Abstract
Confessions are, to a large extent, soul work that is read and inscribed into the body, mirrored in it, and practiced through performances of the flesh. The male body is a common theme in male confessiography, such as in Tom Driver's soft, white, and “useless flesh” of his thighs; in Michel Leiris's “auburn hair” and “incipient baldness”; and in James Broughton's androgynous breast and “neglected backside.” Intimate exchanges of bodily fluids are mentioned in the confessions of St. Augustine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Carl Jung. This chapter explores the personal dimension of the male body in gay men's confessional writings, supplanting the heterosexual anxiety around masculinity with a sexual and eroticized male body that is to be befriended rather than rendered non-absent. It examines scholarly texts with strong confessional moments authored by contemporary American gay men such as Scott Haldeman and Donald Boisvert. In discussing gay hagiolatry, the chapter looks at Haldeman's theological essays on the intimate male body and Boisvert's defense of the gay eroticization of Jesus Christ.
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