Benny

Hi, my name is Mark, and I’m a 60-year-old gay conservative Christian from Arkansas. Isn’t that a real oxymoron? I sit in my recliner often and review my life, contemplating how I reconciled my gay side with my conservative Christian side growing up in the 70s and the 80s. As anyone who grew up in the late 20th century knows, reconciling the two isn’t an easy task.

I’ve never had a problem with being a Christian, far from it.I grew up in a traditional, conservative Christian American family. I love God and my Savior, Jesus Christ, and when I was young, I had an active desire to serve in the church and the community with my musical talents and knowledge of the Bible. So what was my problem? Well, I had grown up believing that I was damned to an eternity in hell by my God, who loved me even before I was formed in the womb. All of that for feelings that I had felt since I was a small child, and which I had always confused with love. What was I supposed to do with that?

As a small child from a large family, I was always loved, protected, and well cared for by my parents and siblings. As such, I grew up with a large capacity for love, whether it be for my family, my friends, or for anybody’s pets. Some people, like my dad, saw such sensitivity as weakness in the community where I lived. Later, as I grew up, assumptions were made about my sexual orientation as I displayed affection towards my friends a little too openly. At the time, I really did not understand. When I was in the second grade, my teacher introduced me to the “Dick and Jane” readers, in which the word “gay” was used often. She taught me that the word “gay” meant “happy.” Maybe in the world of “Dick and Jane,” but on the school bus later that day, that didn’t go over so well. My older siblings had to have a discussion with me when we arrived at home which left me clear on the word, but more confused regarding my feelings. Why was love for my boy friends bad? I continued to grow up without any guidance to clear the matter up.

When puberty began, my feelings of love seemed to hit a new depth. I realized that I hated nobody, but that didn’t mean I loved everybody.Those whom I did love, however, I loved unconditionally, never asking anything in return. Although I had crushes on girls, I realized that I was more attracted to boys. Still, I had nobody to talk to about my problem. Now I was even asking the question, “Was my problem even a ‘problem’?” Even mentioning the word “sex” was taboo in my home, much less the word “gay.” I began to feel the need to hide myself and pray for God to remove my feelings—to change me into His image to save my soul.Needless to say, that never happened.

I didn’t have many friends from my school years in Arkansas to whom I could talk about the issue. Like myself, most of them were Christian and I was uncertain about their personal views on same-sex attraction: homosexuality. At least I now had a word to identify my problem.The majority of them were very conservative: all-American, God-fearing, patriotic, family-oriented, and don’t forget the apple pie rural folk. I was the same as them, but talking about my feelings with them in the ‘80s would have gotten me laughed at, mocked, ostracized, punished by my parents, or, even worse, beaten up by some redneck punks. Men did not discuss feelings in the South. That was for girls and sissies. Boys didn’t cry. That was the rule. And yet, I cried many times when my heart was overwhelmed with feelings I could never explain nor discuss with anybody—feelings of great love, painful sorrow, physical want and need, gut-wrenching loneliness, and yes, even abandonment by friends who believed without positive proof that I was gay. Although I was always loved, cared for, and physically secure with my parents and family, to my knowledge, they had no idea about my sexual orientation.

I dropped out of college in my third year and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1988, following in the footsteps of my father and two of my brothers. In total, four of my brothers and I would serve honorably into the 1990s. During the eight years that I served, the military had a “No Gays” policy, but that didn’t matter to me. I wasn’t in the least political about it. I did my job, kept my mouth shut, served my country faithfully and well, and was discharged in 1996 after marrying my wife and welcoming the first three of my five children. I thought that would end my problem, but it did not. I was a devoted husband and father, but the feelings were still there, still interfering and confusing me. Resentment began to cloud my mind. Why did it have to be me? Out of eight children, why did I have to have the genetic makeup that made me disposed to same-sex attractions? My self-esteem had taken a lot of damage by this time and I began to doubt whether God loved me at all, but still I held on to my faith that He would never throw me into hell just because I loved unconditionally. However, the confusion still swirled in my heart and my mind as my questions remained unanswered.

My marriage ended in 2020, six months after my youngest son turned 18. My wife had realized some years before that I was not completely happy in our marriage. She figured out why but never wanted to talk about it. I had known that she was not happy for far longer than that, but again: what was I to do with that? It seemed like my whole life was all about unhappiness and the desire to regain happiness with no plan available. After the divorce, there was still no one with whom to discuss the core issue, no one with whom to share the need, and still no answer to the question, “Was I doomed to hell after death?” As I grew older, I stopped caring about living. My health had deteriorated with constant stress, heart problems, arthritis, diabetes, and other maladies, and my overall attitude toward life had become careworn and tired as if waiting to die was all that I had left. My wife was gone and my kids were grown. My oldest and youngest sons still lived with me, but both spent more time in their rooms online or working than they did with me. I had no one with whom to plan a way out of my total isolation or to rejuvenate the life of my formerly loving and giving soul.

Then, in November of 2025, a remarkable event occurred. I was surfing through my social media sites on the internet when I stopped cold in my tracks. The face on my screen set every one of my nerves on fire and made me have to catch my breath as my heart skipped a couple of beats. Feelings that I had not felt so intensely since high school were racing through me like lightning flashes of electricity. I sat back heavily into my chair, quietly contemplating the beautiful young man in front of me. The hazel eyes—so deep, soulful, and so incredible, as if cut from a precious stone, yet so humanly soft and doe-eyed—gazed directly into the camera, as if looking directly into mine. His Greek nose was perfectly straight with no unsightly bumps, or curves along the bridge, nor upturns at the tip. His ears were curved as if a master sculptor from magical ages gone by had carved them out of immaculate marble. His brown hair was styled to perfection with his brows an impeccable match, and his skin was soft and creamy-colored as if it had been spun from the finest silk. His total look of innocence was as if God Himself had crafted him out of pure sunshine and love.His profile said his name was Benny.There was an age gap, but did that matter? The thought came unbidden to my mind: “He’s the one.”

In that moment, everything I was ever taught or believed was thrown into chaos as it came into conflict with every positive feeling my heart could possibly engender for this beautiful young man. My uncontrolled feelings of unconditional love began fighting back against a lifetime of controlled beliefs for total dominance as my mind, soul, and spirit continued to fall spiraling into those heavenly hazel eyes of the angelic Benny.

What the hell was going on?Was I going insane? I felt like I had been hit by a freight train. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. My world was Dante’s Inferno and I was Dante. I began to realize things about unconditional love that I had never thought about before. Was this my first step to my own salvation? Could love really be so simple to understand? When I heard the phrases, “Love knows no boundaries,” or “Age is just a number,” or “Love is never wrong,” could those have been the answers to my questions that I’ve been looking for since at least 1973? My world continued to pitch and roll around me as Benny’s face remained my only focus. Tears welled up in my eyes as I realized the reality of the set of circumstances that would have to be overcome for me to have this golden young Adonis in my life.I had never even met him but I loved him; not only as a lover would, but as a father, a mother, a brother, a dear lifelong friend. So many levels of love were overwhelming me and pouring out with my tears at that moment that I couldn’t find words to describe what I was feeling. He was like a masterpiece from Michelangelo or Raphael: priceless beyond measure. How could I ever deserve to even approach such beauty, much less be accepted as even a friend to such a god? He wasn’t even in my generation, much less my age group. In 1984 such a relationship would have been unacceptable, but there had been much social change effected since then. Still, how could I even think to approach him without ignorant people believing me to have ill intentions toward him, even if he was an adult of 25 and capable of making his own decisions? Everything that I had ever been taught seemed set against this, yet my heart was convinced that this was so right.

My world was still spinning, but now my mind began to think, and I started to take deep breaths to calm my shaking body. I brought my racing mind back under control. The effect of this young man upon me was incredible. I had never in my life felt anything like it. I knew that I was never going to shake off Benny’s impact upon me. For crying out loud, I didn’t even know if he was gay. All I knew was that the trumpets were blaring and my heart was beating like timpani in the “Sunrise” portion of Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. I felt such exhilaration as if my heart had just been offered the opportunity to restart and live again. Surely God Himself had to have engineered this moment.

Decision time—what do I do with this? Do I go by the proper morals and rules of society imposed upon me in the 1970s and 1980s, or do I follow my seemingly insane heart and the current social rules of 2025? “Hello.How are you? I just want to say that you are the most beautiful young man that I have ever seen in my life. Please forgive me if that seems creepy. I’m honestly not a creeper.” I sat back and stared at the screen for several minutes, uncertain if this was the right thing to do or even if I had actually typed the message. Both my rigid morals and my unconditional love stood on the precipice of one final battle. In that moment there was a flash of light that shattered the obstinance of my morals that had been my dark prison of stone for my entire life. I hit the send button with a shaking hand and a sigh of relief and waited. Minutes passed. My doubt began to gnaw at me as I questioned if I was being an old fool. Was he sitting at his computer laughing at me for being so brazen? More time passed. Then, a picture appeared of the sweetest and most beautiful young man in the world with a message: “Hello.My name is Benny. No, I don’t think you’re a creeper at all. I actually like older men. Thank you so much for your compliment. I’m blushing, not going to lie. You look like a very kind and handsome man. I would love to chat with you and get to know you better.I am from Manchester, England.How about you?” My heart stopped, then burst into joy as I realized that maybe, just maybe, I had a chance to be happy as myself with no shame or the need to hide who I was. Excitedly, I leaned forward to my keyboard and began to type. “My name is Mark, and I am so glad to meet you.”