March 1975: Could a Man Have Sex with a Man?

 

Rock Island, around 1975

I'm 14 years old, growing up in the Midwest, and although Stonewall was seven years ago, nobody knows that same-sex desire, behavior, relationships, or gay people exist.  Or if they do, they pretend not to.  All I see on tv, all I hear in the classroom or in church or from my parents or friends, with anxiety or smug assurance, everbody and everything tell sme that jeterosexual desire is universal human experience.

 Even the "fairies," those poor pitiable boys who pretend to be girls, long for girls.  

Every boy who ever lived, or who ever would live, or who ever would be written about in a book or shown on a tv screen, aches with desire for feminine curves and smiles. 

 I don't not yet, but everyone I know is certain that my "discovery"is  imminent.  One day soon, I will see The Girl walking in slow motion across the school yard, her hair blowing in the wind, and in an instant I will know what everyone else in the world knows.   From that moment on, I will devote my life to the pursuit of the feminine.

But what about the "Best Men" who inform my life, Doug, Dan, Bill.  I imagine us growing up and living together forever, finding a "Good Place."  What about my flurry of excitement over Bomba the Jungle Boy, Peter Brady, David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman?  My Book of Cute Boys from before kindergarten?

They do not signify same-sex desire, to me or to anyone else.  Same-sex desire is simply beyond the boundary of what can be imagined.  No boy ever touches another boy, except for brief ritualistic gestures like shaking hands.  If they touch by accident, they spring away, too disgusted for words.  Boys enjoy and desiredonly the touch of a girl.  

But there have been hints throughout my childhood, looks, gestures that didn't fit into this heteronormative universe.

Hippie leader Charles Manson wanted to get revenge on Terry Melchior, a record producer who had rejected his songs.  So on August 8th, 1969, he sent his is "family" to kill everyone in the house.  Melchior was no longer living there; the hippies killed actress Sharon Tate and her houseguests.  The next night, they killed the LaBianca family to throw the police off their trail.

Manson did not actually commit the murders, but ordering his disciples to do it was enough: he was found guilty of seven murders, and sentenced to death (later changed to life in prison).  

Tonight I'm up late -- my brother is out.  I'm flipping through the channels on the small black-and-white tv -- not difficult, there are only three -- when I chance  upon long-haired, long-bearded hippie in a prison suit being interviewed on a late night news program.

I was only eight years old at the time of the murders, so I didn't hear about them, and I don't recognize the man as Charles Manson was.  Just a long-haired, long-bearded hippie in prison.

"What do you miss most about life on the outside?  The interviewer asks.  "Sex?"

"Sex? No!" The hippie scoffs.  "There's lots of sex in prison."  

Then he stares menacingly at the camera, and the interviewer goes on to the next story.

Sex in prison? But...it's all men.  How could you have sex? 

Could a man have sex with a man?

But...men spring away from the slightest touch.  How could he put his penis in another man without being overcome with disgust?  And where would he put it?  

And why was it never mentioned?  All of the dozens of times I 've heard about "making love" from family, friends, on tv, in movies, it is always men and women.

I decide that women must sneak into the prison to have sex with him, or else there are male prison guards.  Problem solved.

But still the question haunts me.  Could a man have sex with a man?

See also: I Learn About Oral Sex in the Church Parking Lot