Dad Explains the Facts of Life

There are several traditional rites of passage between a boy and his Dad:

When he teaches you to shave.
When he lets you drive for the first time.
When you can beat him at arm wrestling.

But the biggest is The Talk, when Dad sits you down and explains The Facts of Life.

By which he means the mechanics of biological reproduction, how sperm and egg cells merge their chromosomes to turn into an embryo, and nine months later, a baby.

Why is this the sole subject matter of The Talk?

Finding out how you came to exist may be interesting, but it's irrelevant, the physiology of the past.  What about your respiratory, circulatory, nervous, and muscle systems?  What about the nutrition and exercise necessary to ensure that your body works properly?  Surely those are Facts of Life of more immediate importance.

The reason is obvious: The Facts of Life Talk isn't really about biological reproduction.  It's about Sex, aka heterosexual intercourse.

Dad assumes that the quest for heterosexual intercourse, will occupy your thoughts, color your decisions, throughout your life.  You will choose colleges and careers solely on the likelihood of heterosexual intercourse, marry to be ensured of a regular partner, get a job and a house and have kids to ensure that she sticks around, and spend your declining years on a park bench, gazing at "all the pretty girls" and wishing that you could have heterosexual intercourse with them.

By the time Dad sat me down for the Talk, I already knew all of the Facts of Sex, except for one.  I heard them through:

1. 7th Grade Health Class.  The teacher showed us a drawing of a man and a woman, facing us like the greeting to aliens on the Pioneer Space Probe, with the testicles and ovaries circled.  He explained that sperm from the man's testicles merged with eggs from the woman's ovaries, which was then embedded into the uterine wall and developed into a fetus.

Ok, but how did the sperm get to the ovaries, when they're a good five feet from each other?  Teleportation?

"Don't get smart!  You already know about sex!  That's all you kids think about!"

2. Sunday School.  Ok, so we reproduced through sex. That must be why Brother Dino admonished us not to have sex before marriage, or God would strike us with incurable diseases as a punishment.  He didn't want kids having kids.

But what exactly was sex?

"Good question!" Brother Dino said.  "It's not just sex.  God hates anything that defiles the body."

Which didn't answer the question.

3. Summer Camp.  At Nazarene summer camp the summer after seventh grade, I asked an older boy named Marty to explain the procedure.  He told me about going from first base (kissing) to second base (feeling the girl's breasts over her bra) to third base (feeling under).  He even demonstrated by feeling my chest under my shirt.  But then he got nervous and left before the home run.

How did feeling under a girl's bra make sperm go from your testicles to her ovaries?  The two organs were still a foot or more apart!

4. Mike. In eighth grade, my friends and the jocks claimed that they had sex often, a dozen times a week.  As we walked down the halls, they would say "I've had her...had her...had her..."  

I couldn't ask them, so I asked Bill's big brother, Mike.

"Ok," he said, "The home run: you put your penis inside the girl's vagina." (yes, he used the technical terms).  "That's an opening that leads all the way up to her ovaries. So the sperm comes out and goes right up the tube to the egg."

"But...but...pee comes out of your penis, too!" I exclaimed.  "How do you make sure that sperms come out instead?"

Mike began to blush.  "Um...when you get older, sometimes...you know, it gets bigger...and like turns into a baseball bat."

"Sure, I know all about...um, baseball bats," I said, feeling very grown up and sophisticated.  No one had ever mentioned that Fact of Life before.

"Well, when you're like that, only sperm can come out.  When you're not, only pee."

"But..you can't control when that happens.  How do you get it to happen when you want to have a baby?"

He laughed.  "Oh, you'll find out, Bud.  Believe me, you'll find out!"

So I sort of knew the procedure.  But Mike left out the most important Fact of Life.

5. Dad. In the fall of ninth grade, Dad took me out to the back yard, sat me in the grape arbor where, he said, someday he would host my wedding, and had the Talk.

"You had Sex Ed, right?" he started off.  "You know about sperm and eggs, and all that?"

"Sure."

"Do you have any questions?"

"Well..."  Yes, I had a question.  "I already learned about running the bases, and what to do with your penis if you want a baby.  But I hear guys talking all the time about having sex when they don't want to make a baby."

"Don't do it!" Dad said sharply.  "God will punish you with incurable diseases."

"Sure, sure...but...why would you want to?  I mean, if you don't want to make a baby, what's the point?"

"What's the point?" he repeated, staring at me.  "What do you mean, what's the point?  It's a girl -- let's say a really cute girl -- and you've been kissing her, and feeling her breasts."

I looked away, toward the garage.  "That's gross!  Girls are all soft, with no muscles, no penis.  Nothing cute.  I mean, why would you touch them like that, unless you had to?"  

I didn't realize that I had said too much until it was too late.  Dad stood abruptly, snarled "Don't be a wise guy!" , and nearly ran back to the house.

Dad left out the most important Fact of Life.  It took me years to figure out it out on my own:

Some boys want to hit a home run with boys, not girls.

Leonard Bernstein, the Rabbi's Son, and the Verge of Coming Out

This story has been moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

The Farmboy, the Preacher, and the Security Guard

Louisville, Kentucky, Novembe 1982

During my first year at Indiana University, Roy the Farmboy and I drove to Louisville, Kentucky to go to the Metropolitan Community Church

I couldn't wait!  A church founded by and for gay people!  I had been looking for a MCC ever since I read the Rev. Troy Perry's autobiography a couple of years ago.  There were none in Indiana at the time.

We parked near the Brown Theater in downtown Louisville and walked to the Unitarian Church, an old Gothic grey-brick building.  There was a guy pacing outside the door: African-American, very dark skin, short, solidly built, in a pink shirt and tie. He looked like a pro wrestler.

I didn't have my list of the Five Traits I Find Attractive yet, but in retrospect, he had four: short, dark, muscular, and religious.  And probably the fifth, too -- beneath the belt gifts.


"Hi," I said, holding out my hand.  "I'm Boomer, here for the service.  And this is Roy.  You probably know him already."

"Hi, Roy!  Glad you're back!  How's Bloomington?"  He looked around to make sure no one was watching, then gave Roy a kiss.  I felt a pang of jealousy.

"Boomer, this is Terence.  He's the sound guy and security guard for the church."

"Hi!"  He leaned in for a brief kiss.  "You can't be too careful.  We've had bomb threats.  You never know if a visitor is going to try to kill you.  So, are you guys together?"

"Not yet -- but I'm working on it."

Terence laughed and clapped him on the back.   "Come to brunch with us after the service and we'll talk, ok?"

We walked on into the sanctuary.  It looked like any other congregational-style church -- bare of religious symbols except for a pulpit decorated with a cross.  There were King James Bibles and Methodist hymnals on the pews.

"You and Terence...." I began.

"Oh, no.  I haven't been with anyone in church.  Besides, Terence is Rev. Reid's spouse.   That's what they call them in MCC.  Life-long commitment, rejecting all others, and all that.

My heart sank.  There would be no seeing Terence naked today, or any day.

There were about 50 people in the congregation, mostly gay men, mostly couples.  A scattering of lesbian couples, a few with children.  One heterosexual couple.

To my surprise, the service was all Nazarene -- old-time Gospel hymns, quotes from the King James Bible, hand-clapping, shouts of "Amen!," calling each other "Brother" and "Sister," and a sermon full of "God told me!" and "You got to get right with God!"

The only differences were:
1. The clerical robes.
2. The communion.
3. People typically kissed hello instead of shaking hands.  Same-sex on the mouth, opposite-sex on the cheek.
4. The sermon topic, Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."  The preacher expanded it to include "there is neither gay nor straight."

The preacher, Brother Reid, was in his 40s, a tall, beefy bear who looked very much like Brother Tyler back home.  He even paced and pounded like that old bulldog.

It was nice, but I was expecting something less -- well, less Nazarene.

Afterwards, Terence, Brother Reid, and a few other guys took us out to the English Grill in the Brown Hotel, which specialized in a sort of turkey Eggs Benedict called a Hot Brown.  Brother Reid sat beside me with his arm draped over the back of my chair, and we shared childhood "horror stories" about repressive church rules.  No swimming!  No dancing!  No movies!  No shopping on Sunday!

He looked, and acted interested.  Meanwhile, Terence was sitting next to me, but totally taken by Roy the Farmboy.  What was going on?  Did they..um..do that sharing thing, like the Episcopal priest I met in Des Moines?

A preacher hooks up with guys other than his spouse?

"What are you doing later?" Brother Reid asked.

"We have to be heading back to Bloomington.  It's a two hour drive."

"Two hours -- that's nothing! Sometimes I drive two hours before breakfast.  You need the grand tour of Louisville, and then the drag show at Nowhere."

Preachers go to bars?  And drink beer?

"Sounds like fun," Roy said.  "I just turned 21 last month -- I haven't gone to the bars yet!"

"Then it's high time you started!  The drag show is at 10:00 pm."

I didn't want to go to a drag show in a bar! "But then we'd be driving on dark country roads all the way up to Bloomington at midnight!"

"Or -- or --"  Brother Reid said with a smile, "You could spend the night, leave at 7:00 tomorrow morning.  We can put you up in the spare bedroom."

Sighing, I agreed.  Another night with Roy, who was nice but not my type, all anal instead of oral, while a Greek god lay sleeping in the next room.

The four of us, behaving very much like two couples on a double date, spent the rest of the afternoon at  Conrad's Castle, which I found only moderately interesting, and Slugger Field, which I found not interesting at all.  We had dinner at a steak house, and then went to Brother Reid and Terence's apartment to listen to depressing country-western music and wait until it was time to go to the bar.

I staked out an easy chair, while the other guys got the couch.

"Plenty of room over here," Brother Reid said, patting the tiny bit of seat next to him.

"Oh, I'm fine here," I said petulantly.

Roy stood, came to the chair, and put his arms around me.  "Feeling neglected?"  Soon we were kissing.  I was vaguely aware of Brother Reid and Terence doing the same.

"Maybe we'll skip the drag show," Brother Reid said.  "It's been a long day.  Roy, you know where the spare bedroom is.  There are clean towels in the bathroom, if you want to shower."


Another night with Roy -- good kisser, but not particularly impressive with anything else.

Later I got up to "use the bathroom."   The other bedroom door was closed.

I returned to our bed. "Sh*t!" I whispered.

"Anything wrong, babe?" Roy murmured.

I didn't know he was awake!  "Oh -- I was hoping to see those guys naked, but their door was closed."

"Why didn't you say something?  I can take care of that.  Hang on a minute."

He disappeared.  I heard the door to the other bedroom open.  A moment later, Brother Reid appeared in the doorway, naked, smiling.  He climbed onto the bed, pinned me down, and pressed his mouth against mine.  I felt his Bratwurst move against me.

When it was over, he returned to his own bed, and Roy returned to ours, having had a similar experience with Terence.

Apparently preachers do, in fact, hook up with guys other than their spouses, but they don't talk about it afterwards.

And I never did see Terence naked.

See also: The Farmboy Butches it Up; Dumped by Richie Rich

Straight Guys Never Figure It Out

Wilton Manors, October 2003

When I was living in Florida, newcomers from the small towns (or big cities) of the vast homophobic Straight World often went crazy with joy: "You can be open here!  You can be free!"  They found a job in a gay venue, read only gay books, went only to gay movies, and never ventured beyond the magic square bounded by Oakland Park Blvd., Powerline Road, NW 13th Street, and the Atlantic Ocean.

"Oh, you live on NW 12th Street?  Isn't that a little...iffy?"

Most residents of Wilton Manors weren't quite so insular.  But all of our friends were gay.  So were our neighbors.  And, as far as we know, so was the guy on the next treadmill at Barney's Gym, the guy sorting coupons in the check out line at the Publix Supermarket, and the woman browsing among the humorous cards at To the Moon.  We avoided heterosexuals as much as possible.  They were the enemy, screaming "God hates you!" from behind security fences at Gay Pride, or asking simpering, insulting questions, like "What do they think causes it now?"

So my house mates were surprised, and not entirely sympathetic when I befriended a heterosexual.

In the fall of 2003, when I was working at Florida Atlantic University, I saw Josh (not his real name) in the locker room of the campus gym, stripping out of a plaid shirt, suspenders, and a ridiculous red bowtie. I concluded that he was heterosexual almost immediately, through the gleaming, new-looking ring on his finger and his casual references to his wife. Surely Josh concluded that I was gay almost immediately, from my answer to the question " What are you working on now?” (media images of gay teenagers), or from the shelves of gay books, rainbow flag mouse pad, and gay pride poster in my office.

But no, when an attractive girl passed, Josh nudged me so I could look.  "I only look at guys," I said.

That didn't do it.

"He will never figure it out," my housemate Yuri told me.  "Stupid straight guys can never see anything but straights."

"Anyway, why would you want to tell a breeder?" my other housemate, Barney, said with an accusatory glare, as if I was planning some act of treason.  "When he finds out, he'll start screaming that you're trying to molest him."

"He's not a friend, really.  He just comes to my office to chat.  Besides, it's a challenge.  Somehow or other I'm going to get him to figure it out!"

"Impossible!"  Barney exclaimed.  "But why don't we make it interesting?  I'll bet you $20 that you can't get him to figure it out during the next week.  You can say anything you want except 'I'm gay.'"

"I want in on this thing too," Yuri said.  "But you can't cruise him.  Or talk about your old boyfriends."

I spent the next week dropping all of the hints I could think of.

"I can't get married in this state.  It's illegal."
"Oh...still married to the wife back home, huh?"
No, you nitwit, gay people can't get married!

"I can't donate blood.  It's illegal."
"I hear you.  Get a venereal disease just once, it haunts you for the rest of your life."
No, you idiot, gay men can't donate blood!

"My childhood church was totally homophobic.  It blamed gays for everything from child molestation to 9/11."
"That's ridiculous!  Gays are just people, like you and me."
Are you in on the bet?  Did my housemates pay you to pretend ignorance?

Finally in desperation I invited Josh over for dinner with Barney and Yuri.

"Oh, a guys' night!  Leave the girlfriends at home!  Sounds great!"

During dinner, I brought up Wilton Manors' reputation as a gay mecca.
"Yeah, gentrifying neighborhoods often have gay guys fixing things up."

Barney's job managing a gym with a mostly gay clientele.
"It's great that you're so secure in your masculinity that you aren't worried about them seeing you naked in the locker room."

Yuri's quest for the World's Biggest Penis in the Basque country of Spain four years ago.
"Wow, are they really that big?  They must really impress the ladies!"

My housemates grinned at me.

After dinner I invited Josh to select a movie to watch from our collection of 200-odd DVDS. Other than a few classics, they all had gay characters, gay subtexts, or covers displaying muscular guys with their shirts off. Without a word or even an odd look, he selected Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, which has none.

Josh sat on the couch, directly behind a coffee table containing a pile of gay magazines. On top was an issue of The Advocate, selected deliberately because the word “Gay” was written on the cover three times, along with photos of the gay icons Harvey Milk and Chad Allen. Surely that would be enough.

It wasn't.

After the movie, we were channel surfing, when an attractive man appeared on the screen. “Wait – go back,” I exclaimed. “That guy was totally hot!”

"What for?"  Josh asked.  "It was a guy."

Finally in desperation, I pulled out my wallet, handed $20 bills to Yuri and Barney, and said, in a loud, clear voice, "I am gay."

"Yeah, right.  Don't be funny."  He turned to Yuri.  "Does Boomer always joke around like this?"

"Yes, all the time," he said, barely restraining his laughter.  "Except when he wants to impress a girl."

I hit him on the head with a pillow.

When they finally assured Josh that I wasn't joking, he was shocked.  "I had no idea.  You hide it so well!"

Hide it?

Then: "I think it's great that you guys are so secure in your masculinity that you don't mind having a gay roommate."

My Book of Cute Boys

This story has been moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

A Naked Man for Christmas

Dan in college

This story has been moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

The Boy with a Crush on My Dad

When I was growing up, I was fascinated by a photo of my father sitting on a burro in Tijuana.

Dad is tanned, muscular, smiling, wearing a sombrero that invites us to "Kiss My Ass!"

The photo is dated September 8th, 1959, a little over a year before I was born. There are two names written on the back, "Frank" and "Jared."

Frank is my father, but who is Jared?  The burro?

And how did this grinning, bawdy, irreverent 21-year old turn into the Dad I knew, conservative, somber, serious, who rarely laughed and never joked or fooled around?  What changed?

Here is all I knew:

June 1956

Frank graduates from high school in Indiana, and joins the Navy.  He spends the next three years seeing the world, visiting Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, learning to repair things deep down in the hulls of the big ships, and buddy-bonding.  He calls it the best time of his life.

June 1959

Frank returns to Indiana for a two-week long shore leave and reunites with his high school sweetheart, who is working at the A&W.  They impulsively get married, and drive with her sister and brother-in-law cross country to Long Beach, California.  They move into a tiny apartment.

The next year is a blank space in their lives.  They don't talk about it.  There are only a few mementos and photographs.  I know that they went to Knotts Berry Farm and Tijuana, that a couple of relatives flew out for a visit, and that Mom bought a set of encyclopedias from a fast-talking salesman, and that's all.

June 1960

Frank's four-year tour of duty ends.  His Captain asks him to stay on, with a promotion to Chief Petty Officer, but he refuses.  Instead, he and Mom return to Indiana and move into a house on South Randolph Street.  He goes to work in the factory, which he calls a "hell hole," even when he's not angry: "Well, I'm off to the goddam hell hole, back at 4:00."   and frequently evokes his Navy years as "the best time of my live."

Why did Dad abandon a Navy career he loved for a factory job he hated?  

I could have grow up in Long Beach!  I could have met Randall and Will the Bondage Boy early in my childhood.  I could learned about gay people and been part of the gay rights movement of the 1980s.  Instead I rumbled around Rock Island in utter silence, my same-sex loves ignored, my most casual friendship with a girl applauded as the meaning of life.

Why did they leave Long Beach?

Indianapolis,  May 2016

I'm visiting my parents on the way back from New York. My nephew is digitizing their old photos, and I see the "Kiss My Ass" burro photo again.  Emboldened, I decide to coax as much information out of them as possible.

Maybe the statute of limitations has passed, or maybe after nearly 60 years they don't care about their youthful transgressions anymore, but Mom and Dad both open up, describing their apartment, the corner grocery store, the movie theater where they saw Ben-Hur and Pillow Talk.

"You went to movies?" I ask, shocked.  Nazarenes are forbidden from setting foot inside movie theaters.


"That's not all!" Dad says with a laugh.  "We played cards.  We danced.  We even drank -- just beer, one time, but if the preacher or my parents found out, we'd be in big trouble!"

"We made friends with all sorts of people that would set my Mom and Dad off," Mom adds.  "Blacks.  Jews.  Catholics.  Mexicans.  And...well, you know..."

"Gays?" I suggest.

Suddenly Dad becomes somber.  "It was the Fifties.  We didn't know about things like that."

"Or if we did, we thought it was very rare," Mom adds, "You'd never meet anyone like that in a lifetime, which is good because it was the worst thing possible, like a sin and a crime and a sickness, all rolled up into one.  Then we met that boy, Jared"

"We were supposed to give him a copy of the photo," Dad says.  "That's why his name is on the back.  But we didn't get a chance."

More after the break

10 Ethnic Groups on My Bucket List

On The Simpsons, Homer sings "I could love [e.g., have sex with] about a million girls."

A million?

Assuming a 50-year sexual life, that's 20,000 per year, or 384 per week.

That's a lot more than gay men could ever hope for.

If you spent every waking hour in the bath house, and if you were extremely attractive, you might get as many as 10 partners per day, or 70 per week.

But in real life, people have other interests and obligations, they don't have a superheroic physique, and they're usually involved in relationships that require monogamy or "sharing."  They might average 10 partners per year.

Or only one.

Homer goes on to list the various ethnic groups he is interested in: "I could love a Chinese girl, an Eskimo, a Finn. I could dig a Deutschland chick...."

That sounds more promising.  There are only about 6,000 ethnic groups in the world.  Could you "love" someone from each one?

For the purpose of this study, "loving" will be defined as "an event in which you see your partner naked in a private setting."  Clubs, bath houses, nude beaches, and dates that don't end with a bedroom won't count.

An "ethnic group" will be defined as a group identified by a distinct language and culture.  Generic white Americans and African-Americans don't count.

After careful calculation and checking my journals, I find that I've "loved" guys from 41 identifiable ethnic groups.

18 European
8 East or Southeast Asian
5 African
5 Latin American
2 Middle Eastern
2 Native American
1 South Asian

5,959 to go.

If I really want to sample the vast variety of  masculine beauty in the world, there are a few left on my bucket list:

1. Faeroese: from the Faeroe Islands far to the north of Britain (population 44,000).  Like the famous swimmer Pal Joensen (top photo).

2. Yakut: a Turkic-speaking people of Siberia.  There are 478,000 Yakut speakers, including 10,000 in the United States, so there's hope (second photo: a Yakut wrestler).

3.Ainu (left): the original inhabitants of Japan were not of Asian ethnicity, and their language was like no other in the world (there are only about 10 native speakers left).  They liked beards so much that the women got their chins tattooed to make it seem like they had beards, too.  Today there are an estimated 25,000-100,000 Ainu in northern Japan.  The most famous is Oki, who performs electro-pop versions of traditional songs with his Oki Dub Ainu Band.

4. Chukchi: from remote northeastern Siberia, near the Bering Sea.  The 16,000 Chukchi speak a Paleo-Siberian language.  Their shamans change from male to female when they travel to the spirit world.

 5. Hawaiian (left): 400,000 people claim to be part Hawaiian, but only 140,000 claim to be Hawaiian alone, and only about 2,000 speak the language.

6. Jivaro (left): about 20,000 of the former head-hunters, divided into several different tribes in the western Amazon region of South America, mostly in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia.  I visited Colombia, but didn't meet any Jivaros.

7. Tuareg: there are about 1.2 million Tuaregs, a nomadic people of the Sahara, mostly in Niger and Chad. Formerly called "the blue people" because the blue dye in the men's turbans rubbed off onto their faces, they speak a Berber language.

8. The Mbuti (left): one of several "pygmy" tribes in the Congo, there are about 30,000 Mbuti, most still living as traditional hunter-gatherers.  The men have an average height of 4'9."  Sounds like my kind of guys.

9. Greenlander: The northernmost country on Earth, Greenland has a population of about 60,000, most of whom are Greenland Inuit.

10. Aboriginal Australians: The original inhabitants of Australia have the oldest cultural traditions in the world.  They have legends about walking to Australia over a land bridge that hasn't existed for 14,000 years!  There are about 600,000, divided into many different tribes with distinctive languages and customs.  Ritualized same-sex behavior is commonplace as an initiation rite.

I visited Australia 20 years ago, but didn't get a chance to meet -- or "love" -- any aboriginal guys.

But there's always next year.  Maybe these guys are on Facebook.

See also: The Day I Turned Japanese

"My Uncle's Queer": My Nephew's Transformation from Choir Boy to Punk Rocker

Rock Island, December 1999

I am in grad school in New York, visiting Rock Island and Indianapolis for the holidays, staying with my brother Kenny in his rundown, rambling house downtown.  The house is crowded with Kenny's children and stepchildren, plus a huge assortment of dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.

It's easy to miss Joel, Ken's youngest son, in the crowd: he's thirteen years old, short, slim, a quiet, polite Johnny Nazarene.  But a talented singer: he's toured in Iowa, Minnesota, and Sweden with the Moline Boys' Choir.  We go to their Christmas concert and hear his solo in "Come, O Come Emmanuel."

December 2000

Yuri and I are visiting Rock Island for the holidays. My family practices a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, so they don't know if we're friends or boyfriends or lovers.  Most of them probably don't even know that we are gay.  But Joel figures it out.  Although he claims to be straight, he asked us to teach him and his friend Max "how gay guys have sex."

Yuri and I teach him about gay kissing.





August 2001

I've completed my Ph.D., and I'm visiting Rock Island for a few days just before moving to Florida.  Joel is a cute 15 year old with short black hair, pale skin, and nicely rounded biceps.  Nazarenes aren't allowed to listen to "the devil's music," basically anything with guitars, but he likes Weezer, Nickelback, and other groups that I never heard of, but sound loud.

Oddly, ,my brother doesn't forbid it.  "It's his life," Kenny says.  "If he likes the devil's music, that's on him."

Joel asks why I didn't bring Yuri.  "You guys are, like, hot together, aren't you?"

Ken glares at me, accusing me of outing myself to his son.  "Boomer has a lot of friends, all kinds," he explains.  "Black, white, Jewish, Muslim, gay, straight.  He's so liberal, it hurts."



December 2001

It's only been six months since I saw him last, and the transformation is amazing.  Joel is a surly 15-year old, dressed all in black, who protests the "capitalist spending frenzy" of Christmas.  He spends most of his time in his room, listening to metal music.  He emerges to eat a bowl of Lucky Charms instead of Christmas dinner, and to ask "So, Uncle Gizmo, are the beach boys hot down in Florida?  I bet you get tons of action."

In front of the whole family, including relatives I wasn't out to!

"Um...well, I do ok," I stammer.

Later I ask Kenny if Joel is gay.

"Nope, nope, nope!" Kenny exclaims.  "He's totally hot for girls.  He's got a little gay friend, but that doesn't mean a thing."


June 2003

Maybe Kenny is angry about my accidental outing, or maybe he's just busy, but he doesn't invite me to Christmas in Rock Island in 2002. I don't visit again until June 2003.

Joel has just turned 17.  He has green hair, earrings,  and a pierced lip.  He gives me a hug and calls me "Beach Boy,"

He just got back from Hardcore Fest, where he heard Walls Of Jericho, Suicide Note, Saved By Grace, As We Speak, Provoke, How It Ends, Devastator, Preacher Gone To Texas, Blood In Blood Out, Too Pure To Die, For Death or Glory, Wings Of Scarlet, Uphold, Begin Again, King of Clubz, Pound for Pound, Undo Tomorrow, Haunted Life and Butt Lynt.

"Sounds like a great lineup," I tell him. I've never heard of any of them.

And naturally he's the lead vocalist in his own punk band, The Dead Eunuchs.

June 2004

Joel has a bright red mohawk and a nose ring.  The Dead Eunuchs has been performing all over the Quad Cities.  Tonight they have a gig at the Rusty Nail in Davenport.

"You should come," Joel says.  "We play a great set."

Well -- I'm not much for punk music in noisy heterosexual bars. "I don't think..."

 "You'll like one of our songs.  It's called 'My Uncle's Queer.'"


My face begins to burn.  Is Joel outing me in front of roomsful of drunken heterosexual rednecks?  "Queer?  Sounds homophobic!" I exclaim.

"The Dead Eunuchs are opposed to racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, fascism, capitalism, brutality, and the police state," Joel recites.  "It's right there on our MySpace page. Come Saturday night.  You'll find out."

It's a small club with a bar and grille and a little stage.  About 20 people in the audience, some rednecks, but mostly bohemians of all shapes and sizes.  The Dead Eunuchs, five guys in their late teens or early 20s, perform in mohawks, shirtless (nice abs), with lots of crotch-grabbing and pretending to lick each other.

Their songs are the standard punk "life is meaningless" shtick, until they come to "My Uncle's Queer."

As far as I can tell from the screeching, the lyrics are:

My uncle's queer, you heard me right!
He won't tell Dad, he's scared to fight!
Break the system, break the wall,
Press your cock against my balls.
We're all dying from the fear
Inside out, everybody's queer!

Not very complementary, but at least it's inclusive.

Guitar riff, and then the second verse:


My sister kissed a dyke for [?],
My brother sucked a stud for Jesus
We all got cocks, we all got balls,
We all got faces pressed to the wall.
I am queer!  You are queer!
Hear that preacher, the world is queer!

"Nice inclusive message," I tell Joel later as he sits, shirtless and sweat-soaked, at my booth eating a hamburger.   "But not entirely accurate.  I've been out to your Dad since high school.  He was the first one I told when I figured it out."

"The song isn't about you.  It's about everybody who's afraid to be who they are."

I hesitate about asking if Joel is really "queer" or not -- it would be contrary to his message of solidarity.

And no, he never invites me to "press my cock against his balls."  

Billy Booth Comes Out on the Set of "The Twilight Zone"

Billy Booth was playing on his Little League team in LaCrescenta, California, about 20 miles from Hollywood, when an agent approached his mother and asked if he would be interested in doing some tv commercials.  A decade of tv and movie work followed: The Snow Queen (1957), Goodyear Theatre (1959), The Slowest Gun in the West (1960), Donna Reed (1964), and Andy Griffith (1964), plus a recurring role as Tommy on Dennis the Menace  (1959-1963).

But his favorite role, the one he would remember forever, was "Short Boy" on The Twilight Zone, when he was 11 years old.

"A Stop at Willoughby" (May 6, 1960) was one of many episodes about harried business executives who escape to what narrrator/writer Rod Serling thought of as the kinder, simpler world  of the 19th century, with people riding on penny-farthings and bands playing "Beautiful Dreamer" in the park

In this case, harried ad exec Gart Williams (41-year old James Daly) escapes from his obnoxious boss and harridan wife when his commuter train makes an unexpected stop at the small town of Willoughby, July 1888.

For the rest of the episode, he tries desperately to return.  Finally he succeeds.  In the twist ending, it turns out that he jumped out of the train to his death, and "Willoughby and Sons" is the name of the funeral home.

Billy played one of the two barefoot boys walking toward the fishing hole, then returning to town later. The older (Butch Hengen) tells Williams that "the fish are biting."  Williams says "I might go with you tomorrow."

That's all: two walk-ons, shot together on a single afternoon, uncredited, no lines.  But what happened after stayed with Billy forever.

After his scene, he expected someone to take the fishing pole and fish prop from his hands, but no one came.  He started walking, but took a wrong turn and got lost, still dressed like Huckleberry Finn.  The hard ground hurt his feet.  He was getting a little worried, when suddenly Jim Daly was beside him.

"Are those real fish?" he asked, smiling

"Yep. Boy, do they smell!"

"We'd better get them back to props.  Come on, I'll show you the way."  Jim put his hand on his shoulder and steered him in the opposite direction, back across the Willoughby set.

Jim was very big and tall.  Billy felt like a big man just walking next to him, like they were pals.

"Do you think you'd like to live in a town like Willoughby?"

"Naw -- it sounds real square.  No tv, no movies, no comic books!  But I liked working here.  Butch is cool -- me and him, we're going to the beach tomorrow, if his Mom says it's ok."

"That's fine  That's all you need, really, in this life -- one special friend.  They're hard to find."

"Oh, I got lots of friends."

"Sure, but do you have a special friend?  Someone who makes you smile whenever you look at him, who makes you sad when you have to say goodbye."  Jim was staring straight ahead, reciting as if remembering a scene. His words made Billy feel warm and happy inside.  "Who you don't want to say goodbye to, ever -- you want to spend you life with him."

"That's pretty cool, Mister Daly.  Is it from a movie?"

"No, it's from real life.  Or at least, how I wish life could be.  Maybe it will be, when you grow up."

They handed the fish and fishing pole to the prop master, who snarled "It's about time!  I thought you nicked it!"   Then Jim walked Billy to where his mother was waiting.  They shook hands and said goodbye.

Billy never saw him again.  But he remembered the warm hand on his shoulder, the distant, faraway look, the sadness.

One special friend.  

Billy's next job was on an episode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.  Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver were both nice to him,  but the only cast member who made him smile just by looking at him was Mike Burns, a cute teenager with big muscles and a hairy chest.  But Mike ignored Billy, or talked like he was just a little kid.

One special friend.

Jay North, his costar on Dennis the Menace?  Nice, but not very cute.

Mickey Sholdar on The Farmer's Daughter?  Cute, but not very nice.

Like many child stars, Billy found acting jobs scarce once he hit puberty.  But he didn't mind: he could go to a regular school with regular kids, and do normal things like ride bikes and go to the beach.  He started fantasizing about cute guys climbing into his bed, hugging and kissing him, touching him down there.

A guy from his biology class; his gym teacher; Robert Vaughn, the Man from Uncle;  Mike Burns; and Jim Daly, who (in Billy's fantasy) had muscles and a hairy chest, big hands, and a gigantic penis.

In high school Billy began dating girls.  His favorite dates ended with him and a friend dropping off the girls and then parking and going down on him, feeling a buff guy's cock thrust against his tongue and throat.  But it was just a physical release -- his friend could never be a special friend.  He was too busy thinking about girls.

Billy graduated from LaCrescenta High in 1967- and enrolled at USC.  Some of his classmates were growing their hair long, smoking pot, and joining in the anti-war protests, but Billy never did.  He was a good boy, quiet, respectful, studious, a square.  Besides, with their long hair and beads, hippie boys looked like girls.  He liked "real men," strong, masculine, powerful.

Like the football jocks he invited to his dorm room to beat off while looking at Playboy.  Sometimes he went down on them, but again, it was just a physical release.  They were both supposed to be thinking about girls.

In 1974 Billy graduated from USC with a degree in political science.  He moved to San Francisco to go to the Hastings College of Law, and met gay people for the first time.  Men who acted like women, flouncing and sashaying down the street.  Not a problem -- he was open-minded -- but with no connection to his life at all.  Instead he started dating Kathy, a Berkeley undergrad majoring in English.

She was certainly a friend -- they had a lot of fun together.  And they had sex - it was simply a matter of closing his eyes and fantasizing about a muscular guy with a hairy chest.  That desire to touch her, to be touched by her, was absent, but it was probably just a childhood fantasy -- it didn't exist in the real world.  Kathy must be his special friend.

In June 1977 they married and moved to Los Osos, California, in San Luis Obispo County.  They bought a house near the beach.  Billy started a private practice in business and real estate law, and Kathy worked on her writing.  In October she announced that she was pregnant.

Billy was 28 years old, with everything he was supposed to want in life: house, job, wife, child on the way.  This was the life everyone wanted.

Wasn't it?

Well, wasn't it?

He had never been so miserable.

One day on a whim, he tracked down James Daly, who remembered their brief conversation 17 years ago!  He got an invitation to visit.

Kathy didn't understand why he wanted to cross the country to visit someone he met once, but she wasn't about to pass up a trip to New York, so in January 1978, shortly after the New Year, they flew out to Nyack.

Daly was 59 years old, graying but still big and tall, still acting in local theater and taking the train into Manhattan every weekend.  They went shopping for antiques, and walked on the beach even though it was in the 20s outside.  Nearly the first thing he told them was: "I'm gay."

He grinned at their shock -- you didn't just come out to near-strangers in 1978!  "For the last six months I've been telling everyone.  You'd be surprised how healing it is. Such a blessing to finally end the lies."

"How long have you known?" Billy asked.

"Oh, since I was a boy.  But when I was young, we thought it was a mental disorder.  [My wife] Hope and I tried all sorts of therapy to 'cure' me before figuring that it was hopeless and divorcing.  Even then, I stayed in the closet."

"Have you ever had a companion?" Kathy asked.  "Someone to spend your life with?  A special friend?"

Billy stared -- he had never used that term in front of Kathy.  How did she know it?

"Lots of lovers, but I'm afraid that the happiness of a special friend has always eluded me.  I think because I came out of the closet too late."

"It's never too late," Kathy said, glancing over at Billy.

They waited until their son Devon was five years old to divorce.  Billy continued to live in Los Osos and practice law, stayed close to Kathy and watched Devon grow up, but he was down in Los Angeles most weekends.

He had brunch at the French Quarter.  He visited the gay synagogue.  He had many boyfriends and lovers, and a partner who lived with him for 12 years.

Billy Booth died on December 31, 2006.  His family suggests that, instead of flowers, you can best honor his memory by calling an old friend.

William Faulkner and his Boyfriend Paint Robert's Penis Green

Call me Artie.  Your story about visiting Lynchburg, Virginia, the "scariest place on Earth," made me laugh.  I grew up in Marion, Virginia, about a hundred miles away, and Lynchburg was our beacon of culture and enlightenment!

This was long before Stonewall.  I graduated from high school in 1951  (don't do the math: I know how old that makes me!).   But we knew all about gay people; every town had its resident "queer," and there were private men-only parties where guys from 100 miles around would gather.

In Marion, the parties were held at the home of the high school drama teacher.  One of the regular guests was Robert Anderson: about 40, with a slim, slight build, a little moustache, a hairy chest, and a rather big cock, but a complete bottom.  In those days, young guys were always the "trade," going down on older, so it was quite a kick watching Mr. Anderson reverse the roles, going down on the twinks and Cute Young Things.

Mr. Anderson was the mayor and the editor of the local newspaper, plus he had a wife and daughter at home.  You may wonder, wasn't it dangerous, in Virginia in the late 1940s, with gay sex being a crime?  You see, if anyone told on Mr. Anderson, he would report on them, so we were all safe.

It wasn't just about sex.  We were a circle of brothers, a bulwark against the homophobia of the outside world.  We joked, gossipped, and told stories about gigantic penises and celebrity hookups, just like you did in West Hollywood parties years later.  Mr. Anderson liked to tell the one about his first three-way:

New Orleans, June 1925

New Orleans in the Jazz Age!  What could be more exciting for a teenager with an adventurous spirit, a famous father, and a stepmother who was trying to buy his love with endless gifts of clothes and cash?

Robert (never Bob) was fascinated by the new social and sexual freedom of the 1920s.  Women had the right to vote, and could drive autos, smoke, and wear pants, with barely an eyebrow raised.  Men wore perfume and marcelled their hair, and called it the latest style.  Black, white, Creole, Italian, Jew: all races mixed with equality and passion.  There were proponents of free love, birth control, anarchy, Bolshevism, vegetarianism, and Buddhism.


Robert's father was Sherwood Anderson, the literary flaneur whose Winesburg, Ohio (1919) is still required reading in schools.  Their apartment in the Pontalba Building, off Jackson Square, was a bona fide literary salon, a gathering-place for writers and artists of all sorts, from Carl Sandburg to F. Scott Fitzgerald.  But the writer who most fascinated him was Bill Faulkner.

William Faulkner is famous today for Southern Gothic classics like The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!, but in the spring of 1925 he had only published poetry, and only in college magazines.  He was working on his first novel under Sherwood Anderson's tutelage.

He was 28 years old, a short, small man, not a Charles Atlas "physical culture" type, soft-spoken, rather fey; yet his dark eyes and intense energy were immensely attractive.  Robert assumed that he was queer.  He wondered what queers did in the bedroom, and resolved to find out.

When Faulkner first moved to New Orleans in November 1924, he stayed with the Andersons, but by March 1925 he had fallen in love with Bill Spratling, a 23-year old instructor of architecture at Tulane University.  He moved into Spratling's apartment in Pirate's Alley, about a block away [now it's the home of Faulkner House Books], where they held court with a large group of artists, writers, bon vivants, and intellectuals, most of them queer men or women.

Robert barged his way into some of their soirees, and was disappointed to find no sex going on, just a lot of drinking, piano-playing, and discussions of Valentino, Kandinsky, Thomas Mann, and "Rhapsody in Blue."

Maybe if he caught them alone, they would be in the middle of an act, and he would be invited to watch -- or join in.  He had heard about the "French vice: that the New Woman liked to practice on her lovers -- what we call oral sex now -- there was no reason why a queer couldn't do that, too!

Robert was definitely interested in going down on Bill Faulkner, and maybe Spratling, too.  Maybe both together?  He started practicing on bananas, so he wouldn't gag on their enormous penises.

He began knocking on their door with various excuses at odd hours -- 8:00 am; 10:00 pm; noon.  But they were never "in media res."  They were sitting down to breakfast, or working in the garden, or one of them was out.

In June they announced an upcoming trip to Europe.  Robert knew that he had to act fast.  One evening around 10:00 pm, he knocked on their door, as usual, but when Spratling answered, he screwed up his courage and kissed him on the mouth.

"Hey, now!" Spratling exclaimed, startled.  And then he called back into the house "Bill, did you order a boy to be sent over?"

Faulkner appeared wearing only pajama bottoms.  "Him again?  After all this time, you'd think the agency would send us a new one."

"I just...I mean..." Robert began.  He expected them to be all over him, kissing and touching his body.  Instead, they were joking, distant.  "I wanted..."

"It's been quite obvious what you want for some time," Faulkner said.  "The question is, why would I be disrespectful to my dear friend Sherwood Anderson by corrupting his first-born son?"

"It's not corrupting.  Not if I'm willing."

Spratling laughed.  "I think we can accommodate the pest...I mean, the young queer in training.  Shall we all adjourn to the boudoir?""

"No, your studio would be much more exciting than a boring old bedroom," Faulkner said.  "Don't you agree?"

They both put their arms around Robert and escorted him into the next room -- to Spratling's studio (he was an aspiring artist as well as an architect). 

Robert nodded mutely.  The Bills both stripped out of their clothes -- Faulkner was average sized, uncut, and Spratling very big.  Neither were aroused.  Following their lead, Robert took his clothes off -- he was most definitely aroused -- and approached Faulkner and groped him, and leaned in for a kiss.

Faulkner swung him around and pinned his arms behind his back.

"Wait...what...."

Spradling grabbed a brush and pallet and began painting his cock!

"Wait...this isn't..."  Robert said, straining against Faulkner's arms.

"Calm down, my dear.  Soon you'll be a work of art." Spradling pushed up Robert's still-aroused cock to paint the underside.  The brush felt like a tongue licking at his shaft, not at all unpleasant.  "You'll be in all the museums.  Your dick will be famous world-wide -- and much more impressive than Michelangelo's David, I might add."

"Do the balls, too," Faulkner suggested.

"Oh, no, the penis alone will be my masterpiece.  Besides, it's such a monstrous specimen, I'm sure I'll run out of paint."  He dabbed Robert's cock head with green.  "All done.  Now, shall we introduce young Master Robert to his adoring public?"

Before he knew what was happening, Robert was pushed, naked and dripping green paint, through the kitchen door into Cabildo Alley.  He banged on the door, but they didn't answerr.  The only thing to do was walk home, ignoring the stares and jeers of the evening crowd, without being arrested for indecent exposure.  At home, he told his parents that he had been the victim of a fraternity initiation.

Robert never visited the Two Bills again -- he sent a friend to retrieve his clothes.  But he did hook up with Spradley alone one night, after Faulkner moved away, and the next summer, in France, he and his brother "shared" Paul Robeson.  But those are stories for another time.

See also: Beefcake and Boyfriends of the Jazz Age

Sausage Sighting of My Cousin Buster

Whenever we visited my parents' family in Indiana, I wanted to stay with my Cousin Buster, who lived in the Trailer in the Deep Woods. He was almost two years older than me, and much more adventurous, dragging me into adventures in the cornfields and patches of raw trees.  We made magic swords, dug for buried treasure, caught frogs that were really witches in disguise.

When I was little, I liked to stay overnight in the trailer, crammed beside him in his narrow bed,  giggling and talking and reading Casper comic books.  I always waited for him to fall asleep first, so I could watch his bare chest rise and fall, his eyebrows flutter, his lips purse together in a dream.

When I grow up, I thought, I'll sleep like this every night, with a boy next to me, warm and hard in the night, reading comic books.

Once we arrived late, and he was already asleep.  I slipped out of my clothes and slid into bed and put my arms around him.  He smiled.

But the last few visits, we stayed with my Aunt Nora in Rome City, who had "plenty of room," so there was no need for me to "bother" my cousin by spending the night in his bed. We just dropped in for brief visits.

I had just turned thirteen, and Cousin Buster was fifteen [all models in the illustrations are over 18].

He was built, with a hard chest and thick biceps visible under his brown t-shirt.  He a round face with thin blond hair and blue eyes.  Big hands.

We sat in his bedroom -- the comic books and G.I. Joes were gone -- and talked about classes and Adam-12 and the cute girls who hung out at the Blue Moon Drive In.

Cute girls?  What about spending the night with boys, reading comic books, cuddling, falling asleep in each other's arms? 

"I have a date tomorrow," Cousin Buster said.  "To go ice skating.  She could get a girl for you, and we could double."

I didn't want to date girls!  "Um...thanks, but we're staying in Rome City.  My parents wouldn't want to drive all the way back here to pick me up afterwards."

"You could spend the night.  Just like when we were kids."

Now I wanted to go!  I ran out to the living room to ask my parents if it was ok.

So on December 27th, I went ice skating on a frozen pond with Cousin Buster and two girls (I don't remember who drove, somebody's father or an older kid). Then we stopped for hot chocolate, the girls on one side of the booth and the boys on the other.

Eventually someone's father or an older kid dropped us off at the trailer.

 Finally the ordeal was over!  Now we could get back to our real life, the only life that made sense, two boys together, cuddling in the night.

Cousin Buster's Mom and Dad were already in bed, so we quietly raided the refrigerator for leftover Christmas pie.  Then he pulled some blankets and pillows out of a closet and made up the couch for me.

Wait -- we're supposed to sleep together! I thought frantically.  Two boys cuddling!  

But I didn't say anything.  I gamely slipped out of my clothes and climbed onto the couch.  Cousin Buster said "Goodnight" and vanished into his room.

It was a small trailer.  From my couch bed, I could see the light from under Cousin Buster's door.  I expected it to go off in a few minutes, but it didn't.

Was he reading?  Watching tv?

The light stayed on.

Maybe he was lonely.  Maybe he wanted two boys together, in spite of our evening with girls.  Maybe he wanted me to join him but wasn't sure how to ask.

I got up, walked gingerly across the bare floor, and pushed open his bedroom door.



The light inside was very bright, like a fluorescent lamp in a schoolroom, illuminating everything.  The first thing I noticed, oddly, was an open jar of Vaseline on the nightstand.

The second thing was Cousin Buster's chest, pale, smooth, with hard pecs and prominent nipples.

He was sitting up in bed, completely naked, with a magazine open in one hand and his penis in the other.

Fully aroused, straining as his hand stroked the thick shaft, easily a Kielbasa. The head was purple, glistening from the Vaseline.  His testicles bobbed up and down, round like two apples.

Our eyes locked.  He continued to work, his jaw set, beads of sweat on his forehead.

I was afraid to speak or to move.

Then he whispered "Shut the door."

Did he want me on the inside or the outside?

I took a step back, carefully closed the door, and returned to my bed.

Something that I've regretted ever since.

In the morning, neither of us spoke about what happened.

We continued to have brief, cordial chats, but during high school, my visits to Indiana became sporadic.  I was old enough to stay home alone, and often I had other things to do.

Eventually I stopped going to Indiana altogether.

I heard about Cousin Buster from my parents: working at the auto garage, moving into his own place, collecting vintage cars, going hunting and fishing with his buddies, getting girlfriends but never marrying.

He died in 1996, at the age of 38.

I didn't go to his funeral.  I couldn't afford to fly out from San Francisco on short notice, and besides, it was too late -- he was a stranger.