In Alice in Wonderland, the King says “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop”. So that’s what we’ll do. Worked OK for Alice.
I’ve mentioned in previous posts that to really start to understand me, there were things we had to go back to. I’ve realized I wanted to write about my one and only “coming out” experience to someone who mattered and in order to write about that, I’ve got to share all of the dirty laundry. Nothing that hasn’t been told before but it’s still hard for me to write about it and harder still to look back on it and view how it’s influenced me my entire life.
I was molested as a child by an adult male relative. This started when I was about 6 1/2 and continued until I was almost 14. It started without warning and ended without warning. It started as me being forced to masturbate him and progressed to mutual masturbation. Nothing really horrible as these cases go but as my therapist and pastor have both told me it is not the specific action that’s the problem, it’s the violation of trust and abuse of power that causes the scars. That’s really all I need to say about what happened but there’s a lot more to write about how it impacted me.
From the time I started having any sort of sexual feelings, I’ve had an attraction to men. Ding, ding, ding…shouldn’t that have been a warning somewhere Will Robinson? Yes, I suppose it should. But when your first sexual experience is with a male relative, there’s a whole new dynamic that gets pushed into a young brain. Couple that with growing up in the South in the 70s where “queers” were regularly made fun of and nothing anywhere portrayed gay people as remotely normal and you’ve got a volatile mix in the mind of a kid going through puberty. No way did I want to be gay and I reasoned that the good physical feeling I was starting to get during the incidents put these desires for interaction with non-relatives in my head. But there was no way I was really gay, was there. Let me tell you something else I know for sure…if you tell yourself something long enough, you’re liable to start believing it’s true and I think that’s what happened to me. I never acted on these feelings until years later and had convinced myself I was a victim of my circumstances. At some point late in my high school years, I didn’t really even think about it any more…I was just straight with baggage. I’ve read on the web that people call it the “abuse excuse”. I don’t like the word “excuse” but it’s a catchy jingle so I’ll go with it.
In college I was even more convinced the baggage was just that and I was actually straight when I fell head over heals in love with a girl a year ahead of me. She was beautiful, fun to be around, intelligent, and she thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. She was my first sexual experience and I honestly can still remember it like it was yesterday. Truly amazing, intimate, deeply meaningful. I was off the hook. Then she decided she liked my roommate better and broke my heart. It never would have lasted anyway…once again, there are no coincidences. Not meant to be. But it did cement in my head for a good long while that I was straight and I loved having sex with a beautiful woman.
I graduated from college, weighed my job options and took the one that promised a better sense of adventure. I turned down a safe job in banking in order to go do something that would never come my way again. Packed up my car and headed 700 miles from home to start a life on my own and never looked back.
When I got there, the world was my oyster. I was connected in this new place almost immediately, had access to people that mattered and was doing work that made a difference. Life was good. Too busy to date and it didn’t bother me. (I know, that should have sent off warning bells too…what 23 year old male isn’t always on the lookout for a roll in the sack?)
And then I met my wife. In hindsight, this should have been my third warning. We started as friends. Really good friends and she remains my best friend to this day. I’m not sure, however, how many straight guys can say this. Isn’t the physical aspect of a woman what is supposed to catch our eye first? Not that I don’t still think she’s beautiful but that part of our relationship developed secondarily. We’ve had, and continue to have, a very strong marriage to this day. Not without a few hiccups but when I compare us to most of the nutcases in this neighborhood, I thank the Lord every day.
There have been a few other “current events” over the last 20 years that have occasionally made me briefly ponder my situation. The Catholic Church abuse scandal always made me tense and I didn’t “get it” until all of the tumblers on my lock clicked into place earlier this year. I finally realized that all of the people that came forward weren’t gay as a result of their abuse. The continued movement along the spectrum of “accepting” gay people has also had a supporting role in my psyche. I look back now and can remember multiple emotional moments where something relating to gay issues hit me – Ellen’s “coming out” episode, Matt Shephard’s brutal murder, Robert Hattoy speaking at a Democratic convention, things like that. I can remember these things imprinting my mind.
And then we get to the Glee episode I wrote of very early in my blogging and that was either the “final straw” or the “opening bell” depending on my current point of view. It all of a sudden dawned on me that my deeply held conviction that orientation is biological could no longer reconcile with my “abuse excuse”.
Some of you may read this and think, this guy is simply the king of denial. You may be right. I may look back in another 10 years and accept that deep down I knew this all along. I can’t do that today. For years I have truly believed that my experience as a child was putting thoughts in my head that I simply didn’t want to be there. Judge if you want, doesn’t change where I am today.
And so here we are in Alice’s journey. No where near the end, but we started at the beginning and are going till we stop.
My own travel out 