The Friend I Didn't Have Sex With

 This month I will have lived in the Straight World for seven years.  Granted, there's a gay-friendly coffee shop with a huge rainbow flag in the window a few blocks away, and every year during Pride Month about half the shops nearby have "Happy Pride" signs up.  But heterosexism, heternormativity, and overt homophobia is commonplace.

  I get asked about "my wife" by nearly everybody I meet.  

You hear homophobic slurs at the mall.  

On campus, out LGBT professors are commonly denied tenure (except in the music and drama departments), and LGBT students are commonly denied admission to some programs, like law enforcement and social work.  

But I expected that.  It's just life among heterosexuals.  

Almost all of the gay men in town are under 30.  As soon as they can afford it, they move to a gay neighborhood in Chicago or Minneapolis (no one chooses West Hollywood anymore).  

I know only one gay male couple over age 30, but I don't socialize with them; they are too deeply immersed in the lives of the ex-wives and kids they had before coming out.

Almost every guy who came to my pre-COVD sex parties was married to a woman, bisexual or on the downlow.

But I expected that, too.  Gay men growing up in the Straight World have two options: conform to social expectations by marrying a woman, or get out. (I got out, but then the necessity of getting a job pushed me back in.)

What I didn't expect about life in the Straight World:

You don't have sex with your friends.  Even your gay friends.  They draw a strict line between friendship and romance.  Ex-boyfriend?  Stay out of my bedroom!  Sharing?  Unheard-of!

In gay neighborhoods, your ex-boyfriends continued to share your bed on occasion, and your friends invited you to "share" their boyfriends on the third or fourth date.  Failing to invite was considered extremely rude, as was refusing the invitation.  

Friends went cruising together and brought home a third person to "share."

At the parties we held almost every week, oral sex was a party favor.

I can only think of one friend in West Hollywood whom I didn't have sex with: Mickey.

Mickey was a short, round chub of indeterminate age, soft and smooth, extremely fragile; you felt like if you hugged him too hard, he would dissolve.  But that would not, in itself, be sufficient cause for refusing to share.

He  latched on to us somehow in 1992 or 1993.  I don't remember how; one day he was just there.  No "coming out" story, no growing up stories, no background at all.  It was as if he was just conjured up out of the dew at that moment.  This was not unusual in West Hollywood: many guys had experienced such trauma in their homophobic small towns that they wanted to forget everything and start afresh.

After a friendship of six or seven months, he vanished.  No goodbye, no note; he just stopped showing up.  This was not unusual in West Hollywood, either: when you moved home or to a new gay neighborhood, you were immersed in a new social circle, and forgot about all but your very closest friends.  

He may have been living in his car; his financial situation was unclear.  But that wouldn't be a cause for refusing to share.  Most jobs, even in gay neighborhoods, required you to stay in the closet; being out often led to poverty.  

 I remember watching our usual Monday night tv lineup (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Blossom, Murphy Brown), going out to dinner (he didn't know how a buffet worked, and piled his plate embarrassingly high).  I remember buying comics at the Book Circus, getting Pollo Loco after the gym, Shabbat services at the gay synagogue.  But we never invited him to any party where sex was going on, or to spend the night in our bed.

A few random conversations: cats (liked), baked beans (yuck!), the Holocaust (horrified by), and BDSM (would like to try it). 

So why didn't I offer to tie him up, at least?

Some other conversations:

"I wish I could find a relationship like you guys have, with a lover who was faithful to me, who never even looked at another guy."

"Guys in Weho are such sleazoids!  I met someone at the Gold Coast last night, and he wanted me to go home with him!  Not even a date, just sex.  Disgusting! I'm so glad you guys aren't like that."

During the whole six or seven months of our friendship, Lane and I had to pretend to be monogamous!