The Love of a Father and Mother

Note: So I've gone a very long time without posting another blog entry about my coming out. This one is out of order but I feel like it's fitting for the moment. A lot of people say they have the best parents in the world, but I can back up my claim with facts; and this is just one of many.

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About a year had passed since I came out to my friends and
co-workers.  I’d taken multiple trips home with the intent to finally tell
my family.  This, in and of itself, was a step forward since I had once
made the decision to never tell my family.  One thing I learned is that
it’s not fun or easy to keep secrets from those you love.  My continued
good relationship with my family hinged on my ability to be honest with them
about who I was, and who I loved (or would love).  I hear stories about a
planned approach to coming out to family and I had hoped to experience this,
but that wasn't in the cards.  Since I had made the decision to stop
attending church, and with obvious changes in some of my values and beliefs, my
mom and I would have conversations about “why” during each of our visits, three
or four times a year.  These were painful conversations for me, as the
heartbreak my mom was experiencing was obvious, and I couldn't explain my
decisions to her.  She would ask questions like “What happened? What changed?”
“There is something you aren't telling me.”  After countless times
of having this conversation, one late night sitting in my parents’ living room,
just my mom and I, I finally told her “There is only one thing I haven’t told
you…I’m gay.”  After several minutes of silence and crying, which seemed
like eternity, my mom asks:

“So you've been with men?”

“Yes”

“Have you been with women?”

“Yes”

“And you didn't like it?”

“No, I had to think about men.”

The conversation progressed to even more uncomfortable questions
that every son hopes his mom will never ask.  But after the initial shock,
my mom suggests we formulate a plan to tell the rest of the family.

My mom contacted my dad at work and advised him to head straight
home, as he would often stop to work out after work.  He walks in several
hours later and asks me if everything was alright, and if mom was alright.
She comes out of her room and we all head to the living room.  I ask
my dad if he needs to go to the bathroom…or if he needs anything to
drink…biding my time.  Unfortunately he didn't need or want anything, and
there was no way to prolong the issue, so I begin the dialogue my mom and I had
worked on.

“Dad, I’m about to tell you something that you may not like.”

“You got somebody pregnant!”

That would have been much easier to share…but what I had to say
couldn't be further from that!

“Dad, I’m gay.”  Silence for a moment…

”Damn”,

“Shit”,

“Damn boy”,

“Shit”.  

This continued for a bit, it was kind of humorous actually, as this wasn't an angry response, just total surprise and shock.  I offered to answer any questions and my dad assured me he had none, in fact he was adamant that he had no questions and wanted no details.  But what he said next is quite possibly the best thing a father can say to his son in any situation:

“You’re my son, I love you and I’m not going to treat you any
different.  And nobody else will either as long as they’re in this house.”

Growing up my dad and I had our ups and
downs, we fought a lot, but he wasn't an absent father, or abusive.  We
spent time together as a family and I think we were too much alike for our own
good.  In hindsight it’s obvious that my dad always loved me, and was a
better father than he or I realized.  He taught me to be the man that I am
and I wouldn't change anything about our relationship.  As the rest of my family
was told about me, their reactions were a bit more varied.  Some needed
time to process the information, and others stopped speaking to me.  But
I’m not complaining, unlike many gay men, I have a father and a mother that
love me and support me in everything I do, and that's more than I could ever
hope for.

Secrets, Lies, and Sex with Strangers

Note: Some of these early posts are difficult to share. They almost seem contrary to what I’m ultimately hoping to express, which is love, and an appreciation for the men who have positively impacted my life. My intentions aren’t to be lewd or overexposed, but I’m convinced that the background stories, however shallow and lacking in emotional substance, are important for readers to understand what has shaped my perspective. Thank you all for reading and for the encouragement I’ve received. Please share my blog with anybody you think might enjoy it, and comments on the blog page are greatly appreciated so myself and others can know what you think.

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So I’ll be talking about purely physical love here, which really isn’t love at all but I can’t exclude it or the influence it’s had on me in my path to becoming the person I am. As I’ve mentioned before, my original plan was to remain a virgin until I got married, to a girl of course. I received a lot of props and accolades throughout my teens and twenties regarding this decision, but I can’t say that it was much of an accomplishment for me considering the fact that I really wasn’t into girls...no temptation there. Regardless, I made it until I was 27 before having sex, althoughI think the fact that it was with a guy kind of annuls the accomplishment, at least from a religious perspective. At this point, after 11 years of consciously struggling with my sexuality, I was still hanging on to the hope that this attraction to men was just a phase, and my sexual experience remained somewhat limited, never progressing to sex. I somehow felt that reserving this final act enabled me to continue the charade that I was simply curious, or still just hadn’t met the right girl.

Over the years I had explored my curiosity with a number of guys, most of which I had met in online chat rooms. Being from rural Oklahoma, there was constant fear and paranoia of being outed. I believe sex and human intimacy is a powerful drive, a need even, that is extremely difficult to avoid altogether. For those who are in the closet, this necessitates an element of discretion and secrecy, often followed by lies about where you are going and where you have been. This isn’t something I’m proud of, or ashamed of...it’s simply the reality of what was necessary to meet this need.

Tye was yet another guy I had met in an online chat room. We had been talking for several weeks, as was my habit, because I felt a little better about myself if I established something of a relationship, if you can call it that. I knew my “hookups” would never turn into anything meaningful, and I didn’t want them to at this point in my life, but my conscience felt slightly more clear when I did it this way.

So after agreeing to “hang out”, I drove the half hour to meet Tye at his house. This wasn’t my first time meeting a guy this way, but the knot of nervousness and anxiety that I felt in my gut accompanied me, as usual. On the rare occasion that my thoughts weren’t flooded with the fear of being outed somehow, there were other, big “what if” questions: “What if he’s secretly a gay hater and this was all part of an elaborate plot to kill a fag?”, “What if he used a fake picture and he’s hideous?”...that would be awkward, “What if he has an STD?”. I think many of these nervous feelings and thoughts are common when meeting another person romantically, whether straight or gay, but the difference is I couldn’t talk with anybody about what was going on in my head.  Bottling up this anxiety, worry, and fear can result in an amplification of crazy and irrational thoughts.

Tye was a young guy, 24 at the time, and very good looking. He was “straight acting” like I preferred, fit but not a meat head, confident, and very relaxed and easy going. This made it easy for me to feel an instant connection with him, and there was also a sense of comfort. I really didn’t plan to have sex for the first time that night, but it happened very naturally. I’ve heard horror stories from friends, gay and straight alike, about their disastrous experiences with their first time having sex; and not to brag, but my first time was pretty amazing. In my mind it was like many of the porn videos I had seen. This was yet another defining moment where I knew what was right for me; another time where despite the guilt, I felt like I was doing what was right. However, at the same time, I feared that I had taken another step down a one way path. At this point in my life I had already begun to sever some of my religious ties, but that was never the sole reason for my resistance to being openly gay. I knew there would be difficult conversations, rejection, possible alienation.

This all happened just before my move from Oklahoma to Arizona, and I wouldn’t have been opposed to seeing Tye again, in fact I did years later. But I was ready to start a new life in Arizona with my best friend Doug, who had moved to Phoenix a year prior for school. It’s funny, but I was till hanging on to the hope that I would meet a girl that would “straighten me out” for good. Although I was more ready to admit to myself that I was gay, or maybe just bi, admitting this to those I cared about was another story entirely, so I was obliged to continue the charade. And while you might think that moving to a new city would make it easier to become more candid about my affections, it actually renewed my hope that I could turn straight if I just met the right girl.

I’m not gay!

My experience with sex, girls, and pornography was somewhat limited.  There had been moments as a pre-teen when my friends and I would find pictures of naked ladies, and one time my cousin and I found a stack of old Playboy magazines in my grandpas garage.  Another time me and some friends found an abandoned house with a stack of pornographic magazines.  I remember in sixth grade when a deck of cards were passed from locker to locker, with a different naked woman on the back of each suite.  The deck even found its way to one of the Elks Lodge sponsored dances one weekend night.  Another time somebody threw a pen in my locker...when you clicked the pen the black underwear on the woman would disappear to reveal the woman in all her glory.  But I didn’t quite feel like what I was seeing was all that glorious.  I kept the pen hidden for some time but then threw it in the woods behind my house for fear of my mom and dad finding it.  I did my best to act like all the other guys when I saw the pictures, displaying a sense of awe and excitement, but I really didn’t find it exciting.   I was curious of course, but there was no real attraction. There was something missing from all this. 


I must have been about sixteen.  I remember because I had only just started driving, and I was asked to house sit for relatives for the first time. This house sitting opportunity was to become a defining moment for me.  It was neither sought after nor expected, but it happened none the less.  The Internet was something of a new resource that we didn’t have at home yet, but while house sitting, for the first time I had unrestricted access, without interruption, to the World Wide Web and all the naked pictures I could ever dream of.  Like any horny, sexually frustrated teenage boy I utilized this unprecedented freedom to search for “Naked Women”, “Boobs”, “Sex”, “Pussy”, and a plethora of other search words that I wouldn’t even say out loud and that I though would bring up something that would excite me.  Most of what I came across starting out, just as my previous experiences with porn, bored me.  But then something happened.  I found pictures with men and women and this was much more exciting!  Finally I started to understand what it must have been like for all my friends all those times.  So I refined my search for pictures that were a bit more hardcore...ones that showed more interaction, more sex, more penetration.  This was very exciting but it didn’t take long for me to realize I was looking at the men, not the women.  My search words transitioned to “Men”, “Naked men”, “Penis”, “Cock”.  Now this was exciting...but I felt exhilaration and guilt all at the same time.  It was bad enough that I was looking at porn, but gay porn?  Maybe I was just curious...just comparing what they had to what I had right?  Maybe all guys are curious sometimes after all.  

"I’m really not gay," I told myself.  "I’ve made a decision to maintain my virginity until I get married, to a woman.  But why can’t I find a girl that I’m attracted to?  I know I’m picky but seriously, the right one has to be out there.  Maybe this is just a big test from God to see how committed I really am right?  But these urges are strong…intense.  Please God, help me get through this…"

These are just a few of the thoughts that went through my head as I thought about sex with men.  I say “sex” because the idea and possibility of loving another man was years away.


Years later, when I was probably twenty, after I had a place of my own, I started to spend my fair share of time in online chat rooms, just chatting of course…because "I’m only curious."  So during my many nights of chatting, offering fake names, refusing to provide a picture lest it be copied en masse and distributed to all of my family and friends, I began to discover the tip of the iceberg of what it meant to be a gay man.  But I was just curious…right?

So one night I meet “Mike”.  I really don’t remember his name, I’m sad to say; not that I think either of us gave our real names anyway.  If I recall I provided my middle name, just in case he decided to tell the world about me.  There was so much paranoia and fear of being caught and exposed as gay, which would be unbearable, because I wasn’t gay!

Mike and I chatted for several nights, becoming as comfortable as can be expected with a nameless, faceless student from a college town about ninety miles away.  We decided to finally email pictures to each other…he was hot!  He thought I was hot too and this was exciting, especially since I had never had a guy exhibit any interest in me…since I wasn’t gay of course.  Mike and I started discussing how we could meet up.  We decided he would drive to my apartment since I lived by myself and we could be discreet.  This was after midnight already so he wouldn’t be here until around two, but it was worth the wait, although I was nervous beyond belief.  I can only guess that this is kind of what a first date feels like, although this lacked many of the traditional elements of a date.  I made sure the house was clean, I showered, I rehearsed how I thought the night might go through my head…and hid anything that might identify me in a way I didn’t want to be identified.

Now again with the paranoia! Nobody in my neighborhood was ever up past midnight, and none of my friends were even remotely likely to “just drop in” unannounced this time of night.  Nevertheless, I was on edge; constantly looking out the front door to insure nobody was approaching.  Mike arrived and I convinced him to park down the block, just in case.  So he finally shows up to the front door and we were both visibly nervous. After all, this was quite possibly about to be my first sexual experience, and allegedly only his second.

There were few pleasantries.  We had agreed that we would not kiss, as this was gay and we were both just curious.  We weren’t going to have sex either; we were just going to “fool around”.  We went straight to the bedroom and Mike took his pants off first.  I remember he was wearing some pretty sexy bikini underwear and had hairy legs, which I liked.  I took off my pants and we sat down.  Mike began touching me and it was very exciting, and then for the first time I touched another guy in a sexual way.  On one hand I was convinced what I was doing was wrong, but then again it felt more natural than any experience I had ever had with a girl.

I felt so guilty, but at the same time I felt satisfied, happy, invigorated.  It was extremely confusing, these conflicting emotions.  It was at this time that I began my “other” life.  Splitting as Allan Downs, author of “The Velvet Rage” explains.  I still wasn’t gay, just biding my time until the right girl came along or until this “test from God” was over.  I never saw Mike again, as I was to find was often the case with men I met online, and in the gay world in general.

We all have a story...

To really understand the life, emotions, and thoughts of a gay man I think you probably have to be another gay man.  We all have our story, and they each have their similarities, and their uniqueness.  When I first meet another gay man, we inevitably share our story.  It’s almost a ritualistic part of getting to know one another...when we first realized we were gay, early experiences, how friends and family responded, which friends and family decided they no longer wanted anything to do with us, and those that committed to continue loving us as if nothing had changed.  I’ve lost count of how many stories I’ve exchanged, and even though I couldn’t recall each of them I’m certain they’ve each influenced me in some way.

I think that the importance of this “ritual” stems from all the years of secret keeping most of us have gone through.  It’s not easy living a lie, sneaking around, being two different people...and it’s liberating to have opportunities to be completely open.  Before coming out, hearing stories about others experience  provides some speculation as to how your own friends and family may respond.  After coming out, your own story might do the same thing, and continuing to hear new stories can provide some perspective as well as contrast to ones own experience.  Whatever the reasons, and I’m sure they are countless, it’s an important “right of passage” in terms of self discovery, and relationship building in the gay community.