A child comes into this world knowing one thing... it is loved by its parents, in particular its mother.
Innocent and void of intellect, the child knows this instinctively, intuitively.
If a child is beaten, then it knows that love consists of being beaten.
Unfortunately, too many of us have been raised with a bizarre package of signals as to what love is. A beating, followed by a sincere apology, followed by a hug, followed by rape.
Then we leave home and go out to find the same thing. Then we marry it.
Left with a handful of children abused by my father, my mother had a hard life -- raising us and working (my wealthy criminal father never made a single alimony payment).
This left her unable to express any love or tenderness she may have felt for us. Her own bitterness and resentment preoccupied her.
I remember one warm, tender moment -- my brother's hot sweaty body on top of me. No one ever found out. There was neither repercussion nor unfavorable reaction.
On the other hand, when one of my brothers was discovered enjoying a girl's body, I listened from under my blankets to the beating he got. I was sure my mother was going to kill him. There was no doubt in my mind. My brother was minutes from becoming a corpse.
One of my mother's oft-expressed attitudes was about "bad" girls -- those who would consent to, or worse, enjoy sex.
Conclusion
The conclusion I drew was obvious. Sex with a woman comes with a death penalty. It's dirty and only available from tramps.
Sex with a man, on the other hand, was warm and comfy with no unfavorable reaction. Nobody in our family ever talked openly about same-gender relationships, so no other opinion pre-empted the one I acquired by experience.
Post-Script
Figuring out all of this, as simple as it sounds, has been painful and has taken decades.
I have been called a faggot by the brother who gave me my free introductory lesson to the experience. It only occurred to me recently how absurd this is.
As I "found" myself -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- I realized that I am as much a man as any of my older brothers.
How much of a man do you have to be to beat, shoot, ridicule and abuse your kid brother?
I now have a new improved idea of what a man is.
It has yet to happen, but occasionally I wonder if I won't someday get a phone call from one of them...
"Hey, bro', how ya' doin'? I just sent the ole lady down to cash the pension check. Ya know, I'm just sittin' around here in the ole rockin' chair thinkin'...
"Ya remember the time I shot you? Well, I was just thinking maybe that wasn't such a nice thing to do."
So far, nothing even remotely like this has happened. Just denial that gets deeper as the years go by and the senility sets in.
