About “Bent on Men”
“Bent on Men” is my memoir, a book where you can eavesdrop into my unguarded mind to understand what it’s like to be a Christian husband and father who came of age attracted to men. As a boy, I craved male affection and camaraderie but never found my footing in the world of boys. Secretly gay in a conservative Christian world, I compromised authenticity only to find shallow acceptance. Through unplanned and unlikely relationships, I discovered the transforming power of male love that reframed my obsessions, cravings, and curiosities, challenging everything I had come to accept about my masculinity and sexuality.
I released the book on October 21st, 2021 and it’s currently available on paperback and as an eBook on Amazon.
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Introduction
You would think that if the jury of our day was right, I’d be an embittered husband, trapped in a marriage with a woman I can’t love, untrue to who I am, gay. But the jury is out on recess for as long as you read this book, and I just want to say a few things.
My story is about the harrowing power of a shame-saturated identity. Mobs of disparate messages between ex-gay and gay pride movements have marched through my heart, troubling my faith and torturing my mind.
I was told that Christ had ordered a destiny of freedom; but I felt like some kind of exception to God’s grace. To stay in the faith, and in his church, felt like submission to living in a hostile guilt camp. But embracing the gay identity felt like walking into a world of fake freedom. I see some wear their gayness with pride, others with shame, and most with confusion.
I hope this book brings a bit of hope and clarity to the conversation. I intend it to be a criticism of classical definitions of love, friendship, and sexual orientation in favor of something better. I do not claim to be an expert on male sexuality. I claim to be a benefactor of a new life. Being male doesn’t make me anymore an expert on male sexuality than being female makes a woman a gynecologist, but I have a firm and unusual resolve about homosexuality.
You could say I’m gay, but I don’t think so. There is something else going on inside me besides wanting sex with men. What we call “gay” I instead think of as a massive wad of tangled desires. Sexuality, I hope, is more than just how my penis reacts to gendered bodies. I think it has a lot to do with how you think and what you believe. It is also malleable. This whole book tells you why I think sexuality is rooted in the psychosomatic and spiritual realms, and why I think orientation is just as malleable as the brain is plastic.
You might say I’m ex-gay; but most everything perceived about that camp isn’t true of me. Being ex-gay has never been met with such intense skepticism and disbelief. Today’s disciples of self-determined sexuality stigmatize the “ex-gay” experience as much as the church has historically stigmatized gay people. Champions of these “enlightened” views pity or discredit my experience. I’ve been told that as a gay man it would be impossible and destructive for me to pursue heterosexuality. Maybe that’s important to say given all the harm that’s been done through ex-gay therapies and movements. But the truth is — I didn’t directly devote myself to becoming heterosexual. I’m not even sure how one would do that. Instead, I pursued sexual wholeness, and while it seems to be rare for people in my boat, heterosexuality came along the way. To say that I was gay and now I’m straight would be an oversimplification of what took place in my life. I’ve never been to ex-gay camp. I’ve never had penile shock therapy. The revision of my sexuality started with one man’s faithful demonstration of love for me, was consummated through the cross, and is now enjoyed in homosocial relationships and a heterosexual marriage.
I stank of shame for years of my life, and my friends’ focused and intimate friendships toward me felt flagrant. In the end, the security from their love afforded me the opportunity to think differently about who I was and untangled the confusing cravings I had for men.
The church has been a messy place of pain and healing. We as Christians could be messaging the gospel rhythms of redemption and healing, but we have so disgustified gayness that anything like it has been demonized, most problematically the fellowship between men and even the male body. Nowadays boys follow up gestures with “no homo.” American men don’t hug, touch one another, hold hands, or do anything of the sort unless it’s disguised as violence or sport.
In my case, the opposite of being gay was not becoming straight. Instead, I reoriented my heart towards masculinity and men, freely pursuing what my heart longed to have in the way God ordered it for me to enjoy.
I’m writing this because today I live on the other side of shame.