The choice...continuing

I was reading the section in http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ on the Vinaya Rules for monks. If i am serious about this path then I need to start preparing myself. I was suddenly filled with a cold freeze when I read that abortion is considered murder (strictly it seems after the consciousness has joined with the foetus). On November 2nd 1995 at around 11am my first girlfriend had a termination - my child also. I had given her no choice since he was unplanned and I had not banked on continuing with this relationship or this style of life. It was my fault, I take the blame.

I made a mark in the mental sand to remind myself in the future that I had spent three sleepless nights thinking hard about it and only then decided to reverse my initial support and seek termination. I was not to regret this I said at the time, the decision was well made. I was very aware that every day made the decision more morally complex and urged my girlfriend to decide quickly - it was hard for her, she wanted to keep the child. I had read something that made 8 weeks a limit in mind. Our child was known about at 6weeks and was 10 weeks old at the termination date I believe. I was relieved that this responsibility had passed so much so that I never thought about my girlfriends difficulties after the operation - it was a tough time for her, I didn't understand.

With more mature wisdom I see that the decision was based on greed. I was not satisfied in that relationship. It would have taken me down a road that would not have satisfied me and I wanted satisfaction. It would have done no real harm to me to say yes to marriage and having a child. It is not as though I have done anything else that would have contradicted that choice since.

So I was chilled to think I may not be able to be a monk having essentially committed murder. Parallel to this I have renewed interest from that girl I mentioned before. The problem in this society after fielding endless questions from friends and their partners last weekend on the issue of whether I am gay is that not everything boils down to sex and reproduction. I criticise gays for this, but maybe sexuals (in that gays are not really "sexual" being only 1 sex) are equally at fault for identifying themselves with their sexual behaviour. Certainly society in the mind of politicians is founded on sexuality, marriage, reproduction and family. But actually it isn't; it's a stereotype and to be free from the prison of sexuality doesn't turn someone into another type of sexuality... It is just called resisting one's urges - is that so alien? Maybe I'm seeing that it is, and at the same time seeing why instinctively I am an alien and why I don't think how I'm "supposed" to. I'm a little shocked how hard it is for people in my "society" to think like that - how self-imprisioned we are. I've entertained and explored the foundations of society and why things are the way they are but I'm losing patience - why understand that which is when you look hard at it is actually irrelevant?

I notice an odd irony here. Being gay is not about reproduction in that sexual reproduction requires sex. Humans are too specialised in biological terms to undergo asexual reproduction without cloning assisted by the laboratory – maybe the future of human gay reproduction is beginning but oddly such reproduction doesn’t require a relationship! It is auto-reproduction. Quite how a “gay-sexual-relationship” is to be understood as anything other than a friendship is a mystery from this perspective (I’m not excluding such things just challenging the conceptual apparatus that we use to understand them). So the irony is in the assumption that because I am not married and reproducing I must be gay. The implication to me is that sexual partnerships must be only about sex?? Why? It is still within the mental framework of sexual-partnership to consider someone who is not reproducing – such a person is gay. This they can understand. But what sexual partnerships cannot comprehend is someone who rejects sexuality itself. That somehow is outside the box. Ergo the box is simply sexuality itself. I’m not saying sexuality is easy to understand I am still struggling with it – but to not even be able to thinj outside the box! Wow!

Another question: Why does everything happen at once taking me in opposite directions? I have to resolve this choice and anyway if I can't be a "monk" it's just a name: it does stop me seeking wisdom and freedom.