So, gender and sexuality...

So, it seems my focus on Hermes at this point in my life means taking a journey into my own sexuality, and this is not the first time this has happened in my journey so far, perhaps because my sexuality, in varying senses of the word, is very important in my life.

Because I identify as Gay, that aspect of my life influences my politics, my religious beliefs (If Hellenismos was anti-gay, I would likely never have been drawn to it) and even the friends I make and the people I choose to love. It is all influenced on some level by my sexuality. Yet clearly, I have never really gone for the whole “sacred sexuality” thing either. Yes, I believe that sex and emotion can be important aspects of spirituality, in fact, they have to be, but I have yet to really delve into that, mostly because I am a solitary practitioner, but also because my main patron or tutelary deities are not ones particularly linked to sex or sexuality. Athena? Hardly. Hestia? No way. Hades? Um, not really.

But in my daily reflections, meditations, and rites I do try to include Dionysos and Aphrodite, both of whom one can clearly assign aspects of sexuality, wildness, lust, and the indulgence of passion. But as of yet, I have not found them to be true patrons to me. Aphrodite, perhaps, comes close to being a deity I can claim as a patron, but the aspects of her that are important to me tend to be about her as a celestial deity, Ourania, a deity of higher emotional aspect. One who is manifest in love and beauty rather than fucking. Sure, I understand that she is definitely a goddess who relishes our bliss in desire and passion and fucking, but for me, I find that when she has made her presence strongly felt in my life, it is when my heart is breaking at the loss of something special, a love or someone special to me.

But then comes Hermes, ever moving, ever tempting, ever challenging and it seems that all the questions that come to mind are questions of sex and sexuality and lust and the boundaries that must be placed in such things so that they don’t drive us to obsession.

So, as I said, I am a man, a gay man, a man who identifies as homosexual, although I do have some small bit of the bisexual in me. Is Hermes trying to force me to confront that and answer the question to myself once and for all? Is there a part of me that needs to see what I am missing in order to be satisfied that I am not making mistakes in my life? And how?

As a man, I was taught to think of women as beautiful, and so they are, but I learned on my own, from my own inner desires, that men were beautiful and sexually attractive. But is it possible that I ignored part of myself when I identified so clearly as gay?

I don’t think so, but there are possibilities there. I mean, can I really ever know that a woman is not what might make me happy one day if I am unwilling to try it because of the boundaries placed on me by my own label?