Sunday, June 21, 2009

Doc says I always want to rant on Sunday even if it's Father's Day


So when he saw me coming with my tripod this morning he helped me get ready to film a video on a subject I was thinking about all night, abstinence.
In connection to my dad (in photo) I was thinking that one reason I abstained from sex all during my teens and was a virgin, in fact, when I got married, was because I figured I would have to take a slow boat to China if I got pregnant out of wedlock, he would be so disgusted. My dad, although a wild alcoholic on the weekends, had been raised by a very devout Mormon mother, and a lot of her teachings and example had rubbed off on him. In fact I was a junior in college and my sister Margie a freshman, when my folks looked in her boyfriend's wallet he had lost in their house. (He worked for my dad) They found a condom and worked themselves up into such a tizzy they jumped in the car and drove 300 miles to Salt Lake to tell us that if we were having sex with our boyfriends (My BF was a cousin to Margie's BF) they would not pay our college expenses any more. I was very worried at the time that I would not be able to convince them we were NOT having sex with our boyfriends. But we were so indignant at being falsely accused they finally believed us. Needless to say I was a virgin when I married a few months short of being 21 years old.
In fact most of the young Mormon girls aspired to be virgins when they married. (we were all Mormon at that time, atleast in the small towns) I met 2 non Mormon girls in college who were having sex with their boyfriends but I did not think they were better off for it. I thought having to worry about pregnancy on top of getting through the last year of college would have been just too much.
As it turned out I was going to make abstinence a big part of my life when I became partially disabled in the psych ward a few months before I married Dean. I knew what a terrible ordeal I had undergone and that it had broken me somehow, so after I had my first baby, Gary, a year after marriage, I thought and thought and told my young husband that because of what had happened, we could not risk sex that might result in a baby. I thought up no prenetration as the only safe way for me live with him. We had had a rocky time during my pregnancy, during which he went beserk and nearly caused my death. Five hours of torture was enough to cause me to begin the dying process just as I had in the psych ward. I started going numb. I knew that if he killed me, I would not feel any more pain. Changes began to occur in my body. A light started to come down, and I knew within a few seconds possibly I would go to meet my God. I felt the figure in the light was either an angel or Christ who had responded to a victim of domestic violence. Dean somehow saw the dying ecstacy in my eyes that I felt at the prospect of going home to God. And he stopped his assault. He had his hands around my neck to choke me, but dropped them, and said, "I would kill you, but it would not do any good."
I was five months pregnant, so I knew I had to leave him. He might not stop the next time. He was reacting very badly to marriage and the responsibility of a coming baby. I went home and stayed away until I had the baby.
When I finally told my dad what my birth control method had become, a form of abstinence from any sex that could possibly result in a baby, he said, "No wonder he beat you up."
I just ignored him, because I knew he did not understand what had already happened to my body, but he did know something had happened, because he continued to respond to my need for help from time to time, either with shelter or money.
My dad like Dean was an imperfect husband and father. I was never allowed to talk to him about believing he had a homosexual side, but I knew there was a terrible stigma attached to it that kept him so reactive he could not have admitted it to anyone.
However I came to believe that I had been called by my creator to help him and others like him to surface what they were into. Society needed to be able to acknowledge the homosexuals among us without persecuting them to the point they found honesty too difficult. If we want the truth we cannot punish people when they tell us the truth. I did not know but what his homosexuality was genetic, but even if it was not, he had gotten into those activities so young, I was sure, that his homosexuality was stronger than his heterosexuality. I understand why he married and had children because he craved respectability and normalcy, but it was not going to do any good if he could not cease those practices.
I do believe that if a man wants to marry a woman and have children and sincerely wants to leave behind the homosexual lifestyle then he must discuss his problem with the wife to be. If he doesn't he is sure to succumb to temptation. And then he will lie and deceive and his marriage will be in deep trouble, as my parents' marriage was.
I understood that this problem was so knotty and so difficult, it was understandable why my dad failed to be honest. The kids came. Divorce was not feasible for years. He could see that my mother was not capable of taking care of us by herself. She had too many problems with being a mother. He did not want to see his children suffer any more than they already did, so he remained a father determined to keep his home together. We did not trust him by himself because he drank. We wanted Mother there to protect us when he was on a binge. So she stayed, too. This was not an ideal situation but the best we could come up with at the time. My mother asked me a number of times if I wanted her to leave him. I would always say no, not until the children were out of the home. So she didn't.
My father saw to it that his children inherited around $100,000 each, the five of us, a sum most people never see, but I thought this compensated for the crippling I experienced in childhood due to his problems mostly. I also thought the other children experienced a crippling effect. This money came from my Grandfather's hard work, too. And I don't think either my dad or my granddad would express regret about us inheriting this large of a sum of money. We could not run the ranches. And they knew what their problems were, since I think my Grandfather also had the same problem as my dad, a possible gay gene. They knew how hard the effects of this problem was on their marriages and their children.
Strange. My childhood has made me an advocate for the coming out of the homosexual, believing that is the only way we will learn more about this condition and accept that it appears in our society in a certain percentage of people, and that not to recognize that is only going to make matter worse. I befriend the homosexual whenever possible, because I know what it is to be concerned about them from a very early age, when I first had the thought that my dad was different. When I was only five years old I started to wrap my mind about what homosexual means. I knew early on that I did not have the condition. But I loved my dad and that behooved that I try to understand him.

2 comments:

Amrita said...

I am speechless Gerry, You 've had a hard life.

Draw near to God He will heal your scars

kanyonland King 2.blogspot.com said...

This entry reminded me again of the hard line past and expectations
and we want to pass on at least the work ethic. To our children...you can't be an artist without painting, drawing, or creating words. The work has to emerge some way.
You remind me that you are doing your work and a creative blog is born!


Herrad

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