One in ten rams has sex exclusively with other rams, eschewing ewes, recent studies have confirmed. The research points to slight differences in brain structure between those homosexual and heterosexual rams, confirming earlier studies done on gay men’s brains, which were inconclusive because AIDS had been the cause of death of many of the deceased, and that could have affected the results. So: my brain is slightly different to a heterosexual man’s, say the scientists. Same amount of testosterone, though. I could have told them that.

Another study looks at the levels of testosterone present in the womb, and suggests that higher levels make girls more likely to turn out to be tomboys, liking sports and Scalextric, and ignoring pink frilly dollies. (Those researchers have yet to discover whether those tomboys turn out to be dykes or not, as they haven’t grown up yet).

Hello, Dolly! Sheep are queer too. And no scientific or psychological theories can offer insights to show how they got that way, or why. They just are. The extent of our knowledge of sheep psychology is limited, but we know that they recognise each other’s faces. Does this mean that they have identities? Names? Personalities? Androids may dream of electric sheep, but we do not know of what ovine dreams are made. Unlike queer swans, who mate for life, our little Aries buggers shag indiscriminately – but only among members of their preferred sex. Bisexuality is not the norm in their world. 10% of their menfolk do their own thing and don’t bother the womenfolk, and that’s the way it’s always been and always will be.

Sometimes I can drive myself demented in a search for meaning in every detail – like trying to keep a foothold in a microscopic freefall through an animated emotional fractal, every nuance yielding to more intricate implications and assumptions, until I end up with ear-splitting feedback in my addled brain, a teleological burnout.

This is especially true when I try to understand the nature of being gay, and of being a man, in this society. If I could understand, then I could do something about where it hurts, fix it, and move on. But I get caught at the “where it hurts” bit – for you get what you look for. Everybody hurts, and sometimes things can’t be fixed. The only thing to do is move on.

This search for meaning is reinforced when I work as a therapist with gay and male clients, who are my greatest teachers. I feel the wounding around being gay (and, indeed, the wounding of being a man) and I get angry, and I want it to stop. I see what profound effects bullying has in later life – more than you can imagine (unless of course you know what it’s like yourself). I see how shame operates, especially around desire. “Bad” thoughts = “bad” person.

Those who feel themselves to be the black sheep in the family, the scapegoat for all the family’s shadow, will go to enormous sad lengths to “whiten” their skin and change their appearance to fit in, becoming gross caricatures of themselves. Such false personae are expensive to maintain, the price is too high; when the mask begins to slip there’s always something to take the pain away.

It is human to hate, to wage war, to shame, to bully, to abuse, to numb, to ostracize. A few other animal species manage to do some of these things in a limited way, but only we humans manage to do them so comprehensively, so thoroughly.

It is humans who are more sheeplike than sheep, following their tribe unquestioningly, whether that’s schoolkids beating up the pouff, or a bar full of single gay men, hunting in quiet steely desperation for something, or someone, to make them feel better about themselves.

I suppose I should just accept things, exactly as they are. I would probably be far more at ease with myself if I did, less vehement, less critical, less pious. I hate what gay men have made of our culture, our “community” – and I think it perpetuates the damage done to us as kids.

We’re creating a shallow, soulless world where feelings remain just as absent, just as shameful, as it was when we were kids, and sex becomes the only glue – and that can be a merciless agent of hate.

I want it to be different. I know there are a few others around who do too.