Archive for September, 2010
Hypocricy in a Virulently Homophobic Black Bishop
This from the Huffington Post. Sadly, these men in positions of authority often prey upon young men who are very religious.
Bishop Eddie Long
When the Southern Poverty Law Center decides to write an intelligence report about you, you know you’ve done something wrong. SPLC calls Bishop Long “one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement.” In one sermon, he says to gays and lesbians, “God says you deserve death!” The message of “hate the sin and the sinner” are strong words in a religion that is supposed to teach love, healing and redemption.
Read the rest by clicking here.
Loren’s Comments: This from Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story
The emotions of trust and fear recur frequently in these stories. When the Roman Catholic Church ordained O’Grady, it gave him the mantel of a trusted man of God. The church offered sanctuary to troubled children who may not have been able to trust their families.
When trust is destroyed by severe or repeated abuse, fear ignites the amygdala, incinerating the capacity to trust even when there is no danger. Children must be protected from sexual practices where there is an imbalance of power and an abuse of trust.
What could induce greater fear than a breech in trust of those who proclaim to be our protectors? Fortunately, these changes in the brain are also not necessarily permanent.
Although sexual exploration that includes same-sex expression is forbidden, there is tremendous resistance to sexual education that would better equip a young boy to deal with his expanding sexuality. Many of those who feel the greatest need to protect the innocence of their children oppose sex education. They see it only as a subversive attempt to remove parental authority; they believe sex education undermines the values taught by their parents.
Sex education should be so much more than a ten minute discussion of “good touch” and “bad touch,” ideas that are to be shed like the wedding clothes just before entering the honeymoon bed. Sex education could teach young boys that they have a choice and that a failure to express their choice is not the same as giving consent.
It could teach them about how to deal with an imbalance of power with someone in a position of authority. It could teach them about safe sex. Whenever children do not receive a healthy education about sex, they will seek to educate themselves. That sleeping giant is going to wake up.
Why I Came Out at 81
This video is from a “Big Think” series on coming out stories.
Triple Jeopardy Redux: Gay, Black and Ghetto (Part II)
In the second part of “K. D’s” story, he describes having sex with a man when he was but eleven years old. It will be disturbing to some. But I hope that readers will understand it in the context of a childhood that may have been quite differently from their own.
Triple Jeopardy Redux: Gay, Black and Ghetto (Part II)
by K. D. Alston
The fact that urban children have to be aware of their environment and be savy at dealing with whatever comes up demands of them a level of maturity that most outside of that situation can not understand.
My neighborhood had a submarine sandwich shop in a strip mall. Within that shop was a popular arcade game. All the children of the neighborhood competed for high score. As a result after school there was a line to drop a quarter in and see if your mark could be left.
Outside the sub shop was a public phone booth. At that time, before drug dealers starting using public phones to conduct business, each phone had a number that could be called. The local pedophile, “Joe,” dialed that number often. Just for kicks we would answer his calls.
Joe introduced himself and said that he lived in the high rise apartments which overlooked the strip mall. His proposition was that one on us boys would meet him. He would supply the beer, X-rated movies, and twenty dollars.
After Joe laid out his proposition we took turns berating him with the most profane language our innocent mouths could spew. Later, when my friends ran out of quarters and left the sub shop, I would wait for another call. When that call came, I was happy to meet Joe.
The first time I was invited to Joe’s apartment I saw that he had many things a poor kid didn’t have available to him. Joe had cold beer and a huge screen and projection set up with 8 mm films projecting X-rated films from the late 70s. He also had a hot mouth.
Honestly, I would have settled for the hot mouth, but the films, beer and money, kicked it over the top for me. Most would think an eleven year old was being taken advantage of. I am here to tell you that I saw it differently. I was fully aware of my situation.
I even manipulated the situation to garner more benefits for myself. After several visits to Joe’s, I realized my position of having power over him. I admit that I loved what was happening, but I also realized that he needed me. I understood that he did not love me or want to take care of me.
I knew that this deal was an unwritten contract between us. I fulfilled a need for him, and he did the same for me. I don’t think he knew how young I was. I am sure he knew I was under age but I am sure he thought I was closer to fifteen or sixteen. At any rate, in the eyes of the law there is no difference between an eleven year old and a sixteen year old boy. The conversation about my age never came up between us.
Joe didn’t care and neither did I. I simply got rid of a load or two and he collected them eagerly. I got to the point that I charged him per load. When he didn’t have enough money for my second or third load, I left him wanting.
I knew that as soon as he found the money, the phone booth would ring again. I knew he struggled scrapping together the funds because sometime he paid me in coins and that was sometimes a little short of twenty dollars. My point being, this was a mutual financial agreement between two parties. Furthermore, I knew that if we got caught, Joe would be the guilty one and I would be considered an eleven year who had been manipulated by an adult pervert.
I sometimes wonder what happened to Joe and what happened to my so called innocence. I do not leave the responsibility of innocence lost to my experiences with Joe. It would have been Joe or the next “Joe” I found to explore my sexuality with.
Loren’s comments: “K. D.’s” story will be upsetting to many, and by reporting his story, I am certainly not advocating for lowering the age of consent to eleven years old. The question here is not whether this situation was right or wrong. A physically mature boy of age eleven, even in the dangers of surviving in the ghetto, is certainly not emotionally mature. No court would recognize as valid, any “contract” made by an eleven year old boy.
But chronological age is only one measure of maturity. Physical age is another, and emotional maturity is still another. As “K. D.” points out, cultural circumstances may demand that a child function at a level of maturity far beyong the chronological, physical or emotional age.
One of the questions raised by his story, however, is: Would K. D.’s story be judged differently if it were a heterosexual relationship rather than a homosexual one?
Here is something I’ve written for Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story:
Discussions of “age of consent” enrage some people beyond the point at which any sensible discourse can occur. People disagree passionately and vehemently about at what age a boy has the emotional maturity to give consent for any sexual activity, but particularly if it is sex with another boy.
Shouldn’t the age of consent be the same for homosexuals and heterosexuals? In Great Britain, it was not until 1996 that it was alleged that the different ages of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals breached human rights.
When do the brain’s emotional networks become mature enough for sexual expression? Variations in development mean that the age of consent cannot be defined simply by a number representing age.
Developing gay sexuality must be considered in the context of all adolescent sexuality. According to the Kinsey Institute website, 25% of all teens have had sexual intercourse for the first time by the age of fifteen years. By the time adolescents reach the age of nineteen years, 69% have had sexual intercourse. [These numbers may be much different in an urban ghetto or other sub-population groups.]
Gay or straight, sexuality emerges between the ages of fourteen and nineteen. But, in fact, most adolescents receive little advice on how to understand and explore their actualizing sexuality making them more vulnerable to those who would exploit them
Triple Jeopardy Redux: Gay, Black and Ghetto (Part I)
How do you protect children, yet understand that in some rare instances, some children can accept responsibility and not be harmed by a sexual experience? K. D. Alston addresses this question in his essay based on growing up in the Baltimore ghetto.
Triple Jeopardy Re-dux: Gay, Black and Ghetto (Part I)
by K. D. Alson
Laws have been put into place to preserve the innocence of children.
I was not a typical eleven year old, emotionally or physically. At age eleven, I was already 5 feet 10 inches and around 150 pounds. Physically I was mature and fully functional sexually. The fact is that I had already been playing with my cock and knew how to pleasure myself to completion.
Living in an urban environment, I was exposed to many things sexual. The neighborhood I grew up in had many obstacles for children to overcome. Besides having a pervasive drug problem, Baltimore has an equally pervasive issue with violent crime. Dangerous situations are common place. Exposure to those issues forces children to mature quicker than most.
My upbringing allowed me to see many things. This included my teenage friends playing “Hide and Go Get It.” This is a version of “Hide and Go Seek” that involved the boys finding the girls hiding spots and being rewarded with a kiss and grope session. All of the boys knew which girls to chase.
My first time “getting it” was with the neighborhood slut, I will call “Falecia.” She was not the most attractive girl but was popular because she had a reputation for not running fast nor hiding very well.
(Photo of Gabourey Sidibe in the movie, “Precious.”)
Falecia usually picked a spot in the alley under the fire escape ladder in a dark corner. All the boys knew to check that spot first to see if their efforts would be rewarded.
I watched my friend, “Kenny,” follow Falecia into that dark corner. Once they both made it into the recesses of the alley I knew what was going to happen. Kenny pinned Falecia against the wall and violently rubbed his crotch against hers. The humid Baltimore summer’s eve provided a sweat lubricant.
I watched as Kenny pulled out his cock and he penetrated Falecia in one continuous motion. There was no kissing, no words, and just pure lustful contact. He took her with speed and anger and left her to be found by some other lucky boy. I ran. The whole thing lasted less than five minutes.
I was turned on by Kenny, but I was too afraid that I might be pushed to be next with Felecia. My lust over the sight was no match for the fear of having to match the performance I had just watched. My desire was at the sight of a hard cock, one other than my own.
That night confirmed who I am sexually. Not even the sight of a willing female deterred my open lust over a hard cock. I already knew I liked men. My first sexual thoughts were of men. That moment in the alley simply confirmed what I knew all along.
A need for believing in something provokes for some an interest in spiritual healing and religious followings.
I use the term “provoke” to insure an understanding of how organized religion has become both a healing mechanism for some and a source of pain for others. It was the latter in my case.
The church has systematically and ritually excluded homosexuals from being included in their so called blessings and having the ability for their souls to be saved. The only acceptance is if you repent and renounce who you are at the behest of a flawed figure head and his flawed organization.
If my refusal to give in to this nonsense insures my place in Hell — according to their church bylaws — then so be it. My Savior knows my heart. No man or institution can shake that belief.
Loren’s comment: From Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight (a Psychiatrist’s Own Story):
When you are raised to become an adult in a hostile world, concerns about survival dominate your life and feelings of social injustice and impotence consuming you. Acceptance of homosexuality is low in communities of color and lower socio-economic groups where pressures to “be a man” can be enormous. Being gay connotes weakness.
In these communities, even men who have sex with men but pass for heterosexual, express negative feelings toward other men who are effeminate. For men of color, being gay presents the need to accept a dually-stigmatizing identity.
Older men of color are in triple jeopardy because they are in three marginalized social categories: men who have sex with men, ethnic minority status, and senior age.
Triple Jeopardy: Gay, Black and Middle Age (Part III)
Triple Jeopardy: Gay, Black and Middle Age (Part III)
By “Jessub”
There is a black guy I work with who is from the Newark, New Jersey, ghetto. He does not have an education that can empower him, but at an early age he discovered that sex can make him feel powerful.
He is sort of nice looking, and he has designed a beautiful body for himself. He told me he had intercourse with a woman at age nine. He didn’t ejaculate, but he went through the motions. His body and sex – and probably the myth of Mandingo — work for him. When I was nine I was still wearing Mickey Mouse ears.
The Black bourgeoisie never spoke about sex, perhaps because Blacks are stereotyped as over-sexed or pre-occupied with sex. Homosexuality was never discussed. I was never told anything about sex. Nothing!
During all of the 1960s, sex was never an issue for me; I was still a virgin and hiding from the awful secret that I am gay. I didn’t have heroes; there were no posters of rock, sports or movie stars. All of that came later. Doctors, lawyers and teachers were professions I aspired to because those people were real to me.
My father and I spent more time estranged from each other than time interacting as father and son. I’ll always remember when my parents drove me up to enroll in boarding school. As our car bumped across the driveway into the school parking lot, my father turned to me and asked, “Do you know anything about ‘queers?’” He knew very little about me or my opinions, and he certainly knew little about me sexually.
I did write to him when I was away at boarding school telling him how frightened I was that I thought I might be homosexual. He wrote back saying it was disgusting, and he told me never to mention it again. I wrote him because I wanted to be closer, to establish a friendship. I wanted him to rescue me by telling me it was okay and that it was only a phase. It didn’t happen.
When you were Black and in boarding school you either had a single room or they put you with another Black kid. An African American friend of mine and I laugh about that because it was a real issue. She wanted to room with a friend who was white. When I requested a white roommate, I was called into the Assistant Head Master’s office and told to re-think my request. Do you know, the school wrote both families to get the approval for such” radical” actions?
I never engaged myself with gay Black men. I think I avoided them. It was my denial or running away. I didn’t want anyone in my community to know or confirm my sexuality, so I hid in the white gay community.
Bayard Rustin
Dr. King was far ahead of his time. His philosophy was to bring everyone to the table of humanity. While I’m not a real big fan of Jesse Jackson, he included gay people in his convention speeches. That is really commendable. I’m certain he had a delegation of black Baptist ministers waiting for him after he made those speeches.
There were also times when interacting with other Black men who came from different backgrounds was a challenge. There were accusations and resentments on both sides. Now that I matured and learned the value of all people, I have lost that attitude. But I have to admit, I no longer apologize for my background or experience.
Most of my really active gay life was spent in Europe and San Francisco in the 1970s and mostly with white men. I was never promiscuous so even during the disco days — daze — I had a limited number of experiences with men. I wasn’t comfortable with having meaningless sex with men I met in bars. I had little time to develop relationships. I really was more of a spectator in those days. I never did drugs, and I was only a moderate drinker.
Since by nature and upbringing, I’m somewhat reserved, it has taken some time to meet other Black men who have come from backgrounds similar to mine. There are not many but they are there. They share the same frustrations as I do.
I’ve never had a relationship and that’s probably attributable to my status as a spectator. Of course I really regret it now as I’m older than what is considered desirable in the gay world. The chance of having a partner seems to be fading. I think if I had been stronger and sought other Black men from the same background I might have at least had one meaningful relationship. Maybe not…
Baby boomers — my generation — are coming of age. I think we see more acknowledgement of aging in the gay community than before. There are more men’s groups emerging in communities around the country. These groups focus much more on social interaction than a bar scene allows or is designed for. These groups encourage older men, less attractive men, and men who want more than a sexual hook up.
I think it is a slowly emerging movement, but an inevitable one, as the Gay community is allowed to grow and mature more openly and with dignity.
Loren’s Comment: Jessub, I thank you very much for sharing this story.
I think many of us who’ve come out later in life have just deferred our adolescence. Perhaps we really only discover our authentic sexuality in mid-life and can only then can begin to explore the possibilities of a mature relationship with another man.
Triple Jeopardy: Gay, Black and Middle Age (Part II)
Have you ever wondered why all the largest rubber penises in a sex shop are black but you rarely find Black men in those shops? “Jessub” suggests in Part II of his essay that it might be a consequence of the “Mandingo complex.”
Triple Jeopardy: Gay, Black and Middle Age (Part II)
By “Jessub”
I’ve known that there was something there different about my sexuality since very early on — I think most of us do – like feeling alarmed when anything “sissy” came up…I started looking at men when I was very young, maybe eight or nine years old. Later I dated girls and wasted lots of time.
My Mother was absolutely beautiful, stunningly beautiful, but like many women of her generation, she just put up with sex, as did her sister. After my parents divorced, my mother and I became very close, she lived to be 95 and we never spoke of my being gay. She wanted me to be married. She even met she of the girls I dated but I’m certain she knew that I am gay.
Vanessa Williams
What is interesting to me is how many gay men are willing to embrace the very sensibilities about looks and youth that women have been trying to avoid. The saving grace, nonetheless, is that all of us will age, that is, if we live long enough.
I don’t necessarily blame gay men for public displays or being promiscuous because as a group homosexuals have been forced to live secretly. I believe that tension from the secrecy manifests itself in many ways, some desirable, some not so admirable. I know first hand as an African-American that I often have been discouraged by how our popular culture and media driven society has used images of African American men, those men whose presence is more dramatic and attractive but who only represent a small segment of the African American community.
Maybe the black gay male is not the only gay male who is frustrated, but my experience has been that all of the black gay men I’ve encountered are very frustrated with the myth about black sexual prowess, the “Mandingo complex.” They are also frustrated by having to compete with the white male as the standard of beauty. All of this relates to the objectification of a person, doesn’t it? It is what women have been objecting to for decades.
[The Mandingo Complex is the myth that emerged out of the Atlantic slave trade. During slavery, the legend regarding the West African Mandingo tribes was that their men were statuesque bucks, virile, potent, and desired by the wives of slave owners. A “Mandingo” slave commanded larger prices a the selling blocks. Thus the name Mandingo became associated with outstanding strength and intense sexual prowess and stamina.]
It is all a part of the forbidden fantasy white men and women have about tall, very black, very muscular Black men. I also feel that women have a hate love relationship with the penis which can pull them closer to this Mandingo guy as much as they may find him socially unacceptable.
I remember being with a white guy from Indiana who told me he found me exotic. I replied, “What is so exotic about me? I’m American as a hot dog. People are always intrigued with differences, aren’t they?
I, too, find this sort of black man more appealing than I did years ago. I think it is because now my political sensibilities embrace the beauty of Blackness.
I don’t fit into the Mandingo image. I had my own problems..I was overweight as a kid so I matured sexually slower than my peers. In my junior year in boarding school, I lost loads of weight, and after the weight loss experienced lots of attention I wasn’t ready for. The first attention I received was from white girls. But even after losing a lot of weight, I was still the fat kid inside, with all of the reservations fat kids have in spite of how I looked.
I never really understood how people might have thought I was nice looking. Sometimes girls would be complimentary, but I was always suspicious that they were making fun of me. This insecure feeling started to lessen by the time I was fully engaged with men. Dealing with social myths or misconceptions is one thing, but having to put up with sexual myths or misconceptions is enough to send one back into the closet.
When I went to bars while living in San Francisco during the crazy 1970s, I can’t tell you the number of men who gleefully came up to me to ask, “Is your cock 12 inches long when it’s soft?” Eventually I cut that part of gay life out of my own life. I wasn’t promiscuous or especially friendly.
I did have some memorable chats with people. Once at Studio 54 there was this most beautiful French black couple. She was dressed in a simple, black velvet gown with minimal diamonds, and her beautiful husband , was in a Tux. When they came up to one of the small bars and ordered their martinis, they asked the bartender if he could shake it. This very handsome bartender shook his butt. They were so taken aback that we all started to laugh and we talked for the rest of the evening.
Making myself available is still hard for me to do. Going on SilverDaddies.com was a real challenge for me.
Just recently I wrote a message to a younger Black guy on SilverDaddies, in an attempt to calm him down.from his ranting. He was obviously hurt, anxious and angry. Being an older man I tried to comfort him by saying he was looking for substance and intellect on a web site that never promised either. He was grateful for my concern. One of my friends, the middle aged son of a black doctor, said, “If you’re not into ‘thug’ Black gay man, you are accused of being a snow Queen.”
Contrary to rumors and fantasies all black men are not twelve inches long — soft — some are, some aren’t. I played at sports in boarding school because my father demanded it and believe me, some of those rich white boys were huge, too. Back to perceptions again, right?
Loren’s Comments: In exploring the Mandingo Complex, I found this on “Colorfultimes.com:”
The reason many black men do not frequent, or do not admit to frequenting, Soho’s brightest and best sex shops has little to do with a deeply harboured respect for women. Nor is it to do with strict morals drummed into their heads by an older generation. The real reason is less noble and goes much deeper than one would expect. The simple fact is that sex shops sell sexual aids. And a sexual aid is the last thing that a black man needs if he is suffering from the latter stages of the Mandingo Complex.
To read the rest of this article on the “Mandingo complex,” click here.
Here is another interesting link about how African American men combat the stereotype: Black Men Quietly Combating Stereotypes
Triple Jeopardy: Gay, Black and Middle Age (Part I)
An Older Black Man Says, “It’s OK to be gay.”
by “Jessub”
I received the following correspondence from “Jesseb,” who prefers to remain anonymous. This is the first of a three part series. “Jesseb” is a middle age black man, who said, “I don’t talk about being gay with my heterosexual friends. I’m certain they know. I really don’t need their OK to be gay.”
Jessub wrote: It is always interesting and gratifying to come up against intelligent commentary about homosexuality and more importantly, the life experiences of gay men in general.
The focus in American culture is on youth, and primarily of white youth, but again this is America. We couldn’t expect more from the gay community since it is just an off-shoot of our society, could we? I think the global village is increasingly hard to ignore.
I’m always dissatisfied with American popular culture. Perhaps it’s because I’m getting long in the tooth. People relate to me through the images of black men as depicted in popular culture: “Do you like hip- hop or rap?” I usually respond with, “I’m too old to hip or hop.” That usually sends them off.
To begin with, I walk a very fine line. I am from an old, black, bourgeois background and part of a group within the black community that the majority of white Americans have little or no knowledge of. I am third generation college educated and second generation boarding school educated man.
There is so much controversy in the African-American community when it comes to homosexuality. The explanations are complex.
Of course, there’s the controversy over black male sexuality. It is wrapped in myths, fantasy and misinformation. But African-Americans have always cared about the institution of family, even if it is not discussed in the main stream media.
I remember in the opening scene of “The God Father,” there is a comment about Blacks not caring about their families. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Just after the Civil War, there were scores of ads in the few Black newspapers in this country that were placed by lost families members seeking one another. These labors are comparable to the efforts of Jewish Holocaust survivors who also sought to reunite with surviving family members. A different time, a different holocaust.
During Reconstruction (the period after the Civil War, when economy and social structures were rebuilt) some of the African-Americans elected to public office used their offices and resources to help those looking for family members as well. The efforts these families made are evidence of how the family was — and still is — cherished by African Americans.
Perhaps homosexuality is viewed as still another threat the Black family has to contend with. I once had college professor friend who taught in a historically black college maintain that there was no homosexuality in Africa.
I think that’s the issue — still another threat — especially on the Black male. It was well known and well practiced during slavery that the alpha male slave was disciplined especially hard. Sometimes they were even killed to prevent them from organizing others. This is as an example of what strength in an African-American male could bring you if you used it for anything other than labor or reproduction.
This could very well be the explanation for the Down-Low scenario.
It seems most men of color come up against this question: Am I somehow letting down my ethnic group by being gay and not assuming the role of head of family? Latinos struggle with the same issue.
Both groups have had to live marginally on the economic and social outer rims of American society.
Yet there are younger black males who dismiss or won’t tolerate down low. We’ll see….
Loren’s Comment:
From Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story:
When you are raised to become an adult in a hostile world, concerns about survival dominate your life and feelings of social injustice and impotence consuming you. Acceptance of homosexuality is low in communities of color and lower socio-economic groups where pressures to “be a man” can be enormous. Being gay connotes weakness. In these communities, even men who have sex with men but pass for heterosexual, express negative feelings toward other men who are effeminate. For men of color, being gay presents the need to accept a dually-stigmatizing identity. Older men of color are in triple jeopardy because they are in three marginalized social categories: men who have sex with men, ethnic minority status, and senior age.
The remainder of Jesseb’s comments will be posted next week. Please come back and read the rest of his story.
An HIV Positive Muslim Says “Salamu-alaikum”
A Muslim addresses being HIV positive on the web site “The Body.” Link below.
My screen name is Ibrahim, since I can’t use my real name; I promise you that after reading a few of my blogs, you will understand why I use a different name. I am a 35-year-old student and a professional who lives in New York City. By sharing my “thousand and one nights of Poz” story, I am hoping to give you an idea about what it means to be HIV positive from that part of the world, and to give a voice to the missing Poz tribe of the Middle East’s Arabs and Muslims!
To read the rest of his essay, click here
Muslims are gay, too, and they need support. Read more here.
“Michael, You’re Running from Something” (Part IV)
Everyone has a story: This is the final of a four part series written by “Michael Odom,” one of the readers of this blog. If you would like to have your story on this blog, please send it to me.
“Mike, You’re running from something.” Part IV
By “Michael Odom
At first I was not going to tell my kids I am gay, but “Fred said, “You have to tell them.”
I responded, “You are from the Midwest, a very liberal area. My kids were brought up conservative in the Baptist church.”
Then Fred said, “They would rather hear it from you than find out from someone else.”
For six months I lived at home and we pretended everything was OK. Then the day came to tell my kids. Fred had told me that whatever they did or said I was not to react, because although I had known all my life that I was gay, that is not the person they had known. Telling me not to react proved to be great advice.
Michael and Fred
I called a family meeting. My son stood up as the words left my mouth and said, “It’s because I smoke marijuana.”
The conservative Baptist in me came out of me first. I said, “You smoke marijuana!” Then I heard Fred’s voice telling me not to react. That was a very tough day in my life. Both kids stood by me and said they loved me. Everyone was crying. I packed my clothes and moved out.
I had leased a condo in Dallas. It was like this ten ton weight had been lifted from my shoulders. But at the same time I was still very scared. About two months later Fred asked me to move to Austin to be with him. I knew that I loved him and also knew he loved me.
It was an easy move because we had a corporate office in Dallas but also had one in Austin as the owner lived there. Soon after I arrived in Austin the owner of the company kept trying to get me to go to his Baptist church and I kept finding an excuse not to.
My wife and I had decided that until my daughter got out of high school we would not tell anyone. High school kids can be jerks.
The owner of the company also kept asking who Fred was. I told him at the time I was renting a room from him because I was paying for a four thousand square foot house in Dallas that my wife and kids were living in. I left all the furniture with my ex because I did not want the kids coming in and seeing dad’s chair moved out or something else that would cause them pain.
The owner ran into a lesbian on a marketing trip in Austin and she told him she had seen me at church. He said, “What church?” She told him MCC. He told her he had kept trying to get me to go to church with them.
He asked, “What is MCC?”
She said, “You know, the gay church.”
The next morning I was called into his office. He told me I had done more for his company than anyone including himself. He said I had gotten more production out of people than he ever did. But he knew what I was and he could not have “one of my kind” as his President.
I repeated what he had said. I asked him, “Out of three hundred employees, do you think I am the only gay person?”
He said, “You are the only gay “president of the company.”
I was given two weeks pay, and told to pick up my things. At that time I had two kids in college. I was completely devastated. I had never been fired and had worked my way up the ladder very successfully. I knew how to manage people and I was very organized. My only mistake was that I had hidden in my job.
Fred was my rock. He stood by me. Fred was a retired middle school principal, and he said, “You love working with kids. Why don’t you teach?” I got my teaching credentials, and now I teach Special Ed math in high school. I love teaching and being with the kids. I also have a side insurance claims business.
Teaching school allows us to travel in the summers. We love to camp and hike. The winter breaks we travel to Madison, Wisconsin, to see Fred’s mother. Sometimes we go to Montreal and Toronto at Christmas.
When I turned fifty, about 5 years ago, my daughter, Elizabeth, said she would drive over from Texas A&M to meet Fred. She came for a day, and as she was leaving, she hugged Fred and said, “That is my dad and you had better take care of him!”
I was shocked. She later called and said that it was not bad at all. And I said, “Why, did you think it was going to be bad?”.
She said “I thought you would be sitting on the couch holding hands.”
We both laughed when I said, “Emily, did your mom and I sit on the couch holding hands?” Since that time, she has stayed in our home. Last summer I flew her and her boyfriend to Montana to meet us for camping and hiking. Sometimes I think she is closer to Fred. Ha!
My son has taken longer to come around. He was an athlete in high school and I am sure he was embarrassed to have a gay dad. Two years ago he said he wanted to talk to me. He had met Fred prior to this meeting. He told me he finally had accepted my being gay. He also said he really liked Fred. Since then he has been in our home and things are just great.
Fred and I have been together eight years. Fred says we will be together forever. We are very much in love. He has taught me how to think for myself and not let any church group, or anyone else for that matter, tell me how to think. We are different in a lot of ways. I love football. He hates it. He is an intellectual. I am just a country boy from north Louisiana. But we compliment each other and love wins out.
Fear is an emotion that captures people and keeps them living lies. I understand fear. It is the “what if’s” and “what will people say?” I have had the people that I admired the most turn their back on me. They said, “As long as I live in sin, they will not have anything to do with me.”
They have judged me with hate, intolerance and ignorance. What I say to them is, “If you do not want to have a relationship with me and my partner that saddens me. You have lost what might have been.” I tell them I am praying God will give them an accepting heart as I know the God I serve has accepted me and my partner into his kingdom. Jesus was all about acceptance. He is the only person that can judge me.
I have met some wonderful people and I live freely now. I do not tell the kids I teach. I work in the school district Fred retired from, and they all know. For the most part, everyone I work with is fine with it. We kid about it sometimes. Life is so much fun when you can be yourself.
I do not plan on going back in the closet.
Loren’s comment: Thanks, Michael, for sharing this story, and Fred, for being a part of it.
From Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story:
For many gay fathers, the biggest barrier to coming out is telling their children. Gay fathers know that they are “different;” they also know that their being different will define their kids as “different.”
Fathers worry about how their homosexuality will impact their children’s relationships with other kids. All parents want to buffer their kids against the pain inflicted upon their kids by teasing, accusations and rejection.
Guilt stabs gay fathers when their kids hear, “Your dad’s a faggot.” I worried that my being gay would frighten off my daughters’ boy friends when they said to them, “There’s something important I need to tell you about my Dad.”
If you would like to have your story on this blog, please send it to me. If you don’t think you could write it, just tell me the story, and I’ll write it with you.
“Michael, You’re Running from Something” (Part III)
Everyone has a story: This is the third in a four part series written by “Michael Odom,” one of the readers of this blog. If you would like to have your story on this blog, please send it to me.
“Mike, You’re Running from Something.”
By “Michael Odom
Ten days after I had told my wife I was gay, I had a business trip planned to Houston. The hotel where I was staying was L shaped and I had parked in the back next to the back door of the hotel.
I left my phone in the car to charge up so I could call my wife again to see how she was doing. At about 10:30 pm I went out to the car to get my phone. I had to climb into the Tahoe to retrieve my phone as it had fallen down on the floor board on the passenger’s side.
As I was sitting up I heard a car stop right behind me. My immediate thought was it was someone coming back from a business dinner to drop someone off. I then felt a hand grab my shirt. My door was already open. When the person grabbed my shirt I immediately looked at him and he punched me in the face. My glasses went flying as he was pulling me out of the car.
Immediately two other men started to spin me around and pat me down while two more were punching me. A fifth man was standing holding a gun on me. When the men realized all I had on me was my phone they kicked my legs out from under me and pulled my arms behind me.
I was crying and bleeding. I was so filled with adrenalin I didn’t feel the pain from the punches right then. They say your life passes before you in these kinds of situations. All I could think about was, I was going to die and my wife would have to live with the fact that the whole time we were married I was gay.
I kept thinking, “Why did I tell her?” I immediately felt so much guilt. Than I thought about my kids. They did not know yet but it was heart breaking to me that eventually they would find out and I would not be around to explain. I felt so much guilt.
The more I thought the more I cried. I told the men I would take them into the hotel room and give them anything they wanted. My laptop, diamond ring….anything!
About that time, two men drove up and saw what was happening. They began running towards me. The driver of the assailant’s car yelled at the muggers to get in the car. On the way back to their get away car, the guy with the gun stopped, turned and pointed it at me. Then the driver yelled again and he jumped in the car.
All I could do for about three days was walk around crying and thinking, “I wish I had never told my wife.” Again, it was my fear talking and doing my thinking. I went down to pick the men out of a photo line up. The police knew who one of the guys was because he had made some calls on my phone. It had been dark and I was scared. So I was unable to pick anyone out of the line up.
That night still haunts me. I do not go into a parking lot without scanning it to see if anyone is sitting in their cars. To this day when Fred and I go to the grocery store and he says he will run in I simply stop the car and we both go in. I do not sit in cars anymore in parking lots.
However, looking at that incident is still scary. But since that time I have never regretted coming out. I regretted having those fears of “why I told my wife.” But those are natural given the amount of time this happened after telling her.
I have never felt that regret about my wife except at the time the mugging took place. I would not have want to go back in the closet.
Loren’s Comment: Here is what I wrote about fear in Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story:
Our brains are hard-wired for several different emotional systems, each with its own anatomical location: Fear, attachment, maternal nurturance, anger, anticipation, play and sex. As our brains mature, these centers progressively interconnect in ways that are unique to each individual.
The “amygdala” is the brain’s emotional control center. The amygdala allows us to respond quickly to danger; through the experience of fear, we appraise a situation and choose a protective response.
The amygdala assigns emotional significance to events and modifies how experiential memories are recorded in another part of the brain called the “hippocampus.”
Although some emotion enhances detail in our memories, when emotions run too high, the amount of detail recorded in the memory of the hippocampus may be reduced. Memories stored in the hippocampus modify our thinking whenever we encounter an emotional situation.
The brain functions through this networks of multiple, integrated centers, and these networks change dramatically through our learning. These changes result in significant refinements in the way we function physically and emotionally.
In a young child, not all connections are yet formed. During adolescence a person over time gradually shifts from characteristically child-like emotional reactions to greater self-regulation, social awareness, and emotional control.
Later on, the amygdala relinquishes control over emotions to the pre-frontal cortex of the brain which develops later. The onset of hormone production in remote parts of the body of the adolescent complicates all of this even more, as anyone who has been around a teenager knows.