The Rabbi's Son Who Didn't Know He Was Gay

Rock Island, May 1977

 During my junior year in high school, I was acting the Johnny Nazarene, going to all of the church activities, going to the altar, and planning to attend Olivet, our Bible college on the prairie.  And dating Verne the Preacher's Son, sort of.

At the same time, I became obsessed with all things Catholic: I read The Little World of Don Camillo and The Seven-Story Mountain, saw Brother Sun, Sister Moon, even bought a small crucifix (which I had to keep carefully hidden from my family, of course).

And I became obsessed with all things Jewish.  I read the novels of Chaim Potok, watched Lanigan's Rabbi, and occasionally broke through the crowd of girls surrounding Aaron, the rabbi's son, to ask him a few questions about kosher laws or Hebrew School or his bar mitzvah.


We had a sizeable Jewish community in the Quad Cities, mostly Russian, some Polish.  There were three conservative Orthodox synagogues, a Reform synagogue, and the Tri-City Jewish Center, where Aaron's father worked.

Aaron was Reform -- he rarely wore his yarmulke, unless he wanted to make a political statement, and he didn't keep kosher.  But he was constantly looking out for Christian incursions into his religious freedom.




In orchestra, he refused to play selections from Jesus Christ, Superstar.  In Spanish class, he refused to read a story about "La Natividad."  When the English teacher assigned My Name is Asher Lev, he kept raising his hand to point out that the novel was set in a very conservative Hasidic community -- all Jews weren't like that.

Naturally, we became friends.

Aaron was always surrounded by girls, friends and admirers, but he never dated them.  Instead he was dating a Lutheran boy named Mike.

He didn't know that he was gay yet.  In fact, he was exceptionally homophobic.

One day in May 1977, just after  my naked conversation with Verne, we were walking down the hallway when a passing senior invited us to the Drama Club Spring Play, Tom Stoppard's Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead.

“And don’t worry, it’s safe to come,” he added. “We deleted lines implying that  Rosencranz and Guildenstern are. . .you know.” He flashed a limp wrist.

He walked on.  I asked Aaron "What lines imply that they’re. . .you know?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea!” Aaron exclaimed “I never saw it, and you better believe I’m not going to! Are you?”






“Of course not!" I said.  "No way am I a Swish!" I would never go to a play about them!"

"I would never read a book about them, either!"

“Well, I wouldn’t even touch a book about them!”

“I wouldn’t even touch a book that mentioned them just one time!”

“Well, I wouldn’t even be in the same room with it.”

Eventually Aaron won by declaring that he wouldn’t be in the same universe with a piece of paper that had the word "gay" written backwards,  in Bulgarian, in invisible ink.

But we had to end the contest.  We were meeting our boyfriends for lunch.

The Only Time A Guy Has Criticized My Size

Dayton, October 2005

I'll admit that I like them big -- #5 on the list of the Traits I Find Attractive is a Kielbasa+++ beneath the belt.  But small ones have their benefits.
1. No worries about your teeth getting in the way.
2. "Sure, go ahead and top me.  No problem."
3. They're extremely sensitive.
4. They're always a surprise.
5. Guys with small ones tend to have low self-esteem, regardless of their other qualities, and it's fun to work on building them up.

The biggest drawback is: they don't take off their pants easily.  They hide behind a towel at the gym.  They don't go to bath houses or M4M Parties, or cruise for hookups.  25% of men in U.S. have 5" or less, but you never see them.  Only the whoppers are on display.

The small guys never see other small guys, either. Leaving them to believe that they are even smaller.  Making them less likely to display it.  And so on, a vicious circle.

I've only been with a few guys in the 5" and under category, and almost never for a hookup.  Sharing here and there, a date once in a while.

I dated a firefighter in Dayton who was about 3.5"  He said that sometimes guys changed their minds and left the moment he dropped his pants.

One of the M4M Party regulars measures at 4.0", and that's being generous.  But he's not at all self-conscious about it.

Comic Book Guy in Florida was attractive, and into kissing, but he wouldn't let me in his bed for a long time.  When I got there, I found out why: an angry inch, maybe two.  That wasn't the reason we broke up, though.  His sleeping arrangements were just too weird.

The smallest guy on my Sausage List was Leronne, the ex-boyfriend of my boyfriend Charlie, the high school football coach.  One night Charlie invited him along on our date, to have dinner and hopefully "share."

"He's shy," Charlie warned me.  "And he's very self-conscious about his size, so don't say anything."

"Please, I'm not that rude!" I exclaimed, offended.  "How could I fault a guy for something he has no control over?"

"Just kind of build him up, praise him for how nice it is.  Pretend you want him to top you."

"Ok, fine."  I was wondering just how small this guy was, to require building up even after you have agreed to go to bed with him.

Leronne was an African-American twink, mid-20s, short, slim, light-skinned, with a lithe, non-muscular physique.  Not exactly my type, but close enough.

We had dinner in Yellow Springs, the hippie enclave -- Charlie was too closeted to be seen anywhere in Dayton.

 This was the 2000s, past the era when coming-out stories were standard parts of dinner conversations, but Leronne told me his anyway.  Growing up in southern Ohio, feeling isolated and alone because he was attracted to men, because he was black, and because he was "puny."  He hated gym class because guys would always laugh and point at his puny package in the locker room, call him a "girl" and a "fag."

"But it was even worse when I came out." he continued.  "Guys were all like, 'Come on, hottie, let me see your giant sausage,' and when I pulled it out, they like lost interest.  I was afraid to even go to the gym."

"How did you end up with a football coach?" I asked.

"I always liked them big," Leronne said with a smile.  "Big muscles, big package.  No Princess Teeny-Tiny for me."

"Double standard, huh?"  I thought.

We all agreed to the sharing, so we returned to my apartment, sat on the couch to "watch a movie," and started getting intimate.  Leronne was a good kisser, but reluctant to strip.  Both Charlie and I were naked before he unbuttoned a button.

Finally we took him into the bedroom -- he insisted on leaving the lights off -- tore off his shirt, and unzipped his pants.

Average size, maybe even a little bigger than average.  Nothing to get all ashamed of.

I pretended excitement.  "Wow, what a monster!  I hope you're a top!"

He was actually a bottom.  Charlie and I double-teamed him for awhile, and then I lay there while Charlie finished up.

I woke up at dawn.  Not wanting to wake the others, I put on a bathrobe and sat at my desk to work on my computer.

After awhile, Leronne got up, said "Good morning," and went to the bathroom.  "Got a spare toothbrush?"  he called.

I went to show him.  My bathrobe hung open.

He stared.  "What happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're so small!"

"That's...um...you know, it gets bigger when you're with a guy."

"I know, but last night you were like,  huge..."  He spread his hands in a fish-catching gesture.  "And now you're like...that."

"I'll have you know that I'm in the A Category in the Horseman's Club in Amsterdam," I said, getting angry.  "No admission fee.  I'd like to see you get anything higher than a C!"

"Sorry -- I didn't know you were sensitive about it.  I'm not into size, anyway.  C'mon, let's go wake Charlie up."  He bounded back into the bedroom and climbed atop Charlie -- who also got bigger when he was with a guy.

Weird how even being accused of smallness can sting.

See also: My Two Boyfriends; The Truth about the Black Penis

The Ghost Artist in the Basement

Rock Island, November 1980

I didn't like going down to the basement in our house in Rock Island, not by myself, especially at night.  The rec room was ok -- we used to invite our friends over to play pingpong or foosball or watch tv.  But off to the side there was a laundry room, and beyond an artist's studio belonging to Mr. Kint, the previous owner of the house.  He was an engineer, but his hobby was painting.

No one had touched it since the day he died, except to empty the file cabinets.  There was a calendar from 1966 on the wall, jarsful of pens, pencils, and paint brushes, and a slanted desk with a slide rule and a t-square. It looked like he was just upstairs getting a drink of water, and he would be back any minute. Sometimes I imagined his footsteps on the creaking wooden stairs.

One Saturday in early November 1980, my junior year at Augustana,  I invited Haldor from the dating competition to dinner.  I planned to cook roast beef at my parents' house, and then serve it in the dorm kitchen.

I let myself into the house around 2:00 pm.  It was deserted.

After awhile I needed an onion to slice atop the potatoes, and the only onions in the house were in a big bag in the laundry room.  I planned to rush down and up again in less than ten seconds.  But then I heard a noise coming from Mr. Kint’s studio. A chair scraping across a bare concrete floor.

My first thought was that my brother Ken had come home unexpectedly and hid in the basement to scare me.  I said “Ha-ha, big joke!” and walked briskly to the doorway.






Someone was sitting in the old swivel chair, bending over Mr. Kint’s desk, drawing furiously on an oversized pad of art paper. Pale light streamed through the basement window above him.

It must be Ken.  He liked to draw.

“Hey, Bro, what you working on?” I took two or three steps closer to him and peered over his shoulder. It was a drawing of a row of men of various ages and races, facing forward. All were naked. They seemed to be arranged by penis size, from tiny to absurdly enormous.

"Big fan of naked men, huh?  Me, too."  Ken was the family member I was out to.

I saw that the hand was trembling a bit. It was very pale, sprinkled with brown spots. The fingers had long crusty nails. The hand of a monster.




Was it Mr. Kint, returning to complete the drawing he’d been working on when he died?  Suddenly terrified, I screamed.

He swung around. It was Brian!

You remember Brian, the seventh grader who was trying to scrub the mysterious graffiti "Brian gives free LBJs" from the school wall in 1974?  Who I kissed under the mistletoe at Christmastime in 1977, and then asked him to call, but he didn't call?  I hadn't heard anything about him for almost three years.

"Are you from East Moline, Dork?" he said angrily.  "You almost made me ruin my drawing!"

"Well, you scared me to death!  What...what are you doing here?"  His hand was perfectly normal.

“Visiting Ken -- what do you think?  He went out to pick up a half-gallon of ice cream.  He should be back any minute.”

“I mean. . .what are you doing here in Mr. Kint's studio?"

“I have a sketch due Monday for art class, and Ken said I could work down here.  The light is perfect."

 "Why are the men all naked?"

He began to blush.  "Oh...I was just fooling around.  I'll fix it before I turn it in."  He paused.  "So what did you mean by 'me, too'?"

Now it was my turn to blush.  Struggling for a way to change the subject, I said "Hey, I'm making roast beef for my friend Haldor at Augustana.  You and Ken want to come?  Bring the ice cream."

I climbed slowly back up the stairs.  Now I was certain that Brian was gay.