Bill and I Become a Mama and a Papa

Rock Island

When I was a kid, my boyfriend Bill and I were constantly on the lookout for evidence that sometimes men like men, and marry them, and live with them in a house.  But the adults talked in riddles, or pretended not to know what we were talking about, or downright lied.  So one day, I think when I was nine years old, we took matters into our own hands and became Papas.

Bill was spending the night, and as a special treat Dad took us out to eat at A&W.

It was a drive in: you parked your car, ordered through a radio thing, and a girl in a short skirt (called a car-hop) brought your food on a tray that attached to the car window.

We actually preferred Sandy's, a few blocks away, where cute college boys in Scottish kilts sold Edin-burgers.  

A&W had good chili dogs, french fries, and root beer, and sometimes little toys came with the meal, but the hamburgers were heterosexist.  Selection was based on your role in the heterosexual nuclear family:

Papa Burger
Mama Burger
Teen (boy) Burger
Baby (girl) Burger

My brother and I always ordered the Teen Burger.  No one wanted to be a Baby, and we were too young to be Papas.

Even as a kid, I knew that there was something wrong with this scenario.  What about baby boys and teen girls?  Or young adults, like my Uncle Paul, who were married but didn't have kids yet?

Or boys who liked boys?

Bill and I looked at each other and grinned, tacitly agreeing.  When Dad asked what we wanted, we said "Papa Burger" in unison.  "And fries and root beer," I added.

He stared at us in the rear view mirror, perplexed. "Are you sure?  They're pretty big."

"We're hungry," I said.  "Being Papas is hard work."

"You can't both be Papas!"  my brother Ken exclaimed. "Where are the Mamas?"

"We adopted our kids," Bill said, playing along.

"Single men can't adopt kids," Mom pointed out. "You'll have to have Mamas sooner or later."

"Ok, so I'm the Papa and Bill's the Mama." Strangely, no one thought of the musical group.

"No way!" Bill protested.  "I'm not changing any diapers!"

"If you're a Papa and a Mama," Ken said, "You got to kiss."

"Ok."  I leaned over and tried to kiss Bill on the mouth, but he turned away, and I got his cheek.

"Ok, Skeezix, that's enough!" Dad yelled, suddenly angry.  "You're both getting Teen Burgers, and that's that!" (He always called me Skeezix when I failed to demonstrate heterosexual interest.)

We cringed in the back seat.  What was he so upset about?  We were just playing!

But sometimes even a hamburger can be a form of resistance.

Coincidentally, that was about the time Dad and Mom began insisting that I play a sport.   Sports as a remedy to gayness?

What Is Real? I Don't Know

Rock Island, spring 1978

When I was a kid, my church had no problem with classical music, but my parents hated "that longhair stuff," so there was none in the house.  My first exposure to Bach, Berlioz, Beethoven, and Mozart came through a series of Young People's Concerts (1958-72) which appeared occasionally on Sunday afternoons, hosted by famous composer Leonard Bernstein.

Later, when I joined the school orchestra, I learned more about Leonard Bernstein.

I saw his gay symbolism-heavy musicals, On the Town (1949), starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, and West Side Story (1961), starring gay actor George Chakiris and assorted high-stepping hunks.

And his Symphony #3, Kaddish, named after the Jewish prayer for the dead.

He appeared on tv, conducting Gershwin in 1974, Mahler in 1975, and Beethoven in 1982.

No one ever mentioned that he was gay.  His works revealed nothing, except maybe the Serenade for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp, and Percussion, after Plato's Symposium (1954).  The Symposium contains Plato's famous defense of same-sex love.

In the spring of my senior year in high school, Aaron, the rabbi's son who was gay (but didn't know it yet), invited me to a performance of Bernstein's Mass, a musical theater piece based on the Latin Mass.  He talked about how odd it was for a Jewish person to write something so Catholic.

Then  I realized that Bernstein was mirroring the oppressive chant of "what girl do you like...what girl...what girl":

What  I say -- I don't feel.
What I feel -- I can't show.
What I show -- isn't real.
What is real?  Oh Lord, I don't know.

Later, in my room, with the theme song to Husbands, Wives, and Lovers playing in the background, I wrote a poem in my journal (excuse the high school angst)



We live in masks
Our faces hard and cold, our voices monotone
And if we see a thing of beauty, a red pill is prescribed
And if we dare to fall in love, the verdict is insanity
So we continue
Shuffling on to houses and wives
And the suicide rate continues to climb

 Two months later, during the famous summer of 1978,  I would see Grease, and hear Frankie Valli sing:

We stop the fight right now, we got to be who we are.

10 Black Guys in Bondage: The X-Rated Version

There are lots of Asian guys into BDSM, but very few black guys, and those few are mostly tops.

 When you're subject to constant discrimination, being followed around stores so you don't steal anything, having people clutch their purses when they pass you on the street, being stopped and searched for the crime of walking while black, going to prison -- one in eight black men in America are incarcerated at some point during their life -- you're unlikely to find being dominated particularly erotic.

I've met only two or three black BDSM bottoms in real life, and even photographs are rare: after years of collecting, I have only about 100 (not counting scenes from movies). Here are my top 10 favorites:

1. My favorite position, spreadeagle on the bed.  I love the look of angry defiance as he tests the leather straps.

2. My second-favorite position, on a chair with his hands tied behind his back.

3. An interesting background picture, glistening muscles.

4.  I don't know why the hands-above-the-head position is so popular with black BDSM bottoms.  This looks like a prison fantasy (notice the tattoos and the bars in the background),but what makes it is the super-sized schlong.

5.  :Sali," probably African.  That looks like the prow of a ship behind him.


More after the break