I’ve always been a bit of a shapeshifter—living in between worlds, never quite fitting in anywhere, eventually learning to be a chameleon so I could “mostly” fit in everywhere.
My early childhood home wasn’t safe. I didn’t fit in there. I was always a bit odd—not because I WAS odd, but because I was harmed, and I spoke out against the harm. I was a truth-teller and cycle-breaker before I ever had the language to describe it. And for that, I paid with my physical and mental health.
School was unsafe too. I was hunted and hurt for being different. Maybe I was different because I was a little queer boy (I didn’t realize I actually was until I was 38 years old!). Maybe it was because I was a “late hold-out”—I stayed connected to my original nature: joy, kindness, emotional expressiveness, lovingness, DANCE!—long after other boys had shut those parts down. Maybe it’s because I was just… me. And I refused to assimilate.
As an adult, I’ve worked in vocations primarily populated by women—education, social work, nonprofits, therapy (and of course, being a Maddy!). But I’ve always retained a masculine edge. I was a gentle Buddhist meditator and yogi who loved cars and motorcycles. (My tough-guy, conservative motorcycle group sarcastically nicknamed me “Sprout” because I was vegetarian.)
I couldn’t even be gay when I came out 10 years ago!! I’m as bisexual and versatile as a guy can get. I’ve loved women. I still love women. I’ve also loved non-binary and gender-nonconforming partners. For me, love and attraction aren’t about fitting into fixed categories. They’re about aliveness, resonance, and something sacred in the in-between.
I’m deeply spiritual and try to live “in the world, not of it,” but I also love the sensuousness of lived experience—food, physical exertion, sex, fast cars, and the smell of a motorcycle garage.
So yeah, I read about the Middle Path once, and I guess it really stuck!
And this is why queer and straight men alike are drawn to me. I live outside the man box—and that both inspires and scares the shit out of people.
If I don’t live in the man box, does that mean I’m gay?
For straight male clients, learning I’m not straight becomes a moment of reckoning. Do I keep listening to this guy at the potential expense of my masculinity? Or do I run for the hills?
It’s funny. It’s sweet. And I hold these men with deep compassion—because I know the man box from the inside.
And here’s the truth: it’s not about sexual orientation. It never was.
It’s about liberation. It’s about living a bigger, truer life. It’s about reclaiming joy, creative expression, emotional depth, aliveness.
And no, you’re probably not going to find out you’re gay. Unless you are. But most of us already know the answer to that by the time we’re 40.
If you’re afraid to look deeper, you’re cockblocking your own essence—your own potential for thriving. And if you do find out you’re not straight after asking the question deeply? Great. You still get to evolve into your fullness.
The men who work with me are fucking brave. It takes big balls to ask the big questions and become who you really are—gay, straight, or some word that hasn’t even been invented yet.
So why do straight men love working with me? Maybe because I offer them a mirror that doesn’t shame, a space that doesn’t collapse, and a model of masculinity that feels both ancient and radically new. I show up with tenderness and grit, reverence and rebellion. I walk with them—not ahead, not behind—toward the kind of manhood that isn’t confined to a box, but rooted in truth. And that kind of freedom? That’s what we’re all hungry for, whether we know it yet or not.