That is the problem: When you start a topic or discussion and then disappear because you have only limited time online, sure enough that discussion takes on a life of its own and starts answering questions that weren't even intended.
So, sorry for responding so many pages later and I will try to make myself a bit clearer, because where the discussion ended up is quite a bits off from where I was going with my thoughts.
I don't believe either that Adam gets easily embarrassed or at least not over stuff that he has such a very natural connection to, like sexuality. You don't give concerts wearing a codpiece, if you don't want to draw attention to your junk, and you don't wear paper-thin trousers that are tight, if you are afraid something might show. In fact Adam has, if anything, unusually little of that kind of shame factor, because as he has explained in multiple interviews, he intentionally worked for many years on turning that voice off inside of him to free himself and make himself less fearful.
But that does not mean that Adam cannot at some point in time feel used. Or feel let down. Or feel betrayed. Or feel like everything gets criticized, no matter what he does, etc. He is human and so these things are happening to him like anyone else. And he is also responsible for a whole team, and we talk about them too, as we did yesterday.
The question is, how much of this are we causing?
And given that obviously none of us intend to hurt him, how do these boundaries get drawn, given that our discussions tend to skirt very close to his personal life or the life of his friends on a regular basis? Obviously he needs to draw those lines mostly.
And my perception was, whether that is right or not I don't know, but my perceptions was that yesterday he did exactly that.
Drew a line. First he clearly put a stop to that piercing rumor, which surprised me, because usually he ignores all the ongoing GB chatter. Then he performed that song Underneath differently than he usually does. What was that in his eyes and in his voice when he sang those lines? Was it frustration, was it sarcasm, was it determination to address something, a response, or was it something else? Why does he feel so much like the freak, when we are talking about him? He does not seem like that to us, why does it seem like that to him? I am not sure, but he did sing it distinctly differently yesterday. Was it our talk about his Glamily (which was my suspicion, and I took part in that discussion too) or was it that piercing stuff, or something else, none of us knows, but there was something. And so I started speculating.
My first perception was that he somehow felt used - his public figure position used for our entertainment - which is happening all the time, so why was it yesterday so different. Thinking about that had made me sad and had made me pensive. Made me realize that sensitive balance between support, which is good and invasive behavior, which is not. It made me aware how as fans we are on one hand helpful and on the other hand can also be hurtful and probably at times unknowingly so.
Does he as a public figure have to grow a thick skin to a lot of that stuff? Sure. And he has. Hence he does not normally show it, which is exactly what Underneath is about. Because your feelings do go somewhere.
It just made me more aware how absurdly unnatural the situation is and how easily it can turn negative even when it all is done with positive intent. Like a balanced set of scales, where every morsel can shift the plates in one or the other direction, there is a symbiosis between artist and fans that is necessary and yet unhealthy at the same time and after listening to that song I was just sad to hear Adam sing it that way. I had read it as he meant to tell us something yesterday.
So I posted that hoping to get a read from others how they read the performance and otherwise, I was just sharing with you, what I felt.
I presume I have now successfully confused the heck out of everybody. But I also don't know how to find any better words anymore, and its getting late, so I will have to send it and trust that at least some of this makes sense to you all.
