A Naked Man for Christmas

Dan in college

This story has been moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Slow Dancing with Boys at Washington Junior High

Rock Island, September 1972

When I was in 6th and 7th grades (models are ovr 18), I was told incessantly about my upcoming "discovery of girls."  No matter that I thought "girls are yucky!" now.  One day soon, very soon, I would awaken changed, my body and my mind aching to kiss, hold, hug, and have sex with girls.

My parents, my teachers, Brother Reno, Grandma Davis, my cousin Joe -- they all insisted that it would happen, it was a fact of life, universal human experience, as inevitable as sunrise. As the days and months of 6th and 7th grade passed, they became more insistent, constantly interrogating me: "Do you like girls yet?  What about now?  Now?  Now?"

Meanwhile, the school kept trying to jump-start my "discovery."

One Friday afternoon shortly the beginning of 7th grade at Washington Junior High, we were all herded into a gymnasium decorated with red and gold streamers, the boys and girls on separate sides. A table on the north side had rows of paper cups full of beet-red punch and piles of sugar cookies that looked like they had been sitting around since Christmas.

“What’s going on?” I asked my friends (my boyfriend Bill wasn't there; he had football practice). They didn’t know, so I approached a hulking Ninth Grader.

"It’s the canteen,” he grunted.  "It's to teach all you Spazzes how to dance with girls."
"I'm not dancing with any girls!"

He laughed, a short derisive laugh.  “That’s what you think, Gomer! Nobody gets out of here alive unless you ask a little cutie pie if you can drag her, and she says ‘Oh, yes, please do!’”  The last came in a squealing falsetto.

"My church doesn't allow dancing.  It's a sin in the eyes of God.  I can get an excuse from the Preacher."

Soon a teacher walked onto the stage and announced that it was “time to dance.” He put a single on the record player: "Song Sung Blue," by Neil Diamond.  A few boys crossed the wilderness of tan, gleaming boards and dragged girls onto the dance floor. Others followed, until eventually most Ninth Graders and quite a few younger boys made the trek.

My friends and I stood our ground.  No one tried to force us, though once a teacher clomped over and announced with a grin that we couldn't hold out forever – in a matter of days or weeks, or months at the most, our ache of desire would overpower our shyness, and we would cross the wilderness of tan, gleaming boards, and approach the Girl of our Dreams, and become men.

That's never going to happen!  I thought savagely.

I noticed a few boys, maybe a dozen, on the east side of the gym, mixed in with the girls, chatting casually.

“Why don’t they have to drag girls?” I wondered aloud. “Are they already men?”

“Man, you got fruit-loops for brains?” my Ninth Grade informant exclaimed. “They’re the exact diametric opposite of men. They’re Fairies!”

“Like. . .um. . .in Mother Goose?” I asked, perplexed.

“Naw, Gomer...remember Acting like a Girl, the stuff that got Mean Boys on your case in diaper school?  Fairies are like that, but tons worse – they pretend they really are girls! So they hang out with girls instead of hugging and kissing them!  But they can't hold out forever!  Watch this!"

He suddenly vaulted across the gym to the girls' side, grabbed a seventh-grade Fairy, and dragged him out onto the dance floor.  They slow danced until two teachers rushed in and pulled them apart.  Everyone laughed.

"He was too obvious," I thought, not realizing that he intended to humiliate the younger boy.  "I can hide it, I bet."

I scanned the girls' side of the room.  I saw Dan, who would become my second boyfriend, but for some reason I decided on a cute dark-haired 7th grader named Brett, who was engrossed in a conversation with a girl.  I tromped over and asked "Wanna dance?" with a friendly, non-threatening smile.

Brett stepped aside, thinking I meant his friend.

"No...you."

He stared, his eyes wide with suspicion.

"Not a slow dance, a regular modern dance," I explained, "Where you don't touch each other."

"I...um...."

"It's crowded...who will know?"

He looked to his friend for advice.  "Oh, go on," she said, pushing him toward me.

I took Brett's hand -- warm, damp with embarrassment -- and led him onto the dance floor.  We danced to "Knock Three Times" and "I Feel the Earth Move," careful to always have a girl nearby and constantly move across the dance floor to avoid discovery.

It worked wonderfully!  I was dancing, laughing and joyous, with a boy.

I kept it up for several weeks, dancing with Brett or other from the girls' side of the gym.

Then, like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun.  One afternoon Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" came on, a slow dance. Most of the kids on the dance floor fled to their respective sides of the gym.

Brett looked at me quizzically.  "It's ok," I said.  We began to dance, slowly, not touching, but close, gazing into each other's eyes.  I wanted to hold him in my arms, I wanted to kiss him.  So I reached out and took both of his hands.

Then someone grabbed me and jerked me roughly backwards.  It was a teacher.  "Picking on a kid, just because he's smaller than you!" he snarled.  "A week's detention!  Brett, you can go home."

After that, I got an excuse from my Preacher to sit out the canteens.

Brett and I stayed friends, but we never danced again.

See also: Why Corpses are Called Stiffs

Finding a Private Place to Have Sex with Guys

Sometime in 7th grade:

I start to hear that guys' beneath-the-belt equipment turns into a gigantic baseball bat at random moments, with no prior warning.

The process is called "getting a boner," or "popping a boner," when it happens in an embarrassing situation, like when you are visiting your grandmother or giving an oral presentation in class.

I occasionally feel a stirring down below, but no baseball bats.

8th grade, around my 13th birthday:

I start experiencing my own baseball bats at random moments, in the locker room, in science class, at church.  They are usually easy to cover up with a hymnal or a science textbook, so no one notices.

I assume that other guys are covering up, too, since I rarely see any at school, or any tell-tale signs like squirming in your chair or suddenly looking for something to cover up with.  Occasionally I see one in the shower, and once a college boy at Olivet "pops a boner" while he is kissing his girlfriend.

Late in 8th grade:

I notice a pattern: baseball bats happen most often when I am looking at or talking to a cute guy, like my boyfriend Dan or Micah the Bible Boy.  Pictures of Korak Son of Tarzan in a Gold Key comic book will do it.  And Desi Arnaz Jr. on Here's Lucy on Monday night.  I begin bringing a giant math book to the living room with me.

Even thinking about a cute guy might cause a baseball bat, especially if you fantasize about kissing or hugging him.

Early in ninth grade:

The other guys are constantly talking about getting baseball bats while talking to cute girls.

Bill's big brother Mike tells me that you always get a baseball bat when you're having sex with a girl.  It's necessary to get the sperm into the girl's ovaries, so she can have a baby.

I figure that Dan and I are the only guys in the world who think about boys while it happens.

Ninth grade, around my 14th birthday:

I discover that if you continue to think about kissing and touching cute guys,  you can bring the baseball bat to the culmination that the older boys call "blowing a load."

Of course, it would be nice to have the cute guy there instead of just thinking about him, but when I approach my boyfriend Dan, he refuses.  So it's just me and the baseball bat.

The problem is, finding a place to do it, in a tiny house crammed with five people, including parents who never go out at night and a brother and sister who constantly have friends over.

Summer after ninth grade:

We move to a new house, considerably bigger, with a separate dining room, a screened in porch, a basement rec room, a double yard.    But still, finding a place to do it is a problem.

My bedroom: No, my brother and I share, and he and his innumerable friends could show up at any moment.

The bathroom: One for a family of five, right off the dining room, next to my sister's bedroom where she and all of her friends are constantly hanging out  Besides, my parents aren't aware of the concept of privacy.  They will walk right in while I am on the toilet, to put something in the linen closet or get clothes out of the hamper.

The basement: There is a large rec room, a laundry room, and an artist's studio belonging to the last resident, Mr. Kint.  No one has touched it since the day he died.  It freaks me out.   Besides, anyone walking into the rec room could look in and see what I was doing.

The attic! Just off our bedroom, there is an attic room, about 8 by 20 feet, unfinished, with one small window.  I could move the boxes and old furniture so that the back of the room is hidden from the door.

Now I just need my parents' permission to...um...do it there.

"I want to make a little study in the attic," I announce.

"But you have a desk and a bookcase in your room," Mom says.  "What else do you need?"

"It's too noisy.  Kenny is always playing his music loud, or having his friends over, and I can't get any work done."

"But there's no heat or air conditioning in there," Dad protests.  "You'll freeze in the winter and burn up in the summer."

"It has electricity, so I can get a space heater for the winter, and a window fan for the summer.    Besides, I won't be there very long, just an hour or so before dinner, when I'm doing homework."

They finally consent, and I move boxes around to make a safe haven of about 8 by 10 feet.

 I put out a sleeping bag and some pillows, a small bookcase with some books and writing tablets (I am supposed to be doing homework, remember?), and some baseball bat aids, like this Tarzan comic.

10th grade, around my 15th birthday:

I have brought in an old chair, an end table, a lamp, a clock, and a radio.  A space heater for winter.  Some pictures of Tarzan and Bomba the Jungle Boy on the wall.

I have started doing homework there for real, and working on my heroic fantasy novel.

It is  my sanctuary, a "good place" of my own, free from the "what girl do you like" interrogations of the outside world.

I start bragging to a couple of my friends about my sanctuary, where I can do anything I want.

"I can't get any privacy at home, either," Tom tells me.  "Could I...um...use your sanctuary sometime?"

"You can't bring a girl in there!" I exclaim, horrified.  "It's boys only!"

"No, no...by myself.  I'll just bring in some magazines, and...you know."

I think it over.  Watching a cute guy would be almost as good as kissing and hugging him!

"Ok, but you can't bring pictures of naked girls -- they're gross. And I have to be there, too.  My parents would get suspicious if some kid used my sanctuary when I wasn't around."

Eleventh grade:

Two guys come to my sanctuary: Tom and Aaron.  Not too often, maybe once every other week.  I discover that Darry has his own sanctuary.

Sometimes my brother is out in the bedroom, but he never gets suspicious.

Nor do my parents.

Twelfth grade:

Now it's three guys: Tom, Marty, and Aaron. Alternating, once a week, so each gets a turn once a month.

I don't get to touch anything, but still, I'm with a cute guy and his baseball bat!

See also: Dad explains the facts of life; The Most Underrated Sex Act; and the Preacher Pops a Boner.

My Last Wrestling Match

Rock Island, May 1975

When I was in junior high in the early 1970s, I hated sports,  but my parents wouldn't believe me.  They demanded, "Boys like sports.  You must sign up for a sport."  Anything involving projectiles being hurled at me was out of the question, of course.  I liked to watch the swim team but not splashing around in water.

What about wrestling, my brother's favorite sport?  Hardbodied boys in revealing singlets grabbing, pawing, and laying atop each other?  And then stripping down in the locker room afterwards?  It sounded perfect!

Besides, I had been taking judo lessons for two years, so I knew all about throwing, falling, and pinning.

I did ok.  I actually won a few matches, and I grew confident enough to challenge the Estonian Wrestling Brothers, George and Kristjan.

Then came a tournament in the spring of ninth grade, at Centennial Hall, a big fieldhouse across the street from Augustana College.  

My opponent, a beautifully muscled African-American boy named Walter, came from a tough school in Peoria, but I still managed to pin him with one arm behind his head and the other between his legs. As Walter flailed about, trying to break, his crotch became noticeably thicker and harder, until my arm seemed to be pressing against a coke bottle.

Shocked, I jerked away, giving Walter an opening to break. He threw me over and lay atop my spread legs, wrapping his arms around my shoulders as if in embrace.  He was blatantly grinding our crotches together, his face oddly stoic, as if he didn't care that he would soon be displaying a baseball bat to two hundred people.

Walter wanted a boy, not a girl! He had escaped the "discovery of girls" that the adults were always going on about.  He had escaped the mind-numbing chant of "what girl do you like?  what girl?  what girl?  what girl?" Maybe later we would go out on a date, and hug and kiss!   I was flushed with exhilaration.

When the referee shouted the win, we rose shakily and shook hands, and Walter disappeared  -- into the congratulating arms of  a girl! She kissed him, her thin pale arms wrapped around his waist. His body, pressing against me just a few minutes ago, was now pressing against her!

I felt my stomach drop.

I shrugged off the coach's hand-on-shoulder condolence and walked through the arena, out into the foyer, and then to the sidewalk outside. I stopped at the box office and looked at the posters of upcoming events – a jazz festival, a comedian, a Quad Cities Symphony concert. I was vaguely aware that Dad had jumped up from his seat in the bleachers and followed me out.

“It’s not over yet,” he said. “You’ve got another match coming up.”

Traffic was moving briskly on 7th Avenue, which followed the course of the Mississippi west-ward into Downtown. Across the street, three college boys with books were climbing the steep granite steps toward Augustana’s Old Main. I reflected that none of them had the slightest idea what had just happened.
“I don’t feel very good,” I said. “My stomach feels funny.”

Dad retrieved Kenny, and we went home. I got into my pajamas, and lay on the couch and watched tv. Flipping the channels, I happened upon The Magic Sword, which for some reason was always broadcast on Saturday afternoons: Sir George (Gary Lockwood), a young, wide-eyed knight in chain mail and a Prince Valiant haircut was questing to rescue a plump princess from a gay-vague sorcerer, who planned to feed her to his pet dragon.

Suddenly Darry’s head appeared at the picture window. “Aw, I wanted to surprise you,” he said as Mom let him in. He shoved my legs aside so he could sit down, and handed me a Schneider's Drug Store bag containing three comic books. “Your brother told me you got your head broken in at your wrestling tournament.”

“I’m just sick to my stomach. But thanks for the comics."

“You do look kinda green! But I would get sick, too, if I had to jump around in those silly leotards. What ya watchin’?”

“The Magic Sword. I  just turned it on.”

Darry laughed. “I can see you’re turned on. That’s a foxy fairy princess, huh?”
Puzzled, I looked up at the screen. Sir George  was strung up in a courtyard, his shirt ripped off, his muscles taut and hard and gleaming. There was also a “foxy fairy princess” strung up on the other side of the courtyard,  awaiting the dragon. But who could possibly give her a second glance?

I wanted to nudge Darry and point out the knight. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and yell “Wake up! Open your eyes!” But boys nudged each other about girls, only and always, and there was a girl waiting at the end of every tournament. I had to ignore – or pretend to ignore – the most beautiful man in the world.

“Yeah, she’s far out,” I said, hating myself, and hating Darry for making me say it.

Summer 1974: Engaged at Summer Camp

Manville, Illinois, Summer 1974

I have a confession to make: during the summer after 8th grade at Washington Junior High, shortly after my boyfriend Dan and I decided to run away to Saudi Arabia together, I got engaged.  To a girl.

Manville, our Nazarene summer camp on the prairie, had church services every morning and evening, with altar calls, sports, and jump quiz practice in between. 

 In Tuesday morning's chapel, I happened to sit next to a short, rather husky girl who bore an extraordinary resemblance to Jimmy on H.R. Pufnstuf: rounded features, red lips, houlder-length black hair. During the altar call, she glanced over at my Bible and saw Psalm 2:8 marked with the initials S.A.: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”

“Who’s S.A.?” she whispered.

“Saudi Arabia,” I said.  I was framing our escape as a missionary endeavor. “God’s Will is for me to become a missionary to the Bedouins of the Empty Quarter."

“No, I don’t think so. God didn’t say anything about Arabia. He said you should go to West Germany."  Her voice was calm, matter of fact, as if she had said “No, the test is on Chapter Three, not Chapter Two.”

Germany was a bona fide Nazarene mission field, all Lutheran or Catholic.  Still, I was astonished.  “When did God tell you that?” I asked.

“In the service last night.  I was...um...looking at you, and God gave me a vision of you preaching in a big stadium in Munich.  You were leading an altar call, and hundreds of people were Praying Through."  She began to sing "Just as I Am," our altar call hymn, in German. “Oh, Gottes Lamm, Ich komme. . . .Ich komme.”

All Nazarene kids knew that God had a specific Will for us, usually a career for the boys and a marital partner for the girls.  He might reveal it through "a small still voice," or through "opening a door," or, most dramatically, through a Vision of Our Future.

"Why would God give you a vision of my future?"

“It was for both of us," she said.  "I was playing the organ, so obviously His Will is for you to become a missionary in Germany, and me to be your wife."

“No, I already heard His Will," I protested.  "It's to go to Saudi Arabia with my friend Dan.  Definitely with Dan."

"He told me Germany.  And who knows, this Dan guy might be there too, with his wife."

"That's crazy!  We're not going to have wives!  We're going to be missionaries together, like Paul and Barnabas."

The altar call was over, so I walked out with the others into the heat of mid July. The girl -- her name was Sarah -- followed me toward my Bible study class.

"You can't be a missionary without a wife!" she said.  "You have to go to the field as a team, like Adam and Eve."

I laughed.  "You're crazy!"

 But I found my cabin counselor, Brother Dino, who was my Sunday school teacher back home (the one whose sons became male strippers later).  He went to the office and dug up a list of requirements for the Nazarene ministry.  You had to be male, at least 21 years old, saved and sanctified, never divorced, never a Roman Catholic -- and married!

So, in order to escape to a "good place" with Dan, I would need a wife!  God said so!  Later I met Sarah in the snack bar and gave her my grim consent to our future wedding.

Manville Camp, with the woods on the right

We were engaged for part of Tuesday and all day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  We ate our meals together in the camp canteen, sat together in chapel and the evening service, and even walked through the woods behind the tabernacle where boys and girls went to kiss -- though we never kissed.  Sarah hated "that mushy stuff" as much as I did.

I enjoyed being engaged -- being seen with a girl got me endless triumphant shoulder-pats, thumbs up, cries of "Awright!," and approving grins.  It meant absolute, unwaivering acceptance, none of that awkward confusion or the deliberate refusal to see that happened when I was with a boy.  Not bad!

Why did we call off the engagement?

On that last night, we were walking back from the kissing woods.  Someone was listening to the radio in the distance: John Denver's  "Annie's Song," which was at the top of the charts:

Come, let me love you

Let me give my life to you

Let me drown in your laughter

Let me die in your arms

Let me lay down beside you

Let me always be with you

Come, let me love you

Come love me again

That's how you were supposed to feel about "The One" that God intended for you to spend your life with.  You were supposed to dissolve into them, lose your soul, your individuality, become one.

I looked at Sarah walking beside me.  We were just reaching the girls' cabins.  I could go no further.  "Thanks, see yah," I said, and ran as fast as I could to my own cabin, and jumped under the covers of my bed and prayed for God to give me Dan.

Two Boys Kissing at Longview Park Pool

Rock Island, July 1973

I don't remember much of what happened on that day in the summer of 1973, about a month before we visited my Kentucky kinfolk and I met the Teenage Indian God.

 I don't know why practically everybody I knew was at the Longview Park pool:

Peter, the only Asian boy in school, who would participate in the streaking adventure next year.
My best friend Bill.
Dan, the boy I met in the girls' locker room, who had dirty blond hair and a gay-coded lilt to his voice (thought I didn't know what gay meant yet)
Darry
My brother and his best friend.

It was one of those bitingly hot, oppressive days that you sometime get in the Midwest, where the heat literally sizzles in the air and you can't walk more than a few steps without getting soaked. The pool was crowded with glistening bodies, mostly high schoolers, breathtakingly beautiful although dangerous – a bounce in the step or a lilt in the voice might draw their wrath, and result in a shove at a girl or a forced swimsuit removal.  I was standing with Dan at the four foot mark, where the bottom slid abruptly into the deep end, relishing the feeling of endless space. But when I bobbed under the water for a moment, Dan was gone!

Anxiously I scanned the surface of the pool for boys with dirty-blond hair.

The pool had been noisy, with screams and laughter and fifty gossiping or bragging voices, but now it was so quiet that I could hear David Cassidy singing “I Think I Love You” from far away, maybe from a transistor radio over by the bath house, or farther afield, from someone’s picnic on the grass that sloped down the Bluffs. But the song hadn’t played regularly on the radio for years! I had a strange feeling of being unstuck in time, as if I had tripped accidentally into the past like Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows.

I pulled myself out of the pool. The damp concrete was hot beneath my bare feet, the air thick and heavy, smelling of chlorine and suntan oil and Raid, the spray used to keep bugs off. I walked around the shallow end, past the baby pool, and then along the western perimeter, where a chain link fence looked down the Bluffs. Then I saw a churning in the deep end, like a cauldron boiling.

Some Mean Boys were trying to drown Dan!

Why wasn’t the lifeguard intervening? Or any of the adults?  Why were they all pretending not to notice?
I dove into the hot, frothing water to rescue him myself.

I don't know if the rest was a dream or not: I saw Dan's torso, his shoulders, his tousled dirty-blond hair -- he was kissing Bill!  Their arms and legs were intertwined, their bodies were pressing rhythmically together, and they were kissing!

Writhing with jealousy, I tried to pull them apart. Dan pushed me away with his hand. I head a sickening thud.

The next thing I remember is lying on the concrete at poolside, a hard-muscled guy, sopping wet, kneeling over me, holding my eye open.  He had blood on his hands.  I found out later that he was a medical student who had fished me out of the water and performed first aid.

An emergency room visit and five stitches later, I was back home in bed, eating ice cream.

They told me that I tried diving off the edge of the pool and doing a somersault, but I miscalculated and hit the side.

That makes more sense than what I remember, unconscious fears and anxieties bubbling to the surface when I didn't even know the word "gay" yet.

Afterwards I rarely went into a swimming pool again, and I always jumped in feet first -- no diving. And Bill and I grew even more distant.  The last time I visited his house was for a Halloween party in 10th grade, and I spent most of the evening talking to his big brother Mike, who used to call me "Bud" and drive us places.

Penis Sighting at a Chinese Restaurant

Rock Island, May 1974

When I was growing up in Rock Island in the 1960s and 1970s, there were no Chinese restaurants  in town.  I knew only a little about Chinese food:

1. On a 1967 episode of The Andy Griffith Show where Andy and his sidekick Barney go to a Chinese restaurant.  Andy orders a steak, a baked potato, and green beans, but Barney is so stupid that he actually orders from the menu, and receives platesful of disgusting horrors.

2. My mother's cookbook, Meals with a Foreign Flair, offered a Chinese meal: chow mein, cucumber salad, asparagus, and fortune cookies.

3. Chinese food was cooked and served by Chinese men.  I had never met anyone of Chinese ancestry before, except for the mysterious boy that Bill and I played with a long time ago.

I hadn't even seen many guys of Chinese ancestry!  But doubtless they were amazingly attractive.


With tree-trunk penises!

When I was in eighth grade at Washington Junior High, a Chinese restaurant, the Mandarin Kitchen, opened in the Quad Cities.

I was anxious to go, but it was across the river in Davenport, Iowa. I wasn't allowed to cross the river by myself.  Besides, no buses went over, and it was too far to walk.

My parents wouldn't take me:

"It's too expensive," Dad said.

"And you wouldn't like it," Mom added.  "I had Chinese food once, in Long Beach.  It was awful!  What's wrong with Harris Pizza?"

 Then I thought of my birthday excursion!

My birthday is in November, when everything fun is closed, so every May I got a "birthday trip": I could invite two or three friends to go anywhere I wanted in the Quad Cities.  We went to Mother Goose Land (it's not as lame as it sounds), the Niabi Zoo, the Putnam Museum, the "Little Bit O' Heaven" at Palmer College.  Why not go out to lunch at the Mandarin Kitchen?

I invited Dan and Darry, my boyfriend and my best friend, plus my brother by default (but he didn't want to go) and Peter, the only Asian guy at Washington Junior High.  He was of Japanese ancestry, not Chinese, but I thought he might give us an air of authenticity, so we wouldn't look like tourists.

On a Saturday in May, shortly before the streaking incident, Dad drove us across the Centennial Bridge and into Davenport.  We turned down River Drive and drove through a rather seedy neighborhood, past shabby office buildings, taverns, tattoo parlors, and the Col Ballroom where sinners went dancing, until finally we reached the Mandarin Kitchen.

It was next to a dirty bookstore!

There was a neon cocktail-glass in the window.  They served booze!  Nazarenes weren't allowed to go into places that had alcohol.

"Do you want to go to Harris Pizza instead?" Dad asked.

I screwed up my courage.  "No, this will be fine."

"Ok.  I'll be back in an hour."  He handed me $20 to pay, deposited us on the curb, and drove away.

I took a deep breath and led Darry, Dan, and Peter through the glass door.

It was dark inside after the bright light of a May afternoon.  Red sashes everywhere.  Waving ceramic cats.  Rows of small tables.  And a lady holding menus!

She led us to a table, where another lady brought us tea.

It was only ladies in the whole restaurant!

When she came back to take our orders, I asked "Are there any men working here?"

She looked at me quizzically.  "Men?  Sure.  They in the kitchen."  She pointed to a narrow window where the cooks could put plates of food for the waitresses to pick up.

Sighing with disappointment, I ordered almond chicken, fried rice, and potstickers.

It was good -- but I didn't come all the way to Davenport and use up my birthday trip to look at Chinese ladies!

I was going to the kitchen!

I got up, walked down a hall marked "bathroom," and saw a beige door marked "employees only."

 A silvery space with a lot of black and silver pots.  Hot, steamy. Two Chinese men.

My heart sank.  Neither was very attractive.

A short, dumpy guy with glasses was bent over a sizzling pot.  A tall, gawky, rather geeky-looking guy was chopping vegetables.

"You want apply for job?" he asked.

"No...um...."  Thinking fast, I said "The bathroom is out of toilet paper."

"What the matter?"  the short guy said.  "You don't like Chinese food, gives you the runs?"

They both laughed.

They were making fun of me!  I hung my head in embarrassment.

The tall guy said "Ok, I show you toilet paper, but keep out of kitchen!  State law!"

He put his arm around my shoulders and ushered me to the door.  I felt the heat from his arm and chest, smelled the onion from his hands.  Cute or not, the proximity of his body was exciting.

He led me to a supply closet, grabbed a roll of toilet paper from a shelf, and then pushed me into the bathroom.

It had a toilet and a urinal.  There was a roll of toilet paper sitting on the tank.

The tall guy picked it up, grinning at me.  "You didn't see?"

"I guess not," I said, even more embarrassed.

He shrugged and sat the rolls down on the urinal.  "While I'm here, I go too.  You mind?"

"Um...no."  Suddenly I was interested -- maybe I could get a sausage sighting!

Slowly I dropped my pants and sat on the toilet.  The tall guy unzipped -- but he was facing away from me.

"Hey, I still need the toilet paper!" I said.

He laughed.  "I'm silly.  Here..."  He turned around.  I saw his cock -- not tree-trunk sized, but a good four inches soft, uncut.

He tossed a roll of toilet paper.  It landed too far for me to scoop up.

"That's ok, I get it."  He walked over, got the toilet paper, handed it too me, and returned to the urinal -- his cock hanging down the whole time!  I sat there in awe until he finished and washed his hands.

"You shy, huh?  Well, I lock door on the way out."

The moment he left, I stood, washed my hands, and walked out into the main room again.

'What were you doing back there all that time?" Dan asked.

"Applying for a job," I said with a goofy smile on my face.

See also: The Hookup at the Sleepover.

Streaking Through a School Assembly

Rock Island, May 1974

In the spring of 1974, when I was in the eighth grade, streaking was all the rage: in high schools and colleges, at sporting events, on Main Street, young men would doff their clothes and run naked past a shocked and titilated public.

On April 2nd, a streaker named Robert Opel ran across the stage during the live broadcast of the Academy Awards, causing presenter David Niven to comment on his "shortcomings."  A novelty song called "The Streak," by Ray Stevens, hit the top of the pop charts with humorous lyrics about a hick constantly exhorting his wife "Don't look!" as the streaker ran past.

They call him the streak -- he likes to show off his physique.
If there's an audience to be found, he'll be streaking around,
Inviting public critique.

Who could refuse to participate in such an iconic 1970s moment, and plus get to see a lot of naked guys?

My friends Darry and Dan positively refused to do it, remembering the fallout from our protest of evil-lution two months before.  But Craig, who you remember from the Swim Team post and the graduation party -- he had a last name close to mine and therefore sat next to me in every class from third grade to high school -- agreed.

Plus a tall, husky Asian guy appropriately named Peter, who went swimming with us at Longview Park Pool, and a ninth grade Viking whose name I don't remember, but who turned out to not have any "shortcomings."  I don't think any of them were gay.

We waited for the last day of school, where you could sneak out without causing much attention.  Just as the principal called a final assembly, we found a deserted art room, left our clothes with a confederate, and, flushed with joy and fear, ran down the hallway.

To our disappointment, it was deserted.

Peter led us to a side door, and onto the stage, where the principal, vice-principal, and guidance counselor were sitting on folding chairs.  The band was playing the theme of "The Entertainer."

And we ran.

Laughter and applause filled the room as we dashed across the stage, pausing only to give peace signs.  I got a glimpse of the principal.  He was grinning.

We ran down the hallway again, ducked into the art room, threw our clothes on, and hid until we could make our way out of the school in the crowd of students.

We weren't punished.  The administration, heavily embarrassed, acted as if nothing had happened at all.

We didn't even make it into the yearbook.  To this day, alumni argue whether the streaking incident happened at all.

My friends often asked how a conservative fundamentalist boy, who carried a Bible around and couldn't even go to movies, managed to pull off such a stunt.

I did it to see naked guys.

We've gotten much more conservative in the U.S. since.  Today streakers are arrested and charged as sex offenders.

See also: The Naked Pumpkin Runs.

Finding a Boyfriend in the Girls' Locker Room

Rock Island, Spring 1973

Bill and I began to drift apart at Washington Junior High, when we took different classes and joined different clubs.  We still hung out, but we never slept over, and I think both of us were actively looking for new boys.

I tried dancing with boys at the weekly school dance for a few weeks, but teachers soon caught on and gave me detention. 

On a bleak Monday morning in February 1973, white with clouds that threatened snow, I was leaving school late after a club meeting, when I heard scuffling and voices from the eastern corridor that lead through Viking territory. I pushed past some onlookers and saw three Vikings dragging a Fairy (a feminine boy) kicking and squirming toward the girls’ locker room. (One of them was Dick, who I would meet again at a gay bar years later). His yellow button-down shirt was nearly torn off, his pants were bunched up around his ankles, and a Viking was jerking at his briefs. They were going to force girls to see him naked, and force him to see them!



When our eyes met for an instant, I recognized him as Dan, a slim, tanned seventh grader with dark blue eyes, glasses, and thick dirty-blond hair. I had him in three classes, but we rarely spoke unless a teacher forced us. Now, as I saw Dan's smooth chest, his warm tight belly, and his cock and balls freed from their white briefs, I felt the gasping ache of joy that I usually felt watching men with muscles.

At the end of the hall, a teacher swung through the gym door to investigate,  concluded that the assault was for Dan's own good, and silently retreated.

If the adults wouldn’t intervene, I thought, than I would have to! I propped my book bag against the wall and leapt onto the shoulders of the depantsing behemoth.

A moment  later,  Dan and I were both sliding through the double doors into the girls’ locker room. Fortunately, the team had a short practice session today, so most girls were dressed and gone, and the stragglers quickly covered up.

Dan was sobbing, and his hand was bleeding from where his watch snapped off. I put my arm around him while some of the girls gathered the books, clothing, Dan's glasses, and a clear-plastic protractor broken neatly in half. Then the gym teacher finally intervened and sent Dan – not the Vikings -- to detention.

On Tuesday I had wrestling, but on Wednesday, I waited for Dan at the portico outside the east door. “Hi, Dan!” I said, deliberately using his first name instead of  his last.  (Boys always used the last name unless they were very close friends.)

The Fairy barely slowed as he muttered “H’lo, Davis.”

“Hey, do you like Donny Osmond?" 

Dan  slowed a little more. “He's pretty boss, I guess.”

“I got his new album, Alone Together.  Do you want to come to my house and listen to it?  I live on 41st Street, over by Denkmann."

We ran joyously to my house and sat on the floor in my basement room and listened to "The Twelfth of Never."

Soon I was meeting Dan at his house every morning to walk him to school, and sitting with him every day at lunch. After school, when I didn't have to stay late for wrestling or clubs, we went to Dan's house and listened to teen idol music or watched tv or played chess. On Saturdays we rode our bikes, and went swimming and hiking. During the summer of 1973, I saw him kissing Bill at the Longview Park Pool.

Dan came to all of my wrestling matches and judo tournaments, even the one in Urbana, three hours away, and as we drove home across a prairie dark except for car headlights and the occasional dim light on a water tower, he nodded off and lay his head softly onto my shoulder, so close that I could feel his breath against my neck. My brother Kenny, sharing the back seat with us, glanced over but did not comment.

But we rarely slept over, rarely shared a bed.  Dan said that we were "too old" for that.

Too old to share beds and rooms, and houses and lives?

The Hookup at the Sleepover

Rock Island, February 1973

When I was a kid, the Baby Boom was in full swing, so we rarely did anything alone.   I invited a friend for dinner, or got invited to dinner, at least once a week.  I invited a friend to stay over night, or got invited to stay over night, nearly every weekend.

And then there were sleepovers.  

At least once a month, starting in third grade and continuing into the first year or two of junior high.

Three or four boys arrive at the host's house after dinner on Friday or Saturday night.

You romp around, playing games (my favorite was Twister), watching tv, eating pizza, and generally roughhousing until bedtime, which is much later than usual.

Then you camp out in the host's bedroom.

You all compete for the honor of sharing the host's bed.  Everyone else squeezes into the other bed (most boys had two), or onto blankets laid out on the floor. Some boys bring sleeping bags.

The beefcake is amazing!  You bring pajamas, but rarely wear them.  You sleep in your underwear.  There are cute boys lying shirtless everywhere you look.

And the touching!  Nothing sexual happens -- by the time you are old enough to think about such things, sleepovers are rare.  But when three boys are lying side by side on the floor, who can help but hug, cuddle, caress?  When you share the host's bed, which is a little too small for two people, you have no choice but to sleep pressed together.

In the morning, you dress, have a nice breakfast, and walk home (if it's Saturday) or get picked up in time for church (if it's Sunday).

Bill, Joel, and I always invited each other to our sleepovers.  When I hosted, the fourth boy was always my brother, invited by default, and the Fifth Boy was someone new, someone I wanted to get to know better.

And see in his underwear.

The other guys did exactly the same thing.  The guest list was always: Boomer, Bill, Joel, your brother or another friend, and the Fifth Boy, a boy you wanted to hook up with.

Sometimes it didn't work out.  Once Joel invited David Angel as the Fifth Boy, but David refused to share his bed, allowing me the honor.  Both Joel and my boyfriend Bill were understandably upset, but they couldn't say or do anything, since the Fifth Boy was an unspoken tradition.

In the spring of seventh grade, I started "liking" Dan,  during my failed attempt to rescue him from bullies who were trying to shove him into the girl's locker room,  He accepted an invitation to my house, but refused to come to my sleepover the next weekend: "Sleepovers are for grade school babies."

So, for the Fifth Boy, I invited Peter, the only Asian kid at Washington Junior High, a tall, tight-muscled baseball player from my chemistry class.  He shared my bed, which was nice, but in the first flush of infatuation, I kept wishing that he was Dan.

Two weeks later, Peter invited me to his sleepover, obviously as Boy #2 or #3, since we had already hooked up.

Peter's Mom opened the door and escorted me to the basement rec room, where he was playing pingpong -- with Dan!

"Hey, I thought you said sleepovers were for grade school babies!" I exclaimed, hurt and jealous.

"Oh...well, Peter told me how much fun he had at yours, so I changed my mind."

"You're good friends?" I asked, afraid of the answer.  "Come over to his house a lot?"

"Not really.  He sits beside me in Civics Class, but I've never been to his house before.  He just invited me out of nowhere."

It was worse than I thought!  Dan was the Fifth Boy!

The rest of the night was a battle royale over Dan.  I sat next to him on the couch when we watched tv; Peter squeezed between us.  I brought him a soda; Peter brought him a piece of cake.  I bragged about how many push-ups I could do; Peter brought out his baseball trophies.

Finally it was bedtime, the moment of truth. There were blankets and pillows scattered on the floor in Peter's bedroom.  And one twin bed.

We all stripped to our underwear.

"Dan, you're with me!" Peter said, grinning as if to say "I've won!"


Think!  I told myself.  Keep Dan out of that bed!  "Um...are you sure?  It's pretty small, and you're pretty big.  There might not be enough room for Dan."

"Plenty of room!"  Peter insisted.  "My cousin sleeps over with me all the time, and he's bigger than me!" He climbed into bed and pulled down the covers.

"Anyway, I hate sleeping on the ground," Dan said.  ignoring my red-faced jealousy to climb into bed beside him.

"But...we listened to Donny Osmond!"  I whispered.  "Um...we can talk about him...."

There was nothing to do but take my place beside the other two boys, and try not to listen Peter and Dan whispering and giggling under the covers.

Later in the night, I was still awake when Dan climbed out of bed, went to the bathroom, then returned and pulled up the blankets next to me.

"Did you lose your way?" I whispered sarcastically.

"Peter kicks in his sleep," he said.

I slept with him two weeks ago, so I knew that Dan was lying.  He just wanted two hookups on the same night.  But I didn't care.

See also:  A Three Way with Danny and His Boyfriend.

Dan and I Decide to Escape to Saudi Arabia

Dan and I were boyfriends for about two years, from 7th grade to 9th grade (1973-75).  Our bond was more passionate and more physical than my bond with Bill, but not as instinctive.  It took work to maintain, with the distractions of Spanish club, French club, wrestling, orchestra, and other boys, not to mention the constant "what girl do you like?" interrogations.  Everyone insisted that the "discovery of girls" was inevitable, that one day soon we would abandon childish things, like boys, and spend the rest of our lives obsessed with feminine curves and smiles.

Every class and school activity began with the assumption that all boys were girl-crazy, or soon would be.

In English, we watched old black and white films that taught boys the proper technique for asking girls out on dates.

In Wood Shop, the purpose of every project, from bird houses to hat racks, was to “impress girls with.”

In Gym, if we failed to climb the rope or do enough push-ups, the coach bellowed that we’d have the strength if we would just cut back on the girl-kissing and get some sleep.

At home, there were advantages to the assumption that the Discovery had come. Mom and Dad doubled my allowance, reasoning that I would need cash to finance my upcoming avalanche of dates. I could get permission to go anywhere, even across the Mississippi into Iowa, if they found out that there would be girls there.  I could get away with almost any misdeed, from staying out after curfew to losing my new jacket, because they assumed that I had been trying to meet girls or impress a girl.

But the advantages were outweighed by the constant interrogation of  “what girl do you like. . .what girl. . .what girl. . . .”  When I tried to explain that I didn’t like girls in that way, Mom just smiled, and Dad refused to believe me: “I’ll bet you don’t! What’s her name?”

So I decided to pretend. At school, I taped a picture of Raquel Welch to my locker door, and imitated my friends’ comments: “She’s bitchin!”; “She’s hot!”; “I wish she would take her clothes off!”  At home and at church, I invented a ghostly spectacle of girls who walked in slow motion across a silent schoolyard, their long hair blowing in the wind. I found a poem about a girl’s “long blonde beauty” and copied it into my notebook and left it open for Mom and Dad to find.

But I could relax with Dan, and talk about Donny Osmond, and Barry Williams from The Brady Bunch, and what boys at school were cute.  Every once in a while I would nudge him and whisper"Girls are gross!", a secret message that only the two of us shared.

"They sure are!" he would answer.  

But how could we survive in a world where every boy longed for girls, every man longed for women?  We decided to escape.  We began looking for a "good place," where boys could walk hand in hand, and kiss, and live together through all their lives.  We discussed Greece, Italy, Japan, Yugoslavia, England, and many other countries and regions.

The Middle East had never been on my list of "good places," but Dan argued that the desert was clean and free, almost empty, and practical: Dan's father, an engineer, said that Americans were needed in Saudi Arabia to drill for oil and help civilize the nomadic Bedouin.

So it was settled: after high school we would move to Saudi Arabia, the only place in the world where same-sex love was celebrated, and live in the holy city of Mecca.  

In retrospect, I can think of several problems with that plan.

Kept After School by my Science Teacher

Rock Island, November 1974

Mr. Peterson, who taught chemistry and physics, was the most physical teacher at Washington Junior High. Most teachers hide their bodies, trying to become pure intellect, but as he danced, ran, and skipped around the classroom, Mr. Peterson obviously had a chest and shoulders and biceps -- and, if you looked closely, a Bratwurst shifting in his slacks

He always wore his tie half-undone, as if his body was aching to burst out.

 When he walked down the row of lab tables to check on our work, you could feel his heat.

In the fall of ninth grade, Dan and I enrolled in his physics class, expecting discussions of black holes, teleportation, and Star Trek-style warp drive mechanics -- what could be more exciting?

Unfortunately, physics turned out to be deadly dull.

Levers and inclined planes and how pulleys work. Put this wire into that box.



Mr. Peterson tried to make it fun by singing songs and making silly puns, but still:

Gravity, friction, inertia. AC and DC currents. Calculate the velocity of a pitched ball.

Yuck!  We tweaked by with C's. And spent a lot of time whispering and giggling and making funny drawings in our notebooks.

One day we collaborated an elaborate picture of the ancient Greek view of the universe: a flat world surrounded by a vast ocean, with a dome of heaven above.  We labeled it "What we learned in Mr. Peterson's class."

We were so engrossed that we didn't hear Mr. Peterson approach and look over my shoulder.  "Looks like you guys have a lot of free time on your hands," he said with an incongruous smile.  "We'd better put you to work.  Report to the Chemistry Lab at 3:00 to wash test tubes."

Test tubes?

Five big boxes of them, a new shipment for Advanced Chemistry.  Before they could be used, they had to be soaked -- one at a time -- in a solution of hydrochloric acid, then washed in a special detergent and rinsed in de-ionized water.  Who knew it was such a complicated process?

Fun, though.  We got to wear goggles and gloves.

As we worked, Mr. Peterson tried the usual adult conversation starter: girls.  Do you have girlfriends?  What girl do you like?  Girls always go for scientists! And so on.

Finally I got tired of it and exclaimed "Girls are gross!"

Dan kicked me under the table.  In ninth grade, you couldn't express a lack of interest in girls.  The adults would say "Don't get smart!" or redouble their efforts to hook you up with "the girl of your dreams."

But Mr. Peterson said "Yeah, I guess girls are pretty gross," without even blinking in surprise.  "So, what do you like?"

I was too shocked to lie.  "Um...um...guys with muscles."

"Muscles?"  He stared, but only for a moment.  "Right, physical fitness is important.  You guys like Bruce Lane?  Wow, he had some muscles on him!"  He began doing fake kung fu moves and singing. "Everybody was kung fu fighting..."

"Donny Osmond is cute, too," Dan said.  "He took off his shirt in Tiger Beat."

"When I was a kid, we liked Elvis Presley.  Did you ever see him in Blue Hawaii?  He spends about half the movie in a swimsuit!"

The three of us spent the rest of detention talking about cute and muscular guys, from Greg Brady to Tarzan!

Mr. Peterson framed his comments in heteronormative terms: "I bet the girls go for him!" or "He must get all the girls he wants!"  But grownups always tried to make everything about girls.  It was easy to ignore the side-comments, and just feel proud and happy to be talking about muscles.

When we were finished with the test tubes, he said,"You've been such good assistants, I want to treat you to a hamburger."

We didn't care that dinner was in about an hour.  He drove us to Mulkey's, and we sat in a booth on either side of him, close enough so our legs and thighs were inches away from his, and we could feel the warmth from his body.

When the waitress asked  "Are these your sons?", he said, "No, my research assistants.  We're scientists, conducting a very important experiment."

"On what?"

"Muscles!"  Dan exclaimed.  We all laughed.

Best detention ever!

We never got detention again, but we took Mr. Peterson's chemistry class in the spring semester, and occasionally he tapped my shoulder and asked "Seen any musclemen lately?"

My brother and sister both took his classes when they were in junior high, and he always asked about me.

Since he's on the list of Teachers I may have hooked up with, you're probably wondering if we did.

Answer after the break:

Not unless you count my fantasies.

I don't know about Dan.  Mr. Peterson hooked him on science.  He majored in physics in college, and finally became an computer engineer of some sort.  Maybe they reunited years later.

I was happy just to be talking about muscles.