One Man’s Marriage Trap

When Andrew Sullivan was seven or eight, the visceral yet distancing medium of television sparked a feeling about which many men will have corresponding stories. A shirtless actor elicited “such an intense longing” that young Andrew “determined to become a doctor” so he could “render the man unconscious and lie on top of him when no one else was in the room.” Its furtive nature may distinguish this from the similar memories of others, but the bewildering indication of inchoate sexuality is familiar.

Years later, Sullivan volunteered to assist a stranger through the final months of life with AIDS. The scene presents an eerie echo: “I remember one day lying down on top of him to restrain him as his brittle, burning body shook uncontrollably with the convulsions of fever.”

JK

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Justin Katz

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When Andrew Sullivan was seven or eight, the visceral yet distancing medium of television sparked a feeling about which many men will have corresponding stories. A shirtless actor elicited “such an intense longing” that young Andrew “determined to become a doctor” so he could “render the man unconscious and lie on top of him when no one else was in the room.” Its furtive nature may distinguish this from the similar memories of others, but the bewildering indication of inchoate sexuality is familiar.

Years later, Sullivan volunteered to assist a stranger through the final months of life with AIDS. The scene presents an eerie echo: “I remember one day lying down on top of him to restrain him as his brittle, burning body shook uncontrollably with the convulsions of fever.”