…dead closest cases can’t sue you for slander.
… that I first had sex with a man in a bed.
I’d had sex with men before, generally in sleazy cruising spots that were really the only option available to a queer teenager in North Carolina at the time, but I’d never gone home with someone and done it in a nice respectable apartment with a nice respectable bedroom.
I was 17 years old and was coming out with a vengeance. We met, as was the custom at the time among those of us too young for bars, at a tearoom at Four Seasons Mall. He was 23 and was (I swear) in a fraternity at UNC Greensboro. His apartment was actually just a couple of blocks from my house. I don’t remember a lot about the sex, but it was an important moment for me because of the location and because I actually had time to talk to the guy for a while. It’s one of the first times that ever happened for me, actually conversing with a fellow sodomite.
This encounter obviously made a big impression on me as I’ve never forgotten the date, and as I kept having sex with other men (many, many other men) over the years. I’ve seen many apartments and had many conversations. I even picked up another member of that same fraternity a couple of years later, quite by accident.
I’m happy to say that I don’t do frat boys or tearooms anymore, but I do still have sex on occasion. It usually happens in a bed now with someone I already know, so that part of the novelty has worn off.
I had sex for the first time on National Coming Out Day.
Actually, it was 11 October 1980, and there wasn’t really a National Coming Out Day yet; that didn’t happen until 1988.
But it was good enough for me, anyway.
I was 16. My parents were doing something that night and I had the night off from McDonald’s, so I drove up High Point Road to the neighborhood dirty bookstore. Somehow, without being told, I instinctively knew that was a place where things might happen. Maybe it’s because the place was called “Dudes.” Once illegally inside, I browsed the literature that was on display, much of it more photographic than textual. And older guy (he must have been thirty) approached me and somehow coaxed me into one of the video (actually 8mm film, I think) viewing rooms in the back. Things happened. Surprisingly many things. I was not as shy as I might have expected.
It was not really all that enjoyable. I wasn’t really excited by the guy. I was just excited by the fact that it was finally happening. There was a certain inevitability about it; it was something that just needed to happen with whomever happened to be handy. I have no idea what the guy’s name was. I didn’t really care all that much. I still don’t. To be brutally honest, I just sort of needed to get it over with so I could (a) know for sure it was what I was supposed to be doing, and (b) start focusing on doing it right with people I was actually attracted to.
I may have done it at that bookstore one more time, but I quickly graduated to the tearoom scene, because the mall was ultimately a safer place for a high school kid (especially one with a fairly recognizable car) to hang out than the dirty bookstore. I had fun with it. I regret nothing.
As an adult, though, despite the fact that I had sex in some fairly lurid and semi-public places, I never really did the bookstore scene again. It always kind of gave me the willies.
My first time was a checkbox on a list, not a romantic scene from a movie. And I’m really OK with that. I think the number people who hear angels playing harps or whatever the first time they have sex is probably not very great.
And just to complete this romantic story, Dude’s Adult Books became a sketchy used tire store several years ago.
November’s “Idiot of the Month” award is proudly offered to Rich Tafel and his pals in the Log Cabin Republican Club. Granted, this team of faggots would be shoo-in candidates for idiots of the DECADE. But they’ve made particular asses of themselves this month by courting George W. Bush and then expressing shock that he wasn’t interested in their advances.
Imagine that: a Republican candidate for President wasn’t interested in meeting with a group of sell-out gay Republicans. What a surprise. When will Rich and his merry band of Aunt Marys ever realize that the Republicans they so idolize would be thrilled if these particular suitors disappeared from the face of the earth.
The Log Cabin types remind me of gay men who spend their entire lives chasing after totally unobtainable straight macho men. They’re absolutely nuts about individuals who (by and large) feel nothing but contempt for them. If they’re drunk enough, they might let a fag suck them off, but they’re never going to return the favor, and they’re certainly never going to take one home to meet Mom.
Same with the Republicans: they may take money and support as long as the fags don’t expect any acknowledgement or support. Bush, has indeed stated that, while not agreeing to meet with them, he WOULD accept a donation or endorsement from the Log Cabin Club, thus qualifying him for the “Hypocrite of the Month” award. The really frightening thing is that, as the Republican front-runner, Bush probably will ultimately receieve an endorsement.
Or maybe the Log Cabin Republicans can all join the Reform Party and bend over for Pat Buchanan in a back room at the convention. Hope they don’t plan on getting near the podium, though…
I’ll start by saying that I’ve grown to hate the word “gay”. I really don’t want to get into the semantics issue of “gay” vs. “queer” (or “invert” or “homphile” or whatever). My problem with “gay” is that it suggests an identity rather than a sexual orientation, and I ain’t buying into it.
I sleep with other men. I eat cereal. I drive a Toyota. I watch “The Simpsons”. I go to the grocery store. Big deal. These are things that I do. Taken together, they may speak volumes about my identity. Individually, however, they mean nothing much at all. I have nothing more (or less) in common with other men who sleep with men than I do with other men who drive Toyotas.
This is not to say that I have nothing at all in common with any of my fellow fudgepackers, or that I’m somehow “different” or “more unique” or “more developed”. It just means that my search for “community” is based more on shared interests than on shared sexual orientation. In other words, I’d rather spend an evening talking to someone who shares my love for urban theory and history or Krispy Kreme Doughnuts or roadside motels from the 1950s than with someone whose only common interest is a shared passion for sucking dick.
If someone I meet whose interests match mine happens to be straight or even (gasp) a woman, that’s just fine. If, on the other hand, he happens to be a man who likes to screw men, then we have one more thing in common. Cool, huh?
I guess what I mean is that some vague notion of “gay community” is not number one on my list of priorities in a place to visit or to live. Similarly, sexual orientation is not one of the top aspects in my choice of friends. Years ago, these things used to be very important to me, which is part of why I moved to San Francisco. I can sort of understand why they still might be important to some other people. But the older I get, the less I view the world in terms of sexuality.
I’m not talking about faux masculinity, nor am I saying that people shouldn’t “flaunt their sexuality”. I have no patience with closet cases nor with tight-assed macho men (whether they like men or women). I’m in favor of “flaunting”. I’m just not in favor of the notion that sexual orientation makes for any more of a “community” than does an aversion to pickles on hamburgers.
I’m not going to sit through a crappy movie rather than a good one just because the crappy movie happens to have a “positively portrayed gay character”. I’m not going to buy a CD by a band which sucks just because dicks are one of the things they suck. And I’m most assuredly not going to live in a pastel-colored neighborhood of overpriced boutiques and juice bars simply because it’s a “gay mecca”.
Nor, on the other hand, am I going to assume something is bad just because a fellow Sodomite was involved somehow. I don’t hate “gay people”. I do hate people who think being “gay” is the most important single aspect of their identity, because they become one-dimensional and boring.
Ultimately, though, if I had to choose between living in a town with 20 great gay bars and a huge gay ghetto or one with 20 great used bookstores and a few huge run-down neighborhoods, I’d choose the latter without blinking an eye.
Photo courtesy Sarah
Someone I know in North Carolina was murdered recently. It’s a little disturbing to me for two reasons. The first stems from the fact that the victim was, frankly, not someone that I particularly liked. Thus, I’m not sure exactly which emotion is required at this point. The other is that this is the second time in as many years that a violent death has hit my circle of friends in Greensboro.
The newspapers aren’t mentioning it (yet) but it’s pretty apparent that either sex, drugs, or both were major factors. Sex and drugs go hand in hand for lots of my fellow sodomites in the south (and everywhere else). The “restless rednecks” stereotype is more apt than many would care to admit.
I worry about a lot of my friends back home, for whom obliterating reality seems to have become the only way of coping with life. The image becomes even sharper as most of the new friends I make have (like me) abandoned the whole recreational drug scene years ago, looking on it as a pastime more suited to high school and college than to everyday adult life.
It disturbs me when I go home and see friends for whom nothing ever really changes, except the current venue for partying or the currently fashionable party favors.
Granted, I don’t even smoke pot, I rarely drink more than a beer or two anymore, and sex has become (at best) a peripheral interest for me lately. I don’t think this makes me a superior human being. I’m not interested in being a crusader. I realize that I haven’t made such a tremendous success of my life either.
But I do worry. Especially when people start getting brutally murdered for no apparent reason other than for bringing home the wrong boy…
Did you ever get the feeling there was some sort of running gag and that YOU were the punchline? I’ve decided that’s how I feel in most social situations, particularly those involving he-faggots.
I know it’s not really true. I realize that most people at the average bar, party, or whatever don’t give a rat’s ass about me one way or the other. But I still feel that everyone’s looking at me or laughing at me or thinking “what a putz”. The feeling’s usally much more prevalent in queer bars, but it can happen anywhere.
Never having really been the sociable sort (despite some valiant charades), I think I’ve never become really comfortable with the idea that any group of people might actually want me to be a part of it. Of course, it all goes back to junior high and self-esteem issues (insert appropriate psychobabble here), but you’d think I might have gotten past it by now.
Of course, there are benefits. When Mr. Right shows up in a bar, I’m usually not surrounded by an impenetrable entourage. I’ve also managed to forge a certain appealing aloofness out of this particular neurosis. Or so I’ve convinced myself…
All the same, though, it might be nice to wander up to a group of acquaintances without feeling I was butting in and being barely tolerated. I also get the same feeling almost any time I have to call someone the phone, oddly enough. It’s a feeling I’ve been having weekly (or more) for almost twenty years now, and I think I’m ready to be rid of it.
For a few minutes this morning, I seriously thought about making signs and marching in the “people with labels” parade. Some possibilities I considered:
- Proud of Our Internalized Homophobia
- Acronym Power!
- Transgendered Lesbian Caregivers To Supportive Straight People Living With Bad Credit
I figured I could find at least one or two people to march with. Maybe it’s best I skipped the whole thing, though. As originally planned, I didn’t even go to the damned parade and I still managed to be annoyed by it on three separate occasions this weekend.
On Saturday, I was at the library doing a bit of research for an upcoming project. My cubbyhole was apparently directly above “Thumping Disco-schlock Stage #3”. Concentration was not enhanced.
On Sunday, I had to change plans twice, the first casualty being some errands in the ‘burbs requiring my car. I was afraid to leave the house, fearing I’d probably have to park in Oakland when I returned. Apparently, the parade route has changed and my neighborhood has become the unoffical parking lot for all the idiots who were too stupid to walk or take transit to the parade.
So I decided to walk back to the library instead. It was closed, due to the very self-same parade. I muttered and bitched as I walked through the outskirts of the “festivities” and the several hundred thousand proud gay men (all of whom seemed to have purchased identical white tank tops for the occasion) and set out on one of my long walks instead.
All in all, not a bad day. My hike took me through the Tenderloin, the Western Addition, the Haight, and the Mission. I took great pictures. I remembered my sunblock this time. I even sweated a little. And I only got panhandled six times in four-plus hours.
Exosphere is today’s “link du jour”. You gotta love a site where the first sentence reads “This site has typos. Deal.”