As a youth, guilt was a frequent shadow in my consideration of my orientation. It led me to doubt my sexual orientation: could it be that I was interested in men, like I thought, or did I simply have a urge for gratification?
When I walked carefully about the topic of LGBTQ+ identity in discussions with previous lovers, more than once it was made clear to me that attraction to multiple genders was an undesirable characteristic for a male to have. The discomfort piled on. But still my hidden desires remained. It wasn’t just males I dreamed about, it was the idea of varied power dynamics, of multiple bodies, of being understood.
I think my parent had an influence to do with this. He turned into a controlling, and at times violent, addict by my adolescence, and I began to link habits, anger and overindulgence with him. My yearning for intimate discovery felt like the initial phases of the type of lustful manly urges that I knew could ruin lives. Thus I hid these feelings up.
This felt like a lost cause. I felt detached and wary of other men.
After some time, a few years ago, when I was 23, I transferred from the rural village I grew up in to London. I met diverse circles and observed that intimacy and affection could take alternative expressions. Yet if something like that was possible for me, it still seemed a distant. Then I heard Faith.
The album proved to be an era-defining record for the masses, however I was convinced it was composed personally for my experiences. The first three tracks – Faith, Father Figure, I Want Your Sex – confidently praise physical connection as a place of fun, bonding and understanding in periods of hurt and doubt. I was mesmerized.
In a later song, he expresses “’Cause, teacher, there are things that I don’t want to learn”. My thoughts returned to my initial sexual encounters with partners. They were anonymous and fleeting, and afterwards I would exit in a hurry, facing guilt, running away from the shadow of my own desires. As I listened, I regretted the way my embarrassment had deprived me of the growth opportunity of those experiences.
The often-overlooked Look at Your Hands felt like a reality check on that initial hearing. Throughout the lyrics, Michael cautions against accepting a life of suppression and everyday boredom. “I bet you don’t like your life,” he challenges his ex-lover. Might I have been also blindly approaching a future where I would look back on my young adulthood as a empty space of lost chances for self-exploration?
By the end of experiencing the album as if I was waking from a nightmare. It allowed me wipe away the confusion out of my eyes and understand that I had not a thing to be ashamed of, that my desire wasn’t something that needed to be controlled.
I started to talk honestly with my girlfriend about wishing to explore in new ways. She was supportive of my true self, and quickly we were applying for queer adult gatherings. I felt anxiety at initially – would I be identified as an outsider? But right away, I began conversing with like-minded attendees who embraced me immediately. It was hugely freeing, being enveloped by similar persons who have also conquered their guilt.
Now, my identity is a major part of who I am. Intimacy is self-acceptance, discovery and togetherness. Even though he’s no longer here, I’ll always be thankful to the musician for enabling me to release my sexuality from my shame.
