Ego and Homosexuality

Ego and Homosexuality

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The Misconception of the

Definition "American" in the 21^st Century

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The Philosophy of the Artist

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Three Philosophical Essays

By Doron Braunshtein

a.k.a

Apollo Braun

Ego exists in every human being, but as much as one is comfortable in his own skin, he would not have the eagerness or even the need to be an exhibitionist, or, in other words, would not need or want to show his ego to the world. The ego, in the case of a man who feels whole, complete, and above all, comfortable with himself, will come out only in one-on-one relationships - with lovers, children, parents, and friends, who he cares for. This man would not need to or want to "show off" his egocentric behavior and actions to people whom he is not in a close relationship with.

Foreword

The connection between ego and homosexuality was always very clear and understood to me. As a man who defines his sexuality as an existing combination between homosexuality and heterosexuality and to the outside world, to simplify things, declares himself as a bisexual, I always felt that men who were connected to me (family members, friends and lovers), who were homosexual, always tended to show more of their ego on the outside. In my opinion, as I will explain in this thesis, their ego acts like a defense, a shell, and sometimes even as a real "weapon of protection", and in some more severe cases, as a weapon to use to attack others with, more than in the case of heterosexuals.

Ego exists in every human being, but as much as one is comfortable in his own skin, he would not have the eagerness or even the need to be an exhibitionist, or, in other words, would not need or want to show his ego to the world. The ego, in the case of a man who feels whole, complete, and above all, comfortable with himself, will come out only in one-on-one relationships - with lovers, children, parents, and friends, who he cares for. This man would not need to or want to "show off" his egocentric behavior and actions to people whom he is not in a close relationship with.

The homosexual, on the other hand, will find his ego to be helpful (without understanding the depth of its destructiveness) and it "saves him" in times that the homosexual wants to believe that nothing else can.

The homosexual will not be referred in this thesis as gay – a word I find repulsive (in more ways than I can explain) for the simple reason that none of the homosexual men I met in my lifetime were really gay or happy on the inside. On the contrary. Sadness played a major role in their egocentric behavior, which disconnected them from their most important connection to their own self.

The mistake of understanding the internal self of the homosexual without understanding the importance of his ego, plus the destructiveness of the ego when it is covering its existing behavior on the self, will be examined in this thesis.

The female homosexual, who in modern times is known as the lesbian, is not included in the definition "homosexual" and is not studied for this thesis.

I decided to focus my thesis on the feminine homosexual, the one who will be defined as the "passive", or the "bottom". I truly believe that the feminine homosexual versus the "masculine" homosexual – has more need to be in touch with his ego in order to keep himself strong, to help him to hide his real self, and to shelter himself from the criticism and pain that can come towards him from both the homosexual and the heterosexual worlds.

In other words, in many ways the ego keeps the feminine homosexual alive, and, as I will explain in this thesis, the ego expresses itself by strong acts of individualism, acts of ambition and rebellion against society and its rules.

Chapter 1

The homosexual develops his ego in early childhood. If we put aside the family of the homosexual and focus our minds on the society which is surrounding the young feminine homosexual (from ages 6 to 11), we will find in most cases a harsh society of children, regardless if the homosexual lives in an open-minded or closed-minded group, if in a big city or a small town, a society of children is a society of children anywhere in the world, and children, as we know, are honest, real, and do not have the "filters" that adults in most cases have.

Every feminine homosexual will have passed a harsh childhood caused by a society of children who abused him on this or that level. Children, especially when in a group, do not understand the behavior of a male child who is different, or in this case, homosexual, and do not understand the meaning of homosexuality or the definition of homosexuality, at that age.

The society of children can "smell" that something is wrong with the feminine homosexual child (at least to their heterosexual opinion). The homosexual child is not interested in sports like them and does not care for their "heterosexual/male" hobbies and habits. From an early age the feminine homosexual will find himself isolated from most heterosexual males. In some cases he will find more interest in the company of young females (at an age when most male children find girls "too different", "strange", "annoying", and to some degree, "disgusting"), and in extreme cases (which will reflect on his need and use of ego), from the age 16 and throughout his life he will prefer to be alone.

Already disappointed from the society of children that in his young mind will be already developed, even if not by the word itself, to the definition of "society", that is: in the mind of the young homosexual this is a group of people regardless of their age. In most cases, the feminine homosexual, in any place where he might live as a young child, will be the subject of jokes and abuse, which can come in many ways: verbal abuse, physical abuse, and even, in extreme cases, sexual abuse.

One of the three adult feminine homosexuals in New York City who I interviewed for this thesis in 2008 was named Andrew T. He said to me that he could not forget a childhood memory of an event that happened to him when he was 10 years old. Five bullies, as he defined them, from his school, a year older than himself, pushed him into a restroom, locked the door behind them and shoved their penises one after the other into his ears, eyes, and in the end into his mouth, forcing him for the first time in his life to perform oral sex on another male – in this case on five males together. Andrew remembers this case as one of the biggest traumas of his childhood, crying and begging them to stop but they didn't listen to him, while saying "You are a girl, do what girls do". In the end they kicked him in the testicles while one of them said "You don't need them anyhow" and shoved his head into the toilet. Andrew remembers himself as a 10-year old crying hysterically and then running home and not coming back to school for a week, refusing to explain to anyone, not even to his mother, the reason for this. Only years later he spoke about it with a therapist and up till today (he is 37 years old as of 2008), oral sex is a sexual act that he does not like to perform. He will only do it when in a relationship, or when he feels self-hate and wants to abuse himself.

After this extreme incident, Andrew recalls that he started from that week, at the age of 10 years old, to understand in his child's mind, that if he wanted to "survive" (as he calls it), he would have to develop some characteristics that would take away from people's minds the fact that he was "different" from the other boys at school, and that he was more feminine than the others. One day, in the same month of that sexual incident, Andrew recalls walking with his mother into a bookstore and finding a book about magic. He asked his mother to buy him the book, and the rest is history.

Andrew found comfort and help in learning to perform simple magic tricks which, to his classmates, looked like "real miracles", and for him this became a weapon to hide his femininity by becoming something that put him in front of everybody, on a stage, as a magician.

"I believe that I did it mostly because I didn't have anything to lose at the time", said Andrew today. "I didn't have any friends and socially I was isolated. Who would want to have the most unpopular kid at school as his friend?". But the magic helped him. He felt that the jokes still came towards him, "but a little bit less", he remembers, "and for the first time in my life I gained some respect."

"Did you feel your ego responding when you performed in front of your class?", I asked.

"At the time, I didn't understand what the words "ego" or "homosexuality" meant. I just found myself being looked at like I knew something that the other kids didn't know. The card tricks, the other magic tricks, the outfit that I wore, these were things that the other kids didn't know how to do. Maybe they were even jealous. Some asked me to teach them some tricks. I was still "Andrew the girl" but this time the other kids started treating me like a human being and not like a kid from outer space."

"It sure sounds like magic to me", I said.

"Now we can sit here and laugh about it", Andrew said with his eyes closed. "but then it was real magic."