He also had a panic attack over being gay
“I’ll never forget the time I convinced myself that I was gay. I was eight or nine, maybe younger, and I stumbled upon a broadcast by some fire-and-brimstone preacher. The man spoke about the evils of homosexuals, how they had infiltrated our society, and how they were all destined for hell absent some serious repenting. At the time, the only thing I knew about gay men was that they preferred men to women. This described me perfectly: I disliked girls, and my best friend in the world was my buddy Bill. Oh no, I’m going to hell.”
When he brought up the issue with his grandmother — known to Vance as “Mamaw” — she replied bluntly: “Don’t be a fucking idiot, how would you know that you’re gay?”
When Vance explained his reasoning, she laughed.
“JD, do you want to suck dicks?” she said, according to the book.
The young Vance, apparently “flabbergasted,” said: “Of course not!”
“Then you’re not gay. And even if you did want to suck dicks, that would be okay,” she replied. “God would still love you.”
Mawmaw sounds traumatic as fuck and I would have told her flat out I did.
Hey at least she said God would still love him. After all, she likes to suck dicks and God loves her, so it figures. And it would be okay. Of course he rejected that part, and decided to stick to furniture coupling.
She was an alcoholic who bullied and tormented Vance’s mother according to the book. But Vance hates his mother, so he loved Mawmaw for abusing his mom
I had the same problem with masturbation. My religion made a big deal over what a sin it was, and we had no sexual education, so literally the only thing I knew was that it meant touching your own genitals, which I did whenever I needed to scratch or adjust myself. It was panic-inducing and miserable.
