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Notes -
I don't really recall being teased or singled out for 'sissy behavior' beyond the general background radiation of homophobia throughout the 90s and early aughts, and there were times when I took part in it. I guess it might have been social pressure. By the time I was at the age I realized I was gay, me and my peers were mature enough to accept it.
Well, I am pretty masculine already. I work a job that is 99% straight men, and few people realize that I'm gay until I tell them. I lift weights but I'm not terribly accomplished at it - I don't feel like I obviously look like I lift weights. But of course, I do feel like I've missed out on some things - interests in cars and sports and stuff like that. I think nearly all gay men have a bit of a chip on their shoulder about their masculinity - consider all the gay men who have written extensively on the nature of masculinity from all sorts of perspectives, Yukio Mishima, Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, Jack Donovan. We fetishise masculinity and covet it because we feel excluded from it.
I'm not happy for fairly straightforward reasons. No relationship/family/career/achievements and at 31 little prospect of having any of these things. My own fault, of course, for reasons that go beyond my sexuality, which I've never experienced any kind of confusion or anxiety over.
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