Per your inquiry ihere is the text of his purported sex line message
The tone (in audio playback) of the message is direct, and very “by the way” with little emotional content. It’s almost as if he’s looking for canoeing or tennis partner. I think his sexuality and his political beliefs and posture(s) are strongly compartmentalized on an almost Clintonesque level.
It is very difficult for me to imagine that someone who advertises seeking a man to perform oral sex on, and to return the favor, cannot picture himself at least as bisexual.
I’ve heard people say things like, “Oh, I was in denial,” regarding their sexuality. I had always assumed that meant, “I wanted to have sex with men, but suppressed the urge and didn’t acknowledge it.” I have a lot more trouble accepting “denial” if you are actively seeking (and apparently having) same-sex encounters… there doesn’t seem to be any way to sustain the “denial.”
But what do I know? Maybe this is, in fact, common.
Sam may actually have a point.
A friend of my son’s whom he and I counseled a few years back had an interesting collection of problems, including a drinking problem. Sober, he was very much into young women, to the point of fixating and obsessing on the girl he had fallen for. But when he got drunk, he wanted to get blowjobs from gay men, and sometimes to give blowjobs to them.
But he deemed himself straight: “What I do when I’m drunk isn’t really me.”
Well, uh…
Common, yes.
One very controversial example:
On the Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of “Straight” Black Men Who Sleep with Men. Even now, I suspect a very small percentage of gay people is comfortable being out and proud. Even to themselves.
Denial is potent. I’ve been out for 9 years, and I still catch myself trying to be straight. I’m still ashamed if I think of how my parents must feel (they’re both open and supportive). We live in a victim culture. We’re great at hypocrisy. Impulses and temptations are not our fault.
This reminds me of the anti-abortionists who have abortions. Maybe it’s about wanting the ideal society for everyone else but feeling you’re too weak to achieve it in your personal life. Maybe it’s about being so twisted up inside you can convince yourself that you’re different than “the other.” It’s probably mostly about being terrified and out of control.
More reading on the American male’s relationship with sex and oppression. I think it’s all at least tangentally related to the experience of Schrock. I do have sympathy. He’s 60. What kind of life has he led? How awful it has been for himself and for all of us he affected.
Polycarp, your eloquence and simpleness expresses my point far better than all of my worldly citations.
However, I’m inappropriately reminded of Buffy.
WILLOW: It’s horrible! That’s me as a vampire? I’m so evil and… skanky. And I think I’m kinda gay.
BUFFY: Willow, just remember, a vampire’s personality has nothing to do with the person it was.
ANGEL: Well, actually…
Oh, it happens plenty. When Hamish was struggling through being a gay teen at an evil high school, two of his friends were sleeping together for quite some time, and a number of people knew it. Nevertheless they both identified as straight… “but don’t tell Jared,” one pleaded, “or he won’t want to sleep with me anymore.”
One of them later came out. The other didn’t. sigh
Well, for one thing, seeing him on TV further weakened any feeble notion I may have had about possessing “gaydar”. Whatever it is gay men look like, he doesn’t. I know, that makes no sense, but this sort of thing seldom does.
And maybe he isn’t so much “anti-gay” as he is “pro-hate”.
See, I just don’t… I don’t GET this. What would one of them say if you had pointed out that he was having sex with another male, and he wanted to keep having sex with another male? He might respond that he liked girls as well, but then it would seem that BIsexual is the right term. What was the internal logic?
Bricker , I think you’re looking for an “internal logic” where one doesn’t exist.
Being gay is so stigmatized that it is nigh on impossible for some people to admit to themselves (much less anyone else) that they are, in fact, gay. While some strides have been made in the acceptance of gay people, there’s still a tremendous amount of homophobia in this country.
My wife, who is a psychotherapist, has many, many clients who are wrestling with sexual identity issues - both men and women. Almost to a person, they’re terrified of what their parents, siblings, friends, and children are going to think of them and how they’ll react. “Logic” has nothing to do with it.
Bricker, I have been told on the SDMB that who you have sex with is part of your gender. And you get to define your gender any way you want.
So, AFAICT, those who outed this Congressman were horribly, horribly wrong to try to force him into their preconceived roles. He is perfectly free to define himself as a straight male who occasionally has sex with men.
I think. It may only count for transsexuals.
Regards,
Shodan
Another rationalization (“when you rationalize, you tell yourself a ‘rational lie’”) used is that the participants are only seeking physical release - there isn’t any emotional component, therefore they aren’t “gay.”
I don’t understand it - I just report it.
It’s cool to hear someone say, basically, “why doesn’t he just think of himself as bisexual and be done with it?” If more people had that response, it wouldn’t be such a huge goddamn problem.
But that’s not what we hear. For years, over and over again, we keep hearing that it’s wrong, weak, perverted, evil, sinful, promiscuous, gross, and a disease. That if you’re gay, you’re less than a man or not a true woman. That it’s not “real,” that it’s all just about lust, that it’s not on the same level as a “true” relationship. And now that we as a society have become truly enlightented, it’s softened up to, “Well, okay, maybe it’s not so bad to want to do those things, but for the love of God, just don’t do them!!!” And it just means that if you do choose to indulge yourself in your little perversion, then you’re forfeiting your right to marriage, having children, or having respect for whatever else you’re able to accomplish.
People say that if you’re gay, that defines who you are. So if you do feel homosexual attraction, you’re forced to figure out what it means to you. “Denial” isn’t really the right word for it – you can only really deny it and repress it for so long. astro was closer with the term “compartmentalization.” Once you’re “gay” or “bisexual,” you have to (in your imagination, anyway) start acting a certain way, living your life a certain way, have a certain set of values, tolerate people treating you a certain way, and give up everything you were looking forward to in your “normal” life.
So your thinking goes from “Well, it’s just a phase” to “Okay, it’s not a phase, but it doesn’t mean anything” to “Okay, well then I have these thoughts, but it’ll be fine as long as I don’t act on them” to “Okay, well I acted on it but it was just that one time” to “Okay, well it’ll be fine as long as I stop doing it” to “Okay, well, I just need to find the right person,” to “Okay, well I’ll just be celibate” to “Okay, well that didn’t work,” to “Okay, well it’ll be fine as long as I act straight and don’t ever, ever tell anyone.” Anything to avoid having to think of yourself as one of them.
There are plenty of unfortunate terms like that. “Pride” implies that you’re proud of being gay, when actually you’re just proud of yourself overall and not ashamed of being gay. “Coming out” implies that the biggest part of it is telling other people that you’re gay, when actually the biggest part is being comfortable enough with it yourself that you don’t mind telling other people. (And of course, just by saying that, I’ve become part of the Gay Agenda again, forcing politically-correct terms down people’s throats.)
Nice try.
If he wants to think of himself as a straight male who likes dick, bully for him.
If he wants to think of me as a second-class citizen who isn’t entitled to marriage or equal recognition in the eyes of the law just because I like dick, as his voting record indicates, that’s where I have a big problem.
It’s only “horribly, horribly wrong” to out the guy if you think that people knowing you’re a guy who likes other guys is a “horrible horrible” thing. Again according to his voting record, he does believe that it’s a horrible thing and should be repressed and denied. Why is that, Ed? Why is it okay for you to smoke hog but it’s wrong when I want to do it? Is it because you can “pass for straight?” Is it because you’re cheating on your wife? Is it because you have empty, meaningless, promiscuous sex with dudes you meet over the phone?
See, some of us don’t see it as such a bad thing to be a homo. But we still think that it’s wrong to be a hypocrite.
I’m constantly being quoted passages from the Bible to show me how I’m a pervert and less of a man; am I allowed to quote from the Bible, too? I seem to remember a bit about “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
Um…no.
That’s a six page thread ya linked to there, Shodan. Want to narrow down the field a little bit so the rest of us have some sort of clue what you’re talking about?
I don’t think that Otto was denying that someone had said that to you.
I think he was opposing the idea that “who you have sex with is part of your gender.”
So is it the love or the sex that makes one an abomination unto the Lord? 
It’s the sex that supposedly makes it an abomination unto the Lord. It’s the emotional component that makes it an abomination unto the Holy Doctrine of Manliness.
In other words, (and I’m not making this up…I’ve seen enough of it to know) it’s okay to get your dick sucked by a guy if you’ve gone without real sex for a while, but kissing’s right out. Again, not making it up. I’ve had guys who would go so far as to ask me to be the top in anal sex, but refused to kiss me because it would make them “gay”.
Might want to be a bit more specific. Somewhere, sometime, on this board, I’ve been told practically everything under the sun, including about superintelligent giant squids possessing clear title to all the dry land on Earth. So are you talking about what someone told you here once, or are you talking about the apparent consensus opinion of posters here who weren’t just passing through for a few posts before being banned?
What Sol said.
The mind boggles…
I’m a straight male, and an unrepentant fornicator. I’m single, and an atheist, so there’re no vows or religion to offend or violate.
If Bill Clinton had inveighed against people like me, and tried to enact penalties, I would have been screaming for his fall when Monicagate became public.
Since he didn’t, he was a mere shame.
Enjoy your retirement Congressman.