Everyone has a story: This is the first in a three 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.

“Michael, You’re Running from Something.”
By “Michael Odom”

I grew up in a small town in north Louisiana. My first fifteen years were in a small town of less than five thousand people. My dad was a mechanical engineer and worked for the paper mill. He was also an alcoholic.

At the age of six – I am now 55 – I began to realize I was a little different than all my friends. You know how Sears use to send their big old catalog in the mail? We would get it and my friends would be looking at the ladies in their bras and underwear, but I was drawn to the guys in their underwear.

That is when the physical abuse from my dad started. He, of course, had no idea of my attraction to men. He would get drunk and either slap me around or use his fist and back me into a corner.

I was the middle of three boys. My oldest brother was my mother’s child but not my dad’s. My younger brother was two years younger than me. As an adult, the only thing I could figure was that my mother would not let my dad hit the older boy because he was not his, and he could not hit the younger because he was the baby. So I became the target.

The physical abuse lasted until I was a junior in high school when he hit me for the last time. I stood up and told him I hated him and that I was moving out the night I graduated from high school. He never hit me again.

I grew to hate my mother because she allowed it. I suppose she was just glad he was not hitting her. He had done so earlier and she picked up a butcher knife and threatened to kill him.

I don’t want anyone thinking the physical abuse made me gay. I was attracted to men before that started. It might have added to my preference in men but it certainly did not make me gay.

My desire for men grew and grew. In the late 60′s the Sean Connery movies would be over for me when he put his shirt on. It was true.

In high school I had my first homosexual experience. It was with my high school head football coach – no pun intended. I was 15 and had had to have knee surgery after I was injured in a game. I was re-habbing in order to play the next year.

I was in the stadium locker room after working out with the trainer. I was going to take a shower. As far as I knew the only one in there was the head coach and me.

I entered the shower and I could not take my eyes off of the coach. He was of stocky build, what I considered old – about 45, very hairy, balding, clean shaven but with a heavy beard. I know he caught me staring at his uncut cock. I guess I had never seen anything like it before.

I immediately got a raging hard on and was very embarrassed. To my amazement he came over and got on his knees and gave me my first blowjob. I know I wanted it as much as he did. After it was over I got the usual “don’t tell anyone” speech. He began taking me to hotels and taught me how to make love to a man.

Not long after that my dad was transferred and we moved to a bigger city in north Louisiana. I got involved in the Baptist church because they had a basketball gym. I would go there after school so I would not have to go home immediately and face whatever my dad had to give out.

Getting involved in the gym got me involved in the youth program where I became sort of like president of the youth program. I also got involved in a gospel quartet that traveled a five or six state area. We stayed together for 10 years. I became very involved in the church. I kept my word and moved out the night I graduated from high school.

There was a man and his wife in the church program that became like a dad and mom to me. Whatever they wanted I would have done for them. They have since turned their back on me.

I met my wife in college. I was twenty when we became engaged. That summer before we were going to be married in November, I dropped my soon-to-be-bride off at the dorm and on my way home stopped at a traffic light. There was a silver haired man in a brand new Cadillac stopped beside me.

Our eyes met and we followed each other for a while. We then stopped and I ended up going to his hotel room for the night. That went on for two weeks. The last night we were together he asked me to come live with him. He told me that he would take care of me. He was a self made millionaire.

I told him that I appreciated the offer but I was not the type to be taken care of. Besides, I had made a commitment and there were a lot of people that would be disappointed in me if I did not go through with it. I couldn’t face the shame of moving to Mobile, Alabama to live with a man.

Loren’s comment: Michael’s story of his sexual relationship with his coach brings up the issue of what many social conservatives refer to as “pederasty,” or a sexual relationship between an adolescent boy and an adult man. It absolutely drives them crazy!

They consider it to be a part of what they refer to as “the gay agenda,” an attempt by gay men to recruit young boys into homosexuality. (Most gay men don’t even know what the word “pederasty” means.)

Many adolescent boys have had experiences similar to Michael’s. It does bring up the issue of at what age a boy is able to given consent for a sexual relationship. This issue is quite complex because chronological age is only one measure of a person’s age. Some boys are far more mature and capable of concent at age fifteen than others.

Most would agree that a sexual relationship that results from coercion of an imbalance in power is wrong. But many men, like Michael, have told me that they did not feel coerced or abused. Other young men need to be protected from men who might prey upon vulnerable young boys and adolescents.

It is of note that heterosexual adolescents are also becoming sexually active during there teen years.

From my book, Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story:

Shouldn’t the age of consent be the same for homosexuals and heterosexuals? But is it? In 2000, the “Sexual Offenses Bill” became law in the United Kingdom, equalizing the age of consent of heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Prior to the reign of Queen Victoria, gay sex was punishable by death.
In the 1967 homosexuality was legalized for those of age 21. Homosexual consent was subsequently lowered to age 18 under Tony Blair’s administration.

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.

Part II of Michael’s story will continue in a few days.

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.