Dating the Preacher's Son

Verne, Mark, and a guy I don't remember

Rock Island, May 1977

During my junior year at Rocky High (1976-77), most guys were obsessed with demonstrating that they were not Swishes (our word for "gay").  The best way was to become a Rock (jock), or be seen in public with one -- they hated men with muscles.

I wasn't on a team -- being an athletic trainer didn't count -- so I had no choice but the only other option: date a Rock.

But most Rocks were very busy, having sex with eight or nine girls in various combinations every night, so they had little time or energy left for boys.

 One day in November, a few weeks after my date with Todd's girlfriend, I was running around the indoor track, when I saw the preacher's son Verne (not his real name) playing one-on-one basketball in the gym be-low. Verne was a senior, so our paths rarely intersected. At school, I saw him only in the locker room after football practice, when he was anxious to get to the showers.

At church, he was always encased in a shell of fawning groupies. Practically our only contact came a couple of months ago, when I helped him Pray Through to Victory at an altar call.

As I ran, Verne finished his game. He guzzled Gatorade from a plastic bottle, then ripped off his t-shirt and collapsed, shimmering with sweat, onto the lap of a girl.  He was hugely tall, with broad shoulders, hard thick biceps, short dark hair, and dark blue, almost purple eyes.  And he was a Nazarene -- no sex allowed!  He would be perfect.

It took a week for me to bolster my courage enough to call. Even then, I dialed and hung up three times. When Verne came on the line, I said, “There’s a gospel concert on Saturday. Um. . .if you’re not, like, busy or anything. . .would you like to go?”

Verne burst into raucous laughter.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said stiffly, my face burning with humiliation.

“No – it’s ok, sorry,” Verne said. “It was just funny the way you asked. I’m busy Saturday, but what about the basketball game Friday? You can do more touching at a game, anyway. I’ll get us a couple of girls.”

I spent the rest of the evening exuberantly calling all of my friends, and wondering why do we need girls?

During the game, Verne and I sat with the girls on either side, so that our thighs and knees sometimes brushed together, and whenever the Rocks scored a point, he enveloped me in a warm, sweaty hug. Next came Alfano's for Canadian bacon and sauerkraut pizza and two pitchers of soda, one for the boys and one for the girls.

We had a lot to talk about.  Verne was taking AP Spanish and French; if it hadn't been God’s Will for him to become a preacher, he would have become a linguist.

When we dropped off Verne’s girl, he walked her to her doorstep “for safety,” but returned almost immediately, complaining that her father had left the porch light on.

My girl came next; her porch light was dark.

When I returned to the car, Verne asked “Did you get any?”'

I assumed that he meant kissing, so I said “Sure. Lots.”  I had kissed her on the cheek.

Verne and me

Verne reached over and punched my shoulder and exclaimed “Awright!” I was disappointed that he didn’t walk me to my doorstep to “get some,” but otherwise I was elated by my success.

During the winter and spring of eleventh grade, we went to a a jazz concert, the spring musical,  an orchestra banquet, two basketball games, a baseball game, hiking, jogging, tennis, and swimming.  That was more enough for us to be “going together,” though no one at Rocky High seemed to notice, referring to us only as buddies.

 Dating Verne summarily ended any suspicion that I was That Way. Even at church, people spoke to me in a civil tone.  It also ended pressure by my Crowd to date girls -- apparently Vikings were dreamy enough.

 Maybe that's why he always insisted on girls for evening dates.  He usually provided them, but twice I brought Becky, my Just Friend, and once I acquired my own, by casually saying: “Oh, and Verne will be there, too.”

At some point Verne always disappeared with his girl for ten or fifteen minutes, and on the way home he had the annoying habit of asking “Did you get any?” But these complaints were trivial; I was dating a Rock!

In May we spent a weekend camping with his friends at Starved Rock State Park at Starved Rock State Park, about 100 miles from Rock Island.

 Though we shared a tent, I avoided any repeat of the scapular incident last summer at music camp. I didn't want to discover that Verne was one of these guys who drops you the moment things get physical.  But I did get a sausage sighting.

The Catholic Boy's Bulge at My Niece's Wedding

Kankakee, Illinois, Summer 2008

When I was a kid, the Nazarene church taught us to:

1. Pity "heathens," the Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims who hadn't heard the Gospel.

2. Be suspicious of "liberal so-called Christians," the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists.

3. Run in terror from Roman Catholics.  They drank, went to movies, and worshipped idols. Their Pope was the anti-Christ. They were probably demon-possessed.  We weren't supposed to make friends with them, set foot in one of their churches, or even walk on the sidewalk outside one of their houses, lest we be corrupted.

I left the Nazarene church around my freshman year of college, but my parents, brother, and sister are still active.






Ken is actually more devout than when we were kids.  He's ok with gay people, but he doesn't go to movies or the theater, doesn't shop or work on Sunday, and doesn't go to restaurants or stores with alcohol on sale.

He married in 1981, and had four kids.  Then he divorced his wife and married a woman who had three kids of her own, plus an elderly mother.  Ten people, four dogs, two cats, and a parrot all living together in a big, rambling house downtown.

Most of Ken's kids turned out less devoutly Nazarene than their parents.

The oldest spent time in prison for aggravated assault.

The second sang in a punk rock band.

The fourth got pregnant while still in high school.

But somehow the third, Katie, turned into a ultra-devout "Suzie Nazarene."

In high school, she was president of the NYPS and a delegate to the International Institute.

She enrolled at Olivet, the Nazarene college on the prairie, where girls generally majored in becoming a preacher's wife.

I wasn't out to her, or to any of my nieces and nephews, although some of them figured it out (my brother followed a  "don't ask, don't tell policy."  When I brought Lane or Yuri over for Christmas or a summer holiday, we stayed closeted.

I wasn't really close to them, anyway.  I didn't visit Rock Island much after my parents moved to Indiana in 1995, just an occasional Christmas, where they might or might not be present.  I sent them birthday cards with a check in it every year, but eventually I stopped that as well.

In the spring of 2008, when I was living in Dayton, I got Katie's wedding announcement in the mail.  I almost threw it out.  I usually boycott heterosexual weddings.

Then I saw that it was being held at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Kankakee, Illinois.

Katie was marrying a Roman Catholic boy named Steve!

I had to see this!  How would my Nazarene relatives react?  Would they grit their teeth and go into a Catholic church?  Would they wait outside?  Would they disown Katie and refuse to talk to her again?

I emailed Katie.

"That's one of the things that brought us together," she said.  "Arguing about religion.  We can get into some heated debates, let me tell you!  But we also have a lot in common.  Nazarenes and Catholics both have really strict rules."

"How did you meet?"

"He was the barista in the coffee shop I used to go to.  Af first I tried to save his soul, but then we started talking about the differences between Nazarene and Catholic beliefs.  Of course, he was cute in his uniform, too. "

A Nazarene and a Catholic -- two of the more homophobic denominations.  I wondered how welcome I would be at their wedding.


Time to out myself.

Two nights before the wedding, all of Katie's relatives had dinner at a restaurant in downtown Kankakee, so they could meet Steve.

Steve was in his 30s, tall, husky, bearded -- with a huge bulge in his jeans!

I made a point of hugging him "hello," and sitting next to him to tell stories of West Hollywood, Florida, and New York. Without using the g-word, of course.

"How is Yuri?" Katie asked.  "You haven't brought him around the house since I was a kid."

Now was my chance!  "Oh, he's fine.  He's been with Michael for several years now."

Don't ask, don't tell!  My sister-in-law, Ken's wife, glared at me.  "Boomer has always been liberal, with lots of different kinds of friends."

"Yes...um...it fits in very nicely with my research on gay communities."

Now my mother was glaring at me.  "Oh, Boomer is always doing some kind of research.  That's why he's never had time to get married and raise a family."

"That, and the fact that I can't get married in the State of Ohio.  It's illegal.  But I date a lot, and I've had my share of long-term..."

Don't ask, don't tell!  "Lots of pretty girls out there in Ohio," my brother said.  "Must be hard to stick to any one person."

Enraged, I excused myself and went to the bathroom.  Steve followed, and stood next to me at the urinal. I was too nervous to sneak a peek.

"Don't let it bother you," he said.  "My parents still insist on calling my brother's partner his 'roommate,' and they've been together for ten years.  But he's invited to all of the family functions.  That's something, right?"

I reddened.  No need to out myself -- Steve already knew.  Everyone already knew.  They may not use the g-word, but at least I was invited to all of the family functions.  And so were Lane and Yuri.  That's more than you can say for most fundamentalist relatives.

By the way, no one had a problem with Steve being Catholic.  I guess having a gay relative makes you tolerant.

And no, I never saw him like this.

See also;Yuri and I Teach My Nephew the Gay Facts of Life; Saving the Church Organist.; My Nephew Tries to Turn a Boy Gay

Jump Quiz: The Nazarene Sport of Bibles and Butts

Rock Island, October 1978

When I was growing up in the Church of the Nazarene, most of the high school boys and a few girls competed in the jump quiz.

They announced the book of the Bible every year during summer camp, and we started preparing immediately, memorizing verses, quizzing each other, and doing set after set of lunges, squats, kickbacks, and leg-lifts.

This was a strenuous sport!

The local eliminations were held in October.  The quizmaster began a question, and the moment you though you could answer, you jumped up out of your seat.  No hands -- leg and butt movement only.

With 20 questions per round, and 4 or more rounds per tournament, you needed really strong quads, hamstrings, and glutes.

If more than one contestant jumped up, the coach decided whose butt cleared the chair first.

That's right -- an adult man  had the job of staring intently at the butts of high school boys (and a few girls).

The top five players became our church's Jump Quiz Team, and went on to the District tournament in January. 

The Regionals were in March, the Nationals in June, and Internationals in July. Plus there were invitationals along the way  And trophies, prizes, pictures in church magazines, fawning invitations to parties, and even requests for autographs.

I had bad luck with the jump quiz.  In 9th grade, District interfered with a wrestling tournament, and I picked wrestling.

In 10th grade, my grandmother died, and we had to be in Indiana during the locals.  

In 11th grade, I got sick, and missed District.

In 12th grade, my jerk of a boss at the Carousel Snack Bar forced me to mop out the store room, thus missing District again!

But I was becoming disillusioned with the Nazarene Church anyway.  The Preacher had discovered homa-sekshuls, and was blaming them for everything from droughts to divorce.  And I was tired of the long list of nos: NO movies NO dancing NO cards NO comic books NO eating out on Sunday NO theater...


I couldn't drop out all at once, with my parents still going, and the church police knocking on your door after every absence.  So I started out skipping the evening services, then occasional Sunday morning services.  During my freshman year at Augustana, I was skipping most services, and usually Sunday school, too.

So I was surprised when the Preacher called one evening and asked me to coach the jump quiz.

"Um...why me?  I have a pretty poor jump quiz record."

"But you were on the team four years in a row, and you have lots of valuable skills. NYPS President, International Institute, wrestling team, athletic trainer..." He was apparently reading from a list.  "And I heard you're taking Biblical Greek at that Lutheran college, so you'll really be able to get into the Scripture with the kids."

"But...I haven't been coming to church much lately."

"Maybe this is just what you need to bring you back to the Lord."

So that was his game -- conversion through coaching!

"Besides, won't you feel good knowing that you're making a difference in a boy's life?  Why, your influence might be the only thing that protects him from turning into a homa-sekshul."

My face began to burn. "Well, when you put it that way, how can I refuse?"


So during my freshman year at Augustana, I returned to the Nazarene Church once a week to drill high school boys on the Book of Luke, and lead them in set after set of lunges, squats, kickbacks, and leg-lifts.

Sometimes we met at the YMCA swimming pool, for water resistance training, so I was forced to check out the athletes in swimsuits (don't worry, they were only two or three years younger than me).

During the local elimination, I had to keep my eye on their butts, of course.

We didn't make it to State.

The next year, I was in Germany during the fall semester, but I was back in time for the District tournament in January.  I was dating Fred, so my boyfriend was in the audience while I kept my eye on the butts of high school boys to ensure that they didn't turn into homa-sekshuls.

We didn't make it to State.

A Bulge Sighting on my Fifth Birthday

Racine, Wisconsin, November 1965

Now I know that gender identity is fluid, with many tangible and intangible components, but when I was a kid, it was all about boys and girls, so distinct that they might as well be separate species.

What made a boy a boy:
1. Short hair.
2. A shirt and pants.
3. A lack of makeup, nail polish, and perfume.
4. Muscles.
5. A penis.

Mostly a penis.

I wasn't yet aware that it grows bigger and stronger, or that you can use your hand or mouth to bring the guy to organsm.

But I knew that it was the most private, intimate, and dangerous part of the body.

My father told me that I must never display it, even by accident.  Hide it at a urinal.  Make sure no one sees you when you are changing clothes in the locker room.  Never go skinny dipping.

Sometimes "dirty boys" might ask to see it, or touch it, but I must always recoil in disgust.

In fact, I must never touch my own penis, except when urinating or washing.  Never at night, in bed.

Other people usually pretended that no one even had a penis.  They never looked beneath the belt.  When it obviously shifted, or got bigger, they pretended not to notice.

I definitely noticed.  Even in grade school, I knew how to sneak peeks beneath the belt, gauging bulges, mentaly calculating sizes and shapes, detecting slight movements, shifts, and semi-arousals.

The first bulge I remember was on my fifth birthday, in November 1965.

Mom and I were both sick.  I was sad and worried as she lay in bed.

I got a Tell-the-Time Clock with a smiley face and gloves on its hands, but I was too sick to play with it.  There wasn't any cake.

I sat on the couch with Dad, sipping 7-Up and watching tv.  First The Flintstones, and then Tammy, with a sugary mawdlin song that I hate today, maybe because I associate it with being sick, or maybe because Dad sang it at odd moments for the next thirty years.

I hear the cottonwoods whisperin' above.
Tammy--Tammy-Tammy's in love.

It was a hayseed sitcom (1965-66) about a bayou gal who becomes the secretary for a powerful industrialist and sets her sights on his fey son.

In the episode that aired on my fifth birthday, Tammy is courting a boy named Peter Tate (David Macklin), who doesn't really like girls.  He's just playing along.

Do you see something extra beneath the belt?  He forgot to wear underwear that day.















How about now, with a semi filling out his chaps?

Remember, guys -- including cameramen -- always pretend not to notice, so lots of bulges and semis get captured on film.

David Macklin popped up  -- and out -- again and again during my childhood.  A teen surfer on Gidget (1966).  A fratboy on The Munsters (1966).  A hippie on Ironside (1968). An abused rich kid on Cannon (1973).

In the fifty years since that November night, I've seen my share of real-life penises.  And fondled them.  And more.  But bulge-watching is still a fun, exciting, and fulfilling pursuit.

And it all began on my fifth birthday.

A much better gift than a Tell-the-Time Clock.

S

The Top 12 Track Team Bulges

We're used to seeing bulges in swimsuits and wrestling singlets, but what about other sports?  Like track.

For something as jaw-dropping as this to happen, the athlete has to be dressed without a cup.

Where is this WVC, anyway, and are they hiring?

For the answer, see "WVC: The College with Uniforms that Reveal All," on Small Town Beefcake

















3. A commando performance from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.

4. Triathlon winners (run, swim, bike) from Australia.

5. Sac City means "Sacramento City College," of all places to bulge at.

6. Central Connecticut/


More after the break

20 Nazarene Bulges, Boners, and Sausage Sightings

I spent the first 20 or so years of my life in the Church of the Nazarene, a hardcore fundamentalist church that was against everything, from rock music to Roman Catholics to wearing short pants. AND required us to go to church three times a week, carry a Bible everywhere, pray before meals (even in the school cafeteria) and try to win the souls of our friends, classmates, and perfect strangers.

Shudder.

I complain endlessly about the draconian rules; the utter absence of art and literature; the tedium of Sunday school class; the preacher screaming about God's hatred three times a week; .  But I also remember having a lot of fun. Finding loopholes in the rules, or ways to ignore them altogether, was a never-ending game.  Protesting worldly evil was exciting.

And the homoerotic activity was constant.  There was as much, or more, hugging and fondling going on as in any gay bar in the world.

Here are 20 Nazarene grabs, gropes, bulges, boners, and sausage sightings, plus a few guys that I just crushed on.

Elementary School

1.No Divorce.     They told me incessantly that my destiny was to marry a girl.  But Brother Hanson married a girl and then got out of it through a "divorce."  Of course, he couldn't be Minister of Music afterwards, but that was a small price to pay for the freedom to live with a boy.

2. No Movies.  We weren't supposed to even set foot inside a movie theater.  But when a cute boy named Gary invited me to a movie, I had to make a choice.  The first of many spiritual crises in my childhood.

3. Gospel Singers.  Sometimes we had guest singers, usually all-male groups that pretended to be brothers, lest anyone suspect.  When the  Sanderson Brothers became our summer camp counselors, I found an ingenious way to get a Sausage Sighting.

Junior High

4. No Premarital Kissing.  Or sex, either.  This was fine with me, but it left the question of what sex involves.  One year at Manville Camp, an older boy named Marty was happy to demonstrate.  Definite bulge, maybe a boner.

5. No Dancing.  Not even in physical education class or "in the guise of folk dancing."  Except at Washington Junior High, we had a required dance every Friday afternoon.  In eighth grade, I convinced a black-haired 7th grader named Brett to dance with me and psych out the teachers.

6. No Evolution.    The Bible Missionaries were even more conservative than Nazarenes, and thought of us as heretical libertines.  I thought it was quite a coups when Micah the Bible Missionary Boy accepted an invitation to my house to fight a common enemy, "evil-lution."

7. Summer Camp.  A week every summer of deadly-dull Bible studies, sports, and endless screaming sermons.  But when our junior high Sunday school teacher, Brother Dino, became our counselor one year, I saw him naked in the shower.  Major Sausage Sighting.

8. The Prospect List.  People who came to Sunday school or church, even once, were put on a special list.  We were supposed to call, write, or visit them regularly to invite them back and try to win their souls. It rarely worked, but one summer I managed to befriend Frank, a boy my age who went to the Catholic school.

9. Olivet.  If we went to college at all, it had to be Olivet, the Nazarene college on the prairie, where all of the boys were training to be ministers, and all of the girls, to be their wives.  While we were visiting during a prospective student weekend, a ministerial student named Rick, kissing his girlfriend on a couch on the other side of the room, became obviously aroused.

10. The Altar Call.  At the end of most services, the preacher invited those who needed to "get right with God" to come down to the altar and kneel, whereupon members of the same sex would grab, hug, and hold them to help them "pray through to victory."  I got a lot of hugging, groping, and bulge-viewing that way, but I especially wanted Phil, the President of the Youth Society, the cutest and coolest boy I ever met.  But he never went down.  I had to get him to sin, so he would go.

High School

11. Vacation.  You weren't excused from church just because you were on vacation, even though casual visitors were often mobbed by wannabe soulwinners.  One summer in Minnesota, I got on my knees in a cute boy's bedroom.

12. Preacher's Kids.  When you grow up in a fishbowl, scrutinized and judged by the entire congregation, you typically turn into a teenage wild child, staying out late, breaking all the Nazarene rules, and leaving a score of romantic conquests in your wake.  So when I asked out Verne, the Preacher's Son, I was shocked that he accepted.

13. The International Institute.  Every four years, an International Institute was held for select Nazarene youth, to teach us how to win souls for Christ worldwide.  There was very limited sightseeing, but I managed to sneak out of the dorm, go to a bar, and dance with a Swedish leatherboy, breaking eight rules at once.

14.Soulwinning.  Getting strangers to accept Jesus Christ as their Personal Savior was easier in theory than in practice.  I was too nervous to try most of the time, and when I did try, with the gay waiter at Olivet,  he had heard the spiel a hundred times before. And I didn't even get to see his bulge.

15. Afterglow.  After the Sunday evening service, the Nazarene Young People's Society held a special party called "Afterglow."   It was supposed to be a soulwinning device: kids who would never accept an invitation to church might come to a party.  If they didn't mind sodas, snacks, and stupid party games.  Few outsiders came, except one night, Danny, a very muscular boy with a leg brace, who I remembered from Denkmann years before.


College

16.The Jump Quiz was the Nazarene sport of Bibles and butts.  The object was to get your butt off your chair fast enough to answer a Bible question.  I didn't have a very good record, but when I was a freshman in college, the preacher asked me to be the Jump Quiz Coach.  I had to coach a whole teamful of cute guys.

17. Missionaries.  During the summer after my freshman year, the church asked for volunteers to build a new Nazarene church in Colombia.  I had dropped out by that time, but I wasn't going to turn down a free trip to Colombia.   And I met Marco the Gay Cannibal.

Recent

18. The Alabaster Box.   Nazarenes were expected to give 10% of their pre-tax income, minimum, as a "tithe." Additional offerings often took up another 10%.  Plus you kept an Alabaster Box on your shelf for spare change. Brother Byron, the Church Treasurer, was responsible for accumulating and calculating the money.  And, years after I left the church, I dropped in to find out why he never married.

19. Catholics.  Nazarenes hated Catholics.  Innately evil, brainwashed idolators who would kill you as soon as look at you.  So how did the family react when my niece married a Catholic guy?  How about one who had a beard and tattoos, rode a motorcycle, played a guitar, and had the biggest bulge I ever saw?

20. The Church Organist.  We sang all the time in the church, mostly dour funereal hymns from the Victorian era, accompanied by either a piano or an organ -- all other musical instruments were suspect, or downright Satanic.  The Minister of Music was always male, but the pianist and organist were always female.  Any boy who expressed an interest in becoming a church organist was ridiculed.  Even the preacher's son.

10 Things You Should Know About Groping

Groping, fondling the guy's package through his pants, is an essential part of gay courtship rituals.

It signals your interest; it establishes that he's interested.

It's the third physical act you engage in with a new acquaintance (after touching his chest or shoulder and kissing).

It's the first physical act you engage in to initiate sex.

Groping a friend is an important way of demonstrating chummy affection, like patting the shoulder of a straight guy).

There's nothing more embarrassing than going in for a grope and feeling nothing.  So it's important to know some ground rules.

1.  First, determine if he's into it.  Groping without consent constitutes "sexual touching," a misdemeanor.  Fortunately, it's rather easy to figure out:

Touch a few other body parts first.  Work your way down from shoulder to chest to knee to thigh.  If he doesn't give you any "back off" signals at any point, you're home free.












2. Ignore that bulge in his pants.  A bulge in his pants is
 usually his wallet, or his handkerchief,
or just the way the fabric hangs.
You don't want to be grabbing at nothing.

3. Look for the wrinkles. For guys of ordinary size wearing trousers with a regular fit, the cock and balls slide to the left or right of the zipper, invisible.  But the fabric stretches slightly to accommodate them.  The cock and balls here are on his left, just next to the zipper line.

4. If you see nothing, grope left.  90% of guys dress left, pushing their cock and balls to the right side of the zipper, probably because if you're right handed, it's a natural place to put them.

















5. Don't ignore the testicles.  The purpose of the grope is not only to indicate your interest but to help him become aroused, and stimulation of both cock and balls produce the extra blood flow that results in arousal. Besides, in most guys, most of the package consists of balls, with the cock a sort of afterthought.

More after the break.

Wrestling Bulges

Wrestlers wear singlets -- one piece lycra or nylon suits that fit tightly over their body, so there are no folds for their opponents to grab.  They may wear a jockstrap underneath, or they may wear nothing at all.  And they're young men.  Arousal happens frequently.














At the worst possible moment.

When it happens at a match, with your parents, little sister, and hundreds of other people watching, what do you do?

Pretend that it's not happening.

And everyone else will pretend that it's not happening, too.

Except for the gay men and boys in the audience who come to wrestling matches precisely for moments like this.

More after the break

My High School Game of Rating Bulges

When I was in high school, I dated a Nazarene girl named Rita, who was convinced that she would one day marry singer Donny Osmond.

Her reasoning was simple: God often tells us His will by "laying a burden on us."  She was worried that Donny, as a Mormon, was destined to an eternity in the Lake of Fire.  One night when she was praying for him to be saved, God "laid the burden" on her to be the one who would win him.

Of course, you can win someone's soul without marrying him, so she sealed the deal by asking God in Jesus' name to give her Donny Osmond as a husband.  God said that whenever we pray for anything in Jesus' name, we will get it.  Case closed.

While Rita was waiting for God to deliver Donny, she had to keep herself pure, so no kissing, no holding hands, no nothing.

Of course, she could talk about cute guys.

If I have to date a girl, I definitely want one who doesn't want to hold hands or kiss, and who wants to talk about cute guys!

Rita rated guys on a scale of 1-9.  Since Donny Osmond was undeniably the most attractive boy who had ever lived, he was the only #10.  Everyone else lined up by how closely they resembled Donny Osmond in hair, eyes, smile, physique.

Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of androgynous pretty boys with shaggy hair and an Osmond smile at Rocky High, so none of the guys got higher than 3 or 4.

I had another idea.  "Since Donny Osmond is perfect in every way, he must obviously be perfect down there, in his sexual organs, right?"

"Right," Rita said dubiously.

"No one will ever come close to Donny's facial beauty, but they might come close down there.  Let's rate the source of masculinity itself!"

"But how can we tell what a guy is like down there without seeing him, you know, with his clothes off?"

So I showed her how to tell how it was hanging from the way a guy walked, from how he sat.

Boners while sleeping or kissing his girlfriend,  or for no reason at all.

Bulges in spandex.

Bulges in uniforms.

Boners at the pool.

Tenting in wrestling singlets.

Points:

1.  Can't see anything.
2.  Small bulge, could be a curve of his fabric.
3. Big bulge, but could be something else.
5. Visible cock outline.
6. Obvious semi.
7. Full tent.
8. He rearranges himself.
9. He pushes on it.
10.  It pops out!

The game lasted for months.  Neither of us thought it strange that two ultra-conservative Nazarene kids, who felt guilty over going to movies or eating in a restaurant that served alcohol, would eagerly look for evidence of guys' cocks and balls through their pants.

My friend Aaron the Rabbi's son asked to get in on the game, but soon he dropped out. 

"Guys' baskets are boring!" he told us. "Half the time you can't see anything at all, and even when you see something, how do you know it isn't his handkerchief or his wallet?  I'd rather rate guys on something more obvious."

Turns out he was more of a butt man.