R.P. Andrews's Blog, page 20

Stonewall and Me

Stonewall and Me

The Gay Pride parades held yesterday in NYC and San Francisco climaxed  the flood of gay pride events which took place across the country this month, all to commemorate  the Stonewall Riots in New York City’s Greenwich Village, which took place forty-eight years ago this coming Wednesday,  the event that changed EVERYTHING.   In fact, we have the drag queens to thank for many of the liberties we enjoy in twenty-first century America and  for matter the world since on that fateful night almost half a century ago  they were mourning the death the previous week of their beloved gay icon, Judy Garland, and when the cops came in to do their usual shake-down, the girls, instead of giving in, revolted. “Not tonight boys!”

For me Stonewall holds a personal connection for two reasons: it was the very first gay bar I ever walked into, and it was that night that I had my first sexual encounter as a gay man.

Living at home in Jersey while I was completing my degree, I was working to pay for college at a now defunct retail store chain called Two Guys where my boss was a dead ringer for Jackie Gleason, that rotund, wise-guy comedian. Only there was something a little peculiar about Charlie. When he said he wanted to do something special for me for my 21st birthday, I figured we’d go out for dinner at the local Italian restaurant where, for lunch, Charlie would have a gargantuan meat ball sub and a “diet Coke, please” since he was on a perpetual nowhere diet. I had convinced him to hire Rob, a crush of mine from college, but I was surprised when the two of them pulled up at my parent’s house to pick me up that Saturday night.

Driving into the City, Charlie revealed his true persuasions to me and Rob (we soon came out to him, too), and how he had been a headliner drag queen entertainer in the ‘50’s. So where did we end up but in Manhattan’s then seedy West Village and the Stonewall. I’ll never forget the beads you had to walk through after the bouncer let you in, and the go-go boys dancing on the bar. It was years later that I read how the place had been run by the Mafia and how it was constantly raided if the payoffs weren’t enough. Had I known then, I would have hightailed it to Port Authority Terminal that night and taken a bus home.

Years later, my ex who is ten years my senior told me he was nearly caught in a bar raid in the mid ’60’s. Believe or not, gay bars were illegal and if you got caught in a raid, your name was published in the paper. Your family knew, your employer knew, your life was over. My ex managed to escape through a back emergency entrance, otherwise …

I had hoped I would make it with Rob, but in the end he fell asleep after his first drink, and I ended up getting picked up by some older guy (probably 25) in a white suit who took me back to his apartment a few blocks away. Naïve me, when he whipped it out my first reaction was, what am I supposed to do with it?

But I’ve always been a quick study.

Sure we’ve come a long way since then, but today’s volatile environment shows you how hard won rights that took decades to achieve can be easily lost with the stroke of a pen.

It ain’t over yet.

 

 

Stonewall and Me

Stonewall and Me

The Gay Pride parades held yesterday in NYC and San Francisco climaxed  the flood of gay pride events which took place across the country this month, all to commemorate  the Stonewall Riots in New York City’s Greenwich Village, which took place forty-eight years ago this coming Wednesday,  the event that changed EVERYTHING.   In fact, we have the drag queens to thank for many of the liberties we enjoy in twenty-first century America and  for matter the world since on that fateful night almost half a century ago  they were mourning the death the previous week of their beloved gay icon, Judy Garland, and when the cops came in to do their usual shake-down, the girls, instead of giving in, revolted. “Not tonight boys!”

For me Stonewall holds a personal connection for two reasons: it was the very first gay bar I ever walked into, and it was that night that I had my first sexual encounter as a gay man.

Living at home in Jersey while I was completing my degree, I was working to pay for college at a now defunct retail store chain called Two Guys where my boss was a dead ringer for Jackie Gleason, that rotund, wise-guy comedian. Only there was something a little peculiar about Charlie. When he said he wanted to do something special for me for my 21st birthday, I figured we’d go out for dinner at the local Italian restaurant where, for lunch, Charlie would have a gargantuan meat ball sub and a “diet Coke, please” since he was on a perpetual nowhere diet. I had convinced him to hire Rob, a crush of mine from college, but I was surprised when the two of them pulled up at my parent’s house to pick me up that Saturday night.

Driving into the City, Charlie revealed his true persuasions to me and Rob (we soon came out to him, too), and how he had been a headliner drag queen entertainer in the ‘50’s. So where did we end up but in Manhattan’s then seedy West Village and the Stonewall. I’ll never forget the beads you had to walk through after the bouncer let you in, and the go-go boys dancing on the bar. It was years later that I read how the place had been run by the Mafia and how it was constantly raided if the payoffs weren’t enough. Had I known then, I would have hightailed it to Port Authority Terminal that night and taken a bus home.

Years later, my ex who is ten years my senior told me he was nearly caught in a bar raid in the mid ’60’s. Believe or not, gay bars were illegal and if you got caught in a raid, your name was published in the paper. Your family knew, your employer knew, your life was over. My ex managed to escape through a back emergency entrance, otherwise …

I had hoped I would make it with Rob, but in the end he fell asleep after his first drink, and I ended up getting picked up by some older guy (probably 25) in a white suit who took me back to his apartment a few blocks away. Naïve me, when he whipped it out my first reaction was, what am I supposed to do with it?

But I’ve always been a quick study.

Sure we’ve come a long way since then, but today’s volatile environment shows you how hard won rights that took decades to achieve can be easily lost with the stroke of a pen.

It ain’t over yet.

 

 

 

Fuckin’ Around on The Side: Part II

Fuckin’ Around on The Side: Part II

Closed relationships have their own set of advantages and problems. One guy in the relationship is getting itchy, or isn’t getting it at home as much as he’d like, or at all anymore (hey, libidos aren’t always in sync). But he sees value in maintaining the relationship for other reasons: emotional support, companionship, economics (like splitting the rent or mortgage) or just having someone to come home to to argue with. Beats sloppy licks from your poodle.

But he understands his partner well enough to know that even bringing up the subject of side sexcapades could mean an end to the relationship. So begins the deceit: the work-outs at the gym when the only exercise he’s getting is fucking someone’s ass; the late nights at work; the out-of-town family visits or business trips. Guys in closed relationships never leave their smart phones on ringer when home or when they’re with their partner, always communicate with their liaisons by text, and are always ready with a back-up lexicon of excuses to cover their ass.

But why, oh why, do we stray in the first place? It makes life so complicated, doesn’t it? Physical release and warm flesh isn’t the whole story, not when you can get off in seventeen uncivilized minutes with xtube, some porn, or a fleshlite, and not even have to use mouthwash. No, I think the real culprit is our insatiable need for an ego kick, to lust and be lusted after. All fun, no strings.

A buddy of mine who’s been with a guy for twelve years and who is a definite sex addict had a mother who constantly pampered him and told him how great he was. So now he just expects it from everyone else. Me? I’m the exact opposite. Unlike most red blooded American boys and girls who look on their high school days fondly, my adolescence was pure hell. No, I wasn’t the class queer but being unathletic and a nerd was a close second. Today, though I should be content to have someone in my life who gives more than two shits about me, I never got over that feeling of inferiority and constantly search for acceptance in the most transitory yet elemental way possible: sex with an endless array of men.

Sad, ain’t it?

 

Fuckin’ Around On the Side: I

Fuckin’ Around On The Side: I

Regardless whether you’re 25 or 55, when you think you’ve passed that plateau with a guy and entered into “relationship” territory, chances are you and he vow to be loyal to one another and only one another forever. (Though I must admit more and more guys are having open relationships from the beginning, even legally married.) And I’m sure, at least I hope, there’s a certain percentage of guys where that works. Unfortunately, the cynical side of me thinks that for many, if not most of us, the day arrives when bedding down with the same body all the time becomes, well, boring, and sooner than later we’re on the prowl again. Only some of us want our cake and eat it too. The stability of a relationship and the freedom of a whore.

Enter infidelity, cheating, or in gay (and straight) vernacular, “fuckin’ around on the side.”

Now, how you define cheating depends on what rules you go by, or better yet, whose.

Open relationships usually begin with guys pledging only to screw around as an unbreakable, non-negotiable unit. You know who I mean, the belt loop boys who cling on to one another in the bar or at IML, or cruise the sex clubs or bath houses or the web as a pair.

But this illusion of fidelity may only last so long or work only for so long for one part of the partnership. Threesomes sound naughty but, in reality, can become troublesome if one partner prefers New Guy over his seasoned bed partner. It’s hard to fight favoritism when you’ve got that fresh hairy butt hole in your face. That’s why “wedded” duos who are smart play in anonymous arenas or on trips where New Guy fades faster than a post-cum hard-on. It’s when such liaisons happen closer to home that temptation can lead to twosomes on the side. Eventually, something has to give. Either partners agree to give one another space just as long as new guys aren’t visible (no calls at home, trysts at his place not their place), or the relationship collapses.

Friday: Fuckin’ Around On The Side in Closed Relationships

Webdate Excuses Only a Child Molesting Priest Would Believe

Webdate Excuses Only a Child Molesting Priest Would Believe

If you over-dabble on the web or phone apps like I used to do, sooner or later, more often than not, it happens to you (or maybe you’re one of the perpetrators of the evil): you’re done with the dirty talk (“You’re hot,” “No, you’re hotter”), are down to the negotiations, or even past them, and waiting for the guy to show up at your door. Some of them don’t even bother to let you know that they’re not coming.  But for those that do, either 15 minutes before or after they were supposed to be in your bed, and after that “clean as a whistle” shower you really didn’t need, or worse, after that 50 mg. of Viagra meal so you would be up and at it, here are my top website “sorry – can’t make it” excuses:

“Sorry, I didn’t tell you. I don’t have a car.” You live in South Florida or some other suburban sprawl and can’t afford a car? Are you also missing your right ball? You think anywhere in the world is a bicycle ride away from the Alibi (Lauderdale’s most popular bar)? Or do you have so many DWI’s you’ll see your license in the next life?

“Someone stole my bike (scooter) (wheelchair) (walker with wheels).” See above.

“My car’s in the shop. Can you come here?” Your car couldn’t break down the day before or after our date? Odd, ain’t it? “Here” is usually at least 30 miles away. More likely, he’s too lazy to drive to your place. He just wants to you walk in, do him, and leave.

“My very closest childhood friend just took ill,” or “A close friend of mine in (fill in the city at least a thousand miles way) suddenly died.” Even better: “My whore sister just OD’ed on heroin and I have to fly back though I haven’t spoken to her in five years.” I was in the bathhouses the week my father was laid out, so you’re talking to the wrong person.

“My boss just called. I have to go in to work.” You mean you have one of those low end minimum wage jobs where you can’t even predict your schedule an hour in advance?

“I got hurt today at the gym.” You mean you got hurt earlier that afternoon by a fuck gone bad. You were hanging off the bed when he was plowing you, there was too much lube up your ass, and you slipped off.

“I think I’m coming down with the flu.” (“swine flu,” “bubonic plague,” “Ebola virus” – you fill in the disease of the month). Enough said. That’s why God created Alka-Seltzer.

“I don’t know if I’ll be in the mood for sex when you come.” Excuse me? Are you going through male menopause and you lied about your age in your profile? (Perish the thought!) Or have all those steroids you’ve been taking finally shrunk your nuts to the size of peas?

“Some out-of-town friends just called and they want me to meet them for drinks.” Or if he’s vacationing, “My friends want to go shopping.” You’re passing up dick for chitchat or some new rag?!? Your homo license has just been revoked. What’s the point of being a homosexual if you don’t “homo” when you have opportunity??

“I really dig you but I burned both my hands in an accident last night and I won’t be able to play for a few weeks. But I’ll put you on my buddy list!” What, were you doing meth and grabbed the pipe from your fuck buddy the wrong way? And as far as the buddy list goes, don’t waste the keystrokes – it’s like being put on one of those “abandoned bank accounts” lists.

“I’d love to connect tonight but it’s gotta be after my favorite show ‘(Fill it in).” What, too poor to record it? These are the same ones who absolutely need porn running while you’re down on them. Hey, I’m supposed to be your porn, remember?

“Sure, I’ll come over, but can I spend the night? I just got into town. I’m 45 years old, I don’t have a car, don’t have a job, and don’t have a place to stay.” Sure – duh?

Then there’s the situation where you don’t have a place (lover, wife, mother are in the way), and you say that in all your profile shit (“You must have place. I can’t host.”), and you’ve gone on with the guy back and forth with enough dirty e-mails to impeach a President, when he suddenly wakes up out of his alcoholic/meth/crack stupor, and says, “gee, but I live with my mother.” God bless the blind!

And my all time webdate excuse winner (and I did not make this one up, folks): “I’d love you to fuck me tonight but I don’t have a place, don’t have a car, can’t travel, and can only fuck if I’m high but I don’t have the drugs.” Huh?

So what do you do when this happens to you?

(a) Play with yourself; (b) go to xtube and play with yourself; (c) go to pornmd and play with yourself; (d) flip back and forth from one to the other til Peter’s happy; (e) see if a fuck buddy is available for a quickie; (f) see if you can line up some lonely fuck on the web last minute and take a hit of meth to get in a fantasy mode; (g) gather all those quarters you get as change from a ten dollar bill when you play amateur alcoholic in the bars on Saturday nights and hit the local sex club or bath house and hope for the best; (h) take a sedative or strong drink to deaden your Viagra high; (i) promise Peter you’ll take care of him with your first Woody of the morning.

But, please, don’t waste your time sending off a tirade to the guy who fucked you before you block him, that is, if he hasn’t blocked you first.

Remember, he’s already brain dead.

 

Remembering Dad

Remembering Dad

While gay guys are supposed to identify more with their mothers and I guess that was true in my case too, my confidence in being the gay man I am today came from my Dad. Gone now twenty years.

No, I never had sex with my dad nor did my Dad want sex with me. But there were moments during my adolescence that I wish he had.

Though plain featured Eastern European in the looks department (my grandparents were from Slovakia), not a giant of man at 5-7, not very interested in sports, a high school drop-out, and not very demonstrative, he nonetheless impressed me with his naturally masculine demeanor and hirsute, stocky – not sloppy – physique in the days when gyms were reserved for bodybuilders.

It was that body – seeing my dad naked as he emerged from the shower – that awakened my sexuality and gave me my first hard-ons when I turned 12 and I began to see him emerging in me, particularly the fur. Then, I felt self-conscious, but years later as I entered gay life, I wore it like a badge of honor for it was my fur – much like my dad’s in texture and abundance – that separated me from other guys, taller guys, handsomer guys and, even as I got older, placed me in a sought after league of my own.

Again my father was not the sterotypical sports freak dad and I must lay blame for my disinterest in competitive sports at his doorstep. True, not having those skills so associated with being male in American society caused me grief in high school – had my high school featured gymnastics or wrestling I would have excelled – but that failing was more than compensated by other, far more important virtues he instilled and cultivated in me – patience and imagination.

From my slightly psychotic mother, Russian in background (yes, I’m a Slavic pedigree), I inherited my wildness, short temper, and, yes, cynicism about people and life. Ah, but from my father I learned that listening got you further than shouting, a trait that served me well in my decades in public relations where learning how to get and give was paramount to success.

And while he never graduated high school and was a factory laborer all his life, with a brief stint in the Air Force where he bailed out over Nazi Europe and became a World War II hero in the process, I think if he had had the benefit of an education, he would have become an architect or engineer, someone destined to build things. He often helped me with those “hands-on” school projects where that knack to think outside the box was needed, and my curiosity about things and visual sense ( I still assemble thinks looking at the pictures, not reading the directions) blended well with my interest in reading I inherited by osmosis from my mother, an avid reader all her life.

Unlike with my mother, I rarely quarreled with my father – he was just not the quarreling kind – and I often wonder if his patience and holding back his frustrations with his wife, an unsettled and unsettling personality who often berated him, led to his early demise at 74 from a stroke. I blamed her for his death throughout the thirteen years she survived him, but now both of them are gone, lying side by side for eternity, and there is no use in crying over spilled milk.

I never discussed being gay with either of them nor did they ever really bring the subject up despite my disinterest in women. But I often wonder to this day how he would have reacted had he known or I placed whatever he might have thought squarely on the table.

Maybe, he might have just listened.

All I can tell you, incestuous as it may sound, I still subliminally remember my first sexual awakenings with my Dad every time I kiss a man.

It’s Equality Week But Has Our Time Come and Gone?

It’s Equality Week But Has Our Time Come and Gone?

(This blog originally ran February 24, 2017. Even if Trump is thrown out of office, we’re left with Pence who is an even bigger homophobic so what I outlined here still can happen.)

As l’ve pontificated before, the time to win civil rights for gays was under Obama. Instead we went after a rather narrow freedom, gay marriage, which would have come under equal rights as citizens anyway. A lot of tight assed people were pissed a handful of old fart justices made it happen, the same redneck good old boys – and girls – who made the Trump win possible.

Even before the most solidly conservative government our country has seen in years took the reign of power, we were witnessing the use of religious beliefs by businesses as a legal reason to discriminate. In fact even the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby when it refused to offer ObamaCare to is employees because of its contraceptive clause which its owners said violated their own religious beliefs.

Recently Trump attended a prayer breakfast where he pronounced religious freedom as priority one in his Administration. Add to that his vow to repeal the Johnson Act (named after the then Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson) which would allow faith based organizations to donate to political causes and you got colossal collusion in the making.

Follow this scenario: Trump proposes a law that, in a sense, makes it legal for any business, organization or for that matter individual to discriminate against anyone – though we would be the unspoken prime target – because it would be a violation of their religious beliefs (“Men sleeping with men is an abomination sayeth the Lord”), and we’re cooked. Wedding cakes are just a footnote to being passed over for a job or not being to able to buy or even rent a condo because the guy in control even thinks you’re gay. (Watch out you str8 metrosexuals.)  With the Republicans in control of Congress, the proposal will be passed quicker than you can stick a hard dick in a loose hole.

Why do l say we’re cooked probably for most of our lifetimes, and that includes you cute twenty somethings? Because predictably the law will be challenged by the ACLU, every gay activists group imaginable and maybe even strong women’s groups like NOW most likely on Separation of Church and State grounds and its fate will eventually come before the Supreme Court to decide.

Now the current candidate Trump has nominated to fill the vacancy left by the death of Anthony Scalia is no big deal. Federal judge Neil Gorsuch himself says Scalia was his mentor, so putting him in Scalia’s robes is sort of like switching Coke for Pepsi. No, the real problem for us is when one or more of the liberal or open minded justices leaves simply because of old age like Ruth Bader Ginsburg who’s 83 or Anthony Kennedy who turns 80 and Trump replaces them with conservatives, tipping the balance of the Court to the right probably for the next twenty years or more. (When you become a Supreme Court justice, it’s for life baby.) The law about discriminating against individuals because of your own religious beliefs comes before this new Court and its repeal is shot down. That’s it folks. There’s no place else to go.

End of story.

The Founding Fathers didn’t call it the Supreme Court for nothing.

Some feel Corporate America will come to our rescue. After all 515 of  the largest companies in America scored a perfect score in being gay friendly by the National Humans Rights Foundation. But remember one thing: corps take their orders from Wall Street and Wall Street takes its orders from D.C

 

(Picture: Sunday;s Euality Rally in downtown Fort Lau

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One Year After Pulse: Has Anything Really Changed?

One Year After Pulse: Has Anything Really Changed?

I wrote the two blogs that appear here in the days and weeks that followed the Pulse carnage. But in reading them now,  I am not surprised but still saddened and frustrated that  little has changed a year later except for the fact a regime is now in power in D.C. which is most homophobic in decades.

Okay, What Next?

I live within a few miles of Wilton Manors, a burb of Florida’s Fort Lauderdale and the current gay capital and party town of the U.S. right now, not just for vacationers from across the country and around the world, but also for an ever growing number of gay baby boomer retirees – and young’ens looking for a sugar daddy.

As such we, more than any other city in Florida, and possibly much of the rest of the country, are especially vulnerable to homophobic psychotics. Some say business may be down in the theme parks this summer and moving forward as a result of the shooting (the shooter was considering Disney World before he decided on Pulse), and the gay bars and clubs here were already suffering the drought of off-season business before Sunday happened. You think some of the millions of gays who flock here for sun and fun between late fall and early spring may be thinking twice about their upcoming plans? Will this even affect the over-priced Wilton Manors real estate as snowbirds and retirees reconsider living in this high profile target? I mean, do you want to be blown up going to the supermarket for milk or meeting a would-be liaison at Java Boys?

And what will the bars and clubs, str8 and gay, not just here but across the country, have to do to create some sense of security?

Metal detectors at entrances? What about all those cockrings, piercings and leather men gear?

Right now most of the bars here maintain minimum wage bouncers. Will they need to put out the dough for security officers with guns who flash their weapons like a hottie flashes his nine inch dong in the gym showers? I mean a bouncer without a weapon is as useless against a perpetrator as an eighty year old without Viagra trying to have fun with his new twenty year old “friend.”

Will these retro fem boys l see more and more camping it up start toning down their swishy behavior so not to draw attention or antagonize? Supposedly what set off homophobic, and some say closeted Mateen (he was a frequent Pulse patron and chatted with guys on sites like Grind’r) was seeing two men kissing in Miami while he was there with his two year son. Could he have evoked Islam as a cover for his own internal conflicts? Nothing is worse than a homophobic religious zealot.

BTW, this is the same daddy/hubby who beat the shit out of his wife on a regular basis before she got out from under and divorced him.

Most of the clubs here have multiple entrances and exits clearly marked, but there’s a certain leather bar – those if you who live here or have been down here know who l’m talking about – that is configured so badly that it is a tragedy whether by fire or by gun waiting to happen. Will state and city authorities start cracking down on these death traps?

One other frustrating note: the FBI freely admitted the shooter had been on their radar screen for years and, in fact, had been interrogated a few times, but the Feds were unable to connect the dots. Officials say he had passed all the necessary background checks to buy the assault weapon about a week ago in Florida that he used to murder. But, given the FBI’s suspicions, shouldn’t his name have at least been on some type of watch list so maybe, just maybe, the gun shop owner, who sounds responsible, might have hesitated and reached out for a second opinion?

And why are such murder machines legally for sale in the first place?

But perhaps the people l’m most disappointed in are us.

True, there have been vigils here and around the world in support of Orlando. Yet Sunday night, except for Lauderdale’s iconic Alibi, the bars remained open and our leading dance club was filled with the usual Sunday Studio 54 disco patrons. Okay, they had a moment of silence then continued shaking their booties. Big fucken deal.

Business or no business, every place on the strip should have shuttered. If we don’t show respect for one another, what can we expect from the world?

“Love is Love is Love is Love…”: Mass Delusional Brainwashing

You see and hear it everywhere, ” Love Matters” placards at Lauderdale’s gay pride parade this past weekend,  “Hamilton” star and author’s “Love is Love is Love …” in neon signs at the countless vigils around the globe. Even Broadway stars just recorded the old Dionne Warwick hit, “What the World Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love,” all to make us survivors-at-large of Pulse somehow cope with the largest mass killing in this country’s history. And the largest mass killing of gays since the Holocaust.

Well, all l can say is this bullshit is opium for the masses.

There is no coping.

Fifty people are dead.

Dead.

And countless others maimed for life. Because of one madman, the lives of scores of families and millions of us have been changed forever.

Did any of the latest post-Pulse attempts in Congress to stop the sale of assault weapons or include background checks for gun sales at flea markets and gun shows pass?

No.

Will any of these measures even if they were enacted prevent another Pulse? Or worse?

No. These weapons will always be available on the black market.

Will all this feel good pabulum bring back one life or even bring back Mateem so we could slowly carve him up as vengeance earned?

No.

Will this stop some Mateem wannabe, confused crazy or determined terrorist, from striking again?

Will our stop making mental health a stepchild in this society when it comes to treatment make a difference?

Even if we did it all tomorrow, it would take years to see any effect.

Will reporting suspicious behavior or an unhinged friend or family member change things?

Maybe, but there will always be another crazy looming just around the corner, FBI watch list or no FBI watch list. (The FBI is great at investigating its fuck-ups AFTER the fact.)

Yet all this “Love” is exactly what the NRA and other wizards behind the curtains pulling the strings want. Let the stupid public lull itself into a heroin-like stupor with silly recantations of love this, love that…

No, instead we should all stand up like that character in “Network” and yell out on the top of our lungs, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

But will anybody be listening?

Come this fall, vote every NRA stoolie out of office, Republican and Democrat.

But you know that won’t happen.

Or maybe what we need is for one of these crazies to kill the wife or son of an NRA exec or some  tight-fisted Republican whose kids’ college tuition the NRA is paying for in exchange for their hardlined vote to see things change.

No, it’s not love we need right now, it’s unadulterated hate against the enemy within.

But in the end will even this do any good?

No.

The sad truth is this will continue.

All we can do is live our lives for the moment.

‘Cause that’s all we got.

Telling Your World: Part II

Telling Your World: Part II

So you’re ready to tell the  people in your shitty little two-by-four world that you’re gay. O.K., but just keep two maxims in mind:

Reality #1: There’s no gay law that says you have to tell the world. Do people walk up to total strangers and ask them if they’re gay or got their ladies to suck their dick yet? Whose business is it anyway what people do in their private lives, as long as they’re not raping young kids or robbing banks? I am constantly bewildered by some gays’ obsession to spill their guts out. Why? Who the fuck cares?

Reality #2: Don’t assume that just because you’ve bared your soul, everyone will be accepting and understanding and ready to buy you a wedding gift in advance just in case you meet the man of your dreams. Contrary to gay fantasies, life ain’t no made-for-Logo movie. We have all known of guys (maybe we’re one of them) who have been:

abandoned by family, guilty that they somehow failed as parents, or embarrassed that the world knows they have a “pervert” for a son;
thrown out by wives who feel inadequate or betrayed and take out their anger in bloody, knock-down divorces;
abandoned by their children who may not be as enlightened as we thought they were;
shunned by naïve girl friends who thought they had a shot at the aisle;
demoted or dumped by bosses who just don’t like faggots; or
deserted by lifelong buds who suddenly begin dissecting every past gesture of buddy affection between the two of you.

So be ready for the backlash; just because you want to lead your life gay doesn’t mean the people in your life (present and past) have to agree with you.

Now, my ex and I never brought up the subject with family, co-workers or straight friends. They all knew we lived together, co-owned houses, dogs, etc., etc., etc. Unless they were all pretty dumb, I’m sure that at some point most of them figured out that with G and me, 2+2= 3. But never, never did anyone confront us or throw it up in our faces. And if they had

, I think we would just say, “yep,” and move on.

Bottom line, you don’t have to flaunt your sexuality or wear it on your sleeve. If people know and respect you, they either don’t care, or have figured it all out a long time ago anyway.

 

Telling Your World: Part I

Telling Your World: Part I 

 Okay, you’re just a regular gay guy, comfortable in being a guy. Should you tell the world you’re gay? You know the world I’m talking about, the shitty little two-by-four world each of us occupies, work, school, family, friends.

So, should you spill the beans?

Well, my answer to that lofty question is the usual politician’s cop-out: it all depends.

If you live in a megalopolis, your ex-hippie parents raised you in a commune, most of your friends or co-workers are gay, bi, or super liberals, you work in a gay-friendly office or an industry or profession where being gay is actually a plus, well, what the fuck, why not?

If, on the other hand, you live in Smalltown, Nowhere, your parents read the Bible while taking a shit, your college buddies think a wild Friday night is finishing off a couple of six packs, cursing in the office is frowned on, or you work for an ultra-conservative employer (like I did – the Catholic Church), then I don’t think so.

Using some common sense, and what God gave you, upstairs, you have to decide whether coming clean is more grief than benefit.

Sure, sometimes there are financial and legal advantages, like if you have a legit partner and he and you live in a state or city or work for an employer that offers domestic or spousal partnership benefits. (It always blows my mind when I think about Disney, one of the most family-oriented corporations on the planet, also offering same sex benefits even if it took them awhile.). But if signing up will only make you a pariah with co-workers or your tight-assed boss (Human Resources personnel are notorious for being the biggest blabber mouths in a company), you and your guy may reluctantly just pass it all up.

A buddy of mine  a few years ago decided to take advantage of domestic partnership benefits at his job for him and his partner, only to be grilled by the H.R. director for all sorts of documentation that living-together straights are never asked for. I admire him for not backing down and bringing a discrimination grievance against the prick.

Again, you need to carefully weigh your own private reality and see if it makes sense. White lies are not mortal sins, but if questions from family or straight friends about marriage start getting under your skin, and you’re tired of dodging the bullets (and possibly misleading some woman into thinking you’re ready to buy the engagement ring), maybe it’s time to consider relocating to a place where nobody knows you and you can live your life as you want. (Change jobs, decide to go to college out-of-state.) That’s not being a coward; sometimes it’s just being sensible.

But what if you’re already married, wifey truly suspects nothing (doubtful), and you wake up one morning and decide you’re tired of waking up to a woman? Well, again, whether you kiss and tell may be dictated by circumstance. Is there a family legacy you must protect? Is she your boss? Would a divorce leave you broke?* Is there some guy waiting in the wings, or do you think leaving your straight life behind for a studio apartment in Boystown would solve all your pent-up sexual angst? (Don’t count on it.)

Friday: Two other realities about Telling Your World