Dear DR. HOLMES:

My father died in December, 1994, but thoughts of him, the kind of relationship we had and our family life constantly rush to my mind. When I was between five and eight years old, I recall that my mother worked in a garments factory. She was assigned on both day and night shifts. It was in the late 1970's. These were the same years my mother described as the "turbulent" era of their marriage. She sometimes made it a point to sleep beside my father, especially when he was drunk, which happened quite often.

If she were not by his side, my older brother and I would "compete" to sleep beside him. Eventually, we took turns doing so.

My father slept only with his briefs. Although he snored very loudly, it was still okay for us brothers. My parents' bed was bigger and had a mattress, compared with the thin mat (papag) we had. That was how things were. This was the normal set up.

Dad was malikot (moved around a lot) while sleeping. He would mistake me for a pillow and place me between his legs. Ayos lang sa akin (it was okay with me) but whenever I felt heavy or warm (which usually happened after a short while under his leg) I would remove his leg from my body. I observed that the same thing happened whenever my brother slept with my dad.

One night I woke up when my father sort of picked me up and rubbed his crotch against me like he would to a pillow. This time it was different. As I was placed between his legs I felt myself get an erection. I sensed he had a slight hard on too. For the first time, I felt aroused. I don't know if he knew about all that was happening.

From that time on, everytime I slept beside him, I made it a point that my penis would touch his. I would rub my crotch against him when he was drunk and fast asleep. I was very careful to ensure that I didn't wake him up. The frequency and volume of his snores were my signals.

Once his snoring became soft, I would stop what I was doing. When his snores sounded like he was deep in sleep once more, I would resume. I guess he approved it somewhat for there were times I would feel his penis starting to get erect. However, before it got very hard, he would always turn away. This was how I got initiated into sex.

As I write you now, DR. HOLMES, I have strong feelings of guilt, arousal and pain.

He never said a word nor confronted me about these things. Consider me naive but my own explanation was that he was too drunk to realize what was going on.

I can't remember the exact year I stopped sleeping with him. I blocked them out. I never told anyone about this until now. It was also during this time that I remembered how much I envied my older brother because he was clearly my father's favorite. Dad always took my brother with him kung may lakad siya sa labas (if he had to go out of the house for something). Me, I was left with the household help.

I tried to get his attention many times. To please him, I taught myself to draw his favorite fighting cock. I would write or tell him what numbers to bet in jai-a-lai whenever I got these numbers from my dreams. Anything to get his attention. I remember crying to my mother asking if I was adopted since my father's attention to his kids was so lopsided.

I started exploring with the same sex when I was 21. I am now 23.

It's not that I am unattracted to women; but it's always an effort for me and it's always they that do the inviting. They always start the sex between us. Aside form the sensual part, it hasn't been a pleasant experience for me.

I have finally come to terms with this reality, though it was difficult doing so. It didn't just happen suddenly, I live with this reality every day. Why and what the factors were that led me into becoming this kind of person are constant concerns. Not that I totally hate myself for it. It's more a question of, "How can I live my life more fully given this situation?"

Doc, am I still making sense, o talaga bang patong-patong na itong gumugulo sa isip ko? (or is everything just crashing down all around me?)

How was my family experience a contributing factor to what I am now? What really occurred between me and my father? Where do I go from here? Thank you very much, Doktora, and I pray you have the opportunity to answer this letter in the soonest possible time.

LUIS

Dear LUIS:

I hate to seem like I'm constantly plugging my books, but I hate even more to repeat myself so here goes. Please read both Roles We Play in Family Life (chapters 13 &14) and A Different Love: Being Gay in the Philippines. These two books will answer many questions you've asked and will, I hope, help you become the kind of person you want to be.

They will do this not only by sharing the latest research findings in fields as varied as therapy, child abuse, family dynamics and homosexuality, but also provide an environment of non-wimpy gentleness and non-cynical reality under which you will feel safe enough to weigh all the pros and cons of your life, take choices to their bitter (or, even better and just as possible, happy) end and explore all sorts of possibilities and scenarios before actually trying them out.

WHEW! Having mentioned these two books, which will provide the necessary backgrounder for understanding yourself in general, allow me to go into the specific questions you asked:

(1) How was my family experience a contributing factor to what I am now?

Because our parents, especially when we are very young, are seen as all powerful, they can exert a tremendous influence on what we are as adults. Because it is difficult to get straight answers from parents who would much rather deny the existence of alcoholism or the death of love in themselves or in their spouses, the effects of family can be even more insidious. One is left to deal not only with the situation at hand but also with the denial that one is expected to believe is the truth.

Your family experiences definitely have a lot to do with what and who you are now.

The family experiences I refer to are not specifically the nocturnal forays with your father (which we shall deal with at greater length in the next question) but the entire fabric of your life as you were growing up: what was deemed important enough to talk about, what was deemed soooo important it could never be talked about, what was held sacred, what was considered profane, what was permissible to talk about, what was not and how family members dealt with their own anger, pain, confusion and love.

Neither am I speaking, specifically and only, of your explorations with the same sex when I say these family experiences very definitely contributed to the person you are now. I am writing also of the way you think, write, look at the world and at yourself.

It seems to me that, however turbulent and guilt-arousing many elements of your childhood were, some pretty good things happened along the way too (see the answer for question #3).

(2) What really occurred between me and my father?

It doesn't sound like it was sex abuse.

True, there was rubbing against his crotch, true he may have initiated that first encounter and true, he may not have been completely and totally sleep and/or drunk when he first did (or even subsequently when you initiated things. Fact of the matter is, he turned his back (both literally and figuratively) each and everytime the situation threatened to get out of hand.

Healthy men experience an average of 3-5 erections during their sleep, according to the Sleep Laboratory in California. These nocturnal erections are NOT necessarily related to sexual stimulation, sexual dreams or sexual desires. The erections your father had during those times may have been nocturnal and not solely a sexual response to you.

But even if these erections were partly (or wholly) sexual,- and this need not be necessarily because it was you, particularly, doing the rubbing but more because of the mere physical sensation of his penis being rubbed, his being more asleep than awake, more drunk than sober. All this might have lowered his sense of inhibitions and certainly debilitated his judgment so that, even though he couldn't (or chose not to) wake up immediately and confront you regarding your sexual "ministrations," he still had the good sense to rebuff your advances before they got too heavy. (N.B., it was the advances he rebuffed, not you he rejected).

SO...what does that make of you? A sexual pervert? No. A devil-boy who'd stop at nothing to get his sexual kicks? Hardly. You were a very young boy who adored his father but felt (and in all likelihood were) second-place as far as he was concerned vis-a-vis your older brother. This was one way of relating to your father that belonged to you alone; a way you perceived (whether accurately or not) that he approved of, a way, not incidentally, that also gave you a great amount of sexual pleasure.

That you sought to try it with your father rather than with a stranger who may have hurt you, is understandable. That you protected yourself in case you misread his approval (or in case he wasn't as honest as you in admitting his desires) by doing it only when you were sure he was in a deep sleep (as gauged by his snores) is also understandable. There is nothing sinister in the choices you made at that time. That the possibility of being caught added a whiff of danger and, therefore, even more excitement to your explorations, added more allure to what you were doing.

Under the same circumstances, many other boys would do exactly as you did, had they the imagination and the courage. Freud is the first scientist credited (though at first he was reviled) to bring up the possibility that children are not as "innocent" as they are made out to be, that they are not above having strong sexual desires and doing something about it. Your behavior fits right into what Dr. Freud (and many other psychoanalysts and child psychologists since) theorized.

The opportunity for all your "paternal explorations" arose from the tension between your father and mother. When she refused to sleep in the same bed with him, a vacuum was created that you and your brother were eager to fill. If your mother and father's relationship were not as tempestuous. If they had enough resources to consider to your needs as well as theirs, perhaps you may have reacted to the same stimuli (your father's rubbing against you) in a different way.

Perhaps...

(3) Where do I go from here?

You go where the rest of us go, do what the rest of us do. Very few people have perfect childhoods. Some have more trying ones than others, but very few of us are able to escape childhood unscathed. We all have our own demons to face. I hope BODYMIND has helped make facing them a little less frightening. Please write me again if there is anything else I can do for you. My best wishes.

MG Holmes

(BodyMind Vol. 2 No. 12 - First posted: 3-22-98)

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