of all.

The author of “Walking on Eggshells,” who is working on a book about family secrets
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Friday, November 25, 2011

Favicon Curse

I hope you've noticed my Favicon. It's such a small thing, literally small; but getting it made and published as a part of Blogger was a big pain in the ass.

For those of you who are not bloggers yourself; but just read those of us who do blog, consider yourselves lucky to be free of the curse of being a blogger. Not only do you have to think of things to write and then get them written in some way that half way communicates what you wanted to say, you have to do this on some web site such a Blogger that is a wonderful tool and well worth much more than what we pay for it, which is nothing. But while its a great program its filled with bugs that they don't pay much attention too. Sometimes even after they admit to a bug it will take them a year or more to fix it.

Much of this is not Bloggers fault. Writing a program is complicated work indeed. Not only do you have to build it, you must build it so that it works with PC's and with Mac's. Not an easy task. And then you have to also build it so that it works with Internet Explorer and Safari and FireFox and who knows how many other browsers.

Sometimes something will work with one browser but not with others. Such is the case with the lowly Favicon. When I added mine it worked immediately on FireFox but was no where to be seen on Safari. It took me  hours and hours and some tips I Googled on line to realize that it was showing up on other people's Safari, just not mine.

So much for stress free blogging. The main purpose of the Favicon is so that when you see my blog in some other bloggers blog roll, you'll immediately catch site of the blue "J" and the red "S" and know you're looking at the URL to Jack Scott's  Jblog. I think it was worth all the effort.

So many people that blog are so kind and helpful. Thanks to my friends and fellow bloggers, my picture blog is going to pass the 50,000 visitor mark sometime this weekend after only 5 months in existence. Visitors went from 3,000 in September to 21,000 in October after Artistry of Male, Dean at Guys Like Me and other friendly and helpful bloggers added my blog to their blog rolls. I'm thankful to all of them and I have added all the blogs these guys do to my own blog roll.

I am glad I blog about bisexual men. At least I get to include hot pictures in my blogs. That is a definite stress reliever. Well, it relieves some stress and creates other, I should say. But that's a good thing.

Thanks for all your support of my blogs. If you have not done so, I hope you become a member and a follower.


Jack Scott

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Thanatopsis


When I was in high school I discovered William Cullen Bryant's poem, "Thanatopsis." The poem which is a meditation on death became a favorite of mine. Though it spoke of death, it did so with a majestic acceptance of that which each of us must experience.

I was probably 14 or 15 years old at the time I first read the poem. Still very much young enough that I felt immortal and invincible. Death was only a remote terminus that I could hardly imagine. Yet, the seeming remoteness of my own death did not diminish my appreciation for the poem.

Almost five decades have now passed since I first read this poem. Death is no longer a remote possibility. Without the miracles of modern medicine, I would have faced it almost at decade ago. By the time one reaches my age, he has seen death many times. Classmates, friends, grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, not necessarily in the proper order, have all had their one rendezvous with death. I find in the experience of all this death and the realization that my own death is not longer remote, the poem is a comfort to me.

While its subject is often seen as morbid, the poem is really not morbid at all. It is instead, a recognition of the inevitability of death; yet an urgent call to life well lived.

I have spoken often in my blog of the fact that living life well as a married bisexual man is a most difficult thing. Male sexuality is a very complex thing. In my opinion, bisexuality is the most complex sexual issue a man can face. As bisexual men, we must overcome the denial some segments of our society still harbor about our very existence. We must overcome the scorn of those who see us as cheaters and liars who are only concerned with our own needs. Even without the overt condemnation of society, most of us must live with our own guilt, shame and self-hatred for years as we attempt to grow into an understanding and acceptance of ourselves for what we are. Many of us never reach the point of acceptance and self-understanding. It can be very illusive in a society where even those who are supposed to forgive others their trespasses and treat each man as his brother somehow find a way to make an exception to that requirement in the case of bisexual men.

Never-the-less, Bryant still calls us to a life well lived as he reminds us of the certain approach of our death. As a blogger about married men and their bisexuality and as a moderator of a group for married bisexual men, I have come into contact with a huge number of married bisexual and married homosexual men over the past fifteen years. Most of these contacts have been via the internet. A few have been personal contacts.

In all the contacts, I have had, I don't think I have ever met a married bisexual man who did not struggle in some way with his sexuality. Some have been lucky enough that their struggle was brief and fairly easy to manage. Others have lived in clinical depression for years because of their sexuality. Still others have become suicidal over the issue.

Unfortunately, among the thousands of men I have talked to regarding their bisexuality, only a minority have found a way to manage it in a way that brings them peace of mind, personal fulfillment and a sense of being whole while at the same time preserving their marriages and family ties.

I see this as tragic because I know men, including myself, who have been able to accomplish all of that and more. The compounding of the tragedy is that so many men I have met simply cannot bring themselves to really even try. They are simply overwhelmed by their fear, their guilt and their shame and they make a conscious,  yet unspoken decision to live out their lives in a dark closet.

The truth is one cannot change the fact that he is a bisexual man. He can change the way he sees himself as a bisexual man and the way he lives his life as a bisexual man. It takes courage, it takes help and it takes a sense of self esteem, but it can be done.

I spoke this morning via phone to a friend who lost everything he had, including his wife and sons, because of his sexuality. He spent years trying to figure it all out and put a new life in place for himself. Now in his 50's he has finally managed to do just that. He told me this morning that his only regret was all the years that passed in the struggle that cannot be retrieved now that he has found himself and happiness. All I could tell him was to be thankful for and look ahead to the years he has ahead of himself. True he lost many years, but his is a story of success. At least he tried and he over came. Those who will not or cannot bring themselves to even try are the tragic ones.

"Thanatopsis" is a reminder that we are all equal in life in that we all face uncertainties and trials. Even more, it is a reminder that we are not all equal in death. Some of us reach a point where we can look death in the eye and embrace it knowing we have lived our lives well. Other are overtaken by death still burdened with their fears, their uncertainties, their trials and their failures.

I urge each of you who have not come to a reconciliation with your sexuality to vow to do so as quickly as possible. Find a way to live your life well. There is unfortunately no one answer for how to do that. Each man is unique and in an essentially unique situation. Each man must answer for himself as to how he must live his life well, but each man can find a way to do it. The good news is there is help for you. Men who have won the struggle are usually eager to help others win it too.

The You Tube video below was taken from the internet and is a school project of a high school student.  Please watch it and listen to it and let it inspire you to a live well lived. For those of you who prefer to read the poem as well, it is printed below in its entirety.

My sincerest wishes to each of you for a life of harmony lived well.

Jack Scott


545 X 300

THANATOPSIS
by: William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)
      TO him who in the love of Nature holds
      Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
      A various language; for his gayer hours
      She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
      And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
      Into his darker musings, with a mild
      And healing sympathy, that steals away
      Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
      Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
      Over thy spirit, and sad images
      Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
      And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
      Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart;--
      Go forth, under the open sky, and list
      To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
      Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
      Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee
      The all-beholding sun shall see no more
      In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
      Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
      Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
      Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim
      Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
      And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
      Thine individual being, shalt thou go
      To mix for ever with the elements,
      To be a brother to the insensible rock,
      And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
      Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
      Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

       












      Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
      Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
      Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
      With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
      The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,
      Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
      All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
      Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,--the vales
      Stretching in pensive quietness between;
      The venerable woods; rivers that move
      In majesty, and the complaining brooks
      That make the meadows green; and, pour'd round all,
      Old Ocean's grey and melancholy waste,--
      Are but the solemn decorations all
      Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
      The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
      Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
      Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
      The globe are but a handful to the tribes
      That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings
      Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
      Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
      Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
      Save his own dashings--yet the dead are there:
      And millions in those solitudes, since first
      The flight of years began, have laid them down
      In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.
      So shalt thou rest: and what if thou withdraw
      In silence from the living, and no friend
      Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
      Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
      When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
      Plod on, and each one as before will chase
      His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
      Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
      And make their bed with thee. As the long train
      Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
      The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
      In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
      The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
      Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
      By those who in their turn shall follow them.
       
      So live, that when thy summons comes to join
      The innumerable caravan which moves
      To that mysterious realm where each shall take
      His chamber in the silent halls of death,
      Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
      Scourged by his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed
      By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
      Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
      About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.





"Thanatopsis" is reprinted from Yale Book of American Verse. Ed. Thomas R. Lounsbury. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1912.

Monday, November 21, 2011

What If I Had Known?

One of the hardest questions bisexual men have to deal with is whether or not to tell the woman in their lives about their bisexuality.

Today, when bisexuality is accepted by most experts as a normal variation in sexual expression and information about bisexuality is readily available on the internet and other sources, many young men who are anticipating marriage may already recognize they are bisexual men and be very concerned about what to say to the woman in their live, if anything, and how to say it.

For men who are already married and are 40 years old or older, their understanding of their own bisexuality might be something they themselves are just beginning to recognize and seeking to understand. What these men should tell their wives, if anything; and how they should tell them takes on significant and irreversible implications.

In my experience, I find men in either situation are conflicted about what they should do. More often than not, they are dealing with guilt about their bisexuality. They want to do the right thing, but overwhelming fear often leaves them not knowing exactly what the right thing is.

For a young man who has fallen in love, telling the woman he loves he is bisexual could cause her to back out of the relationship. For men who are already married to a wife whom they love, with families, professional lives, and status in their community, telling what they have come to know about their sexuality can possibly wreck their own life and that of their wife and children as well.

The open discussion of such things on the internet can be instrumental in helping either a young man just starting out or an older man with a wife and family to think through his own situation carefully and fully. Unfortunately, the discussion on the internet can also be conflicting and confusing. There are those who will tell bisexual men they have no ethical choice and no moral choice except to tell regardless of what the fallout may be. Others will take a more nuanced approach and stress to the bisexual men that each situation if essentially unique and that only they can decide what is best for their specific circumstance.

I tend to take the latter approach. Frankly, I consider myself to be a moral person, but I admit I have trouble with people who tend to see and insist on moral absolutes which they have defined for other people's lives. There are always people who are ready to decide what is moral for other people and more than willing to insist that people live by the moral absolutes that others have identified as proper.

The problem is, people who are quick to see moral or ethical absolutes are people who see the world only in black and white. To them, something is either good or it is bad. The truth is much more complex. The real world is almost always hued in shades of gray. Admittedly it might be easier if everything were either a black or a white issue. It simply isn't.

Unfortunately, in America today, Right Wing Christians are one group which is always ready to claim they have a lock on the moral high ground. They don't. This should be obvious even to Right Wing Christians, since there are millions of Christians scattered throughout the world in hundreds if not thousands of denominations and sects and all of them believing something different about how Christianity is supposed to work. The simple fact is Christian precepts are not black and white either. They come in all shades of gray.

In my experience, I have had friends who have been truthful and straight forward about their bisexuality and it has worked out well for them. I also have friends who, because they were truthful and straight forward, lost everything they had. These men invariably regret and grieve their losses.

In my own case, once I came to understand my bisexuality and recognize it for what it was, I told my wife. Fortunately, by that time our marriage was happy, strong and well grounded. It survived the telling with relatively few problems. I had counted on that being the case. My wife is a professional person and well educated. She is a psychotherapist who is involved almost daily in marriage counseling and sexual counseling. She is very much aware that homosexuality, bisexuality and even heterosexuality are not choices one makes. They are the result of some combination of genetic markers and nurture.

Telling my wife about my bisexuality actually helped me to understand it better. We talked about it over the course of many long and detailed conversations. In one of those conversations, she said something to me that had a great impact on me and an impact on the advice I give to others in a similar situation.

She said, she was glad I told her, but she was glad I hadn't told her before we married when we were 18 years old. She said we have a wonderful marriage and she is glad that we've been able to build the life we have together; however, had I told her at age 18, she wouldn't have understood, she wouldn't have married me, and knowing everything she knows now, she would regret not having married me.

In a lot of ways this makes sense. Most men who are bisexual or homosexual spend years trying to understand their sexuality and getting to a place where they can accept themselves as they are rather than as they would choose to be. It is almost always a long, hard and difficult process and these men are living that process every day.

Since it takes them so long to understand it and to accept it, is it any wonder that very few wives can understand it or accept it when it is suddenly thrust into their lives without warning of any kind?

Bisexual men come in for a great deal of scorn. Among the most scornful are women who have found out their husbands are bisexual. Almost always, the scornful women have allowed themselves to fall into a pit of self pity and anger. The whole situation becomes solely about them and what has been done to them. They never once stop to think about the agony their husbands have gone through, not to mention the fear and the self-hate.

For me, it was much different. One of the things that was hardest for my wife to deal with was the fact that we had been married for years and she had never noticed the pain I was in and the struggle I was having with my sexuality. She felt as if she had failed me by not noticing.

Certain people make a big deal these days out of marriage supposedly being between one man and one woman. The trouble is we make a big deal about that when it fits our purposes, but we don't really believe it. The majority of people have now been married at least twice. The majority of men and a huge percentage of women have had sexual affairs outside their marriages. Even many Christian pastors and church leaders are themselves divorced these days. We simply do not really believe in the sanctity of marriage unless we're beating someone else over the head with it. I may be a married bisexual man, but I can honestly say I've been married for almost 50 years to the same woman and we have loved each other all those years. Not a lot of people can say that regardless of their sexuality.

All this is not to say that anything goes. I don't believe that at all. Sexual activity these days can be very dangerous when one has multiple partners. One simply has to look at the statistics. Sexually transmittable diseases are sharply increasing. A bisexual or heterosexual man who has unsafe sex with another partner and then has sex with his wife has failed at recognizing the realities of life. But I think its safe to say that more heterosexual men are doing such things than are bisexual men. Bisexual men just come in for more scorn. It's almost like heterosexual men are just being men and doing what is more or less expected.

Over the years, I have come to realize that the experts who say that human sexuality is a continuum along a line from exclusive heterosexuality on one extreme to exclusive homosexuality on the other extreme are correct. In between these two poles, everyone else is aligned including bisexuals. The estimates of just how many men have some attraction to and/or sexual experience with other men vary greatly in various studies. In almost all studies the number of women who admit to same sex attraction and/or experience far outnumbers the percentage of males who admit to the same type of attractions. Given that society is more accepting of female same sex activity and much more likely to condemn such activity by men, most researchers suspect that probably both sexes under report their same sex attractions with men much more likely to refuse to admit such feelings or experience.

One recent study reported 42% of men reported same sex thoughts and/or experience after age 16. Other studies put the percentage of such men at only 18%. I personally suspect both percentages are lower than they would be if men were able to report their feelings and experiences without fear and guilt.

Outside the ranks of fundamental Christians who have a bias they can't or won't overcome, there is no doubt that bisexuality is a normal expression of human sexuality. As a married man who has successfully managed and experienced his bisexuality and who as an older man is reaching the point in life at which sexuality is more a memory than a reality, I can honestly say that I never felt at peace with myself and I never felt whole until I both understood my bisexuality and accepted it as a part of what made me myself.

I have lived the most fortunate of lives. Now that there are far more years behind me than those remaining before me, I have few regrets. If I could change anything, I guess my first thought would be to have my understanding and acceptance of my bisexuality come earlier in life. However, to wish such a thing brings the possibility that it would have actually changed my life for the worse.

When I was 18 and about to marry, one's sexuality was not something that could be discussed openly, especially if one was not heterosexual. I knew my life had been different from some, but on the other hand it had been normal too. In the small Texas town I grew up in almost all boys played. Those who didn't were considered the weird kids.

As it was, I didn't even know there was such a thing as bisexuality. I knew about homosexuality, but that didn't apply to me. I knew I was very much attracted sexually to women and especially to my future wife. At the time, I had come to see my homosexual activity throughout my life as nothing more than a substitute for heterosexual sex. I felt that with marriage and a beautiful woman in my bed each night, the desire for male/male sex would simply vanish.

What if I had known the desires wouldn't vanish? What would I have decided to tell the woman I planned to marry? I honestly don't know. It is a question I think about some times. By her own admission, she would have more than likely called off the engagement, depriving both me and her of a happy and successful marriages, preventing the birth of our children and grandchildren as the persons they are today. That would have been a tragic thing.

Life is always a challenge. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy to achieve. I have few regrets. There is little I would change if I could do it all over again. I can think of nothing worse than coming to the end of one's life and thinking only of what might have been and regretting the things I had missed in life.

What if I had known? I'm glad I didn't.

Jack Scott
Anyone can comment on what I write in this blog. Regretfully, the recent amount of spam in my email account as required that I reinstate the word verification process for comments which I personally hate.

But at the same time I have loosened the comment moderation process so that those of you who have a Google Blogger ID or other recognized blogger ID will no longer need to wait for your comment to be moderated. I'm hoping this will tempt you to take the trouble to comment.

The truth is I want respectful comments both from those who agree with me and those who do not. All I as is that you keep comments to the point, clean and non-threatenting.

I look forward to hearing from each of you.

Jack Scott