Ricky with a Y

My birthday was a couple of weeks ago.  I've now been in the category of "older guys" for 15 years, and though I'm noticeably more bald and craggy than I was in 2000, the ardor of the Cute Young Things has not diminished.  If anything, it's increased.

When I go to a M4M Party, the twinks start sidling over before I even have a chance to get my pants off.

When I go on Grindr, I get these pickup lines or variants a dozen times an hour:
1. "Nice pic" (everybody gets that)
2. I love older guys"
3. "I've been a naughty boy, Daddy."

I hate being called Daddy.  Maybe I'm 20 or 30 years older than you, but I'm not your father.

Ricky with a Y (he specified the Y even though I could see it on the screen)  wasn't physically spectacular: in his 20s, a little shorter than me, with a handsome face, a hairy chest, not particularly muscular, a little small beneath the belt.

But he stood out from the crowd by his lack of obnoxious cruising.  We talked about The Walking Dead and the musical Titanic rather than the things he wanted me to do to him.

He found out that I was a college professor without making a stupid joke about requiring special after-class tutoring, wink wink nudge nudge.

He found out that my birthday was coming up without making a stupid joke about dinosaurs.

Nor did he call me Daddy.

So of course I accepted the date, for the Saturday after my birthday. "Leave everything to me.  This is my town, so I know my way around.  I'll give you an unforgettable night."

He picked me up at 6:00 pm in a very nice black convertible.

"This is my baby -- I've had her since college.  You should have seen me tooling around Harvard Yard."

Ok, everybody I've known who went to Harvard was crazy.  I waited to find out what Ricky's eccentricity was.  Other than being Ricky with a Y.

We went to dinner at a place called Grille 26, where the prices were high and the food boring: scallops, pasta, steak.

And the craziness began.  He psychoanalyzed everything.

"What do you do for a living?" I asked politely.

"Interesting that you would start off with the financial rather than my artistic or spiritual life.  Do you feel dissatisfied with your own economic success?

"Um...I was just trying to be polite."

By the way, he helped run the family soft drink company, which was quite successful, with root beer, birch beer, and cola that was #3 in the state, after Coke and Pepsi.  He also ran a mail-order company specializing in gay pride merchandise, and in his spare time he did financial consulting.  And he wanted to talk about his artistic side?

"My favorite food is Thai," I continued, making small talk.

"Interesting.  Is the food a stand in for the people?  Fetishization of Asians is quite common in gay communities, I understand.  They're stereotyped as soft and passive, easy to dominate, particularly if you're insecure about your sexual prowess."

"I'm not...i'm not insecure about my sexual prowess!  I just like pad thai."

And on and on.

Why did I stay friends with most of my ex-lovers?  Was I reluctant to let go, let the past stay the past, because I was afraid to face the future, the inevitability of death?

Why did I call my mother every week, but not my father?

Why didn't I allow my dinner companion to try one of my scallops?

Finally, after what felt like an intensive psychotherapy session, Ricky with a Y said "This has been fascinating, but we'd better be going, or we'll be late for the theater."

He had theater tickets?  Great. Angels in America was playing at the college.  But instead he took me to A Christmas Story: The Musical, about that kid and his quest to get a gun from Santa Claus, plus the lamp shaped like a lady's leg.

"Why does the lamp shaped like a lady's leg bother you?  Is it the disembodiment, the objectification of women?  Or does it make you doubt your own sexual identity?"

Then we went to an upscale dance club -- for heterosexuals.

"Come on, there's nothing to be afraid of.  This isn't the homophobic 1980s.  Why are you afraid to admit that things have gotten better for gay people?  Does it threaten your raison d'etre?

"Why are you Ricky with a Y?" I countered.  "Is it so people don't mistake you for Ricki with an I, a girl's name? Are you trying to draw attention to your Y chromosome? Do you think that being gay makes you a girl?"

"Good point!  But getting back to..."

By the time Ricky said "This has been great! Let's go back to my place!", I had been run through the emotional wringer a dozen times.  I wanted to go home and curl into a fetal position.

But maybe a nice peaceful wordless sexual encounter would be a good antidote.

He had a modern apartment, all steel-and-glass, with plants and abstract art and leather furniture.  We kissed for awhile on the couch, then went into the bedroom.  Where the psychoanalyzing began again.

"Why do you have an aversion to anal sex?  Is it because that's the iconic gay sexual act?  Do you think that, as long as you don't top me, you're not really gay?"

I avoided commenting on his extra-small penis and extra-big car.

See also: 8 Harvard Boys in My Bed; and My Platonic Friends and Their Boy Toy

The Psychotherapist of Omaha

Omaha, June 1980

In the summer of 1980, during my sophomore year at Augustana, my boyfriend Fred landed a pulpit in Gretna, Nebraska, a tiny town about 20 miles south of Omaha.  So, being bright-eyed and naive, I moved with him.

I hated every minute of it.
1. Fred was completely closeted, so I had to be introduced as his "cousin."
2. He expected me to do all of the housework.
3. Gretna, Nebraska had an annual "Watermelon Feed."  I never go to any event called a "feed."  Do they line you up at a trough like pigs?
4. I had a job as an Assistant District Circulation Manager for the Omaha World Herald. A glorified paperboy.
5. I had a car, but I wasn't allowed to go to into Omaha to the gay bars, or even to go to the gym without Fred's permission.
6. Fred dated women, "for appearances."
7. I'm pretty sure that Fred was also tricking with the teenage boy downstairs.

Naturally, I got depressed.  Super-depressed.  Sitting-around-all-day-in-a-bathrobe depressed.

"You need psychiatric help," Fred told me one evening when he returned to see that I had spent the entire day in front of the tv.  "Every gay person should be in counseling anyway, to work through the guilt and shame."

"I don't have any guilt and shame.  I'm homesick."

 "Yes, you do.  You're just suppressing it.  Don't worry, I'll find you a therapist."

Easier said than done.  Although the American Psychiatric Association removed "homosexuality" from its list of psychoses in 1973, some therapists hadn't gotten the word, and others were just homophobic.  But the Gay Hotline of Omaha had some referrals, and in July 1980 I began seeing Dr. Corey.  I couldn't afford individual sessions, so he suggested group therapy.

Bad idea!  There were four other members in the group, two men and two women, and they spent the entire three sessions that I attended peppering me with inane questions:

"Were you gay before you met Fred?"
"How do you know you're gay, if you've never tried it with a woman?"
"Did some traumatic event turn you gay?"
"When you see a cute girl, do you think she's ugly?"
"Where do you find women's clothes in your size?"
"When are you going to have a sex change operation?"

And those were the polite questions.

Dr. Corey had a rule: you can't hit anyone in session.  If you feel like you're going to lose your temper, get up and leave the room.

A tall, muscular guy named Stan, about my age, got up and left the room a lot.  After almost every question.  We could hear him stomping around in the waiting room, saying "Goddam!  Goddam!  Goddam!"

When they asked "Do you have to be drunk or high to be able to have sex with a man?", I answered "No, I like it, so I want to be sober."

That got Stan so upset that he had to stomp around outside the building, in the parking lot.  When he returned, he had obviously been crying.

"I don't have anything against anybody," he stammered, "But when you...act, act like that, like a...woman, with your legs in the air...and then you say you like it!  You're sick!  You have a disease!"

"What makes you think I'm the one with his legs in the air?"

He stomped out of the room again.

During my third session, someone asked: "Are you the boy or the girl in your relationship with Fred?

Of course, the proper response is "We're both boys," but I was too stupid for that.  I thought of how Fred was the money-maker, how he expected me to stay home, put all of my career aspirations on hold, and spend my days doing housework and watching soap operas.  Gender-polarized female.  So I said "The girl, I guess."

Three of the four group members ran out of the room to avoid hitting me.

Which didn't make me feel better.

I never went back to group.  I thought of a better solution.

On Sunday, July 20th, I waited for Fred to go to church.  I packed while he was gone, got into my car, and drove cross country 24 hours to Los Angeles.  You can read about my trip here.