The Shy Guy at the Gym with the Supersized Penis

Plains, November 2016

At the YMCA the other night, when I was stripping down after my workout, the guy at the locker next to mine found an excuse to play around on his cell phone instead of taking off his gym trunks.  He was obviously going to wait until I was gone.

He was in his 20s, probably: his round baby face and short dark-brown hair made him look like a teenager.  Very tall, at least 6" taller than me, pale, with a smooth soft chest and a little belly.

"Poor thing," I thought.  "Being so tall will make his tiny meat look even smaller."

A rule of thumb for locker room cruising:

Guys with big ones walk to the showers with their towel in hand rather than around their waist, then stand around chatting nude at their lockers.

Guys with small ones hide behind a towel at all times, even putting on their underwear beneath it.  Sometimes they even refuse to take off their clothes until the bank of lockers around them is deserted.

I locked my locker, grabbed my towel (I never wrap it around my waist), and headed for the showers.  I was nearly finished when Baby Face finally arrived, and chose the stall across from me.  He carefully and deliberately faced the shower head, so none of the othe guys could see anything but his backside.

I soaped up a second time, hoping to get a glimpse of his penis, tiny or not.

A glimpse: my mouth dropped.  It was enormous!  Kovbasa+++ hanging halfway down to his knee, easily 7", ruddy, uncut.  Horse hung.

Come on -- you have to turn around sometime!  You have to shower your back!

But he didn't.

Eventually I had no more excuses to hang around, so I toweled off and returned to my locker and began to dress -- slowly.

Soon Baby Face re-appeared, hiding beneath a towel.   He turned his back to me to put on underwear, but I got another glimpse as he swung around.

I wasn't mistaken -- enormous.

He turned back to the locker without making eye contact.  I pretended to fool around with my gym pack.

He put on a sweatshirt that said Россия моя страна {Russia, my country).

An in!  My best friend is Russian!  I learned a little of the language.  

"Um...vy Russii?"  I began.

Baby Face looked up, surprised to be spoken to.

"Ya uznal russkiy yazk tri goda."  I studied Russian for three years.   That's a lie,  but I was thinking fast.


"Huh...oh, I don't speak Russian.  I got this shirt in Sioux Falls.  I'd like to learn someday, though."   He turned away again.

Think!  Pique his interest! "I can give you some basic conversation, like 'Where's the train station.'  Gde poyezd."

"Gde poyezd.  That's cool."  He picked up his gym bag.  To walk away forever!

"'Um...um...kiss and cake are the same word, potseluy, so you have to be careful when you go to a bakery."

He laughed.  "Or you might get a kiss!"

"I teach Russian history at the University."  Why was I lying so much?   Was I blinded by the glimpse of a Kovbasa?

Baby Face -- whose actual name was Justin -- had to rush off to meet his friends, but we exchanged phone numbers, and he agreed to come over the next night at 7:00 pm to "learn Russian."

I spent the day feverishly transforming myself into a Russian history professor.  I put out lot of souvenirs from Russia, years of birthday and Christmas presents from Yuri.  I dug up my few books on Russian history and literature, and bought a few more, at the used bookstore, so it would look like I had them for years.  I reviewed my Russian language lessons, especially slang and dirty words.



I want to eat your sausage:  ya khochu yest' vashu kolbasu
Let's go to the bedroom: mi idem v spal'nyu

7:00 came and went, and no Justin.  I texted him, but no answer.

At 7:30, he finally knocked on the door, ruddy, nervous.  "Um..sorry I'm late.  I almost didn't come."

We sat down on the coach -- Justin as far from me as he could get, looking down at his hands, nervous, miserable.

Ok, I would have to take this nice and slow, maybe not do anything at all. 

"Ok, Justin, first lesson. In Russian class they tell you that 'hello' is 'zdravstvutje', but my friend Yuri just says privet.  Repeat."

Justin refused to make eye contact. "Drastvutje."

"Look at me, so I can see if you're saying it right."

He looked up, but only for an instant.  "To be honest, I didn't come here to learn Russian.  It's cool and all, but...this was crazy.  Maybe I should go."

But he didn't move.

I scooted over to the other side of the couch and touched his shoulder.  He caught his breath.

"Why are you so nervous?  I'm not going to try anything."

Justin sighed deeply and continued to look down at his hands. "The thing is, I've seen you on Grindr.  I was too scared to say anything.  Then I saw you in the gym, and...well, it doesn't matter.  You just want to be my teacher.  I should go."



I leaned in close and kissed him.

Soon we were on the floor, where Justin went down on me while working on his super-size.  I flipped him over onto his stomach and pushed between his legs.  He moaned and spurted onto my stomach.

"Sorry," he said.  "It doesn't take me long."

"That's ok.  I'll get something to wash off with."

I wondered if Justin was the same super-sized guy I saw in the locker room on campus last year.  That guy tried to hide, too, but he had red hair, not brown.

"Have you dyed your hair recently?" I asked while carefully wiping him off.

He grinned.  "Yeah.  How did you know? I go red sometimes, or I get green and blue highlights."

What about Monster Cock from the urinal in the bathroom outside my office?

"I've seen you around the campus.  Are you taking Psychology 101 in ___ Hall this semester?"

"No, I'm not in college.  I graduated last spring."  He drew me down on top of him again as his Kovbasa++++ began to rise.  I could barely get my mouth around the head.

So there are still two mysteries:
1. Who is Monster Cock?
2. Why was Justin so intent on hiding his Kovbasa++++

See also: The Boy at the Urinal with the Kovbasa++++; A Gigantic Sausage Sighting in the College Locker Room; and The Smiling Boy at the Gym

Is My Nephew Gay?

Indianapolis, September 2016

My sister and her husband moved to Indianapolis shortly after they married.  Terry worked as a car salesman, then ran a car detailing service, while Tammy worked as a secretary, office manager, and finally Assistant Director of Sports Information at a small Methodist college.

It soon became obvious that their son Joseph, born in 1990, had no interest in either cars or sports.  He liked acting, singing, dancing, and modeling.  When he was eight years old, he appeared in some local tv commercials.  When he was twelve, he starred in a community theater production of The Little Prince.

He was also interested was cooking.  He won a chili cookoff at age thirteen, baked homemade bread and pasta, and insisted that the family try every ethnic restaurant in Indianapolis, from Ethiopian to Indonesian.

He started taking Japanese in junior high and went on a study tour of China in high school.

As a teenager, Joseph was tall and slim, with curly blond hair and striking brown eyes, very handsome, and very fey, swishing and limp-wristed, with that nasal "gay accent" voice.  He wore bright pastel shirts and tight bulging jeans and plastic bracelets.

Definitely gay, I thought.

His parents didn't think so.


At age 12:  "He's got a girlfriend at school he hangs out with!"
At age 13:  "He joined the community theater to meet girls!"
At age 14:  "He'll be discovering girls soon, and then, watch out!"
At age 15:  "He's so handsome, all the girls will be lining up to date him."
At age 16:  "He's shy around girls, but he'll come around...."
At age 17:  "He's much too busy to date...."
At age 18:  "There are so many girls he likes, he can't settle on one, so he's going to the senior prom in a group of friends."

I tried my best to let Joseph know that it was ok to be gay, without actually saying that I thought he was:

I gave him a box of books, including several young adult novels on gay topics.

We had conversations about gay writers Yukio Mishima, Oscar Wilde, and Tennessee Williams.

I invited him to visit "me and Yuri" in Florida (he didn't come).

I invited him and "whatever friend you want" to see Angels in America (he came alone).

In 2008, Joseph enrolled at Indiana University, planning a dual major in East Asian Languages and theater.  He wanted to study the "Noh Theater" of Japan.


And he got a girlfriend!

Jan, a fellow theater major from a small town in southern Indiana.

In 2010, my boyfriend Troy and I drove to Indianapolis for Christmas, and met her at Christmas Eve Dinner.

Or at least we met the back of her head.  The rest of her was attached to Joseph.  Every moment they weren't eating or unwrapping a present, they were exploring each other's tonsils.

Her conversation was: "I'm planning [kiss] to concentrate  [kiss] in children's [kiss] theater [kiss]."

Tammy and Terry beamed.  I imagine they were feeling anxious about the possibility of Joseph being gay through his whole life, and now they were validated!  He was straight after all!

I was devastated.  I had spent the last ten years mentoring a gay kid...but he wasn't!

When they graduated in 2012, Joseph enrolled in the doctoral program in Central Asian Languages in Bloomington, and Jan got a job at the Children's Museum in Indianapolis.  They moved into an apartment together in Franklin, Indiana, about halfway between.

Straight -- but...

I found a profile on a gay dating app of a guy who looked like Joseph and was the right age.

Joseph belonged to a couple of gay groups on Facebook, including a Queer News Service.

Half of his Facebook friends were men.

In 2016, he borrowed his father's 1969 Chevy Camero to drive in the Indianapolis Gay Pride Parade (because 1969 was the year of the Stonewall Riots, the beginning of the modern Gay Rights Movement).

Straight ally?  Bisexual?  Genderqueer?

Last September, back in Indianapolis for a funeral, I determined to find out.

I couldn't ask, or -- God forbid -- cruise him, but I could use the age old "eye-widening" technique.



There were a lot of pictures on my phone from my trip to Mexico, including the standard sights, some random friends, and some swimsuit pictures of hot men.  I showed them to Joseph, checking to see which he spent time on and which he flipped through quickly.

He spent time on the hot men.

See also:Nephew Sausage Sighting #5;  We Teach My Nephew the Gay Facts of Life

How We Survived the Homophobic World of the 1980s

A few days ago, we discovered that over 40% of the U.S. population believe that all Mexicans are rapists and all Muslims are terrorists, that African-Americans are inferior, that the handicapped should be ridiculed, and that sexual assault is ok.    It gives one pause, but it's not without precedent.

When I was living in West Hollywood in the 1980s and 1990s, most heterosexuals believed that gay people were pedophiles and violent criminals, that we were inferior and should be ridiculed, and that physically assaulting us was ok.

We heard incessant "fag! fruit! fairy!" jibes from family, friends, and classmates, while politicians, judges, teachers, preachers, and psychiatrists joined their voices together in an incessant shout of "You're crazy, evil, sinful, criminal!  You shouldn't exist!"

After surviving all that hatred, it was hard to imagine that heterosexuals were even human.  Surely they were soulless monsters who spent every waking moment plotting new ways to defame, humiliate, and kill us.

So we carved out our own Safe Space.

Our world, the only place where we could let our guard down and be free, was bounded by Sunset to the north, Melrose to the south, Doheny to the west, and Highland to the east. At each of those boundaries there was an invisible barrier separating us from the wilderness.

Of course, we had to travel outside our world sometimes, for jobs, to go to concerts and museums, to get to gay bars like Mugi.

But we were very careful: the woods were full of wolves.  We followed strict rules for survival.

1. Be inconspicuous: keep your voice low and your hands at your side.

2. Closet any signs of gayness: no rainbow flags, gay pride t-shirts, Advocate magazines.

3. Never speak to anyone you don't know, unless it is absolutely necessary.

4. Never take anything that a stranger tries to give you.  It will probably be a tract about how sinful you are.

5. Never go to a straight bar or restaurant.  It will be full of homophobes.

6. Avoid heterosexual books, newspapers, movies, and tv shows.  They will be full of homophobia.


What about the heterosexuals you must interact with daily, your classmates and coworkers:

1. Keep the conversation strictly professional.  Be polite but aloof.

2. Don't volunteer any personal information.  If asked, be vague and noncommittal.

"What did you do last weekend?""

"Oh, I just hung around.


3. When they ask about your girlfriend or interest in girls -- which they always do within a few seconds of "hello" -- lie.  Invent one.  Never come out to them, and never say you don't have a girlfriend, or they will try to fix you up with one.

4. When they say something homophobic -- which they always do shortly after asking about your girlfriend -- don't respond.  End the interaction and retreat.

5. What if you are accidentally outed?

If they start screaming, then obviously you should retreat.  If they merely ask insulting questions like "Which of you is the boy, and which is the girl?", use your own judgment about whether to respond.

6. Never accept invitations to parties, dinners, or other social events.  You will be fixed up with a girl or asked to discuss your interest in girls.

7. NEVER cruise them, regardless of how hot they are, or how friendly.  They will interpret your interest as a humiliating insult, and attack.

I have a story about the rules, but writing them all down took up too much space.  It will be up next: Picking Up the Best Man at My Sister's Wedding.