–“The World I Used to Be Afraid Of” by Blanche

Some of the first gay films I ever saw dealt also with the subject of the early days of HIV/AIDS, films like Longtime Companion, Angels In America, and Love! Valour! Compassion!, and Jeffrey (this still continues today with viewings of The Witnesses, Parting Glances, and The Living End). I was a confused new teenager with cable and insomnia, so I would stay up and watch anything that had to do with homosexuality (with a particular fixation on gay men, even then I felt more akin to them than to lesbians). It just happened that most of the films I saw were a little before my time.

I am pretty fresh and sheltered when it comes to the history and realities of HIV/AIDS in our community; I wasn’t born until the early 90’s, have almost always lived in suburbia, and have never known anyone who has HIV/AIDs, let alone died from it.  According to Larry Kramer, that puts me in the league of the lazy, uneducated gays of my generation by default (after he admonishes me for calling myself queer).  However, I strive to be neither purposefully ignorant nor excessively fearful.

Dame, die sich die Hände wäscht by Gerard ter Borch, taken from Wikimedia Commons

As I try to enter the world of dating and sex, I find myself periodically asking the question, “Would I date someone who was positive?” “Would I still hook up with them after they told me?” Looking at the OkCupid and ManHunt profiles of cute guys who are brave enough to clearly admit their status in their profiles (because, it is hard to be upfront about things that are often considered “less than ideal”), it certainly doesn’t rule them out in my mind. If you want to be ruled out in my book then show an open dislike for intellectual pursuits or put something along the lines of “no fats or flamers” in your profile.

There is definitely still a lot of unfair treatment and generalizations made. I can relate in more than one way to being stigmatized for a medical issue and have it become an automatic disqualifier in people’s eyes. There is this judgment that you can see pass through people’s eyes, and often that appalling silence that follows or that damn “Oh…” followed by the silence and judgment.  I don’t have HIV/AIDS, so I cannot fully understand, but I’d like to think I can at least make an effort not to be prejudiced despite my unintentionally sheltered upbringing.

It is really interesting hearing what my peers think about HIV and people who happen to have it.  For the most part, it seems more like a punchline to them than anything else.  With the exception of some of the social justice types with their sights firmly set on Africa and Bono, it seems to have disappeared from the mindset of those around me except in the form of a joke or an eyeroll when adults lecture about the importance of protection.  Our thoughts seem so separate from the interpersonal side of things.  I wonder what their responses would be if I asked, “Would date someone who was positive?” If it is anything like the responses I hear from many people about the question, “Would you date someone who is transgender?”, then clearly we have some things we need to talk and think about these matters on a personal, human level rather than technical terms and afterschool specials.

While back in Chicago for a friend’s wedding, writer Oscar Raymundo witnessed the city’s gay community conflicted over at-risk youth and the violence brought upon Boystown. It got him thinking about getting older, the stability of settling down and what it means to make a family of one’s own. He shares his experience in a three-part travelogue.

This travelogue first appeared here.

***

CHICAGO CHANGES (PART ONE)

c. Julie Michelle (http://iliveheresf.com/?p=1988)

I’ve never had a problem taking a red eye. I sleep pretty well on planes. And on my recent flight to Chicago to attend a friend’s wedding, I slept undisturbed. I needed it; my week was planned nonstop, hopping through my favorite neighborhoods and discovering new places I never explored. For the first time in the two years since I had graduated college, I was returning to the city I never thought I’d miss, the city where I came of age and left, a man.

There was something about returning to the place I once lived for five years. As a whole, the city was familiar, but the details, like bus stops, had changed with the traffic, moved down a block, altered to the needs of the passengers going home. And so it was up to me to adjust quickly to these changes.

Rested and alert, I got to Vanessa’s apartment in Streeterville right as the summer sun was beginning to heat up the city. I had arranged to stay there for the first half of the week, then off to a hotel right before the wedding to get out of what I assumed would be Vanessa’s maid-of-honor hysteria.

“How was the bachelorette party last night?” I asked shuffling my suitcase so it wouldn’t block the door to the bathroom.

“We went to bed at five,” Vanessa said way too nicely to have gotten only two hours of sleep. “And Jenny didn’t get nearly drunk enough.” That wasn’t hard to believe. Jenny, the bride, didn’t start drinking until later in college. In fact, she was admirably against alcohol our entire freshman year. Straight edge, she said she was. That changed once she started dating the frat boy who was now her fiancé, married in less than a week.

Vanessa went back to bed, and I headed off to meet Mo. She was at Union Park for the last day of the Pitchfork Music Festival, and I wanted to see Cut Copy. Mo had also flown in to go to the wedding but from New York, and she was staying with Whitney and her boyfriend Blake in the Ukrainian Village. Once I got near to the park, I joined the stream of hipster white kids walking past equally youthful black kids selling water bottles, crouching by the street curb.

I heard the word “faggot” blaring from a microphone, and I figured I had gotten to the festival just in time for Odd Future. The booking of the foulmouthed rap group with an affinity for shock value via misogynistic and homophobic lyrics prompted Between Friends, an anti-domestic violence group, to camp out at Pitchfork and pass out flyers.

I never understood the uproar with violent imagery in music and movies, the claim that video games desensitize kids or why the news censors certain depictions of bloodshed. There are wars going on, gangs are very much a part of urban fabric. At least rap music is expressive about it and considerably less harmful. Besides, no one criticized Ke$ha’s song “Cannibal” for literally comparing her appetite for guys to Jeffrey Dahmer (subtle, that one). Maybe it’s because no one believes Ke$ha capable of such crime but the members of Odd Future?

The next night, I went to The Bedford, a new bar housed in the basement of an abandoned bank in Wicker Park. The owners had turned the vault into a more intimate lounge. It was mostly empty. Mo, Whitney, Blake, and Adia were already there when I arrived, and Tom met us later. Adia asked us what we had planned for the week. I said I wanted to go to Empire Liquors, Debonair Social Club and Evil Olive, but I was quickly shut down with some eye rolls followed by an awkward silence. Apparently, at 25, I was now too old for the hotspots I used to frequent in college. Proving just how juvenile the scene now seems, Evil Olive has a “Porn & Chicken” party every Monday night, where they serve fried chicken while porn plays on the big screens. Nothing about the fleshy affair enticed me, so perhaps my friends were right.

“I also want to go to Boystown while I’m here,” was my next suggestion.

“The neighborhood has changed,” Adia, a Boystown resident, told me in a cautious, you-better-watch-out tone.

“I know,” I replied. “It’s in every local paper.” On Independence Day eve, a man was stabbed on Halsted right between Roscoe Street and Belmont. The incident involved a horde of African-Americans, dashing and shouting, and a bystander catching it on tape and posting it on YouTube. It seems social media is not a cure for Genovese syndrome.

“I grew up there, my mom still lives there, and as an African-American, it just makes me sad to see it all go down in my neighborhood,” Whitney said.

The video rekindled tensions, racial or otherwise, and launched another round of finger pointing in the gay community. On one side, the mostly white local residents and business owners who cited crime as the main concern and went insofar as to creating a Facebook page, Take Back Boystown. On the other side, the urban youth advocates who defend the Center on Halsted’s community services for queer kids of color.

“The story has been completely sensationalized,” Tom said. “Crime rates have actually decreased in Lakeview.”

“Oh, of course, it’s sensationalized!” Whitney got a little heated in talking about it. But she’s an actress so she gets heated about almost anything. “But it’s not these kids who are causing the trouble.”

I asked Whitney, seeing as she straddles this binary (an African-American raised in Boystown), whom she thought was really responsible for all the violence.

“It’s the drug dealers, the pimps, the gangs that follow them from the South side,” she said. “They’re like predators!”

I realized that in all that I had read and heard, no one was pointing the finger at these predators, as Whitney called them. But I wasn’t scared. I knew, now more than ever, I had to revisit Boystown for myself.

[Read the second installment of this travelogue next week. In the meantime, if you want to read an explicit, unedited version of this installment, click here.]

A few weeks ago, I suffered a birthday. At my age, I no longer care to celebrate birthdays. I merely endure them, as inconspicuously as possible, and hope no one else remembers. I am none too thrilled about getting older. I feel okay, but age does strange and disturbing things to the body. Plus, society in general tends to be a bit youth-obsessed, and gay men in particular can be extremely ageist. I’ve tried to keep myself in relatively decent shape; however, over the years, my skin has lost a considerable amount of elasticity, and I find that exercise doesn’t have quite the impact it once did. Mercifully, people rarely think that I look my age. Although, I’m not sure how my age is supposed to look. I consider it to be case-specific. I believe that genetics and self-improvement play a substantial role in determining how one does or does not display the influence of time. Personally, I often think I’m gross. And occasionally, I suffer, to varying degrees, from feelings of obsolescence. I’ve tried to rise above it, but it never fully dissipates. Being single doesn’t really help all that much.

Something happened recently that more or less put things into perspective and possibly made me realize how silly I am being about the whole aging experience. Several months ago, I registered on an online dating site. In creating my profile, I decided to list my age as being three years younger than I actually was. Let me just say that I am generally a very honest person. I am a huge proponent of full disclosure. But, for some reason (insecurity, a momentary bout of vanity, plain old stupidity, etc.), I fibbed. At the time, my online age seemed more palatable than my true age. In my mind, three years made a world of difference. A rounded number seemed more aesthetically pleasing. In hindsight, I realize this is completely absurd. It’s embarrassing to even admit it.

Initially, online dating was a less than pleasurable adventure, and a true exercise in futility. There were very few user profiles that caught my eye, and when those few were pursued further, the profiles and pictures never quite accurately portrayed what would be encountered during the face-to-face meetings. The whole experience was rapidly shaping up to be a huge disappointment. However, eventually, a few days before my birthday, I was contacted by, and subsequently met, a rather incredible younger man. Our first “date” exceeded my expectations, to say the very least. He was smart, funny, charming and absolutely adorable. We had a drink, then dinner. Everything went well, and we ended up seeing each other a couple of more times that week. On my birthday, we spent the day in Central Park, and it was undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable birthdays I have ever had. I was in the process of changing jobs at the time, and I wasn’t working the following week, so we saw each other almost every day. The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to see him. In the short amount of time that we had known each other, we established quite a rapport.

One Saturday, we were at my apartment, and he happened to see my passport. He opened it up to look at my picture and, of course, noticed my birth date. When he asked me why my age online was different than my actual age, it took me a minute to remember what I had done when composing my profile. I explained to him that, at the time, I was feeling apprehensive and insecure about my age, and that I had completely forgotten (which I genuinely had) that I had even portrayed myself as being three years younger than I actually am. We continued on with our plans for the day, but things were different, and the mood deteriorated as the day proceeded. He was a little distant, and made several off-color comments about various things. Eventually, I asked him if he was okay and his response was, “Actually, no, I’m not.” He was bothered by the fact that I had been dishonest about my age. In other words, my being three years older than he originally thought I was didn’t bother him – it was the fact that I felt the need to shave three years off of my age and lead potential dates to think that I was younger than I really was that he found upsetting. He said it was a symptom of a larger issue, and that he felt his trust had been compromised. After a very uncomfortable evening, which included dinner with friends, he went home to his apartment. I have to admit, it was more than a little disheartening.

Attempting to analyze and rationalize what happened has been an eye-opening process, mainly because I always end up looking like a colossal hypocrite. I’m tempted to say that he completely overreacted to something that really isn’t that big a deal. But isn’t that exactly what I was doing when I lied about my age in the first place? I’d also like to be able to say that three years difference in my actual age and my online age is such an insignificant amount that it really shouldn’t matter anyway but, apparently, it was significant enough for it to matter to me when I created my online profile. And finally, with regards to my aforementioned disappointment upon meeting a potential date, only to discover that their profile and picture didn’t accurately portray the real thing…again, I wind up looking like a total douche. Granted, my deception was on a smaller scale, but it was deception, nonetheless. In the end, I can’t continue to beat myself up over my unnecessarily dubious online dating profile. I’ve already updated and corrected it. I’ve learned my lesson. It’s time to grow up and start acting my age. And that just pisses me off.

To some degree everyone has a fetish; some might call them preferences, while others are more honest with themselves. Fetish connotes that a particular sexual or erotic taste lies outside of the ‘ordinary’ realm, but adhering to an active socially accepted preference is still a fetish.

On a recent trip to San Francisco, I spent my last night in town out with my local queer friends indulging in a few drinks and catching up. It was a three bar kind of night and our numbers dwindled with each change of scene. A night out in San Francisco, a city where just about anything goes, can get pretty interesting without walking more than a few blocks.

The first stop of the night, Blackbird, was a cute new quasi-hipster bar with modern interior fused with a bit of vintage flair. Ten of us had gathered and enjoyed a few libations before deciding to shift to the next bar. The second bar was 440 Castro and Mondays at 440 are daddy underwear night. My two friends who suggested the dive assured me that not everyone was older and dumpy and that frequently, a handful of eye-catching 30-somethings could be found carousing in their skivvies. As I’m generally game for most anything, especially after a few drinks, our now posse of four meandered a few blocks to 440 bar.

The bar was exactly what I expected with 40-50 year old hyper gays flubbing around in their Hanes tighty-whiteys. I’m not actually sure if there were any good looking guys in the entire bar as when faced with this situation you start playing ‘shiniest fish in the fish bowl’ and quickly make the most out of the otherwise mediocre. We bought a drink and made our way to the back of the bar where a few people were amiably gyrating to whatever terrible pop music was blaring from the ceiling. Older gay men in underwear showcasing their finest pot bellies is a fetish and I can now definitively state that it’s not a genre that does anything for me!

The two IPAs I had enjoyed at Blackbird were demanding evacuation so I made my way to the dingy pair of dimly lit bathrooms in the rear. One was a private stall with a lengthy line and the other an open door trough urinal, which I’ve only ever seen in gay bars and once at a high school gym! Next in line for the trough cave, I noticed a disheveled 45ish guy standing dead center chatting up the younger guy to his right and actively eye fucking his urinating member. Young guy finished his business and made haste vacating creepy pee-daddy’s viewing station. I stepped up to the show and tell stage, unfurled my manhood and attempted to pee while trying not to think about the creeper next to me salaciously watching! NOT A DROP!  I’ve never been pee shy in my life but clearly the instance of a half naked Ron Jeremy ogling my goods dammed up the floodgate. With no luck I zipped up and re-joined my friends.

While the trough might be more efficient than individual urinals, I really can’t get behind them! To creepy pee-daddy, please at least try to be discreet when visually molesting those next to you at the trough… even on underwear night when it seems like everything goes!

A night out with my friends

I don’t ever want to grow up. Thankfully because I am gay I’m allowed a longer lease on my youth.

I am 36 years old. I still have rock star posters on my wall. I love my stuffed animals. I go out and dance three nights a week. I leave my house at one am. I wait tables and love it. Many of my habits haven’t changed since I was eighteen.

My friends Michelle and Jessica were recently talking to a forty year old girl they knew. Distastefully they chastised the girl for being forty, unmarried, and still going to clubs. “People shouldn’t be going to clubs when they are over forty!”

“Ladies,” I replied. “I plan on still tearing up the dance floor when I’m sixty.”

“It’s different,” they said. “You are gay.”

Michelle and Jessica reaffirmed what I already knew. As a gay man I am relieved of the expectation of having to raise a family, move to the ‘burbs, and lose my soul after twenty nine. Homo say what?

Many things have changed since I was 18. I am much more mature with conflict resolution. Years of soul searching has made me more self aware and more genuine. I find myself to be more insightful than I was in my teen years. Personal growth aside, if one were to view my daily schedule on paper…not much has changed! Many of my gay friends in my age bracket are in the same boat. Without biological clocks ticking in our gay ears do we allow ourselves to feel young longer without the straight guilt?

I don’t drink. I am not enslaved to a chemical dependency. I just love pounding my thirty six year old feet on the dance floor with a big smile on my face. For years I’ve mourned my single life. Perhaps these are the years I still should be enjoying it.

I see many of my gay friends settling down once they are in their mid forties. Perhaps for straight people adolescence ends at twenty one and for gay men it ends at forty five.

I plan on enjoying my gaydolescence while it lasts.

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A cousin of mine — a straight man — has worked on the railroad for decades.  About ten years ago he had to get glasses and, because of the nature of his work, had to get a glasses-necklace to make it easier to switch them off and on.  When he picked out a holder, the store had a black one and a rainbow one.  My cousin (bless his heart) is not the most aware guy.  He thought “oh, these are snazzy” and bought the rainbow ones!  He wore this rainbow glasses-necklace every day while working the railroad.  He noticed, from then on, that men were honking at him and yelling “nice ass” at him much more often.  Not one to turn away flattery, my cousin thought he must be lookin’ pretty good!  Finally, a coworker informed him that a rainbow is LGBTQ Pridewear – he was rather disappointed that the rainbow caught these guys’ attention more than his ass.

His ass, though, had not changed.  Only when he wore this rainbow glasses-necklace, not knowing what it signified, did men catcall him.  The fact that he was perceived as gay brought on this attention.

There has been a theory for decades that chauvinistic straight men are homophobic because they fear that gay men will mistreat them, just like how they mistreat women.  Many homophobic men will actually admit that’s why they’re homophobic (sometimes with pride).

Yes, there are predatory gay people and, yes, my cousin’s situation is only one person’s.  However, his story implies that the fear of these homophobes is unfounded.  Many gay men won’t catcall straight men, either out of fear of retribution or because it would be pointless.

While I’d like to say that a gay man wouldn’t hit on a homophobic man, the fact that women date chauvinistic men suggests that such logic doesn’t apply to reality.

When I decided to start blogging about my experience with quitting my job and leaving the city behind to work on a farm I thought about many things related to being “out” as a gay man in the country: in my case not just the country but what has been described as the Appalachia of Pennsylvania- where the affectionate term Pennsyl-tucky is derived from. Some friends have even mentioned that they hear the Deliverance banjo playing when ever they start driving over the mountain through the county where I live.

I live in a rural county full of stereotypes from Kentucky: hicks, close-mindedness, and general homophobia (as described by others; I have yet to come face to face with any of these stereotypes). The fact that I picked a place that is characterized as “Kentucky” is actually quite humorous given the fact that I am a Kentucky boy at heart/birth! I guess I should feel at home here. But, given my surroundings, I definitely second guessed my decision to out myself in a blog or otherwise. First, I did not want to become known as that gay farmer. Second, leaving the comfort of the city, where I never second guessed holding a boyfriend’s hand or kissing him on the street corner I became a little aware of my personal safety in being out in a place full of people that might not be so accepting as those found in a city.

Ultimately, however, I decided not to be the wolf in lambs’ clothing.  I decided not to cover.

Covering most recently has been written about by Yale law school professor Kenji Yoshino in his book “Covering, The Hidden Assault on our Civil Rights.”  In his book, Yoshino provides a summary of the history of covering: covering that racial minorities sometimes feel the need to shroud themselves in when entering the workforce and covering that he argues sexual minorities must hide under when interacting with mainstream straight society.  His description of racial minorities covering reminds me of a scene in the film Philadelphia, where the African-American paralegal is describing an instance where one of the lawyers she worked for suggested that she wear less ethnic earrings to work.

paralegal: Mr. Wheeler’s secretary, Lydia…said that Mr. Wheeler had a problem with my earrings.  Apparently Mr. Wheeler felt…that they were too…”ethnic” is   the word she used.

She told me he said he would like it…if I wore something a little less garish… a little smaller and more American.

Lawyer: What’d you say?

Paralegal: I said, “My earrings are American. They’re African-American.”

When I was in law school I encountered a similar situation.  My friends and I were protesting  JAG’s (the armed forces Lawyers) employment recruitment on our campus.  Since JAG followed the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy they were in violation of our school and the Association of American Law Schools non-discrimination policy, which includes sexual orientation.  The military being the military however, they were allowed to recruit on campus.  So in protest we went to the information session and asked questions about if we as gays and lesbians could  get a   job with JAG. The JAG officers instantly equated our gayness with sexual misconduct and responded that as long as we didn’t flaunt it and as long as we didn’t engage in orgies we didn’t have to worry about it.  Our identity was instantly equated with sex. There was never any assumption that we could just be a boring old queen with a less than salacious sex life.  However, to illustrate my point of hetero-normative bias, when a straight class mate asked about health insurance benefits for their spouse or child care options for a child, not an eye was batted.  Why? Because, being gay implies something about illicit sex but asking about health care benefits or child care is well just normal- in a straight world.

Covering expands to other scenarios as well.  Yoshino writes about the covering that racial minorities and sexual minorities must hide under in the academic world.  He talks about the perils of being an academic and engaging in scholarship that pigeonholes an individual to covering subjects related to one’s identity.  He writes further explaining how current civil rights laws and constitutional protections do not encompass issues surrounding covering, i.e. is one protected by civil rights laws when they are expected to conform to an employer’s idea of what is acceptable for the workplace when many of those ideas of what is acceptable are molded by individuals’ own rooting in what is normal (hetero-normative bias?)

I would argue that such covering takes place in our every day life and would describe covering as the modern day burka of queerdom.  In a workplace, do I refer to my boyfriend as such or just as a friend?  One allows me to hide under the lambskin of sexual ambiguity the other instantly “outs” me.  Another type of covering takes place in how we present ourselves to others and how the rest of society sees us.  Do I have a conservative straight haircut or go for more of a gay fauxhawk?  Do I hide any implications of my sexuality or talk about them in a normal healthy way- like straight co-workers would talk about their partners, boyfriends, or spouses?  All of these questions raise some of the thorns that I routinely find myself navigating as I interact with new coworkers, friends, and people in general.

So as I write my blog I find my self asking how much of my blog should I whitewash/self-censor to get rid of any indication of sexuality?  Do I adhere to a “don’t ask don’t tell policy” with regard to my blog and my sexuality?  Isn’t all this a form of covering rooted in heteronomivity?  I could write this blog, not identify as a pasture-raised queer or use innuendo in some of my writing, and just be a city boy on the farm,  but wouldn’t that succumb to hiding under a lambskin?

The other animals in the barnyard are pretty comfortable in their own skin, so I think I will take their lead and lift up the burqa of the modern day queer.

A new twist in the Prop 8 case, with a court date coming just days after a controversial new judge is expected to join the Supreme Court. New York launches its own attack on the Defense of Marriage Act, and polling brings mostly good news, and a little bad.

Pretty quiet week, nothing too exciting — except everyone in New York getting married! Plus hearings on DOMA repeal, with Al Franken calling out an anti-gay liar. Plus more news from Maryland to Washington state.

The first time I saw an erect penis was in my friend Christine’s kitchen. A group of my friends were in the basement laughing and listening to music. Mike unzipped his pants and showed me that he was full salute. I remember shaking uncontrollably. My teeth were chattering audibly. I was terrified and enthralled. Those thirty seconds alone with Mike in that dimly lit kitchen changed my life. I probably went home and masturbated thirty times.

My mind became fixated on Mike and his penis. No one knew he was gay either…and the secrecy of it all only added to the intrigue. A couple weeks later my and Mike’s second tryst happened in Christine’s piano room. Neither of us climaxed. It was dangerous and quick experimentation.

Mike and I never talked about “the incidents”. The third time happened in my bedroom. This time we were fully naked. We were bathed in the inkiness of a black light and there was lint in his pubic hair.

Midway through Mike pushed me off and told me he wasn’t interested. I remember being fully charged up but tucking myself in the protection of the corner of my bedroom. Mike sat in the opposite corner. Distant. Closed. Uninterested. An eye blinked and Mike went from turned on to turning me away. I didn’t understand the coldness. Dr. Jerkyll morphed into Mr. Hyde-Your-Dick.

A couple months later Mike and I messed around one last time. It was a repeat situation. After a couple minutes of activity he froze and told me to go away. I have eczema. He said my skin was too dry. I knew he didn’t want to touch me. It was a hypersexual game of tug-of-war. No one ever won. I can still conjure the stillness and the silence.

And then twenty years went by…

Last night I saw Mike’s picture. I was caught off guard. Usually he made me grimace but instead I felt this intense urge to be held by him. To smell his hair. To love his voice instead of hating it like I did for two decades. I connected with a long-buried disappointment and realized that underneath all my hate for Mike was a long unanswered love.

What if my heart hadn’t been exposed to subzero temperatures at such a young age. Would I be a lot less cold than I am now, thirty years later? How much different would I be today if Mike had let me continue laying on top of him?

I laid in bed for hours with this eerie ancient longing. I always thought it was Mike’s coldness that damaged me. Last night I realized it was really the hunger left by his warmness.

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The Prop 8 trial is coming to Broadway — and then to theaters all over the country. The fallout from New York continues, with renewed efforts in Maryland and Colorado. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on DOMA’s repeal on Wednesday, the 20th, and meanwhile Canada makes us look bad celebrating the sixth anniversary of marriage equality.

It’s been another super busy week so let’s get right to it: Rhode Island is getting civil unions but along with them come some dangerous anti-gay laws. Maine will collect signatures to overturn that state’s marriage ban, and seven couples have sued New Jersey to do the same there. The American Medical Association endorsed marriage equality, the National Organization for Marriage won’t be allowed to use secret donors in Minnesota, the Department of Justice sided against DOMA in one case and with DOMA in another. And as of this weekend, I’ve moved: goodbye San Francisco, and hello West Hollywood.

Just a A French Teenage Crossdresser & His Mistress, c. Mommy Fiercest

I had decided that I would fall in love with Émile Bonnet before I’d ever even met him. He was my junior high school boyfriend’s foreign exchange student. He was 19 and French. I loved Émile because he was smart and worldly and he did what I wanted him to do.

When he arrived we stayed up late sitting out on the picnic bench in my boyfriend’s family’s backyard.  The breeze cooled our sweaty skin and carryed with it the pungent aroma of the tomato cannery and the garlic fields that surrounded my tiny village. Émile and I laughed and flirted as the yard sizzled with the summer sounds of frogs and crickets and the air smelled wonderful like spaghetti. Émile  showed me photos of his college hazing, regaling me with tales of being made to run around Paris on a scavenger hunt covered in raw eggs and carmel sauce in only his underpants. In one such photo Émile was standing atop a formica table before a blackboard in a lecture hall. He wore a poorly fitting french school girls uniform that one of his classmates had brought with her from home. He sang into a child’s toy microphone, head thrown back, chest thrust forward. He looked positively radiant and not in the least humiliated. I had already begun dressing my boyfriend in my goth girl drag and my approval and subsequent titillation were all the incentive Émile needed to become my cross-dressing femme entertainment.

One summer afternoon I bleached his outdated Beatles bowl haircut and dyed it bright pink. He rinsed the dye out in my shower and he stained his entire face (and my bathtub) Manic Panic fushia. I sent him home on the skate board he borrowed from my boyfriend. I had no desire to make out with his tomato face.

He was a good kisser but his breath often smelled of anchovies, which he ate almost daily. I knew of no other teenagers who ate anchovies or hot mustard that stung your nose and made your eyes well up with tears when you swallowed.

We maintained a love letter romance for about a year before one of us eventually lost interest. But I will always remember him in photos. Émile as a naughty schoolgirl. Émile as a slutty goth girl in my driveway blowing kisses from beneath the shade of my Ren-Fair head dress. Émile the pink haired teenager in a red pleated skirt and silver thigh high stockings.

In America, in Gilroy, Émile was fearless.

Erick Davidson is an early thirtysomething from New Jersey who has lived in Los Angeles for the better part of a decade.

******

Two weeks ago, Erick put together a very well-received sponsorship package for the Fresh Air Fund to be underwritten by the Fresh Fruits Initiative. Since the FFI had been approached to essentially foot the bill for a campaign that Lefty Magazine would still making a commission on, they issued a challenge for them make a sacrificial contribution of their own to the Fresh Air Fund.

It was decided that Erick and Abram, who closed the deal with the FFI, would fly to New York for the week to help drive inner-city kids to the homes of their host families in more rural and suburban areas in the northeast and mid-Atlantic.

“Alright childrens, we have a few ground rules to review,” Erick says to a group of twelve on a passenger van driven by another one of the Fresh Air Fund volunteers.

He sits on a short stool between the front driver and passenger seats and reads from a typed-up sheet of paper. “Keep your seatbelts on at all times while the van is in motion. Since Mister Rich needs to concentrate on driving, please do not talk to or throw anything at him.”

Erick leans back and turns to Rich, who’s making his way down 6^th Avenue toward the Holland Tunnel. “I envy you,” Erick says to Rich.

Rich laughs. Erick leans forward and continues. “There will be two stops along the New Jersey Turnpike for bathroom breaks before we begin dropping you off in Delaware and Maryland. Does anyone need to go now? No? Good. We have apples, carrots, bananas, trail mix and water for snacks to tide you over until dinner with your respective host families tonight. If you get hungry, ask me and I will serve it to you. Do NOT get up and serve yourselves. Are there any questions before I add my own rules to this list?”

“What’s your name?” eight-year-old Laurie asks.

“I am Mister Erick.”

“What’s your last name?” Laurie asks.

“It’s Davidson. Now for my rules. There will be no laughing, no smiling, no poking, no touching, no blinking, no coughing, no sneezing, no groaning, no moaning, no huffing, no puffing, no griping, no complaining, no singing, no humming, no sniffling, no yawning, no kicking, no foot-tapping, not hitting, no smacking and no slapping. I reserve the right to add to this list as I see fit during this trip. Are there any questions?”

The younger children stare wide-eyed into Erick’s stern eyes. “What happens if we don’t follow these rules?” a wiseacre twelve-year-old asks.

“What’s your name?” Erick asks.

“Timothy.”

“Well, Timothy – and all of you for that matter — if you don’t follow these rules, Mister Rich will pull this fan over and we will tie you to the roof.”

The younger children look back and forth at each other in wild-eyed concern. Rich briefly glances at them in the rear view mirror, smiles and shakes his head.

“He’s kidding,” Timothy reassures them. He then looks at Erick for confirmation. “You are kidding, right?”

Erick stares at him sternly. He then raises an eyebrow. “There’s only one way to find out, Timothy.”

“He’s kidding,” fourteen-year-old Brian states confidently.

Erick subtly nods at Brian. “Are there any other questions?” he repeats.

“How old are you?” Laurie asks.

“I’m older than you,” Erick replies with the smile.

“Where are you from?” Laurie asks.

“I’m actually from New Jersey, but I live in California.”

“What do you do there?” nine-year-old Sarah asks.

“I help the Fresh Air Fund with its marketing.”

“What are you doing here then?” Timothy asks.

“The company I work for wanted to do more to support the Fund.”

“How much are you getting paid for this?” Timothy charges.

Erick sends him a warning glare and points to the roof. “Four hundred thousand dollars,” he answers.

“Are you married?” Sarah asks.

Erick leans back and looks up at Rich. “I feel like I’m at a press conference.”

“You’re doing fine. Better you than me. This is why I drive,” Rich responds.

Erick makes a face before leaning forward. “I’m not married.”

“Why not?” Laurie asks.

“’Cuz he’s gay! He and Mister Rich are boyfriends!” Timothy blurts out.

Erick sits in silence for a moment. The psychologist in him wants to explore what Timothy knows about homosexuality, what his parents have told him about it and why he would make jokes. However, given the tenuous nature of the topic where kids and parents are concerned, Erick opts for the smart ass approach. He leans back and looks up at Rich again, who’s smiling. Erick holds the rule sheet in front of his face. “What’s Timothy’s last name?” he whispers.

“Vieira,” Rich whispers back.

Erick leans forward again. His face goes solemn as he begins to tell Timothy and the other children about his special friend from high school. The two of them were really close. They walked to class together, ate lunch together, did their homework together, watched TV together, had dinner at each other’s houses and spent the night at each other’s houses.

Then one day, a classmate made a joke about the two of them being boyfriends. Erick’s special friend was so upset that he immediately stopped talking to him. “I was devastated,” Erick recalls.

Erick was so hurt that he stopped talking to people. He walked to class by himself, ate lunch by himself, did homework by himself, watching TV by himself, had dinner with his parents and never spent the night at anyone else’s house.

Erick and his special friend never saw each other again after that. They each found new friends. They went off to different colleges. Erick moved to California, while his friend stayed in New Jersey. The only thing he’s heard about his special friend is that he’s married with a kid.

“That’s so sad,” Sarah says.

“What was his name?” Laurie asks.

“I won’t tell you the first name, but his last name is ‘Vieira’.”

Timothy’s eyes widen.

“Isn’t that your last name? And aren’t your dad and Mister Erick around the same age?” Brian teases knowingly.

“There are a lot of Vieira’s in New Jersey,” Timothy replies defensively.

“That’s true, Timothy. That is very true, but … you never know,” Erick adds. “You do look an awful like my Vieira.”

Erick rises from the stool, sits down in the passenger seat and fastens his safety belt. “That’s so mean,” Rich whispers to him with a smile.

The van heads down Canal Street. “For those of you who have never been through one before, this is the Holland Tunnel. There’s also the Lincoln Tunnel in midtown. Both of them go under the Hudson River. I have no idea how they did that since the Hudson River was probably here first, but it’s still exciting to know that we are technically driving through the water to get to my home state of New Jersey. I still have friends here. I’ll let you know as we approach the state line.”

Once I realized I could see almost any guy I wanted to see naked for $100 or less it was like the day Superman realized his own powers. Spiderman had the power of agility and Wonderwoman had the power of her breasts. In the shadows of neon I have discovered the balance between the power of the Benjamin Franklin and the power of the cock.

It all began in 2001. I was in love with a troll. Not “troll” in the gay connotation, but a real troll. Short. Stout. Perhaps there was even a bit of a hunchback. He was regrettably heterosexual but flirtatious as ever.

Perhaps I was blinded by love this time. They say love causes people to do things they never thought they would do. When the troll was crying online about going to jail if he didn’t pay off his probation officer I felt empathetic. And jokingly opportunistic. When I told the troll I’d pay off his probation officer in exchange for a private strip show I never in my wildest wet dreams imagined that he’d say yes. But he did. And we did. Then he told everyone afterwards. And that was the night I paid the Troll Toll.

To see a straight boy that I felt so strongly and emotionally about fully naked was exhilarating to the point of euphoria. The money was a small price to find myself in view of a dick that I’d been longing for for years.

I internally toyed with the ethics of my actions. People pay thousands of dollars in strip clubs to see strangers naked. How was that different than paying someone I knew to show off his hotness in a more private and intimate situation?

Now it’s a decade later. I’ve accumulated many more scandalous stories and I won’t be sharing them here. I’ve had a lot of good times. I do know I have to be careful as a gay man to not just view other men as pieces of meat. It’s hard in a world that feels like almost everyone is on sale, one way or another.

A complete objectification of the flesh would be the death of my gay heart.  Is straight dick really worth that much?

More Jeremy Gloff at Facebook.

I shuffled down the hall into Andrea’s room and sat on her floor in the middle of the rug.  Looking down at the threads, at nothing in particular, I mumbled to her, “I……….. like guys.”  She was the first person I had come out to… sober, that is.  But my awkwardness was transformed by Andrea’s immediate response: “That’s wonderful! I’m so happy for you!”  Her excitement changed an uncomfortable and self-doubting moment into a source of pride for me.

A few weeks later, I came out to Brian, another friend of mine.  Again, I was hesitant and nervous but his first response was to congratulate me.  Then he asked if we could grab drinks later that week; he was excited for me and wanted to hear how I was processing the whole event.

Brian saw the contents of my well-hidden closets and responded with openness and with an interest not stained by morbid, gossip-driven curiosity.  Like Andrea, he gave me a sense of pride.  Moreover, he refused to let me retreat back to my old ways.  He knew I didn’t want to stay in the dark anymore, so even if I didn’t bring up my sexuality, he did.

Most of my closest friends are not gay, lesbian, or transgender, though many of them have been allies.  I’m encouraged by their support and their casual way of advocating for the dignity of LGBTQ in their daily interactions.  Most of all, I cherish those close straight friends of mine, like Andrea and Brian, who imparted to me pride and confidence.  Not only did they encourage me, but they helped me celebrate what I had yet to appreciate about myself.

Allies are those who turn on the light in the dark and neglected corridors I’ve come to know so well.  I’m referring to those hopelessly dim labyrinths that have been forged by the underside of an internalized heterosexism—where depression, anxiety, and self-loathing reside.  For so long I had wandered those halls as afraid of my sexuality as I was of my happiness.  However, when Andrea and Brian saw my earliest steps of coming out, their response brought to light the wonderful things which had been hidden for so long.

For me, the idea of “Pride” is about having sex with the light on—that is, exposing our darkened chambers to the midday sun.  The categories of decency and shame push into darkness those who divert from the publicly acceptable standards of sexual behavior and gender identity.  And so, many of us are left to fumble through the shadows alone, afraid to see the good in what others condemn.  As a celebration, “Pride” invites us to bring out our partner/s, whips, and toys, our identities and role-playing outfits without shame.  Pride shines light on our bedrooms [and elsewhere] and gets us to cheer!

And cheering is what my straight friends taught me to do.  I am grateful for those who have bestowed in me confidence; who taught me how to live with pride, how to turn on the light, and how to celebrate.  Our allies are those who regularly offer us their strength, comfort, and affirmation in an otherwise harsh world.  Yet, I can only summarize my profound gratitude in the simplest of words: “Thank you.”

When I was 15 years old, I couldn’t wait to attend a local community theater production of The Boys in the Band. I was intrigued by the play’s dark and mysterious reputation, and had heard that it included a lot of homosexuality (funny how that word isn’t used much anymore). It sounded like exactly what this budding young queer needed: some lessons about the yellow brick road ahead.

I didn’t like what I saw. The characters, a group of gay men celebrating a birthday, were mean and sad and angry with one another. And they were all presented like weird, exotic animals, bitching and crying for the lascivious thrill of a very shocked audience in Shreveport, Louisiana. I left the show feeling terribly disenchanted, fearing my life was destined to be drunken and pathetic.

It was the theatrical opposite of an It Gets Better video.

In the insightful and appropriately melancholy new documentary Making the Boys , the remarkable journey of the groundbreaking play and movie adaptation is discussed by playwright Mart Crowley and a host of gay cultural voices, old and new.

When The Boys in the Band opened off-Broadway in 1968, homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness. The play’s behind-the-scenes peek at gay men in their natural habitat was fascinating to audiences and greeted with enthusiasm from the gay community. Yes, they were maladjusted, self hating fags, but they were our maladjusted, self hating fags.

But in 1969, as the movie version was being filmed only blocks from the Stonewall bar, a riot occurred at the club in response to constant police harassment. The modern gay rights movement was born. Seemingly overnight, New York gays stood up for themselves and demanded some respect – from others and, more importantly, themselves. By the time the film version of The Boys in the Band opened in 1970, the story and its sad characters felt like a politically incorrect relic. We wanted nothing to do with these old, bitter friends anymore. They didn’t reflect our “pride.”

Opinions about the show vary wildly, as evidenced by the interviews in the documentary. Gay playwright Edward Albee (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?”) always hated the show and still does. The surviving actors (the theatrical cast all recreated their roles for the film) staunchly defend the humanity of their characters. And younger gays interviewed about the show have no idea what the hell we’re talking about. “I don’t really know about any boys in the band,” states perplexed fashion star Christian Siriano. “Honey, I’ve got dresses to make!”

The Boys in the Band has become a litmus test for how you view our ability to love ourselves. And those boys continue to reverberate and reflect our attitudes and tribulations as gay men, and that includes the AIDS crisis.

Watching the film today, I’m struck with an odd compulsion. I see these characters laughing and bitching, and I want to reach through the screen and shake them and warn them, to tell them about something coming, something too awful to describe, of a plague they can’t possibly comprehend that is coming to kill them all.

Indeed, at one point in Making the Boys, we are shown photos of the actors, of the men who played these iconic characters we loved and then hated and then, finally, simply accepted. And listed under each of the actors’ names is the year he died of AIDS. 1984. 1985. 1988. On and on it goes, through what appears to be a majority of the cast.

The moment brings about such emotional confusion, of regret and interrupted affections. It’s like hearing of a death of a long lost friend with whom you had a troubled relationship.

Our boys continue to live on through the film, performing their roles on that screen exactly the same way, defiant in their stereotypes, no matter how many times we revisit the movie.

What has changed, for better and for worse, is us

Follow the adventures of Erick Davidson, an early thirtysomething from New Jersey who has lived in Los Angeles for the better part of a decade, every Wednesday at 12 p.m.

***

“Hi Dad, it’s Erick…” Erick says into his cell phone as he and Chris are preparing Sunday dinner of turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes and oven-roasted asparagus for themselves, Hunter, Elyke, Cole and Mitch.

Chris tilts his head in confusion as he begins rinsing off a three pound bag of potatoes.

“…I just wanted to call and wish you a Happy Father’s Day. I sent you a card that I hope arrived in time. I sent it on Thursday. I probably should have sent it on Wednesday, but well…that didn’t happen…” Erick trails off as he seasons the turkey meatloaf with pepper, oregano and seasoned salt.

Chris looks over at the meatloaf concoction, quickly dries his hands and reaches into the cabinet for a box of crackers.

“…As I was writing a note in the card, I was having second thoughts about it because it had flowers on the front but no mention of Father’s Day. I had just watched the Father’s Day Christmas episode of The Cosby Show where Cliff was complaining about the gifts he’d received over the years. In the episode—“

“He’s probably seen it,” Chris interjects, knowing that Erick could go on about The Cosby Show for another half hour even if on a voicemail.

“…so that my have something to do with it…” Erick laughs as he takes two eggs out of the refrigerator. Chris smiles and shakes his head as he begins peeling the potatoes.

Erick cracks the eggs into the meatloaf mixture. “…I wanted to tell you a quick story. I was coming back from hiking this morning when I ran into Kevin, one of the maintenance techs for the building. He has two young sons and I said to him, ‘you’re working on Father’s Day?’”. Kevin said, ‘yes, but as soon as I am done here I am going to go back home and play with my boys.’ His eyes sparkled and he had this wide grin on his face. He was looking forward to it. I guess that made for a great Father’s Day for him – to be able to provide for his family and then have time to spend with the family he is providing for…”

Erick pauses for a moment. Chris looks up and thinks about what Erick had just said. The two of them look at each other as if considering that possibility for them. After another moment, they both shake their heads. Chris turns around and preheats the oven to 350 degrees.

“…at any rate, Dad. Happy Father’s Day. Talk to you soon,” Erick concludes as he disconnects the call, places the phone down on the counter, opens the bag of crackers and begins crushing them into the meatloaf mixture.

“That was your dad?” Chris asks.

“Yep.”

“Your dad, dad?”

“Yep.”

“Like, your real dad?”

Erick sticks his hands into the meatloaf mixture and begins blending all the ingredients together. “How many dads do you think I have?”

“I assumed only one but you never talk about him.”

“I don’t not talk about him. There’s just not much to talk about.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s normal. Always has been. He’s just your typical dad.”

“You talk about your mom a lot, though.”

“She’s a different kind of normal.”

“What’s your dad like?”

“I always use this as an example. Our house in New Jersey was always open for friends and visitors from the neighborhood or from church.”

“Church?”

“Yes, he’s a minister. I grew up in church.”

“That makes sense, because you’re the only one who could ever reach me,” Chris says with an equal mix of levity and gravity.

Erick shakes his head. “That was corny but sweet. However, that’s mine and Christine’s song.”

“Who’s Christine?”

“She’s a longtime friend of mine from home. We danced to that song at Senior Prom. We were serving ourselves dinner, but as soon as they song came on we dropped our plates and rushed into the ballroom. Then we came back out and ate.”

“But you digress.”

“Anyway, we’d have people over for random and often impromptu gatherings. While my mother and I were holding court in the living room, my father would be talking to one or two guests in the dining room or downstairs,” Erick stops blending for a moment. “If he was in the living, he’d just lean back in his armchair silently watching the proceedings with his right hand to the right side of his chin and one or two fingers pointed upward along the right side of his face. In rare contemplative moments, I find myself with hand to chin – only it’s all left side for me.”

“I’ve seen you do that. It’s not as rare as you think.”

“I never knew what he was thinking in those moments. To this day, I don’t know if he was watching us in amusement or hoping we’d go to commercial so he could go to bed. My guess it’s the latter since he’d do just that after a few hours – even with a house full of people,” Erick recalls with a chuckle.

“Does he know you are going to New Jersey next week for work?”

“Yes. And the money I am saving the company by staying with him instead of staying at a hotel is going toward a nice belated and expensed Father’s Day dinner.”

Chris laughs. “What have you told him about me?”

“He knows you exist, but we don’t talk much about the gay thing.”

“Does he have a problem with it?”

“It’s not so much that he has a problem with it. He just not thrilled with it. He loves his son more than he dislikes the fact that said son is gay.”

“Are you okay with that?” Chris asks as he places the potatoes in a pot, fills it with water, places it on the stove and turns on the burner.

Erick dumps the meatloaf mixture into a baking dish and forms it into a loaf. “I am. I meant to say this in the voicemail but when he watched me perform in school plays and later in the gospel choir in college, my father had that same look of pride in his father’s eyes that I saw in Kevin’s eyes this morning. I know he knew I was gay then but in those moments, it didn’t matter to him. I wasn’t his gay son. I was just his son. And even though I’m sure part of him would have liked to see me hit a homerun or score a touchdown, I’d like to think that the sound of applause for a great performance was just as sweet.”

Chris steps behind Erick and rests his chin on top of Erick’s head. “That’s a nice thought.”

“And if not, oh well. That applause was for me anyway,” Erick replies as he wraps foil over the meatloaf and places it in the oven.