Being gay is not a sexual orientation

Hello,

With my research on Gay Men’s Identities I recently won the People’s Choice Award at the university finals of the Three Minute Thesis Competition at the University of Edinburgh. This competition was created by The University of Queensland with the aim of communicating widely and effectively the research conducted by PhD students around the world.

Being at the last stages of my PhD motivated me to participate in this competition because I thought, first of all, that I had enough material to actually know what my main argument was. Simultaneously,  this would help me to organize my thoughts and synthesize the contents of my work in the time frame that the competition requires: three minutes. But finally and most importantly, I wanted to share with a broader audience what I have come across during my research: that being gay is not the same than being homosexual and that gay is a term more complex than it could apparently seem.

This is the video of my participation in the competition and you can see the transcription below, so if you’re interested you could think with me or discuss with me what are your thoughts on the topic.

Thanks for reading, Edgar.

 

“I’m homosexual and I’m afraid
About what my future will be
And that people won’t like me.”
For the project ‘Humans of New York’,
This boy shared his story last year
With photographer Brandon Stanton,
Who collects stories and provides glimpses
Into the lives of strangers in New York City.
20 years ago I also believed that I was homosexual,
And I was very afraid of facing the world with that label.
It didn’t take me long to understand what homosexuality means
But now I’m interested in understanding what ‘being gay’ means.

[Difference between sexual orientation and gay identity]
Over five decades, psychology has defined homosexuality
And crafted the term ‘sexual orientation’.
But many of us have abandoned the label ‘homosexual’ long ago.
Because it has a history of pathologization and illegality
That reduces people’s subjectivities to a sexual aspect.
That’s why I think of ‘gay identities’ instead.

[Literature Review]
Research in this area has focused on the influence of broader social aspects such as: (1) national politics,
(2) The impact of mass media on the construction of gay identity,
(3) And the homosexual-heterosexual dichotomy.
The public portrayal of gay men is highly sexualized,
Often centred on phallocentric sex.

But I’m guessing that this boy,
While trying to understand his identity,
Was thinking about something else,
Not only sex, perhaps not even sex.

[Research Question and Methodology]
As in a personal odyssey across the UK
I travelled cities and towns
Listening to gay men’s narratives.
Through face to face, in-depth, unstructured interviews
I explored gay men’s experiences of erotic and romantic intimacy
And how through them we make sense of our identity

[What I’ve seen so far…]
Men from various ages and backgrounds told me
That ‘being gay’ means a hundred different things
Completely unrelated to sexual activity.
Being gay can mean (1) having had to leave home
When your mum turned her back on you
Because you love someone you were not supposed to love
(2) A history of loving in secret and years of oppression
–And that’s why this research is important;
Because a better understanding helps to eradicate
The verbal, emotional, and physical violence
That generations of gay people have experienced throughout their lives–
But being gay also means
(3) Intimacy and togetherness, and
(4) Delight in the eye candy
Looking at guys who never looked back;
And most importantly:
(5) There’s a suggestion
That through erotic and romantic relationships
These men are trying to make sense of their lives in a way they couldn’t before;
As if when looking for lovers,
They were looking for meanings.
Because when these men actually look back and reciprocate our desire,
Serve as an element to validate our identity and corroborate our very own existence.

Understanding gay men’s identities | Invitation to participate in research

I am Edgar Rodríguez, I have identified myself as a gay man for several years. During this time I have been interested in understanding what ‘being gay’ actually means to gay men.

Erotic and romantic relationships have particularly attracted my attention because they seem to be central to the understanding of gay identity. This observation made me want to explore how gay men talk about their experiences of sexual and romantic intimacy, and try to understand how through them they (we) make sense of their (our) identity.

Perhaps you are interested in these topics too, perhaps you would like to talk about them too. If that is the case I want to invite you to take part in my research.

If you are interested in participating, please take a few minutes to read the following information before making up your mind about whether or not you would like to help me with my study.

‘The Kiss of Life’ by Rocco Morabito

What is the purpose of the study?

This is a research project which will help me to complete my PhD in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Edinburgh.

The main goal of my research is to get an understanding of how gay men get a sense of their identity through listening to their stories of romantic and erotic relationships.

I want to interview men who identify themselves as gay and discuss with them their experiences of sex and love and the meanings, thoughts, and feelings derived from those experiences.

Who can participate?

If you identify yourself as a gay man, are travelling to or based in the UK, are at least 16 years old, are able to communicate in English, have experienced sexual desire towards men, and have participated in or longed for a romantic relationship,  I invite you to participate in this study.

What will I do if I take part?

If you are happy to contribute to my research I will ask you to meet for a one to one interview session which I will audio-record.

Although in this interview there are no pre-established questions and I expect the conversation to develop naturally with your input on topics of your erotic and romantic relationships, some examples of the themes we may talk about are (but not limited or compelled to):

• People you have been in love with.
• Circumstances in which you feel sexual desire.
• Relationships you have been involved in.
• Your thoughts when you start to have a crush on someone.
• The meanings that being single or partnered has for you.
• Thoughts about your identity coming from sexual experiences you have had or fantasized.
• Experiences of sex or relationships that have gone well or not so well.
• Important episodes of your love and/or sex life.
• The meanings that being gay has for you.
• The role sex and relationships play in your sense of yourself as a gay man.

The interview is expected to last approximately 90 minutes but of course this will depend on you, on the time available, and on the conversation itself. Some interviews can be shorter whereas others can extend a bit.

We will make arrangements to meet in a venue of your preference as long as it is private to facilitate communication. When we meet I will ask you to read and sign a consent form and return it to me. In that form I will expand on your rights as a participant and the details of the research.

If you do not wish to participate you do not have to do anything in response to this request.

What are the possible risks of taking part?

Whilst there are not significant risks attached to this research, sometimes a research interview about intimate subjects like these can bring up unexpected feelings, or the interview can leave you realizing that you need to talk more about something. If this happens to you, or if you need emotional support, I will share some details of available sources which offer telephone and face to face consultation, and other relevant services.

What are the possible benefits of taking part?

Whilst there may be no personal benefits to your participation in this study, by helping me with this interview, the information you provide can contribute to develop knowledge about gay men’s identities and their (our) relationships.

Although your participation will not be remunerated, some participants find the opportunity of conversing about their experiences rewarding.

What will happen to the results of the research study?

Firstly, what you have to say about your erotic and romantic relationships could make an important contribution to my research!

I expect to publish the results of this study on my PhD thesis, I also expect to publish them in articles in academic journals, and presentations at academic conferences. If you decide to take part and want to know about the findings, I will make a summary of the preliminary findings available to you. We will talk about the time to get that preliminary analysis when we meet.

Will my taking part in the study be kept confidential?

As I will ask you to talk about intimate topics of romance and sex, you may be concerned about the confidentiality of your personal details.

I will keep confidential all potentially identifying information provided by you by anonymizing those aspects, e.g. no personal details relating to who you are, where you live or work will be disclosed to anyone.

I will keep all the information you provide on a password-protected computer and secure cloud storage. I will be the only person having access to the audio recordings. My supervisors will have access to the transcriptions of our interview but under no circumstances I will disclose responses that make you identifiable.

When I finish my thesis and publish articles, I will only make public information emanating from the interview in such a way that no participant will be identified.

Who is organising the research?

I am conducting this research as my PhD project and I am supervised by Seamus Prior and Jonathan Wyatt. I am undertaking my research at the School of Health in Social Science at the University of Edinburgh with funding from the CONACYT (Mexican Council for Science and Technology).

How can I take part in this research?

If you feel you would like to be part of this research or you would like to know more, please email me and I will get back to you shortly (contacting me to ask questions does not obligate you to participate in the study).

Edgar Rodríguez Sánchez | PhD student

Counselling and Psychotherapy, University of Edinburgh

Email: e.rodriguez-3@sms.ed.ac.uk

If you have any questions about the validity of this study, you might want to contact my supervisors:

Seamus Prior:

seamus.prior@ed.ac.uk

Jonathan Wyatt:

jonathan.wyatt@ed.ac.uk

If you know someone who would be able to participate, please feel free to share this information with them. Thanks and I hope to hear from you!

Edgar

‘Caravaggio was right!’ A love story of a single man

“He’s the most astonishing man England has given to the world!

He’s beefy; clever, sharp, and witty; fair hair, soft as silk;

with beautiful legs and white skin; delicate like a daffodil!”

“Power is an Illusion” picture by Ilona Suojanen https://wordstressless.wordpress.com/2015/07/15/1594/

 

This Wednesday 10th February at 6:00PM at Adam House Theatre, in number 3 of Chambers St, we’re staging “Caravaggio was right! A love story of a single man”; this is part of the “RAG Week Edinburgh”, a series of events where all the money earned is donated to charity. If you come and watch it, your donation will be helping people who live with HIV. Theatre for a positive cause!

A 50 minutes performance that aims to engage the audience in a hilarious but unnerving story of two men who are in love but cannot be together. ‘Amor Vincit Omnia’, a beautiful painting of triumphant Cupid by Caravaggio, is the focal point for a discussion between JoseGuillermo, a Mexican poet; Melanie, a psychoanalyst with questionable ethics; and Edmundo, a young soldier who tries to convince us that the painter was right, because love conquers all. Decided to avoid the depression of a life reduced to love letters, poems, and recollections of the time when his romance was not a dream, JoseGuillermo wants to satiate his desire through multiple erotic encounters with random men.

Join Marta Bernal, Gordon Houston, and Edgar Rodríguez in this story of relationships and commitment!

*

Suggested pieces to accompany this love story, “I’m not dying of love: I’m dying of you” by Jaime Sabines, and Bod Dylan’s “To make you feel my love”.

Being gay is more than “a sexual orientation”

By Edgar Rodríguez Sánchez

It’s 2015. Lesbians, gay men, and a growing group of allies commemorate and celebrate 42 years of a freer sexuality. This hasn’t been always this way, however.

Feighner, J. P., et al. (1972). “Diagnostic criteria for use in psychiatric research.” Archives of General Psychiatry 26(1): 57-63.

As an object of historical, scientific, and cultural interest, in the image above (an extract from the archives of general psychiatry) you can read the diagnostic criteria for use in psychiatric research regarding homosexuality. It was 1972, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, then in its 2^nd edition, still classified homosexuality as a mental disorder.

Over four decades, contemporary psychology has defined homosexuality in terms of the behaviour, attraction, relationships, and the sex of the person that someone has as their object of desire. Although the understanding of homosexuality has become more complex, it is still professional mental health associations the ones in charge of establishing what it means to be homosexual.

Fortunately, many of us, people who identify ourselves as gay, have abandoned the label “homosexual” long, long, long ago. And some others have even abandoned or refused to use the word gay or any other, because we believe it is us who should say who we are, not an association of professionals.

In spite of the empowerment we’ve gained to define ourselves, some still use the term “sexual orientation”. I used to say “my sexual orientation is gay”. But to know ‘who’s gay and who’s not’, researchers try to answer the question by focusing, normally, on a single component of sexual orientation at one point in time. For example, if the person has same-sex relationships or if they identify themselves as gay. Although common, this strategy might not contemplate same-sex oriented individuals who, perhaps haven’t engaged in sexual relationships yet, and includes some people who have same-sex sexual relationships but identify themselves as heterosexuals.

I can see the research community has started to appreciate a more complex way of understanding what is to be gay. However, most professionals still call “sexual orientation” to the erotic and romantic attractions people feel for people of a particular gender. This professional knowledge has dominated the field, to the point that the term eventually permeated the general public and more and more people believe that being gay is a “sexual orientation”. I want to challenge that assumption. How could we pack all the meanings that being gay has for gay people in the term “sexual orientation”?

I argue that the term “sexual orientation” lacks contents to describe what “being gay” means. “Sexual orientation” reduces a number of elements which are part of people’s subjectivities to a sexual aspect. I think of “identities” instead.

Identities are defined by multiple elements, one of those is the interaction with other individuals who serve as points of comparison to appreciate, assess, and value aspects of the own self. The presence of other people who share with us a common history serves as an element to validate our past, and furthermore, their presence corroborates our identity. Identity encompasses a series of aspects, a hundred of different things completely unrelated to to sexual activity. Being gay can mean having had to leave home, it can mean a history of hiding lovers and partners, it can mean having to come out several times, it can mean having strengthen a relationship with mum and dad, it can mean a sense of pride for having symbolically defied the  world and having won.

Just to bring two examples of the aspects the term “gay” can encompass, I will say that “being gay” can be seen from a collective perspective and also from an intimate perspective. For some people, being gay might involve a shared perception of being part of the same group; a process of “identification” with others who are “like us”. Identification describes a process which justifies certain attachments to a group; it can touch upon language, cultural expressions, behaviours, geography, and a number of elements that can constitute a collective identity. Although I acknowledge gay men are not a homogeneous group, needless to say the so called LGBT population, I think the idea of a collective identity helps us for political purposes. For instance, when different countries have fought for marriage equality, this collective identity serves to present ourselves to the rest of the world and say “this is us, fighting for what is important for our cause”. It doesn’t mean we’re homogeneous, but it means we are connected and can carry the same flag.

Besides this sense of belonging to a broader culture, which is more important is that, by thinking of identity instead of sexual orientation, we make room for subjectivity and diversity. I refer here to an intimate identity, to a very personal one which is inaccessible to everyone else. This argument would bring me to talk about “identities”, rather than of a single “identity” or a master theory that groups individuals in the same category.

“Catching Up on Oneself” by Carlos Barahona Possollo.

Since I became interested in this theme 15 years ago, I have talked with many people about this topic and the ways in which they experience and narrate what being gay means to them. Those meanings are way far from definitions given by text books and psychiatric manuals. One of the privileges I have as a researcher on identity is that, while listening to people I’ve also seen myself reflected in their stories. Some of the people I’ve talked to have passed by very briefly; an interview, a conversation, a talk in a conference, a random encounter, but although ephemeral exchanges, I’ve learnt from them that they (we) must be the ones in charge of defining what being gay means to them (us). And then professional associations can listen to what they (we) have to say and engage in a dialogue to foster understanding.

The meanings people give to being gay have been coloured, I am happy to say, not only by the traditional colours of the rainbow, but also by black, brown, blue, grey, olive, hazel, and green colours. Colours I have seen in the eyes of the men who have struggled, but also come to terms with their identities; just like ‘the unfinished man’ W. B. Yeats talked about in his poem ‘dialogue of self and soul’. “The unfinished man and his pain, brought face to face with his own clumsiness”.

These gay men I’ve talked to during my research inquiries, have understood, or are trying to understand, the social and cultural aspects of this collective identity but also in their private worlds. This understanding of their inner worlds, from what I’ve seen, is always a process, sometimes painful, sometimes not so much, sometimes not at all.

“Get me to the moon” by Manuel Moncayo.

Recommended readings:

Feighner, J. P., et al. (1972). “Diagnostic criteria for use in psychiatric research.” Archives of General Psychiatry 26(1): 57-63.

Gray, A. and S. Desmarais (2014). “Not all one and the same: Sexual identity, activism, and collective self-esteem.” Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality 23(2): 116-122.

Savin-Williams, R. C. (2009). How Many Gays Are There? It Depends. Contemporary perspectives on lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities [electronic resource]. D. A. Hope. New York, Springer. 54: 5-42.

Yuval-Davis, N. (2011). The politics of belonging : intersectional contestations. London, Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

 

 

‘Purple’ at the Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival

Described by James as ‘a very ambitious play’ and by Samuel as ‘a play where every character does things wrong’. For me, as its writer, purple is a story about getting lost in life, finding my way through telling stories, and returning the Hope Diamond to Earth, where it belongs.

I’m Edgar Rodríguez, a doctoral researcher in the field of counselling and psychotherapy and I’m trying to understand aspects of identity and relationships between gay men. I’ve written and directed amateur theatre for 15 years in Mexico, but purple is my first original play written in English.

***

A cruel rejection which happened long ago has twisted a naïve love into a fearsome need for revenge. Julian is hurt by knowing that with his revenge he’ll hurt Stéphan, but for him there’s no other apparent solution to the affront he was object of.

They see love in each other’s eyes, they see beauty in each other, and they talk so proudly about each other. The term ‘lovers’ insufficiently describes the undisputed role they have in their respective lives and how special and meaningful they’re.

This theatrical fantasia challenges the boundaries of gender and identity. Here, youth is the highest currency, a Ferrari is a suitable present for a third anniversary, Stéphan finally makes sense of love in his fifties, and an act of forgiveness consumes nine lives.

***

“How would you embody on stage the essence of a time traveller?” –I asked.

“But we all are time travellers, aren’t we?” –Niall said.

Niall is a young actor from London, he auditioned for the role of Julian (the almost handsome but uncontestably glamorous guy who conquers Stéphan’s heart). During the audition we talked about how Julian manages to defy, not only the over-surveilled boundaries of gender but also the seemingly impenetrable boundaries of time. How does he do it? It’s not superpowers, one doesn’t need superpowers to travel in time. ‘We all have frozen time and repeated passages of our lives again and again’ –Niall told. And I agreed, I’ve done it several times. That’s actually how this play emerged; through my constant journeys to future, present, and past; by sewing rags of a broken relationship I’ve revisited until exhaustion.

Although it’s my third original play, it’s the most meaningful one, and the one in which I’ve dared to experiment and play with themes which are more personal, more intimate; themes I’m more engaged with, both intellectually and emotionally. Years have passed, years might have changed the way in which I see the pitiful end of an amazing relationship, but only I know how much I travelled in time, how much I went back to the days we spent together. And then, when trying to understand what happened to the love story I lived, purple was born and with its text it healed my tortuous narrative.

But it’s not only my personal background put there on the play; inspired by Murakami’s ‘Kafka on the shore’ and ‘Jordan the Edinburgh Library Cat’, I added some magic and created an endearing talking cat who guides Julian while finding his purpose in life. By being playful with the text I discovered that I wasn’t just elaborating my love story. Through the writing process I discovered I wasn’t travelling in time just to make sense of my past relationship; I was travelling to accomplish a more meaningful task. I realized Julian hadn’t come to this world just to fall in love, he had spent an eternity travelling because he needed to reach something beyond his personal interest. He was part of an event that comes for the restitution of some overriding principles. One of them is love, but in his case it wasn’t love towards a person.

***

Premiered this February during the Innovative Learning Week and sponsored by The University of Edinburgh, we had a captivating debate with our audience. We staged this play as a way to create a space for intellectual inquiring, involvement in innovative learning, reflecting about diversity, and engagement in alternative communication methods. At that point in time, some parts of the text felt absolutely right, I felt some other things needed to be developed. And now we’re here, staging it for the second time with a cast that is generously sponsoring me with their time, energy, and creative input to make this production an enjoyable one. Come along and talk with us about passion, love, gender, relationships, and the meanings we give to our lives.

http://www.tracscotland.org/scottish-storytelling-centre/centre-events/4097/purple

 

Suggested readings in connection to ‘purple’:

• Blando, J. A. (2001). “Twice Hidden: Older Gay and Lesbian Couples, Friends, and Intimacy.” Generations 25(2): 87-89.

Focuses on lesbian and gay men relationships in later life; how expressions of intimacy among older gay men and lesbians are perceived; dynamics underlying successful lesbian relationships; and stressors that affect intimacy among older lesbians and gay men.

• Heaphy, B. (2007). “Sexualities, Gender and Ageing: Resources and Social Change.” Current Sociology 55(2): 193-210.

The issue of sexuality is under-studied in the sociology of ageing. This article advocates placing sexuality at the centre of our analyses of ageing and later life in late modernity, by illustrating the issue of non-heterosexual ageing. The article employs personal narratives of lesbians and gay men aged between their fifties and eighties to demonstrate the importance of material, social and cultural resources in shaping their negotiations of ageing and later life.