Figuring out Queer

“Oh, you never want to go to a school like Vasser, or any of The Seven Sisters, because they’re all full of lesbians,” declared my best friend.  We were standing in the hallway of my high school sometime in 1984 and I remember a few other kids were there and even a guidance counselor, nodding his head in agreement.  It is my earliest memory of a consciousness of being gay, of actually identifying with that word:  Lesbian.  I remember thinking clearly: That’s where I MUST go, and, When I get to college, I can tell people, until then, I MUST keep it a secret. But college, college, college, I can finally be free in college.

I think about the thoughts that led up to this moment.  I have an early memory of being at Myrtle Beach, floating on a raft on my stomach with my head resting on my hands, looking at the people on the beach and thinking, I’m not like them, any of them, and I have to hide it, I have to keep myself a secret.  I was eight.   I remember in all my family’s travels across the country, when no one I knew was around, introducing myself to strangers as a boy.  I wanted so badly to be a boy.  First to have their freedom, next to have their girlfriends.   I remember watching soap operas and falling in love with Laura and thinking, I would be so much much better for her than Luke or Scotty.  I dreamed myself as the perfect boyfriend all through my childhood.  I remember how in all the childhood games, I insisted on being Chachi or Joe Hardy or Luke Skywalker.   All the sex education books told me having crushes on girls was entirely “normal” for the pre-teen and no indication of future aberrant behavior.  I don’t know at what point I realized I didn’t have to be a boy to have a girlfriend.  I could actually be a girl and have a girlfriend.

And how did I know “gay” even existed?  Again the early memories started with television.  The National Enquirer blowing up about Billie Jean King.  Rod Stewart having his stomach pumped.  A councilman shot in San Francisco.  My sister explaining the meaning of the lyrics of “Lola.”  The first time I heard the word “faggot” hurled at another kid was on the bus in fourth grade and my best friend had to explain all the words:  gay, faggot, dyke, lesbian, queer.  (My best friend did a lot of reading and had a way more worldly household.)  Martina Navratilova sent me to the tennis courts. Then Boy George appeared on MTV and when my father saw him, he muttered, What a fruit.  I looked at Culture Club and knew that was me; I didn’t have the hair or the make up and certainly not the style but I knew we were still the same.  

As I was entering my senior year, I was losing a different best friend to college. She left me with this parting advice:  Hey, there’s a girl I know from theater, you’ll probably meet her at the Thespian picnic, she’s had a really hard time because everyone is calling her a lesbian.  I don’t know if she actually IS a lesbian, well, yes, I do, she definitely is, but do you think you could try to be friends with her?   

Could I be friends with her?  Oh my god I was so excited to meet a real live lesbian who was actually my age.  This year I sent her a message on FB asking, I think you’re the first person I came out to, do you remember what I said?  She wrote back: You looked at me and told me that you were not gay and then you leaned over and kissed me. I don’t remember this, but I totally trust her version of events, especially since that sounds EXACTLY like something I would do.  

I regret  how after that kissing, I spiralled into a wave of self hatred which led me to reject my gay friends, hook up with a very sweet boy, and write suicide notes.  I was sure I was going to hell for being gay and the only thing that kept me from killing myself was that I also knew I would go to hell for killing myself.  

That time in my life completely informs my spirituality today:  

How we NEVER know how things are going to turn out. We know nothing.  I was seventeen and I was sure, absolutely certain, I was going to hell. A mere four years later, I was dancing with a hundred thousand queers in front of City Hall in San Francisco, thinking THANK GOD I AM GAY.  I imagine someone whispering to that 17 year old girl curled up, miserable on her bedroom floor:  You are perfect and soon you are going to be sooooo happy. If I find myself stuck in some kind of despair, I think of these mere four years and the distance traveled to get to such a place of acceptance and it doesn’t take four years anymore, thank goodness.

Somewhere Safe

I put my bank card somewhere safe so of course I can't find it now.  Does anyone else do this?  I put my wedding ring somewhere safe.  I put the gold necklace my mother-in-law gave me somewhere safe.  Somewhere safe in my house there is some wonderful stuff.  If only I could find somewhere safe.

When I was nineteen, I ran away from home with the woman I planned to marry and spend the rest of life. My first big grown up Love. We got an apartment together, opened joint bank accounts, and laid around talking about soul mates and forever.  In 1987, we were politically aware enough and madly in love enough to dream about Gay Marriage.  I remember insane passion when we were trying to avoid getting caught in college and at our summer job. Once we moved in together, the passion dissipates, the immature fighting starts.  She left me after a year and a half for our only other friend in Columbus, OH, a beautiful boy who worked with us.  I could hardly blame her; the heart wants what the heart wants. She told me we couldn't be friends, that she loved me too much, that she'd never move on if I stayed in her life.  I watched them pack up and leave together and when they left, I had no friends.

When I was 23, I tried the great big let's spend the rest of our lives together once more.  This time we lasted four years.  Again with the wild crazy passion for about a year, again with the boredom, again with the fighting.  About two years in, she started cheating on me and when I figured it out and all the crying subsided, we decided we really loved each other so we would try an Open Marriage.

(Here's the thing about growing up gay late 20th century:  As you are realizing you are gay, you are realizing everything you've ever been told is a lie.  Everything.  Everything about gender and the sexes and sex and love and marriage.  If something as big as the institution of heterosexuality is a complete lie, maybe every institution needs to come down with it.  I was ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Plus, I didn't want to lose another girlfriend.  I am not a jealous person.  I have abandonment issues.  If you promise you're not going to leave me, I really don't care who you fuck.  Connection is so much more important to me than ownership.)

This story does not end well.  My partner wasn't just a cheater, she was mean and abusive.  Probably not the best person with whom to have an open marriage.  For example, I wasn't allowed to see anyone else.  While my understanding of non-monogamy was about openness, honesty, and the opportunity to widen the circle of love in our life.  Her understanding of having another girlfriend was because I wasn't enough.  She justified her extra girlfriend in all the ways I didn't meet her needs.  I also found myself helping the other two work out their problems.  I vividly remember the Steelers were in the play offs for the first time in years and I wanted to get home but they got into a big fight and I was trapped in the car counseling my partner and her other lover.  Blah. I promised myself:  Never Again.

As I exited this relationship, I thought - If I had asked her to marry me, if gay marriage was on the table, she would have said no and saved me a lot of trouble.  This is one of the reasons I started really pushing  marriage equality.  The gays should have the right to ask their lover, Will you marry me?  No?  Ok, next.  I decided then and there, no relationship without Marriage.

And then came marriage.  Again with the great big crazy passion at the beginning.  By the time we hit the boring part, we were planning a wedding to distract us.  And then it was always on to the next thing, Stella, three babies at once, car seats, family vacation, preschool, kindergarten.   I discovered marriage is a little like driving in the summer with the windows up and no air conditioning.  Just as we were about the cross the finish line of every kid in kindergarten, along came a carjacker.  This time I cheated.

I'm not sure where this all leaves me.  Go back a story, where I said yesterday I am fine being single forever. I am not, however, fine never having sex in my life so I am left sorting out what that kind of connection means to me and how to proceed.

I sure as fuck am never getting married again.   If given the opportunity to gay marry, I would have married three times so maybe driving that car does not suit me.  I mean, I had a great wife.  For all the things I tried to make wrong about her or wrong about us together, it really comes down to having nothing to do with her and everything to do with my own personal misery at being trapped in a relationship.  I make a list of everything I want in a spouse and then sit back and laugh at myself because guess what?  She fills it.

I never want to be dependent on anyone else again unless I am very old and it's one of my kids.

I believe our dreams and promises of forever are inevitably at odds with our sexual beings. Especially women.  Right now pharmaceutical companies are working on a pill which will increase a woman's desire for her husband.  Not that there's anything wrong with her actual libido.  A man needs Viagra because his body is failing.  A woman's biochemistry may be completely normal, but we are pathologizing the fact of women's natural sexuality.  A cure for the monotony of monogamy.   All the scientific research about women's desire shows how when we are in a state of safety, desire dissipates.  Disappears.  Completely.  And it happens much more quickly for women than men.  The main reason this happens is because people are trapped.  You don't have sex with me because you desire me, you have sex with me because I'm the only one you're allowed to have sex with and that really bores the shit out of us.  Within the bounds of great big committed relationship, the heat of being desired grows remote.  The choice of me is no longer being made.  Blah.

While the dream of "you complete me" sounds really compelling in the beginning, this isn't love.  This is an inner child seeking reassurance - tell me I'm special, tell me I'm perfect, tell me it's forever no matter what.  At this point, I believe crossing over to the space where I surrender safety, acknowledge that I am navigating my life alone, supported by the love of my family and friends, but inescapably alone, letting go of the longing to depend and be protected, is the only space where pure eros can thrive.

I can't find my bank card, my wedding band, the gold necklace my mother-in-law gave me.  I put them somewhere safe.  It's the things I love without possession that stay in my life.  On my wrist are bracelets I gathered over the years.  Eva made me a collection of the kids' names in Hebrew.  My sister gave me a leather charm bracelet for Christmas.  Gigi gave me three matching silver bracelets for my birthday several years ago.  I toss them onto the nightstand or in a desk drawer or on the bathroom sink or in the little notch of my car door.  I don't think twice about any of them.  I never try to put them anywhere safe.  I never lose
 them and they never leave me.