Yo, Yo, Dude!

As a writer, I try to embrace some popular stereotypes to use as quick and humorous literary devices and I use them often – like a good malapropism (are you a Jew or a Genital?) or a word that begins in k, like Kazakhstan. Or anything from Northern Arizona. In doing so, I accept the un-PC nature and the consequences inherent in there use. In short, stereotypes can be quick, to the point, and make people laugh.

I also, picture this, piss people off (my second least favorite “P”word). Just because I am okay with a well placed humorous stereotype does not mean that everyone else it so enjoys. (funny sentence)

Examples: A man eating pant-suit wearing Hillary. It might anger, but you get it quickly.

Tighter than my mother in law at a yard sale. My wife may not laugh.

Flannel wearing gun toting bubba. Not so funny to my dad's best friend, Bubba.

Here's a new one. The gay promiscuous Peter priesthood. Here-to known as the PPP Ouch! Been there, done everybody.

Now, I feel like I can use this stereotype because I have been one in the past – like I can use Arizona stereotypes cause I'm from there, or BYU jokes cause I am a Zoobie. I know "us" from the inside out. There was a time when I was as promiscuous as ...a really promiscuous dude. I learned it at the Y, perfected it out in the world, and before I contacted AIDS or had my wanger fall off, I stopped.

I made another choice. Currently I am a homosexual Mormon man, but I do not live a gay lifestyle. This for me means that I have sex with my wife when we have it, and no one else. I do not pretend that all is well in Zion by day and rule Babylon at night. Please understand, newbies, that there are those who do this still.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong in so many ways. It was wrong when I did it, and it is still wrong. I understand the feelings that lead a guy to do this, but it is wrong.

So what does a homosexual Mormon guy do? You can't find the right guy and marry him and then enjoy a full sex life. Mormon men don't marry men. One can't hold the priesthood and marry another man. And these are not my rules.

Back in what was a very dark time for me - one way by day, another by night - I didn't feel like I had enough information to make a choice, that I was not smart enough or important enough to get the help I wanted. I went from being a sex-fiend to trying to be holy, to holy than thou, to no one gets me to sex dude again.

I have read some of the blogs that talk about this cycle, and I know it too well. We want to do right, we get depressed with the dichotomy, we have sex and more sex, we feel guilty, we try to do right again...

This was my cycle. It continued until I stopped it. Wanna know how I stopped it?

It was simple as pie. You are thinking that I am going to say that I started reading the scriptures. That I prayed the gay away. That I got a blessing and then suddenly... Nope.

I started drinking.

I figured that I was boffing half the guys at BYU, so how was a wine cooler going to make it worst for me in hell? No chair? A room with no view? Amazingly enough, I felt worse about the drinking! So, now my cycle was to have sex or to drink and then try to be good. I changed mine by 33.33%! When I wasn't having sex, I was thrilled that at least I wasn't drinking, and when I wasn't drinking, I was happy not to be getting it on with some anonymous guy I would never see again. And then I tried to go dry from both while I tried to be “good”. My cycle was just as disruptive – only bigger this time and more diverse.

Now, at this point I am sure to have offended several of you for one of several reasons. I tend to be a multipurpose offender. I am not saying that these are the choices everyone has at their disposal. I am saying that these are the choices I felt I had to choose from: Sex, numbness, or on the church wagon.

To get out of this cycle I had to deal with the underlining cause. Of course, I had to understand the underlining cause in order to deal with it. I am still understanding. I am still dealing. I still have no answers but one: I had to include the Lord.

Sometimes I still want a drink. But I don't drink any more. Haven't for some time now. Sometimes I still want a night of anonymous sex. I don't do that any more. I haven't for some time now.

Most of the time I want to be worthy to hold the priesthood with worthy hands.

This I can do.