What's It Like to be Gay?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be gay?

If you are gay you already know the answer to this question.

If you are from a fundamentalist religious background, (notice I say religious background. I purposely do not cite only one because they all appear to have rabidly anti-gay elements.) you would be demonized, bashed or probably killed if anyone were to find out depending on your culture!

My earliest recollections of feeling different go back to the age of 4. I remember vividly being transfixed by watching a man working in his cornfield from my bedroom window…for hours. He was a young man who would work bare-chested and in shorts. I always referred to him as “The Strong Man” because he had quite a physique and a hairy chest.

I suppose the main reason that I remember this is that as I would watch him, I would have an erection!

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson: if you are reading this, please explain how a four year-old, who doesn’t know why a penis gets erect in the first place, gets an erection at viewing a scantily clad male? When we went swimming at the municipal swimming pool, and I saw even more scantily clad females, why didn’t I have that same experience? It never happened!

As I reached my teens, I knew that other males lit up my switchboard. I didn’t know why or how. All I knew was it did!

The summer of 1970 was my summer from hell. You see, that was the time period that I graduated from the sixth grade and that fall I would begin junior high school. Everyone in sixth grade discussed their fears of going to a new school. Having only known elementary school and the thoughts of going to a strange new place concerned us all. However, one thing in particular caught my attention and caused me an insurmountable dread: group showers after physical education.

What would I do being surrounded by all that naked flesh?

How could I undress in front of my friends?

What happens if I get an erection in the locker room?

Will the coach be naked?

Will he see me naked?

What am I going to do?

I was determined to keep my secret. No matter what. My goal? I was going to condition myself to be dead from the waist down come September.

So, on the last day of sixth grade, the countdown to junior high began. Every day I would practice being naked. I would wander around my room or the house, if no one were around, practicing. I would practice walking around thinking about the weather…or vacation….or what I had for breakfast – anything to keep from growing a woody.

By September when my moment of truth came, I had conditioned myself. All my efforts paid off! In the showers, in the locker room, I was dead from the waist down!!

This was something that I consciously did every time I was naked among my peers, throughout the remaining years of junior high and my high school years.

What’s it like being gay?

Being gay teaches you to lie. It teaches you to become good at it. You learn to compartmentalize. You learn to not let your true nature show.

You learn to stay away from certain cliques like the jocks. You learn to stay away from the others that are made fun of. You learn to stay away from certain activities. You don’t go to the parties, the sock hops, and the dances or other socials. You learn to join in on all the stupid jokes. You join in on all the name calling of people who are perceived as "queer".

Most of all, you stay away from the opposite sex because you don’t have a clue as to how you're supposed to act.

You stay by yourself. You become a master architect: you build the highest and most inpenetrable walls. You become so isolated, people then think you are antisocial or god-forbid, strange. Your church tells you that you’re a sinner.

Your self-esteem crumbles. Although you make excellent grades and are labeled “the brain,” you feel like the ugly duckling -- an outcast. You're isolated. You're alone. The mind begins to make you feel like you're the only one like this.

Yes, when you’re a teen and your body is a boiling cauldron of hormonal urges, bodily changes, thoughts of things never comprehended previously; and lust....the hunger to connect with another person....the drive to experience passion.....affection; your heart races wildly at thoughts...at images....

Fear suddenly erupts into the mix. What if someone finds out you’re not like the other boys or begins to suspect your differences? What if your parents find out? What if you do something to slip up and the whole world knows? What if you are bashed? What if someone blackmails you?

You run to the safety and serenity of your closet. The deep, dark, silent closet. The closet that, over time, becomes stifling...the one that becomes scary.....the one that you lock yourself into, almost like a mausoleum. And, there you stay. You stay with your thoughts, you stay with your longings, you stay for years until you can’t handle it anymore...