I have no formal education in the fields of psychiatry or psychology – this essay is merely an exploration of my own experiences as a person with mental illness. A person who sprained their ankle
Above: Edvard Munch, "Melancholy" (1892.) As a child, I think I was a bit of a dreamer. My father and mother worked to exhaustion, trying to give their children a better life. And my siblings,
In a recent interview, James Martin, S.J., clearly implied (by repeating gay-advocacy talking-points) that language in “The Catechism of the Catholic Church” directly contributes to the high level of teen suicides among LGBT young people. [Interviewer] Well
Above: Hugh Steers, "Breathing" (1987). There exists today a massive crisis within the “gay” community that is a direct result of the intense trauma, particularly in “gay” men, experienced during the height of AIDS epidemic.
(Above: Scene from the 2016 film "The Lost City of Z.") “Surely I was made for some other purpose than this?” – Evelyn Waugh, “Brideshead Revisited” I was the last one born into my family.
Marble Torso of a God or Athlete, Roman Imperial, circa 1st/2nd Century A.D. In 1989, I walked into the world famous Castro District of San Francisco as a disaffected young man of almost nineteen years
According to the CDC: “Anal sex is the riskiest type of sex for getting or transmitting HIV.” Causes “immunosuppression…” …the immunosuppression in homosexual males that is reported even in apparently healthy or HTLV-III-antibody-negative groups may
Once I looked into the hole of hell. It was opened wide as if by a massive speculum. And what I saw inside was beautiful. Then, only for a mere second, I could see everything.
(Above: “The Prodigal Son” by Nikolay Losev, late-19th Century.) "The Holy Spirit is not an artist who draws the divine substance in us, as though he were alien to it. It is not in this
(Pictured above: the gay god Antinous.) The gay god: “When he first came to New York he used to stay for days, and wanted to live there; the Baths were a kind of paradise. But
Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (collectively referred to as MSM) are at increased risk for STDs, including antimicrobial resistant gonorrhea, when compared to women and exclusively heterosexual men. Because STDs,
(Above: Detail from "The Shower After the Battle" by Alexandre Alexandrovitch Deineka, 1944.) For some “gay” men, one of the most traumatic memories of high-school is the embarrassing and uncomfortable experience of gym class and
“We conducted a meta-analysis to summarize rates of sexually transmitted infections among men who have sex with men (MSM) on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV versus MSM not using PrEP. Incidence rate ratios showed that
Although the number of HIV infections among “gay” men in San Francisco have decreased, there are also disturbing and dramatic increases in sexual transmitted infections including rectal gonorrhea and syphilis. The drop in HIV infections
For the first time in its long history, the 2013 and 2014 National Health Interview Survey included a question on sexual orientation, providing health information on sexual minorities from one of the nation’s leading health
A new study of “gay” men who recently relocated to New York City, from both outside the country and within the US, revealed that: “Participants described encountering an abundance of sexual opportunity in New York
According to a study in Sweden: “The risk of suicide was higher among same-sex married individuals as compared to different-sex married individuals…Among same-sex married men the suicide risk was nearly three-fold greater as compared to
St. Alexius of Rome lived from about 410-460 AD; this period was at the heart of cultural, social, and political collapse in the already waning Roman Empire; during this period, as a whole, Rome was
(Pictured above: Comunidad's Marie Cartier at the Hollywood Cemetery.) In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, at St. Matthew’s Catholic Parish in Long Beach, is headquartered an outreach to lesbian and gay Catholics, called Comunidad. A
Recently, the actor, model, and teen-idol Colton Haynes, most famous for appearing in the hit TV shows “Teen Wolf” and “Arrow,” came-out as “gay.” Born in Kansas in 1988, Haynes and his family relocated to
“And Jesus said: Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more.” (John 8:11) “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within
For years, since the beginning of the AIDS crisis, diverse voices have been calling for a radical remaking of “gay” male culture away from the swinging sex of the 1970s into a more domesticated phase
As with all sorts of obsessive compulsions and addictions, there is a constant descent into a numbing world of pervasive boredom and dissatisfaction. Saint John of the Cross understood this phenomenon as stemming from a
The LGBTQ community at the Catholic University of San Diego will sponsor “PRIDE’s Celebration of Gender Expression: Supreme Drag Superstar V” on April 14, 2016. The “drag show” is described by the organizers as an:
A recent Canadian study published in the “American Journal of Public Health” come from more than 220,000 Canadians who participated in the Canadian Community Health Survey between 2007 and 2012. The study found that gay
“For years, psychology and psychiatry have bandied around theories that homosexuality is caused by parental personality types -- the dominant female, the weak male -- or by the absence of same-gender role models. Those theories
“The trouble was that, by definition, you had a gay male subculture in which there was nothing to moderate the utterly male values that were being adulated more religiously than any macho heterosexual could imagine,
The HIV disease burden, relative to the size of the “gay” male population, is of tremendous magnitude. “Compared to other men and women, for the two HIV disease metrics, MSM rates were 38 to 75
According to a recent a U.S. study, anal sex may be linked to an increased risk of incontinence, particularly among men who have sex with men. Researchers analyzed national health survey data from 6,150 adults
“I love dad/son role play and working with a great therapist came to be able to listen to my own internal compass and dismiss outside judgment. I am most comfortable with younger men. There is
(Pictured above: self-portraits by "gay" child abuse survivor Francis Bacon.) St. John Paul II once said: “…the Gospel speaks clearly. Christ not only took pity on the sick and healed many of them, restoring health
Unbeknownst to me at the time, my first real “gay” relationship was also my first foray into homosexual “monogamy.” Then, I wasn’t consciously looking for anything long term, but because I was a so lonely,
According to the CDC, across the full decade examined (2005-2014), the annual number of HIV diagnoses in the United States declined by 19%. This decrease was most marked by steep declines among heterosexuals (35%) and
“…the assumption that monogamy is the foundation to a successful relationship is far from universal among gay and bisexual men, and may in fact be a minority opinion.” A large survey of 4215 gay and
(Pictured - Left to Right: Fathers Dan McCarthy, Bernárd Lynch, John J. McNeill, and Robert Carter marching with Dignity/New York in an early 1980s “Gay” Pride Parade.) In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association made the
The common denominator among all “gay” men is a childhood usually filled with some sort of alienation, inadequacy, pain, neglect, and or abuse. A number of them have experienced all of these emotions, others just
In 1999, I took my last drive out of San Francisco as a “gay” man. After a particularly hard night of sex and partying, I was vomiting up blood and thought I was near death.
