I remembered something that seemed to have peculiar significance. I had once had a dream I shared with my shrink before I was married. I was in a video parlor – the same one I had shot cocaine in many times, and every door had a ‘glory hole’ that was cut in the outer portion of the door, and out of each hole hung a penis, all different shapes, sizes and colors. The situation did not appear unattractive. When my shrink suggested the homosexual message here, I became defensive.
He responded with: “Oh, c’mon!”
I was unable to get beyond the surface admission that yes, I had engaged in homosexual activities, but somehow the uncanny anxiety had something to do with him, although I had no sexual lust for the shrink. I was still too psychotic with irrational fear to discuss this very thing with him, for I feared how ashamed I was to appear exactly in this light. It appeared to me at some level, that the mere fear that I might have – or think I might have – lust for the shrink, was enough to so paralyze me, so that I was unable to speak of these matters further. It was a matter of being afraid he would think poorly of me for sharing such things; that my “standing” in his eyes would be diminished. It was just a phantom at the gate, turning me away in fear of the fear. The same dread, awe and loathing that stands all our gates. It was enough; keeping me from journeying down a path that might shed some light on itself.
I went easily into my thoughts, my mind games, rationalizing that I had, after all, spoken of my homosexual trysts, and therefore, could certainly not be considered guilty of living in denial. I had even tried to brag that I was never interested in hand-holding or kissing a man, and had never had an emotional relationship with another man, to which my shrink countered with something along the lines of ‘mores the pity,’ which I very reluctantly – and only after many years - came to see applied (at the very least) to Rick of my youth.
It was easy to tell myself that I was fed up with shrinks, anyway. Also, I couldn’t afford one anymore. There was a telephone number that I could call, however, to express myself along these lines at a reduced rate.
Press one... Press two if… Press three if you’re... Press four if you’re a… Press five if you’re a man looking to speak to a…
Pressing five, I always wondered if they were really transsexuals. Was there any point in acknowledging these people on the other end were probably not really shemales, but most likely women acting that way when they saw what line you rang in on? I told myself it probably didn’t matter… I guess.
The voice was kind of she-male, however; gravelly feminine, cynical, a little nasty.
“Yes?”
“Are you a transsexual?”
“Yes, I am honey, what do you need, baby?”
“I think I need to be kind of… maybe, like… controlled, I guess, like, uhh, well, kinda’ maybe directed, dressed to please and made to, uh, serve?”
“What’s your name, baby?”
“Elle.”
“What are you wearing, Elle?”
“A black peignoir over a silver camisole, with black satin panties and nylons,” I lied.
“I’m Alana, and I’m going to tell you what to do. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Alana.”
“Do you have a dildo?”
“No.”
“Elle, the next time you call me, I want you to have one with you. You should be practicing how to suck my dick and you should be practicing putting it up your cute little ass. Do you understand?”
“Yes…Alana, you’re not going to.. to…to punish me for not having one, are you?”
“Oh… you are going to wish you had pleased me when you were supposed to… I’m going to spank you, and I’m going to make you do things for me and my friends that you won’t forget for a long time... (beat) Are you on your hands and knees?”
“Uh, no…”
“Get on your knees now, Elle.”
“I am now, Yes.”
“I’m going to spank you and I want you to spank yourself as I do it.”
“Whack!” Sounds come over the phone.
“OK, put your lips, just your lips, up against the bulge in my panties. Don’t you dare touch it; I haven’t given you permission to touch it yet. Just your lips, you understand?”
“Yes…”
“Yes, who?”
“Yes, Alana.”
“You can feel how big I am, can’t you?”
“Oh, yes, yes…”
“Take my panties off with your teeth.”
“Are you dragging them off?”
“Yes, Alana.”
“Come up now. Get on your knees in front of my dick. I’ve got something big and thick for you to put in your mouth. Place your mouth over the head, just the head. Are you doing that?”
“Oh, Alana, don’t make me… do I have to…”
“Oh yes, you are going to suck my dick, and after I come in your mouth I’m going to spank you, and then some friends of mine are gonna fuck you so hard you won’t walk right for a week. Don’t you dare hesitate with me again…”
“Please don’t be mad,” I whimper. “I… I’m doing it...”
“Uhhmm, you do that good, Elle, take it down, all the way down your throat. I don’t care if you gag or choke when I come in your sweet little mouth Elle, in fact I hope you do. Cause you’re still going to swallow every drop, do you understand me? Just moan deep in your throat to signify you understand.”
“Mmmm…Oh yes, you are so big…”
“Elle, I told you just moan! You stopped sucking me to speak! Now you’re really gonna pay! Lie down on your bed face down, stretch out your hands, I’m tying your wrists and ankles to the bedposts… and I’m calling in my friends, five big black dudes, and I’m putting a little pillow under you so your little ass is tilted right up for us, and we’re going to spank you and fuck you all night long, You understand, little girl?”
“I’m almost there… I’m coming, Oh G-d, I can’t believe I’m doing this!!!”
As I frantically shut off the handset to lay in the afterglow, I was swept with realization of the depths I was compulsively seeking in these humiliating, submissive fantasies. Awareness of this realization gave birth to another layer of discovery: Along with the understanding that I was realizing more the full nature of this sexual hunger, I came to see the necessity of believing that there must be all kinds of behaviors in my non-sexual life being thus affected by these tendencies. I sense a ‘see-saw’ imagery of awareness of sexual fantasies on the one hand, relating to reflections of its motivation in my non-sexual life. The born-loser who always snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the game of life.
There was a sense that I had been somehow hiding these propensities in the manner in which awareness of my own fantasies was somehow curtailed. When “into it,” it seemed that on the road to delivery, the driver held a scrunched up, squinty-eyed submergence into purely sexual consciousness, but that now, with the sound of my own words still hanging loud in the room, the signposts were not only being seen clearly, but I accepted the responsibility of becoming aware of them. They were out on the big stage, as it were.
Call it epiphany, a greater awareness from the meditation, but here for the first time there was a reason not to ignore them. That while in the past I had always hunched into a denial of my devotion to these imaginings, it was now time to confront them. Did my harboring these objects of worship reflect the ‘feet-of-clay’ inherent in my so-called born again experience?
This sense of “you can’t run from it now” hadn’t existed before. While I thought it must be the shocking experience of hearing my own voice still ringing from the out-loud telephone conversation, I would soon come to see something else was playing a part. But at the time, I was persuaded only that I was free to pursue what I believed I was sexually: I must be gay. For sixteen tormented years I tried to work out as a “normal” husband, using fantasies that I was in a female role in order to have heterosexual sex. So, obviously, I must be gay.
* * *
I continued to try to get through the first side of the meditation tape. I tried it again. Oh, this is stupid. But wait, my thoughts are repeating the words I’m hearing, but if I make an effort to be aware of even these repeating thoughts, they disappear as well, and…then there is a flash of something new. A literal expansion of “consciousness.”
‘Wait a minute. What is this? Insistent thoughts are in my head trying to get me to do something else. Anything else. Stand up and leave the room again! In other words, words were coming into my head telling me to do things just like he was warning me about on the tape message! How can that be? He’s not here! How can he know what’s going on in my head?’
Ten minutes later found me on my way to the kitchen again wondering what I was doing. The suggestion was made in my mind that I should stand in front of the refrigerator looking for something to eat. Later, while trying to meditate again, I was reminded that there might be dirty dishes in the sink; as if I ever cared about that! I had been sitting upstairs trying to meditate a few moments ago. How can this be? I’m the mental giant here. What’s going on? Feeling strangely – and suddenly – brave, I returned to the cassette. I sat down, pushed play, and made it about thirty seconds before my mind took off just like he said it would, and then in five more minutes I found myself starting to get up to look for my shoes, again a victim of another one of my own mind games; this time a reminder of some groceries I “needed” to buy. What the hell is going on here!?! The “not me” of HS Sullivan was starting to get the light of awareness brought to it through the simple decision to be “aware.”
Words, emotions and imagination all carry with them the ego’s power to entangle you. You cannot possibly improve your overall situation using thoughts in your head. It is not unlike a swamp with quicksand, in which the more you dip your toe in to study the terrain, the greater the likelihood you will be pulled down into it. If you try to think about your own sexuality you will often find yourself pulled right into its atmosphere of lust.
When you meditate, the concentration of “judging the distance,” brings the light of consciousness to bear on these words, emotions and imaginations which arise in your mind. You can observe this while creating an objectivity which is of a higher consciousness and of a different quality. Judging, or estimating the changing distance between the back of your hand and the center of the forehead brings a dimensionality other than that of the Jungian shadow – or personal unconscious – or ‘not-me’ (which is comprised of imaginings, words and emotions outside your normal consciousness), and the shadow elements not only are exposed to the light of your objectivity, but, upon exposure, cease to have that amount of strength over you that they had before the experience. A higher power will meet you here, allowing your consciousness more light over these previously dark provinces. Sullivan points out (while healing schizophrenics without anti-psychotic meds), that it is this ‘special’ opportunity to reintegrate what was beforehand omitted from awareness that is so important.
Eventually, you may experience a contortion of your facial and/or body features as “something” ultimately leaves you and that which plagued and troubled you all your life is no longer present, or at least not to the degree that it was before. Draw what conclusions you may, but that power is the power of the true faith that religion has not only seldom known, but actively prevents you from finding due to its own ignorance. These are the real exorcisms that may take place by yourself through your own commitment to G-d. I believe you will get to a point where you see things about yourself rising up before your objective consciousness that will be too much for your conscience to deal with. It is an intensely painful and private moment, and its consummation demands a power higher than your own.
Your thoughts will not give you up easily. You are in for a fight. A fight whether you’re a university professor or the janitor who cleans the classroom. Beggar or billionaire, this is your time. There is no place to run. Whether you acknowledge it or not, it is. He is the creator, and we are the created. This is the bag we are all in. Life is all there is, and He is all there is eternally. It is really the only game in town, and we play by His rules whether we believe we do or not.
But unlike the mystified repairman trying to get something broken to run right and is therefore suddenly happy to find out what’s wrong with the darn thing, we run from finding out what’s wrong with ourselves. We want to remain a god unto ourselves: a god who craps.
