We were not identical twins, although our parents used to treat us as if we were. I used to say to people, my twin is blue-eyed and left handed, I am brown-eyed and right handed – and that’s only the start of our differences.

While at this school I was approached several times by girls, who would ask me to take them out on a date, but I always declined, being too embarrassed and, for some reason I could not understand at that time, not being in the least interested in them. It was because of this disinterest, while at the same time having some interest – not sexual, I add – in the boys around me, that I began to wonder why I was so different. I spent many years trying to find out, and then eventually getting the answer. It too me many more years before I could accept it of myself, and even more years after that before I dared mention it to anyone.

I hated every minute of it and took the first legal opportunity to get out and further my education through night school and in-house training at work.

My father particularly approved of my going to work at that age, as it meant I could contribute to the household expenditure from my salary – at that time all of $5 a week! But, not deterred, he still insisted on me giving $2.50 a week to “offset” my expense as “no-one can live anywhere free”. This 50% deduction of my salary continued right up to the time I left home, some 15 years later, by when I was earning a much larger amount.

However, that was later. Back to my teens and twenties, which for me were a time of confusion. Not sexually, since it as not an issue that I was preoccupied with, but one more of loneliness. I used to go for long walks, alone, occupied with my thoughts. My twin brother once told me that several former schoolmates had greeted me on the street, when they’d seen me walking by, but such was my preoccupation with my thoughts that I never noticed them. They would complain to my brother that I was stand-offish, aloof or distant.

To be continued…

Unfortunately the Americans missionaries also believed that homosexuality is a sin, right out of the top drawer of Satan’s archives. So the missionaries spent much of their time excoriating gays and all their “Sodom and Gomorrah” practices. Having done their good deed for the day, the missionaries returned home, presumably satisfied at their work.

However, with the Ugandans accepting all what was said by them, events took a different and ugly turn. A government minister decided to introduce a bill whereby homosexuality would be banned and anyone found to be practising it would be put to death. The bill was passed unanimously, and has yet to be vetoed.

In fact, there is a man languishing in a Ugandan jail at the moment, awaiting the death penalty.  Go to ?cl=473933741&v=5370 and sign the petition. Maybe it will do some good and get the man freed and the bill revoked.

More information at: article.asp?ID=22761 and gideon-byamugisha-homosexuality-bill and human-rights-impact-assessment-ugandas-anti-homosexuality-bill-sylvia-tamal

Don’t be yet another sympathizer who stands idly by.

The Independent writer Patrick Strudwick went to several “alternative psychologists” who claimed they could “cure” Gay people and set them on the path to straightness and – what’s more – their fees could be reimbursed, initially, by the NHS. (Through a little duplicity, of course, in co-operation with the “patient” and a willing local GP.)

It seems there are still those on the fringes of the medical fraternity, as well as fundamentalist Christians (see article “Fundamentally wrong”) who believe that being homosexual is a lifestyle choice, rather like putting on a pair of socks each morning.

Do these people really believe that each morning a homosexual stands before a mirror and says, ” Yes! Today I’m gonna be a Gay person!” and that the day before, or the next day, they will resume their normal garb and become straight?

Despite all that has been written, said and medically proven, these ostriches of sexuality perversely insist that, if we really wanted to, then we could be just like the next man or woman (as long as we were not standing in a Gay bar, presumably!).

We are now in the 21st century. Anyone who has studied history will acknowledge that homosexuality isn’t something that appeared suddenly in the Swinging Sixties.

There were reports, some time ago, that Otzi, the Ice-Age man found in the mountains (%C3%96tzi_the_Iceman) had sperm in his anus, although quite why scientists would be looking their was never explained!

It is time these “lifestyle choice” proponents accepted a reality. We are all unique – why, even if you look at the fingers of your hand, you will see each finger has different prints!

For more on the conversion therapy, go to: the-exgay-files-the-bizarre-world-of-gaytostraight-conversion-1884947.html and http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/02/02/nhs-paying-for-ex-gay-therapy/

A natural reaction from any parent, one would have thought. But no! The Daily Wail, forever on the trail of doing down Brown, in accordance with the wishes of the majority of its readership, casts cynical aspersions upon the event, accusing Gordon and Sarah of deliberately milking the interview for the purpose of gaining votes at the forthcoming General Election, now expected in early May.

What is so wrong with our society that people immediately suspect duplicitous reasons behind grief? Has everyone become so suspicious of conspiracy theories that nothing can now can accepted at face value? Do we all have to question and re-question everything all the time?

It seems the answer is yes. How sad.

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Children are always (or nearly always!) full of curiosity. They need to know, and that is alright for it is all part of the learning process. So it is not surprising that once a child learns that their “down below” is different to a person of the opposite sex, they want to discover exactly how different. Of course, if the child has brothers or sisters, and when young would bath together, then the “curiosity factor” would have been long gone by the time they reach puberty.

But it is not just a case of seeing how “the other half look”. Because boys, being what they are, will often want to make comparisons of proportions and general appearance. This is known as “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine”. It sometimes worked. (Was it a precursor to homosexual tendencies, I wonder?)

Two pupils in America, a girl of 13 and a boy of 12, were “playing” the same game, but this time, using modern technology – the mobile phone.  It is called sexual texting, or sexting, to give it its more modern appellation. Unfortunately the girl’s phone rang during class and the teacher confiscated the phone. The girl asked if she could delete something on it first but was refused. The teacher, suspecting something untoward, took the phone to the police, who found a “sexually explicit” picture from her boyfriend. The children may now be prosecuted for distributing underage pornographic literature, the justification being that if it got out around the school, the families and neighbours would get to know.

Well, if they didn’t before, they will now. And it is likely the children could be registered for life as sexual offenders. What a great start in life!

Read the full story at when-nanny-is-there-all-sex-is-unsafe.html

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The US is getting itself into a right state on whether the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for Gays in the military should be abandoned or continue. Not, of course, that any politician would dare admit to homophobia! But there are a number of right-wing Republicans and fundamentalist Christians who are having a great struggle with their conscience. They obviously don’t know their history: Ancient Greek warriors always went to war with their boy-lovers. Their opponents always knew this and so made a point of trying to kill the boy first, thereby demoralizing the warrior, and the opponents having a greater chance of victory.

But the Greeks weren’t the first, and doubtless won’t be the last. And let us not forget Alexander the Great. He achieved that title for more than just conquering territory!

For more on this see: 07rich.html?ref=opinion and watch?v=aotlEpmAFVQ

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Some time back, I went to a psychiatrist because I felt I was suffering from an inferiority complex. After many sessions (and much expense) he eventually told me: “Nik, don’t worry, you do not have an inferiority complex. It’s just that you are inferior.”

]]> http://gayabandon.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/of-this-and-that-some-random-thoughts/feed/ 0 Nik http://gayabandon.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/going-to-the-dogs/ http://gayabandon.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/going-to-the-dogs/#comments Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:13:03 +0000 Nik http://gayabandon.wordpress.com/?p=22 ]]> As children, my brothers and I were not allowed to keep pets. The most obvious pet required by us was, of course, a dog. However, my father eventually conceded on two separate occasions to bring a dog into the house, but in both cases it was short-lived. After a month or so he gave them away, claiming it was not possible for the dog to identify who was the master; with so many of us calling the dog’s name at the same time it was getting confused.

Now that I’m much older and have had more experience of our canine friends, I dare to think it was possibly those dogs’ attraction to the one who fed them – my mother – that irked my father. As a Yorkshireman, my father very much ruled the roost and always expected the family to fall in line, no questions asked!

It is interesting to reflect that when his three sons left home, at one time or another we all acquired dogs of our own. It maybe a reflection on what was missing in our youth – unquestioning loyalty and love?

It was after being in Dubai for a few years that I decided to get a dog – a spur-of-the-moment decision that I never regretted. I saw an advertisement in the local newspaper stating that an English couple were returning to the UK and wanted someone to take ownership of a dog, a neutered Saluki/Labrador cross of about about a year old. I went to visit the couple. The dog, who was called Billy, and I immediately bonded. He remained with me for 18 years.

The first thing I decided upon was not to change his name. I reasoned that a change of ownership was traumatic enough, but changing his name would be ultra confusing for him.

They say you always remember you first love. Is it true also of your first dog? Certainly there can be few other animals who show such love and commitment to their owner as a dog. They sense when you are down and need to be cheered up; they readily forgive on the rare occasion it might be necessary to (verbally) reprimand them. And Billy showed this to me all the time he was with me, during some of the loneliest and hardest times of my life. (More anon.)

I have used the term “owner” of Billy, but it is not one I like to use. I prefer to think of it as Billy allowing me to look after him, a companion animal – with me as his companion. After all, there are times when he could have freely run away and never returned (as happened with a dog that was found and I later acquired). I also believe that if you make a commitment to look after a companion animal, then it should be life-long, providing it with all the TLC needed, as well as proper food and shelter and veterinary care. Otherwise, don’t bother keeping such companions.

Over time, I will tell more of my adventures with Billy and, when he’d gone, my other dogs, Brandy and Gizmo.

It would be nice to say something like, “In this day and age, youngsters don’t know how lucky they are, as there is so much information out there (internet, films, TV, counselling services, etc.) that it is easier to determine ones sexuality. But. I find, it is not so. It seems it still depends on where you live and the environment in which you are brought up. I still read of anxious youth not knowing if they are Gay or not, not knowing where to find the answers, and not able to tell their friends or parents and siblings.

To paraphrase a cliche – been there, done that.

I didn’t “know” I was a homosexual until my late teens. In those days the word gay meant happy, not an effeminate man. And when you looked up the word, homosexual, in the dictionary, you’d discover that it was “a person attracted to another of the same sex; a perversion.

Even medical dictionaries would describe it in the same way. Some going on to say that it was a temporary phenomenon experienced by prepubescent and pubescent teens of both sexes, an attraction that passed once gaining maturity and adulthood. This was something that would be repeated to me many years later. But more of that anon.

So, at the age of about 13, all I knew was that I didn’t have any girlfriends, although many of my school colleagues did, and were raving about some girls who were more “accessible” than others, but then equally, I didn’t have any “boy friends”. And here, I’m not meaning those that I had any sexual attraction to. I was a loner, having few friends at all.

I was born the youngest of three brothers. The second oldest was my twin, beating me into the world by, I believe something like 45 minutes. I also have a brother who is four years older than me; we are all war babies – World War II, that is.

My twin brother and I went to the same schools, except for two years, 12 and 13, but after insistence from my parents, we were both put into the same school, a co-educational, mixed school, which was the first of its type at the time. It ran secondary schooling and grammar schooling, boys and girls, and the system was ultimately to be called “comprehensive”.

But more of that later.