Corrupting a Mean Boy

Racine, Spring 1968

Growing up strictly fundamentalist prepared me for a lifetime of civil disobedience.  We had to be on guard constantly.  Teachers, other kids, police officers, store clerks, anybody who belonged to the World would try anything, from seduction to threats, to get us to deny God.

In second grade at Hasche Elementary School in Racine, Wisconsin, my teacher, Miss Donovan, was adept at promoting evil.  She was tall and thin, with black hair and bright red lips and a perpetual scowl.   Evil.

1. She told us that proper nouns, specific People, Places, and Things, had to be capitalized.  So on the spelling test, I capitalized "Heaven," and got it marked wrong.

"Heaven is a specific place!"  I yelled.  "You can't make me say it's not!"'

Hansche School was torn down a few years ago

2. We had to do dreaded square dancing.  Nazarenes were not permitted to dance, ever.  I told my parents, who had the preacher call and set her straight, but not before I had to sit in the corner for a full class session.

3. She made us learn the expression "Nobody's perfect."  But Nazarenes were perfect!  The foundation of our theology was Christian perfection, the inability to ever commit any sins.  "You can't make me say it,"  I protested.  "It's a lie!"

Another day sitting in the corner!


I couldn't take much more of Miss Donovan's mind-control torture.

I decided on a pre-emptive strike.

There was a Mean Boy in my class named "Mean Dave" to distinguish him from Nice Dave.  He had muscles and sandy hair and a brash smile.  I didn't associate with Mean Boys much, but Mean Dave was always getting in trouble with Miss Donovan, too, and in wartime, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  And did I mention the muscles?

We borrowed some gag gifts from Mean Dave's older brother, and while Miss. Donovan was out patrolling the kids at recess, we sneaked into the classroom and put fake vomit under her desk, a whoopie cushion on her chair, and pop-up snakes in her chalk drawer. To be on the safe side, we also wrote "Donovan eats worms!" on the blackboard.

At the end of recess, she marched into the classroom, shrieked "Who wrote this!", and forced us all to put our heads on our desks until someone confessed.  But we could hear her opening the chalk drawer -- shrieking as the snakes popped out -- then a farting sound as she sat in her chair -- then a shriek as she thought she stepped in vomit.


Mean Dave and I were discovered almost immediately. We had to stay after school, AND apologize to Miss Donovan. AND Mean Dave was not allowed to play with me anymore.  His parents said I was a bad influence.

Imagine -- a "perfect" Nazarene was a bad influence on a Mean Boy!

My First Chippendale Dancer

Bloomington, May 1983

During my first year at Indiana University (1982-83), I lived in Eigenmann Hall, the graduate student dorm, and met five gay guys on my floor.  I thought that Thad (not his real name), from two floors below, was gay, too. 

He was studying for his M.A. in International Affairs, and his father was some kind of ambassadorial aid, so he had been everywhere, from India to Zimbabwe.  He liked to play Dungeons and Dragons and write science fiction.  And he was hot, shorter than me, with a nicely muscled physique  (two of the five traits that I find attractive in men, and one day when I saw him in the shower, a third).

Sounds like a match made in heaven.

I figured that he was gay because he wasn't into sports, and he never dated girls or mentioned girls. But gradually he revealed a strong streak of homophobia:
1. We were writing a science fiction story, and he said, "Let's make them land on a planet run by gays.  Their flag can be a limp wrist.  It will be hilarious!"
2. He made up a parody song based on "Home on the Range," with a line: "Where the fags and the fairies all play."
3. One night we were watching a tv program starring my future celebrity boyfriend, and Thad said "I hear he's such a fag that he had to be taken to the emergency room to have his stomach pumped after having sex with 300 men!"
4. He saw me talking to Terry, the flamboyant M.F.A. student (who was actually straight), and cautioned "I don't know how to tell you this, but be very careful around him.  I think he might be gay."
5. He had an interview for a job with Foreign Service, and came storming back, furious.  "He had the nerve to ask if I was a fag!  I almost punched him in the face!"

By this point, I was trying to disassociate myself from Thad, but he kept sitting with me in the cafeteria, joining me in the tv lounge, knocking on my door.  It was time to take a stand.

Unfortunately, I was closeted, so I couldn't just come out to him.

So I used the same tactic I would use on my friend Bruce a year and a half later:  "It's time you got laid.  My friend Viju and I are taking you into Indianapolis, to some bars where you're sure to score."

We drove into Indianapolis, playing it cool, until we got to the Varsity Club, a mixed gay/lesbian bar with lots of "straight acting" older guys.  Thad ogled some of the women, and didn't seem to notice that they were dancing together.  He didn't notice the gay men cruising each other, either.  And no one was cruising him.

Viju started working the room, and soon was on the dance floor.

Thad noticed that.
 

"Hey, you'd better go talk to your friend.  It almost looks like he's dancing with a guy.  People might think he's gay!"

"So what if they do?"

"So what if they do?" he repeated in shock.  "Well, for starters, he'll get kicked out of the club!  And people will think we're gay too!"

"I don't think that will be a problem.  There are other gays here."

His eyes widened.  "Where?"

"I'm guessing those guys kissing over there."

Thad stood up, his face pale with shock.  "You brought me to a gay bar!" he shouted.  "A gay bar!"  He ran out into the street.

Since we were 40 miles from Bloomington, he couldn't go far: he was waiting for us outside.

All the way home he muttered "You took me to a gay bar!  You took me to a gay bar!"

"Relax.  Nobody assaulted you. did they? As far as I could tell, everyone was giving you Attitude."

"If anyone finds out, my parents will freak!  And I'll never get a job in the government.  They don't allow..."

"Why, are you planning to tell them?"

"It was a gay bar!"

Strangely enough, the traumatic "prank" didn't keep Thad from coming around.  So the next weekend, I told him, "Viju and I are going out again, this time to Bullwinkle's, here in Bloomington.  Would you like to come with is?"

"It's not another gay bar, is it?" Thad asked.

"I believe it gets a mostly gay clientele."

He stared at me for a long time.  Then, in a low voice, almost a whisper: "Sure, ok.  What time?"

A few months later, Thad was performing at Bullwinkle's Chippendales Night

See also: 14 Simple Steps to Turning a Straight Guy Gay.

Handcuffed by my Professor

Rock Island, May 1981

Everybody at Augustana College knew about geology professor Dr. Burton and his Handcuff Parties


Every quarter during finals week, he invited the students from his advanced classes to his house.  They had Happy Joe's pizza and soda, and the boys got to select pairs of handcuffs from Dr. Burton's collection to play with.

There were also blindfolds, gags, ropes, and rolls of duct tape, if you wanted to get creative.

 I never heard of anyone complaining that the Handcuff Parties were inappropriate. We were so naive that no one recognized the homoerotic potential of roomfuls of college boys being handcuffed and groped by their friends. Or thought for a moment that Dr. Burton might be gay.

So when he cruised me,  I was shocked.

He was a big, husky bear in his mid-40s, with a brown beard and a furry chest, and heavy muscles that might soon go to fat. Thick Bratwurst, uncut, mostly into oral.

 I spent the night at his house, and the next morning he cooked a very nice breakfast: a sort of egg and bacon casserole, potatoes Lyonnaise, and croissants with orange marmalade.

After that, Dr. Burton called every two or three weeks and invited me over, sometimes for dinner, sometimes afterwards.  I always got a very nice breakfast.  But he never brought out the handcuffs!

He explained that they were only for group play.

Well, then, invite me to the December Handcuff Party.

"But you're not in any of my advanced geology classes.  How would I explain you being there?"

So in the spring quarter, I registered for Paleontology, which turned out to be one of the most fun classes I ever had, especially in a dreary semester of heterosexist world literature.  And, during finals week in May 1981, he invited the whole class  to his Handcuff Party.

There were about twenty boys and two or three girls, mostly geology majors who had been to these parties before.  After our pizza, Dr. Burton brought out three boxes of handcuffs, showed us how to put them on and take them off without a key, and explained his ground rules:

1. Only boys can be handcuffed.
2. Don't handcuff anyone who doesn't want to be.
3. Let them loose the moment they ask.
4. No hitting, punching, or slapping.
5. Nothing below the belt
6. Keep your clothes on.

It was enormous fun handcuffing, manhandling, and pretending to interrogate cute guys, and even more fun being handcuffed and having cute guys "frisk" me like a police suspect.

But Dr. Burton wasn't participating.

"He never plays," a senior geology major explained.  "He's busy making sure that everyone follows the ground rules."

"Well, there's a first time for everything."  I grabbed a pair of handcuffs, ran up behind Dr. Burton, and quickly pulled his hands behind him and handcuffed him.

The room got very quiet.  Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch.

I expected Dr. Burton to get angry, or ask to be released immediately, but instead he said, "Ok, you got me fair and square.  Now, what are you going to do with me?"

Instantly he was swarmed by guys, pushed down into a chair, and gleefully manhandled, while he laughed and struggled and protested.  Someone even broke the rules and unbuttoned his shirt to caress his furry bear chest.  Maybe it was me.

As the party was winding down, Dr. Burton thanked me.  "No one ever thought of handcuffing me before," he said.  "It really made me feel like one of the guys."

He continued to invite me to his house every two or three weeks, but I didn't take any more geology courses, so I wasn't invited to any more Handcuff Parties.

I almost changed my major, just so I could go.

See also: 12 Teacher Hookups