I've been thinking a lot about this lately. My therapist has accused me of remaining stuck in a world-view from the late 1980s. However, I don't know if I'll ever shake the feeling that it is just not safe to be 'out' completely. I was born in the early 1970s and graduated high school in the late 1980s. I grew up in a town with a liberal reputation, though there was still homophobia. So here are some random things I remember from my childhood about the GLBT community and how gay people were perceived. - In 1979, the kids on my street were spreading a rumor that a guy kissed another guy at a particular house at the end of the street. Everyone was incredulous, thinking that couldn't happen in this particular town/neighborhood; gay guys only existed in NYC and San Francisco. - In 1983, "Smear the Queer" was still a schoolyard game. The bullies didn't deliberately seek out gay kids, just whoever was smaller and weaker. - In 1984, when mainstream TV news started covering the AIDS epidemic, my mom chased me out of the room so I wouldn't see gay men on TV. Also, cruel jokes about gay men dying of AIDS were commonplace. - In 1985, it seemed more acceptable among New Wave and dance music (disco was dead by then) fans to have openly gay pop stars (Boy George, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Wham!, etc.). Hard rock / metal fans were homophobic (this was before Rob Halford of Judas Priest came out). - A lot of straight guys would tease me by "acting gay," but they were not sincerely interested in me. In 1986 during a gym class, a black guy with a reputation as a violent bully participated in this and even pressed his "junk" against mine (I pushed him away and hid the resulting boner that *I* got). (This guy did not go on to be openly gay; he was convicted of crimes and imprisoned by the time he was 25.) - In 1988, one of my high school classmates was a dedicated "Rocky Horror" fan. Most of his friends were girls, but he did not have a girlfriend. Oddly, there were no rumors that I heard suggesting he was gay. - One of the counselors at my high school supposedly had a gay son; this was mentioned in case students needed support for LGBT/family issues. I hadn't accepted a gay identity, so I didn't avail myself of this opportunity to talk to a straight ally (before this term was invented). - There were rumors that a few students in the theatre department were gay, but those who knew did not name names. I wasn't cool or rebellious enough to fit in with that crowd, so I wasn't in on the secret. - Seeing the movie "Pump Up the Volume" in 1990 was a pleasant surprise. This movie has a subplot in which a gay teenager calls an underground radio show, expressing suicidal thoughts because he is gay. The host of the show (the protagonist of the movie) is supportive of the gay youth, the first time I had seen anything like that in a mainstream film. I was blown away, because during my teen years, it was definitely "uncool" to be gay. - While in college, I found out (through a therapist telling me some things he perhaps shouldn't have) that a guy who called me a "fag" all throughout high school was blowing the boy next door. That explains why he went positively *ballistic* when for the 100th time he called me a fag, and I retorted, "Takes one to know one..." He shoved me against a wall and was going to hit me, but I defused the situation by telling him I didn't *really* think he was gay, but don't call me a fag again since you don't like even the mere implication of it. Surprisingly, he never called me a fag again. Guess my comment hit close to home, though I knew nothing at the time...
You're fine. I understood. I'm not offended. I just hate when the delivery is almost like that of Blanche on "Golden Girls," for example, and it doesn't sound like it was. ---------- Post added 17th Dec 2014 at 01:57 PM ---------- Sure, if a person has either lost a job or been on the cusp of losing a job merely over someone's suspicions and doing the math (age and never married), then a person might think twice about complete disclosure. And, for those who might retort that you could fight back, that could really deplete a person on many levels. Clearly, if you prevailed, you would come out of the situation doing well. Would you do the same, that of fighting back with speculative and anecdotal evidence, if you were in that situation? There's no need to answer that. Even towns and cities with liberal reputations still talk a good talk when it comes to being liberal but will always have heterosexual folks who only profess to be liberal. They are with everything else, and even voting on LGBT issues, but not when they have to deal with LGBT people within closer range. You still hear a lot of these snide remarks in large cities. I had a similar confrontation with a relative. They were fuming and about to go ballistic. By the way, that therapist was extremely unprofessional to open up a triangle like that with someone who wasn't a party to therapy. They exist. That's why I admonish caution in selecting a therapist and testing the waters to see where you can go with the therapeutic relationship. I didn't have therapy in undergrad but I went for some sessions in grad school. They couldn't give a shit ... they seemed like they were marking time. I found that this one therapist I saw in grad school left that line of work some 15 years after getting a doctorate and is now finding herself in a freelance sort of way in the desert Southwest.
OK. But I love Blanche. I don't talk like her, but I have friends who do! And it's not an affectation, it's just how they talk. (!)
I've written and digested some very difficult words on this forum. In fact after a couple weeks I fled back to the safety of my denial because all the truth and empathy I found here proved to be overwhelming. I forced myself to read every post in this thread and it was by far the most difficult topic for me to get through so far. In the 6th grade I was 11 years old (1975) - To this day I remember vividly the dreams I would often have. One of them being that I would marry Lisa; the prettiest and most popular girl in school. The other dream never got processed yet it was common; (I can't believe I'm actually writing this down!) I would be playing baseball with guys from school and every one of them would be shirtless. There were always variations on the theme but they all had shirtless guys. I don't remember even knowing the word 'gay'. I don't remember being ashamed, nor even curious about what it meant. It was just there and it was just not dealt with. In 1977 me and a few other 13 year olds would get together to browse through a stack of penthouse/playboy magazines one of my friends somehow lifted from his father's collection. At one of our sleepovers I was looking through a pile of playboys after the others had fallen asleep and something amazing caught my eye. Somehow a playgirl magazine was in the middle of the stack. I looked around before lifting the cover. I didn't get to see much because of course the kid closest to me turned over and saw what I was about to do... And he made sure everyone else knew as well. I played it off as a mistake, guys chuckled, nobody uttered the word 'gay' and once again I never had a reason to give it another thought. It was just unimaginable amongst us sheltered suburban kids I guess. I graduated high school in 1982. I was introduced to the word 'gay' there. We actually HAD ONE! He was of course in drama. The rumors of him and the drama teacher making out on the couch were everywhere. I have a few very detailed memories of high school. One of them is the face of 'gay Ethan'. I would scoff with all the rest at the sickness he had and yet I remember that face, and I remember thinking he was absolutely beautiful. Combine these stories with the TWO dates I had over those 4 years. Both times we went to the movies then over to her house where her parents were not home. By the end of the second date she was basically begging me to kiss her and rip her clothes off... but her parents had money; which meant a HUGE TV and the first ever cable box... these were far more interesting to play with. Following high school I became all too familiar with gay people. They were all getting sick and dying. AIDS jokes were plentiful. None of it had anything to do with ME thank god. :-/ Fortunately the number of teenagers being able to fathom how I could simply not know is dwindling. Today some the coolest kids at my son's high school are gay. Extra points if you're a gay geek. Talk about revenge of the nerds... I need to be in therapy badly and I still haven't done it. I HAVE to be able to get over the perceived losses of my youth. I know that an openly gay 16 year old in 1980 would have had a much different life than one in 2014, yet I am stuck in a mode where I believe there is no use in coming out at this point in my life because it's too late. Intellectually I know I am wrong. I see proof in the world around me, I know there are those reading this who KNOW for a fact I am wrong. Yet, pathetically, it's still the 80's in my head and I don't get to have the experience I so desperately want.
Thanks for sharing a lot of really powerful reflections, AndyG. A lot of experiences that I could identify with, but this one about the magazines provoked a memory. When I was in high school, I worked in a stationary store before and after school. The owner paid me one dollar an hour, off the books, because the minimum wage was double that. I would set up the newspapers in the morning, and in the afternoon refresh the candy displays, organize the greeting cards, and do anything the owner needed done. A friend of mine had worked there longer, and had keys to the store. One night, he and two or three others of us went in the basement were they kept all the return magazines, including lots of return porn magazines (a popular item before internet). One kid kept reaching in his pants to rub his dick. I complained that there were no men in the magazines (god, I was so fucking gay and yet that light just didn't want to go on). My friend responded, "well that's because nobody wants to look at a bunch of hairy asses." "Oh, yeah, right," I responded. Fortunately, nobody turned on me, but I really felt weird that nobody else found the magazines without men to be kind of boring.
AndyG, I totally hear you about not knowing and the perceived losses of youth. I still remember college and being an "ally" in the Lesbian and Gay Alliance. Yet I just could not admit I belonged there for other reasons too. I remember a friend asking me if I was gay and I couldn't answer. Then he suggested I was the type of woman who liked hanging around gay guys, and I wanted to say "No, I want to hang around with the women," but I just couldn't get the words out. And I wasn't in love with any women, so I pushed it all away. For me I think part of it was that people didn't talk much about bisexuality in those days. You were gay or you were straight and you'd better hope you weren't gay. The people in the Lesbian and Gay Alliance naturally had no interest in an apparently straight person "admiring" them when their lives were actually so difficult. (So much for the stereotype that gay people like to run around converting straight people...) And of course I wonder so much what would have happened if I had just had the nerve to say (at least to myself) "No, you don't get it, I really want to be around the women." But on the other hand, I'm trying to be OK with it. I did some good things with my life, and my marriage wasn't miserable until right before the end and I had my kid. Sure my life would have been different if I had felt able to act on my attractions for women, but who knows how it really would have been. Maybe not any better, taken as a whole. And either way I need to live with things the way they are now and go forward, even if it's very difficult for me.
This thread is a stroke of genius in that it's both funny and poignant. Who owned the Playgirl magazine? The mom? I've got a great Playgirl magazine story. I sort of stole one. I was working at a really cool job in a resort-like place during the weekends during a school year of college. I had my duties and then there were 2 guys who came in and did handyman work that I was not able nor paid to do. Sometimes, I had to go into the shop. As I was looking through tool boxes and cabinets in a work storage area in the building, there was a Playgirl magazine sitting there. I was able to scan it. There was a fireman type dude as the guy of the month. I put it back. The next week, I brought my school backpack to work with me and then, when no one was looking, stashed it in there before the end of the work day and took it home. I assumed someone just forgot it there. Then, months later, I gave notice since summer was approaching and I had a more degree related desk job. This one guy, probably about 30 or so, and good looking, when I was about 19 or 20 asked me to help him with something on the premises. The work site was a place where we could not be seen. As I helped him and handed him things, he began to get a little too close and give off some weird vibes. I was a clean cut college kid! I wasn't going to take up an offer from this guy who lived in the adult world in a big city! In retrospect, I wished I had taken him up on the overture. In retrospect, the magazine was probably his (of the 2 handymen that worked intermittently on the weekends). I don't know if he left it there or planted it there. Also, I never put it back because, well, I couldn't as I wasn't working there anymore. I guess I permanently borrowed it. If you feel you should be in therapy, you probably should be. Thinking about it a lot indicates a desire to talk to a mental health professional. Be selective. Also, don't pick one who has an agenda that is almost 100% skewed to each endpoint. There is no "one size fits all" answer or solution. I also notice from your reading that you have a child, or children. Everything needs to be addressed and you need to arrive at the solution (not the therapist), but with the therapist acting as a catalyst.
Thanks Tightrope. Yes I have everything I ever wanted in life, a great wife, kids... the American dream and I've been coming into work everyday for the last 2 weeks to close the door to my office so I can alternate between random internet browsing, anxiety, and a few tears every now and then. I appreciate the advice on finding a therapist and will work on it - I have to find someone to talk to soon because something has to eventually give.
Oh, wow. I'd forgotten about my Playgirl experience. When I was 19 or 20, I bought one as a joke gift for a friend's birthday. I don't recall havng any problem with nerves buying it nor do I remember flipping through it before I gave it to her. I obviously didn't give a hoot about the naked men. She was not amused. My sense of humour then was obviously warped.
Dear Adam1969 : You are so very right!!!!!!! I never thought about being gay, in High School, let alone anywhere else during the 80's, or before. I'd always heard rumors being passed around saying " this guy, or this girl is only interested in members of their own sex, so they must be gay ". Funny thing is, I never really considered myself gay, and for me, being gay is strictly non-sexual. I'm gay, because you can't be transgendered without playing for the wrong team. for me, it took years of wrestling with my gay and not-so-gay self, and finally gay Jayme won out. Now, I'm gay, transgendered, and finally at peace with myself. love ya Jaymegurl
I found a stack of porn magazine out in the desert. I filled through them and read bits of the commentary. The pictures were all black and white, and the graphic text made some sense to me as an 11 year old. But the guys were very low rent looking and odd to me. They did not look like normal guys. But I for sure knew at 11 that this stuff was HOT! Stories about men paying other younger men to get into the bath tub and be jerked off I recall reading. Then I was working at a dept store when I was 17, and 18, and someone left a pamplet in the rest room with two guys naked semi-hard and hugging, a magazine or movie advertisment I think. They were big beefy guys, not like the ones I had seen previously in magazines. This was high-art and glossy color. I kept that for a few weeks and played with myself looking at it until a tore it up and tossed it for fear my parents would find it in my things. The problem I had was nobody wanted to come out, everyone was afraid back then. So we all walked around in denial. And in the silence we were vulnerable, and in small to no numbers, we were weaker. It was after High School that I would be at one of the bars and run into a classmate, and they would say I hope you are here for the same reason I am? Perhaps three guys and one girl I found out later were gay. Still a very small number. I recall when I was 20, my roommate came home and said a guy was coming by to split a bag a grass with him. The guy from the Air Force, his buddy came by and saw me in nothing but bathing shorts, short swim suit, and was noticaby turned on. To the point where he even said he'd really enjoy coming back sometime later as he stared at me. He said it in front of my roommate. I was cringing wishing he'd stop. Totally in the closet I ignored his direct complement. At 20 I should not have been in total fear. Then in work environments 1980 to 1985 I worked where some were out and proud. But still it was considered acceptable to use the word fag in the workplace. I moved in 1984 to a new state. From then on I never denied being gay. I did not come out and tell people, I just never hid it if asked. It's just slowly gotten so much better. Role models we never had, that the kids today have. I was looking at gay porn on the internet the other day. It's a night and day difference from those B/W pages I spotted when I was 11. The kids today if they are not sure about anything... are they gay?, if so what turns them on?, they can look at thousands of guys totally nude, solo, or in action, figure out that they like dark hair, or tall or short, stocky or lean guys. They can then see / read coming out stories by the droves on youtube. Get a feel for what the guys their exact age are thinking concerning being gay. Or they can come to the conclusion that they are straight, but just admire the physique on certain males. Or be able to deal with this stuff and get comfortable by the age of 15, and be out at 16 or 18. It's a good hard kick in the balls to the religious right, and I love it. It's so much better now, and almost painful to think about the past. I actually stopped looking for guys to have sex with because of two reasons. The guys I was meeting in the bars struck me as idiots with no direction in life, not appealing, and AIDS arrrived. I was determined to not get it. So I stopped cruising and hoped a guy would find me. What surprises me most is the the 60s counter culture, the flower power / free love liberals were not really progressive enough to kick the homo stigma over to the point of acceptance. They failed and were not really looking out for everyone, it was a clique or cult, not freedom for everyone. I can't help but keep thinking about the present and future, and being amazed at how same-sex marriage has spread across the country in the last two years. The role models the kids have now that we never had. The pictures of happy young gay men and couples) on youtube channels with hits in the millions. I think it is the internet that has empowered guy men, and given them the chance to project different images, and not the ones our enemies want to be projected. They want us in small numbers, looking weird, and unhappy. The internet has given the cute happy (young) ones a public face like we just never had in the 60s through the 90s. It's no longer just "The Boys in the Band" movie showing the world what gay men are like thank god. I am thrilled. And while I wish it was like that from 1970 on, I still think I am young enough to benefit from the new ways that gays are being perceived everywhere. It's been a long hard ride, we've come along way and deserve a pat on the back at least.
