Gay Men & Radical Self-Love
By: Armando Sánchez
Tags: Gay Men, Healing, Self Love, Love, Growth

“R-A-D-I-C-A-L!”

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

You may be wondering, What is radical self-love? Why does it matter? And, How am I supposed to do it?

I’ll start with the why. Why does it matter that we, as gay men, radically love ourselves? I, for one, can think of many ways in which we are taught to reject, exclude, and shame ourselves and each other. And I know it’s not doing us any good.

Our natural attraction to men, our femininity, body size and shape, skin color, sex position, trauma, spirituality, kink, health status — everything is used against us. It can drive us to do things like spend money and engage with people who don’t always align with what we truly want in life.

So, what do we really want?

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want

We want love. Plain and simple. We want to be loved. We want to feel love. We want to create love. We want to see love. We want to give love. We want love to go into the deepest, darkest parts within us and shine its warm, healing light. Imagine if all of the times that you experienced pain, rejection, and shame were replaced with unconditional love. How would that have changed your life? What sort of person would you be today?

Love is our power, and a lot of us have moved through life feeling powerless. A lot of us. And I’ll name ‘em.

I listened to an episode of Brené Brown’s podcast where she talks with Sonya Renee Taylor about bodies, shame, and the ladder of social hierarchy that we are taught to climb in order to feel good about ourselves. I gay gasped so many times throughout this episode; it completely blew my mind.

From brenebrown.com

One of the many truths from this episode that shook my understanding of life, and how we live as gay men in particular, is that acceptance is not enough. As an LGBTQ community and movement, we’ve learned to ask for more than just tolerance. We’ve moved beyond that meager request and toward a movement of acceptance.

However, as Taylor states, acceptance won’t get us where we want to be. She says:

“I don’t want to be accepted, I want to be loved. If you had the choice between love or acceptance, which would you pick? You pick love. Love is richer. It’s warmer. Love DOES something. Acceptance is an inert word. It does not do anything. It stops there. It just lays there. It is a passive term. Love is an active term. It is a thing that makes you get up and do something. To change something, to shift. It creates its own momentum. I want, for the world, a love that changes shit. I want the love in a way that disrupts, that destroys the ladder. Acceptance won’t get us there.”

Photo by Brian Lundquist on Unsplash

When we radically love ourselves, we stop perpetuating the negative messages that exist in society about any marginalized people. We stop them from living within ourselves and we stop pushing them onto others. This is how we destroy the social hierarchical ladder.

Instead of stepping over others and making them feel less-than in an attempt to inch your way higher up on the ladder, let go of it. Let go, and destroy the ladder within you by radically loving every part of you, every part that we’re told is unloveable or only lovable if it looks or acts a certain way.

That is what radical love is, and what it can do.