Why he doesn’t call himself gay

Mar 14, 2018 by

Book review by Rachel Gilson, The Gospel Coalition.

[…] One naturally picks up this book wanting an answer to the title, but [Daniel] Mattson—a writer, speaker, and professional orchestral trombone player—begins instead with his story. It’s one of pain and trial, and we are given access to the most private pieces of his life. But it’s not merely a story; Mattson gives frequent commentary on how he now understands what he experiences, with a particular eye toward what, according to him, caused his same-sex attractions. “A lot of people would tell me . . . that I was born gay,” he explains. “But I see it very differently. We live in a world guided by cause and effect. Everything always comes from something” (14).

Mattsonr believes he “didn’t choose to be attracted to men, nor does any man” (34). It came from somewhere, and he thinks a large part of it came from his dissatisfaction with his male body, coupled with an intense longing to be like the highly masculine men he observed around him. Mattson grew up around the Catholic Church and then in Protestant circles, before eventually falling away for a time altogether. This gave him enough awareness to know that his attractions were largely scorned by the church. It also gave him a desire to meet and marry just the right woman, who could allow him to live the life he dreamed of—a woman he could connect with despite his more overt attractions elsewhere.

Mattson’s honesty is commendable. But there are times when he starts to universalize, abstracting from his own experience truths about whole populations, especially men who identify as gay, without further evidence or data. For example, he writes:

I really think that at the bottom of any gay male relationship, what motivates men more than anything else is a deep void that stems from lack of communion and relationship with other men. (49)

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