Cold Water

The body answers before consciousness can switch the censor on — and Jacob punishes the body: icy water, a rough towel, a mirror he passes without turning his head. An attraction that is incompatible with one’s self-image is called ego-dystonic: it is experienced as an intrusion, as something foreign.

The problem is that a feeling cannot be washed off — one can only forbid oneself to notice it. And the forbidden does not vanish: it “moves in to stay”, as the chapter says, and starts looking for exits that bypass consciousness — through aggression, obsessive control, cruelty toward the source of the temptation. Internalized homophobia always strikes two people: the one nearby, and the man himself.