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Everyone thinks I'm straight because I deliberately play up the hetero thing, decorating my apartment in various shades of macho grunge, sticking up pics of big boobed women in bikinis etc. It makes me feel like some kind of fraud, pretending to be someone I'm not, but there's no way I'd ever want to come out of the closet because I would be faced with total ridicule.
I kept thinking about writing to you and then changing my mind, but now two new guys have joined my gym, both of them super sexy, toned and buff, and they always seem to wind up partnering with each other. 'What has that got to do with your problem?' I hear you asking. Plenty, because they're making it even worse. Whenever I see one of them rolling, I get horny. Whenever I see them both grappling, I get even hornier. And when I watch them both tussling with each other, I get so turned on that my balls start throbbing like they're fit to explode.
Maybe it's just me, but they seem to share some kind of special bond between them. When they grapple, they're intimate about it and don't seem to care; if one of them catches the other in North-South, he lays his head right on the other guy's groin, if that's where it needs to be for him to hold the position. Sometimes they even hug each other at the end of a really intense bout. I'm pretty sure it's not sexual for them, but for me.... By the time I actually get a chance to spar with one of these hunks, I'm so stiff with arousal I have to sit it out and wave them away for fear of what I know they'd see.
I'm getting the impression that folks are starting to notice all this stuff: how one minute I'm fine, working hard, focused on my game, and the next streaking for the stalls or sitting sessions out like an octogenarian with a heart condition. I genuinely love Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and I honestly want to lose the distractions that are making my training such a misery. (Damn you, pretty boys!)
So please, tell me: How do I stop my bulging BJJ boners from erecting a marquee inside my gi pants? If anyone can help me, it has to be you...
Aaron's
Answer to Your Problem: Admit the Cause of Your Homosocial Anxiety, Then Accept Yourself for Who You Are
 I'm perpetually fascinated by the dissonance between what people say and what they actually mean; by our tendency to mask our true feelings with well-rehearsed statements that purport to explain, but really only serve to justify, our unconsciously-motivated actions; and by the way we so comprehensively bury the issues that worry us most beneath layers and layers of superficial malady. Time and again in my work as a counselor, I encounter this phenomenon, and I can tell you right now that yours is nothing short of a textbook case.
You say that your problem is unwanted erections; I say that your problem is unwanted homosexuality.
How can I make this claim? What data do I have to support it? The first piece of evidence lies in the very first line of your message, when you write that your problem—er—comes to head when you 'haven't had any chance to masturbate.' There's your answer, mate: Whack the monkey, bash the bishop, choke the chicken! We all know that a quick jerk-off takes less than a minute to perform, so what possible excuse can you have for not enjoying one before you go to training?
The second piece of evidence that your core concern is your sexual orientation, and not your BJJ boners, can be found
in your admission of the fact that you expect nothing sort of 'total ridicule' upon being revealed as gay to those around you. There's no question that coming out is a difficult thing to do, especially to your team mates—a topic I cover in much greater depth elsewhere on this site—and many individuals ultimately decide to remain closeted rather than face the prospect of being humiliated by their peers, friends, and family members.
You, however, appear to have embraced, not just the closet, but the coat rack as well, masquerading in 'macho grunge' that not only disguises, but effectively obliterates, your true identity as a queer man and gay BJJer, rendering you 'a fraud' by your own estimation. This low self-opinion will have been almost certainly exacerbated by the arrival of the two highly attractive newbies to your gym, whom you are drawn to both physically and socially, since they represent the kind of man you wish to be but, counter-intuitively, fear to become: Strong, playful, and completely comfortable with both his masculinity and sexuality, whatever that may be.
There are several stages involved in the process of accepting gay orientation, collectively referred to as the Cass Identity Model. These range from the initial state of Identity Confusion, where the first stirrings of attraction to same-sex individuals make themselves felt, to Identity Synthesis, where homosexuality is effortlessly integrated into one's overall sense of self. My guess is that you are currently at the second stage of the model—Identity Comparison. Unfortunately, this is doubtless the most difficult of all six phases, as it primarily consists of intense feelings of isolation and social alienation and, very often, as in this instance, an accompanying denial of your essential homosexual nature.
I want you to know that you're not a fraud; rather, you're afraid. It's important for you to understand that you engage in these self-nullifying behaviors because they make you feel relatively safe from what you expect will be the universal scorn of all who discover your 'terrible secret.' Equally important is the realization that, sooner or later, your incessant stomach cramps and mysterious sit-outs will become objects of serious scrutiny and speculation—indeed, your e-mail seems to suggest that they may already have done so. In the small-town atmosphere of your local BJJ gym, it might not take much longer before eyes start to stare and tongues start to wag.
To avoid this happening, you need to begin the process of reconciling your gay identity, your social identity, and your true identity—an exercise which is beyond the scope of what we offer here at MatBattle, but on which many helpful resources exist. See the Web Links section, below, for some excellent starting points to your quest.
One final note of caution: Once you've got your head together and your ground game down, you're going to be one unstoppable MatBattler—so for God's sake, mate, invest in a pair of supportive boxer briefs, otherwise you'll poke someone's eye out with that seductive snake in your BJJ trousers! |
Sometimes when rolling with other men it gets really hard to keep from, well, getting really hard—especially if I haven't had a chance to masturbate or enjoy any 'moonlight encounters' at my favorite gay bar recently.
