Terra incognita; too much information

Poets probably do it best. For the rest of us, giving substance to feeling and emotion is like naming a sunbeam streaming through clouds: hard to pin down. Only poetry comes anywhere close to describing and defining human passion.

Before I can call it my own, I need to figure out what it is. Did I know it before? Or am I only realizing it now in a new and different frame of reference? It is different: Now love and passion carry no social preconceptions and assumptions, no constructs, stereotypes, restrictions, proscriptions or expectations. My friend suggests I am “experiencing passion of a type hitherto unknown…unfettered by any external restraints for perhaps the first time in [my] life. It is something new and exciting, and yet it comes…late in life.”

I wondered if this would happen. Do gay men seek frequent anonymous encounters to perhaps someday find love? Well, as far as I can tell, not entirely. They do it because it feels good. Some probably want that special love, others not so much, and many want both.

So I wondered if there was a special guy out there, and what would happen if we met. There is, and what happened rocked my world. I’m too damn old to be mooning like a school girl…and yet moon I do. I’ve given myself over to it: love fueled by significant passion.

It’s no wonder I get the two confused. Does love require sexual passion? Certainly sexual passion does not require love. Yet sexual passion is vastly different, more intense and meaningful when motivated by love. So they’re the same yet different? They’re complimentary. Is it a chicken and an egg thing? Is it all semantics?

I do wonder how the hell it happened. I believe my lover and I are sexually compatible on a fundamental personality level. I previously never could conceptualize or articulate that although masculine, I am sexually submissive to sexual domination. My man is very sexually dominant, which suits me just fine. That deeply personal relationship is the first fundamental of my passion. And that passion is ironically the foundation for what is turning into…love. Oh, dear…

“Did I lie about what would happen to you?” asked my lover.

“Not at all,” I answered. “How did you know me so well so early?”

“I knew you would cave in to any real man who strongly seduced you and could back it up with powerful sex.”

That’s too much information, right? Outside the box from the get-go, gay men are forthright about sex.

Yeah, but “love?” Isn’t that a leap? Apparently not. Although I recognize the symptoms, I am blind-sided, gobsmacked. I am no longer practiced at the logistics and mechanics of love. It’s been a long time since I felt myself “in love,” a situation in which I thought never to find myself again. It’s been longer still since I tried to write about it. Yet I love and I am in love. Jeez…

So love and passion are inextricably interwoven. They appear in different ratios. Casual sexual encounters are high in passion but low on actual love. Love enhances passion, which can occur in varying degrees and probably changes over time. In my case, passion came first and drew me in like coming home, like something I’d wanted my whole life but didn’t know how to articulate.

It’s different this time around because it is real. It has nothing to do with whatever expectations I experienced with women. This time I can tell my feeling arises from deep in who I am. I am homosexual and for the first time in my life, I am in love with a man. Passion and love.

And none of this is apparently affected by age or the wisdom commonly attributed to it. Love and passion are as exciting and imponderable as they have been my whole life. I guess that’s why poets are the only ones good at talking about it.

Smoke signals

Two years in a slam-bam-thankyou- m’am world is a long absence…water under the bridge and all that. Yet every drop of that water hosts a significant flavor of time passing and life lived.

I began this journal in 2009 when I learned I was “in” the closet and damned well should be “out.” Previously, I didn’t know I was “in” and so felt no need to be out. When my hetero marriage ended with, “I’m a Sunday School teacher and can’t be married to a gay man…” Damn, she was right! My own epiphany flashed on me, and I came heels-over-head, tumbling out of the closet.

I stopped chronicling my progress with several justifications. At some level, my ongoing voyage of discovery became too personal, self-indulgent, and often simply too much information of a sexual nature. There exists a thin line between chronicle and flat-out porn.

I also rationalized that “out” is an ongoing and daily process…mundane and banal. It’s just life, after all, and nothing special to anyone perhaps, but me. I figured now that I’m out I don’t need to keep processing. I would just enjoy life, live in the moment and explore a world that weighs less on my shoulders than the old one.

Enjoy I did…and am and will, and it only gets better. The last two un-blogged years have enriched my life, which is by no means to say all questions are resolved and all choices simple. It’s an ongoing deal, and the substance of living. It is not only a gay man that questions and examines life; it is every man…or it should be.  

I had not visited Out in thin air for over two years. When I reached the site and tried to sign in, it was registered to an email I haven’t used in over a year. I had forgotten my password and it took several hours of mind-numbing online finagling to be able to post a new entry. Then, of course, I had to go write that new entry to see if it all worked. That is the crux move.

Now I pace back and forth and ponder why I thought to resuscitate the blog. What the hell will I say? What is my motivation for attempting again to write about me and gay, myself as homosexual? I can only assume that porn is so much easier.

I think my motivation lies in an accumulation of experience, and having met several remarkable, inspiring and thoroughly desirable men. That is how I accumulate experience. I continue to discover a multitude of wonderful experiences on the path to discovering those which are most memorable.

Distilling that experience into something worth writing is the goal. Success and sustainability will be in the doing, observation the watchword. Maybe the thin air is getting to me. Maybe I’m just blowing smoke.

Mr. Right

In my small town, there are perhaps a half-dozen out gay men. Gay is here, but it is low profile, way under the radar. Splashy as it might have been at the time, I’m not sure if my own disclosure caused much ripple in the fabric of community gay awareness. I’m too close to it to know, and probably not.

Ours is a limited field and shallow pool, and as such, Mr. Right probably doesn’t live here. That is probably a good thing since small town relationships—homo or hetero—can be…uh, challenging. I make that case only from my own experience.

This begs the question, then: Where the hell does Mr. Right live? I know he is out there because he is all over the internet like a ghost in the machine. There must be foundation in fact. Some men believe in this guy more fervently than others; I’m withholding judgment.

In Raymond M. Berger’s Gay and Gray, one respondent explains, “Everyone has a set of rules or mental images that determines who will be considered a potential sexual partner. We carry a sort of mental map in our heads, complete with an inventory of physical and personal characteristics. When we encounter others, we compare them to our map. If the fit is close enough, they are judged acceptable.”

If Mr. Right exists, so as well must his opposite, generously labeled “not my type.” This is a nice way of expressing absence of sexual attraction. It is okay to not be sexually attracted to someone, but be gentle. Reciprocally, I realize not everyone can be attracted to me.

“Since there are so few of us,” I asked my friend, “how come none of us gets together for sex? I mean, you and I are pretty good friends, yet we never once entertained the idea of enjoying sex together.” Some call it flirting.

He laughed, “It gets complicated in a small town,” he said. “Everyone is on his own path...and it’s just that you are not my type.” That was pretty gentle. I’d heard the same thing before from another man interested exclusively in young guys. Older, I’m not his type either.

I considered all this just so much bullshit until I found the “type” thing in my own predilections. I was surprised because I used to think I was attracted to a different type than I am now. Inexperienced, I am beginning to understand: certain types of men appeal to me more than other types of men.

Modern homosexual social expression comes in myriad stereo-“types.” One prevalent among straight folks is that of young and meticulously groomed, ripped and buffed, hard-body gym rats. That ain’t me; never has been, never will be. Nor do I seek those attributes in other men.

Although my type is not so Apollonian, I am by no means exclusionary. It is important to be tolerant and flexible. As Berger’s respondent says, “Our mental maps may change; our standards may be modified because of recent events, the way we feel at a particular moment, or a particular quality of the other person.”

In general, like seeks like and type seeks type. But up here at the head of the draw, too much discernment substantially narrows an already limited field. We all seek friendship and compatibility; more is better, I know what I like, bring it on.

Telltales

It’s kind of like gaydar for dummies. Telltales are for those gay men who don’t send or receive gay radar or telepathy. A telltale or “tell” is a sign, signal or symbol indicating something secret or hidden. From the closet, a telltale is secret advertising. But used purposely, a tell signals, for example, that I am gay as hell and if you are too, let’s talk.

Gay telltales are myriad. I remember back in the day, gay men wore various colored handkerchiefs in various pockets to signal orientation, proclivities and preferences of their wearers. Earrings pierced various ears to convey gayness, top, bottom or whatever. It all seemed a little over the top; I don’t use handkerchiefs and I don’t have pierced ears.

Tattoos have a distinctive place in gay iconography. There are as many representations and symbols as there are gay men to suck up the ink. I got a tattoo thirty-five years ago, but it didn’t have anything to do with sexual orientation or preference for any particular act, scene or fetish. In fact, I chose the tattoo specifically because it was and still is innocuous. It symbolizes nothing and is telltale only that for some reason I felt compelled to get a tattoo. I still like my tattoo—thankfully—even though it has lost its color and the outline isn’t as clear as it once was.

Behavior and demeanor are tells, but now free of the damned closet, my mannerisms are the same as they’ve always been. I don’t walk with mincing step or drop my wrist. I still dress just as casually—albeit meticulously—because I am no clothes horse or slave to fashion. Fashion sense and prissy mannerisms are tells.

Nor do I festoon my truck with rainbow bumper stickers, mostly because I’m afraid vandals would vent their homophobic angst on my vehicle. While I doubt I could decorate my condo exterior with rainbow flags and windsocks, I might get away with rainbow-colored Tibetan prayer flags. That is more a reflection of the place I live than a comment on community attitudes about homosexuality.

My gay telltales involve accessories. Back there in the closet, I didn’t wear as much bling. For some reason I figured it was simpler and in good taste not to. Like my same-sex attraction, it was somehow easier out of mind.

Now, however, I accessorize in my own particular and personal way. Having realized early my penchant for turquoise and silver, I have always worn jewelry. But now I am comfortable wearing more jewelry than I used to. I figure that’s okay because I like it and I am gay so I have an excuse. Jewelry is personal…for me.

I also wear a rainbow-colored friendship bracelet, purposely, as a telltale. And glory be: it actually works. Tells are obvious to anyone in the know who cares enough to look, and the wide-eyed, jaw-dropping double-take from the handsome bank teller is worth the price of admission. That recognition tells the whole story.

Gaydar

No question: I want gaydar. If it were a gadget or device, I would run right out and buy one. I’m an early adopter.

Cell phone applications can tell me if another gay man is within hailing distance and social networking helps us find each other and meet if online chemistry catalyzes face-to-face. But I’m after something more instantaneous, impulsive, and intuitive, a mechanism that generates a little brain-ping when activated. I want side-looking, front-scanning, heat-seeking gaydar…especially the heat-seeking part.

I knew right away I wanted to develop this second sense, the intuitive insight that is gaydar. I want to be able to tell instantly if a man shares my orientation. Gaydar is a learned skill—at least for me—and I have to recalibrate and fine-tune my perception to make it work.

I know gaydar exists because I have on one or two occasions, experienced it. The few times my gaydar pinged were surprises, but I knew immediately what it was. I marveled that it really works. Perhaps that is part of the learning curve: open to it, exercise a little faith and let it happen.

The first blooming of my nascent ability took place while sitting in a restaurant with a couple of friends. I was struck speechless when a man—regular guy—walked in and I knew he was gay. We held eye contact a split second longer and passed mutual acknowledgment between us. He knew I was gay and he knew I knew he was gay. It was subtle; my friends didn’t notice anything, but all during dinner my mind was on what had happened. It was exhilarating. So gay.

According to Wordspy.com, gaydar is “an intuitive sense that enables someone to identify whether another person is gay.” Urbandictionary.com defines gaydar as “the ability to tell when someone near you is homosexual, even if they have given no obvious indications of being so. This is an ability usually possessed by homosexuals [which] allows you to ‘feel’ when there is gayness nearby.”

A New York Magazine article (http://nymag.com/news/features/33520/) reports more scholarly attempts: Northwestern University psychologist J. Michael Bailey posits that sexual orientation is not something we acquire through social experience, but instead is something we’re born with. As a function of sexual orientation, gaydar is innate and genetic and will leave a trail of telltale biological indicators revealed by gender mapping.

Gender Mapping?! And then they tattoo the results into your barcode. Suddenly it’s political. If gender mapping identifies gay biological indicators, could they not be used to more sinister purpose? Furthermore, what happened to all that spontaneity? Better to keep gaydar at a low-key and personal level, and stay away from black helicopters.

So lacking a gaydar device, I will hone my emerging skills and rely on simple intuition. I will remain vigilant, always on the watch, tuned to that wayward glance and momentary eye contact, a certain way of catching his eye. Perhaps it is a skill as simple as really looking at a person instead of giving only a passing glance. That’s a valuable social skill in its own right.

Although the odds are admittedly slim, I know damned well there are like-minded souls out there. Turn up the volume.

Is you is or is you ain’t?

I understand why gay men often dismiss bisexual as either transitional, or gay without knowing or admitting it. But I remember at puberty learning the word “bisexual,” and knowing right away that it applied to me. It had the cachet of broadening the field, and undoubtedly rationalized my attraction to men by equal attraction to women. Whatever: it was mine.

Now, all these years later, it occurs to me that when I first discovered and immediately accepted my same sex attraction as bisexual, I could as easily have seen it as I see it now: homosexual. I must have wondered if my enjoyment with other boys made me homosexual, yet I was attracted to girls too. I couldn’t be homosexual, could I?

In the awakening of puberty, it was easy to exercise my attraction to both sexes. I was attracted to women; all boys lusted after chicks. Nor, after my bisexual epiphany, did I ever feel terribly shameful having sex with other boys. I remember feeling an occasional and displaced sense of guilt, but no long-lived shame. I did, however, generally keep my same-sex experiences discreet (denial?), which was easy because I was chasing after girls. I could never have been gay because unless I was fooling myself—who knows?—I enjoyed honest desire for women. Bisexuality served me well.

But forty years ago it was easier to be bisexual than homosexual. Back then I wouldn’t have been “gay,” but would have been branded queer or fairy. Dirty. The 1960s was not a good time for homosexual men, but in the “free love” atmosphere of social revolution, bisexual was as acceptable as long hair. At least that’s the way I perceived it.

Bisexual was a way for me to keep it all inside the box, but now there is no need for the box we nowadays call a closet. That this realization only surfaced now that I am out of the closet and after the better part of a lifetime of failed heterosexual relationships is best evidence of its veracity. Now I can look back and say: no wonder I was unable to sustain marriage or intimate relationships with women: I’m gay.

With the acumen of retrospect, I can re-affirm that my sexuality and orientation evolved and changed more than once. I do wonder whether my self-identified bisexuality was simply transitional or somehow prefatory to coming out gay, but I don’t think so.

By the same token, it is not surprising that I now gravitate toward and feel desire exclusively for my own gender. I’m old enough and confident that I won’t again be seeking another heterosexual relationship. I am secure and comfortable in my homosexuality. Things change over time, and time has surely changed things over.

Stereotypes

“Wow, you really keep the place neat,” commented my friend while visiting my condo. “And you have a way of arranging everything so it fits and looks nice.”

“Well, you know us gay guys,” I joked. “We’re hell on wheels when it comes to interior decorating.”

My friend lives on the edge of homophobia, and consistently jokes about queer guys. He exploits stereotypes about gay people, typical fodder for homophobes, and it throws him for a loop when a friend comes out and explodes the stereotype. I came out to him because we’re good enough friends I figured he could take the truth.

He asked why I hadn’t told him before, and I explained I thought he was too homophobic to understand. “Aw, I just kid about that,” he responded. I tried to explain how jokes about gay guys can be injurious to those stuck in the closet and afraid to come out. Making jokes using stereotypes is discrimination.

No question: some gay men exhibit stereotypical gay behavior; there is ample exposition. Wikipedia explains that the “heterocentric” mainstream stereotypes gay men as effeminate, speaking “with a lisp and/or a female-like tone and lilt.”

Alan Taylor provides more scholarly data in Homosexuality and Social Sex Roles (Haworth Press, Inc., 1983). He reports 72% of sample respondents stereotype homosexuals as sexually abnormal, 52% consider us perverted, 42% find us mentally ill and 29% consider us effeminate. Smaller percentages feel that we are lonely, insecure, immoral, repulsive, frustrated, weak-minded, lacking self-control, over-sexed, dangerous and sinful. And that pretty well wraps up male homosexual stereotypes.

A stereotype is an oversimplified, standardized and generalized perception or image of a person or group. Stereotypes ignore individual differences and are often simply not true. They tend to lump people into pigeonholes and categories that are not appropriate. Stereotypes reinforce prejudice.

Many gay men don’t fit stereotypes and sometimes wish the more flamboyant among us didn’t reinforce gay stereotypes in the heterocentric mainstream. Gay performer Adam Lambert, for example, earned the ire of one friend of mine who “absolutely hates” Lambert because he is so gay-in-your-face. Conversely, others feel Lambert serves the gay community by habituating the public to visible gay men in their midst.

For my part, I don’t feel like I fit gay stereotypes. That is probably the result of having been in the bisexual closet for so many years. When I came out of the closet I didn’t suddenly start lisping, acting swishy or hitting on my straight friends.

I must admit though, that after hanging out with a bunch of gay men for a couple of days, I noticed a change in my behavior. In the company of gay men, I became more openly gay, allowing myself to respond more candidly to other men. I flirted and enjoyed touching and caressing. I let myself feel more homosexual and loved it.

The wake-up call came when I transited back into mainstream society. I spontaneously hugged a friend I met on the street—he was gobsmacked—and flirted with a couple of boys in the grocery store checkout line. Katie, bar the door!

Drag show

I live in a place where an entire team of heterosexual men cross-dresses for its softball games. Men in dresses consistently win awards and throng our many town parades. My guess is, not one of these cross-dressers is gay or even particularly kinky, although who knows what goes on between their sheets?

I have observed little kids when first they see a man dressed as a woman. It is so far outside their experience, such a non-sequitur in the lexicon of their perception, that they stare unabashedly, unable to take their eyes off the fashion statement. They just don’t get it.

Transvestites or cross-dresser men are not necessarily gay; they simply like to wear women’s clothes. Cross-dressers are not minimalist players. In my experience, their breasts are too big, they wear entirely too much makeup, and they all have too much “big” hair. Maybe all that is the badge of entry; maybe it’s part of the fun of cross-dressing. I don’t know.

I have never experienced any great compulsion toward cross-dressing, if for no other reason than because I look like hell in women’s clothing. I don’t have a body that looks attractive in tight-fitting anything. I have no hourglass waist, no bosom, no flaring hips and my legs are not those of an attractive woman. I can’t imagine wearing high heels; I have injured my ankle falling off cowboy boots.

Furthermore, I have seen a lot of transvestites who simply didn’t cut the mustard in their wannabe garb. I have only seen one or two men dressed in drag that I thought made for an attractive woman; one of those looked damned good. Maybe I’ve just been looking in the wrong places…which begs the question: Which are the right places?

The right place to see men in drag—no surprise—is a drag show. I witnessed my first drag show a couple of months ago in Dallas, where we happened into a restaurant called Hung Dinger’s. At a show like this, there is no doubt that performers are, or once were, gay men. No simple cross-dressers and no pretense: They were gay.

Hung Dinger’s features a good Italian feed followed by a floor show with female impersonators, transvestites, transsexuals…whatever. I never did fully determine the sexual disposition of the performers; I think several were in transition between genders.

Regardless, although I didn’t deem my first drag show highly erotic, I fully enjoyed myself. The women were titillating and sexy, they flirted effectively enough to wrangle paper money from my pocket, and they had their act down. Most of the time, I couldn’t even tell they were lip-synching. That is, until they lowered the microphone enough to say, “Thank you, sweetie,” while the music voice-over continued unabated.

The show was good enough at Hung Dinger’s that it made me wonder how good a really high production drag show must be. In either case, high-rent or low, I do wonder something else: Why do gay men pay money to watch other gay men dress up as women? Entertainment value? Rite of passage? Good clean fun. Ah, that must be it.

The other woman, er…man

Maybe it’s the age thing instead of the fidelity thing. More likely, the fidelity thing is pervasive across the age continuum. When young, we play the field and tickle the ivories of promiscuity. As we age, we find a partner and settle into a single committed relationship. Young or old, homo or hetero, committed relationships usually imply and demand fidelity.

My own attempts at fidelity have been dismal failures. As a mature man who has danced both sides of the sexual orientation fence, it is safe for me to assert that fidelity is not part of the way I am put together. With apologies to everyone whom I have failed, I admit that fidelity goes against my nature. Therefore, a committed relationship is probably—never say never—beyond my ken.

Here’s the age thing: No matter what our sexual orientation and for whatever reasons, in the fullness of maturity we seek the security and comfort of a long-term committed relationship. We want to be “married” to one person who will succor us through better and worse. It’s time to settle in for the duration.

This makes social and sexual life difficult for newly-single mature gay men, fresh out of the closet and the security of heterosexual marriages. Young and single men aren’t interested in the old dude, who may himself desire young men, but who probably relates better to men his own age.

There are more and more men in this situation; life isn’t necessarily easy after the closet door slams shut behind us. Having changed the program, we must begin anew, seeking friends of like mind and sexual partners with whom we are compatible. The field is limited, and many of us are long out of practice or completely unfamiliar with the new social milieu.

For my part, I am not entirely out of practice and I thoroughly enjoy my new social milieu…rarified as it is. I am attracted to men around my age who share a life experience and lifetime agenda that years past demonstrate. No surprise: many of those guys are married.

Here’s the fidelity part: Married men—homo or hetero—are involved in one of those long-term committed relationships…with someone else. Having myself so recently been down the long and painful road of infidelity and divorce, I tell myself not to help put other men on that path.

This is lots easier said than done. While still in a heterosexual marriage, I interacted with married men; it seemed safer that way and less damning. Mutual guilt is somehow less guilt. I still share those relationships, although I now try to maintain them as friendships so sex doesn’t jeopardize a marriage.

Gay relationships and a few heterosexual relationships are sometimes more open. A wife, for example, may demonstrate love and understanding for her gay spouse and consent to his homosexual perambulations…as long as he’s careful. Gay relationships are sometimes non-monogamous enough to sustain one partner enjoying sex outside the primary relationship.

The upshot? Be kind, be careful, what goes around comes around. It’s complicated, but who would expect it otherwise?

Sexual dynamic

“How come guys are so weird?” asked my friend. “You’re a guy and you used to go with women. Why do guys always act so weird around women?”

Women confide in gay men because we are non-threatening. They open up to us because they know they can tell us stuff in candor. While I will never use such confidences to my own inter-personal advantage, the information is consummately interesting because it provides insight into about fifty-percent of humanity.

“Men are weird with women because men think what they say and how they act will be misinterpreted,” I answered.

Men often don’t understand women; women often don’t understand men. Hence: Men talk to women so they can sleep with them--women sleep with men so they can talk to them. Billy Crystal said: "Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place." Caveat: Any insight I proffer about heterosexual matters is suspect. It didn’t work for me--track record--not for lack of trying, but because I am homosexual. Duh.

Men fear they will appear needy or too forward. While their greatest desire might be to jump into the sack with their date, they are loathe to demonstrate their desire for fear of rejection. Women, by contrast, want to experience a connection, to be wooed for who they are and not as sexual objects.

In my limited experience, I believe the dynamic is different between gay men. I read somewhere in fiction, “Men like us just happen to like other men like us, to like the way a man kisses, or the feel of him in our hands…” It is straightforward. Two men attracted to one another don’t necessarily have to indulge some kind of mating dance; they understand each other from the get-go.

For example, I am a very sexual person and very forward. When I am with a guy I want to pleasure, I simply ask if he will let me. Generally, he understands my impulse and is grateful for no innuendo and no pretense. My cards are on the table. The man understands “forward” and is often turned on by it. If the man doesn’t want me messin’ with him, he merely declines my offer. I don’t feel rejected and we can proceed with being friends…or whatever.

Can anyone imagine such a dynamic between a man and woman?

Light in the heart of darkness

Dallas? Like in Dallas, Texas? That’s the place where a misbegotten soul assassinated one American president, and where another president—misbegotten himself—finds refuge in the heart of darkness.

Yet deep in the heart of Dallas there is a neighborhood called Oaklawn, which shines a bright light in the midst of an otherwise bible-belt, mega-church congregation. Maybe I’m being too harsh; to be honest, I did not wander far or sample amenities such a large and diverse community must have to offer.

Oaklawn is an active and mature gay enclave. I recently visited the Oaklawn “gayborhood” with a group of men I joined when my marriage went south because I am gay. Men in our group have lots in common: being gay and having travelled similar paths. To me, the gay part is special; being part—even temporarily—of a larger gay community is liberating and enabling.

As I define my out of the closet path, I experience a gestalt so much more fulfilling than quickie, hook-up sex I sought when in the closet. I enjoy walking down the street holding hands or sharing a kiss in public. I can enjoy being with a bunch of gay men or my boyfriend. I can be with another man with whom I feel an attachment, with whom I am bonded, and I don’t have to hide it.

Among a community of gay men, no one stares, no one makes rude comments and everyone understands. Like-minded souls embrace my feelings and my passions. These are rewards for coming out of the closet and living an honest and authentic life. This is practically unique in my experience, because no matter how far out of the closet I travel, I cannot experience that freedom at home where I live.

That is absolutely not to say I would move from my home here at the head of the draw to an urban neighborhood where I could more openly celebrate my sexuality. In all this coming-out-sexuality talk, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that sexuality is only one part—albeit sometimes all-consuming—of the whole that is me. I ski…and I am gay. I frequent rarified ridges…and I do so as a gay man. I annoy my horses, and they don’t give a damn one way or another whether I am gay or not…but of course, I am.

Back home now, far from the heart of darkness, I am in another enclave. My place is by no means gay, but instead is a recreation archipelago that celebrates mountains and nature, clean air and water, solitude, prospect and refuge. I have left my gay community behind for the time being, and no question: I miss it. But I am happy in my chosen place. I am content as a gay man because no matter where I go, there I am.

Glass slipper

Having labored so long under the cruel stepsisters of heterosexual relationships, my prince finally fitted me with a glass slipper of love and companionship. My transformation involves an epiphany of truly life-changing proportions. Although I expected my coming out would change things, I wasn’t entirely prepared for the depth of feeling I am experiencing.

He told me I would begin to experience feelings, recognize nuances and notice differences in the way I perceive other men and the way they perceive me. My feelings have transitioned from yearning for clandestine, transitory and often somewhat insalubrious experience, to deeper sexual understanding created by friendship and companionship. Although there remains certain appeal, I no longer seek strictly one-night stands, quickies and hook-ups. I have discovered more complex and satisfying feelings, and find myself quite taken with them.

Ah, nuance: tricky stuff. We un-reconstructed hippies call it a vibe. As an out, gay man I find myself more keenly attuned to different vibes. Certainly there is the question, when I meet an acquaintance on the street, of whether or not they know I am gay. Sometimes that vibe is easy to discern. If I sense, for example, a tentativeness or outright stand-offishness, I know they know and either don’t approve or don’t understand how to deal with it. I find myself highly sensitive to homophobia. In other people I sense approval and happiness for me. Yet others simply don’t want to know about my sexuality—too much information—a penchant I completely understand.

Finally, there are differences in the way I perceive other men and they way they perceive me. Some call this “gaydar.” In the microcosm of my small community, I find all too few blips on the gaydar screen. Even so, I celebrate my growing awareness of other men, but am careful, knowing most of them don’t share my predilections. It is my hope that as my gaydar becomes more sensitive, I can more easily distinguish those who are comfortable with me and my gayness.

I am on a new and exciting learning curve, surrounded by fresh feelings and harbingers of a wonderful new way of being me. Yes, I am still the old me, but now there is so much more. Born again like Cinderella on the half-shell, the glass slipper fits really well. However, I will have to fit it with waffle-stomper soles in order to negotiate the rocks and ice.

Enthusiasm of inexperience

I haven’t been there as much as I’d like to have been, and I haven’t done that, at least not enough to call myself comprehensively experienced. More than one forever-gay friend has told me my enthusiasm would easily outstrip my experience and they were correct. I was forewarned…but I haven’t let that slow me down.

Instead, I’m like that kid in a candy store where I want to sample every sweet-tasting candy stick in those tall glass jars behind the counter. The clerk warns me all that candy will damage my teeth and even wiser counsel suggests I will spoil my dinner. I don’t give a tinker’s damn about dinner in the short run; there is no question that I am a total slut for immediate gratification. I almost always fill up on appetizers…or candy, as the case may be.

I approach my quest for experience with an enthusiasm seldom even remembered by those who long ago allowed wonder and novelty to fade. My newfound sexual liberation and empowerment manifest as freedom to meet and enjoy the company of men on a level I never previously imagined…and I’m diggin’ it. Does this make me overly promiscuous? Well, perhaps not overly; maybe just a little bit.

Promiscuity carries with it numerical requirements better realized in a bigger pond. Thus, my enthusiasm is constrained by geography, which I believe is keeping me out of trouble. Given my inexperience and apparently boundless enthusiasm, I undoubtedly would land myself in less than savory circumstances. Regardless, I’m always looking for ways to increase my travel budget because the best candy stores are some distance away.

If all these metaphors are confusing, I’ll try to be clear. Compared to many, I am a relatively inexperienced, newly out, gay man. Yet my enthusiasm is that of an adolescent. In seeking to broaden my experience, if I didn’t live at the head of the draw I would be considerably more sexually active.

As it is, I travel to meet male friends. Therefore, I have plenty of windshield time to ponder and fantasize my actions, and my carbon footprint sucks. But I am one enthusiastic lover after the rubber leaves the road and the engine is ticking as it cools. There I go with the metaphors again.

Thousand-pound gorilla-Part I

Monogamy, my failure to sustain it, has caused me nothing but trouble throughout my life...think track record. I have attempted heterosexual monogamy since puberty and failed miserably. That is very possibly because I was attempting heterosexual anything. My failure caused pain for both my erstwhile partners and for me. Self-imposed pain is mine to deal with, but I cannot so easily dismiss pain I caused others…think bad karma.

Entering the seventh decade of my life, my impulse is to eschew monogamy altogether. That impulse flies in the face of conventional wisdom which dictates that as we age, we must have a partner to take care of us. I am luckier than most in that I believe I have a safety net. They say it takes a village to nurture a child; I hope it also takes a village to nurture an old dude.

That said, I must identify characteristics of a relationship that I do want. Internet hook-up sites abound with relationship descriptions and acronyms: no strings attached (NSA), long-term relationship (LTR), closed-loop relationships (CLR) for married men, fuck-buddies, friends with benefits and the rest. Since monogamy doesn’t blow my skirt up, which of these suits me?

Furthermore, since I started writing this, events outpaced me. That is to say, I started about monogamy--or not--but before I finished writing, I expanded my understanding of what gay relationships can be. Now I must apply new considerations; with new understanding, should I, would I, could I be monogamous?

I think down the road, maybe so. But admittedly monogamy is not who I am right now, nor is it consistent with my progression out of the closet. It would be self-defeating to jump into monogamy before I learn more about who I am as a gay man.

Conversely, being a gay boyfriend with someone whom I care about could be the most fulfilling relationship a gay man could experience. I would be foolish to deny the wonderful potential such a relationship represents. It would depend on a lot of stuff I don't as yet understand.

I have no doubt that things will proceed apace, but I know the thousand-pound gorilla won’t long remain, sitting out there in the middle of the room.

Go figure

Given my enthusiastic progression from bisexual to homosexual and the ever-insistent nature of my sexuality, I shouldn’t be surprised at my single-minded pursuit of life and lifestyle. Given no choice in being gay, I am not immune to unbidden eagerness in suiting action to genetics. Katie, bar the door.

At some level, coming out of the closet is its own motivation. I was surprised at one point, that in order to legitimately claim my homosexuality I felt I had to indulge my same-sex attraction as often and as expansively as possible. In other words, if I am to say I am gay, I damned well better get out there and do gay.

That in itself is a challenge and demonstrates a frustration with which I have long been familiar. Partners with the same enthusiasm don’t exactly flock to my door. In that light, I continually feel over-sexed. My father told me that when I reached this age, rampant sexuality would fade. But he was wrong. I am one of those people who always think about sex, and continue to enjoy it with substantial physical passion.

The more I act out, the more I want to act out. Such gusto is forgivable, unless of course, I carry it to extremes. Intellectually, I recognize extreme as a slippery slope. In every other respect, especially carnal, I like sliding down hills. My sexual appetites are strong and, uh…eclectic. Given my penchant for what feels good, moderation is a challenge.

I tried to explain this to my friend Joe: the more I get the more I want. He laughed and told me I would mellow out. Damn, I thought, I don’t want to mellow out. I spent 20 years in a closet trying to be mellow. What I have learned in my accumulation of years, is that time flies. I want to get it on.

Being and acting…out

There is a big difference between being gay and acting gay. In Coming Out: An Act of Love by Rob Eichberg, one correspondent said, “I can choose to act gay, I cannot choose to be gay.”

Being gay is something we come to terms with in our own heads. Most gay men know of their same sex attraction early in life. They acknowledge they are gay, and recognize they will be gay during their lifetimes. The first step in coming out as gay involves admitting one’s homosexuality to one’s own self. This step was easier for me because I recognized myself as bisexual and loved it. Homosexual was a refinement that has increased and decreased over time.

Acting gay—acting out—isn’t necessarily about assuming effeminate mannerisms and speech, or dressing and otherwise carrying on flamboyantly. Acting gay is the act of enjoying sex with other men, the proof in the pudding. It is the physical, intellectual and perhaps spiritual attraction. It is the actual carnal act of enjoying sexual relations with another man.

Acting gay is a choice. As many gay men do, we can suppress our urge to act gay and stay in the closet. Even admitting to ourselves and others that we are gay, for whatever reasons, we may choose not to indulge our same-sex attraction. Alternatively, we can make the choice to act on our attractions, to seek and enjoy sex with men.

For me, acting gay was obvious, exciting and by no means difficult. At first, during my second coming out, I felt guilty about having sex with another man. Then I said to myself, “It’s okay; this is what gay men do. I am gay so I can accept and enjoy this pleasure.”

The dichotomy between being and acting is perhaps more poignant to a married man coming out to his wife. For example, after anguish and soul-searching, he can finally admit his orientation to his wife. The wife can accept that her husband is gay as long as he remains faithful and doesn’t act on his inclinations. He can be gay, but he can’t act gay. Depending on the individuals, the nature of their relationship, and boundaries and logistics they define, this can be tortuous or liberating.

One friend advised me on coming out, that once the door was cracked open I would come out with…uh, enthusiasm. That advice has proven correct in being and acting, out and sometimes loud. Actions speak.

A matter of scale

Lots of folks, both homo and hetero, believe bisexual doesn’t exist. Homosexuals believe bisexuality is a phase on the path to realization and enlightenment as homosexual. Heterosexuals believe same sex attraction at any level is homosexual. If a man maintains a relationship with a woman while experiencing—resisting or enjoying—attraction to his own gender, he is deeply in the closet, hiding his orientation behind her skirts.

Bisexuality therefore, is bête noir to both camps, claimed by neither, accepted by none. Yet bisexuality seems a more natural manifestation of human sexuality than either exclusive extreme. It opens the field, doubling the number of prospective partners and greatly expanding potential pleasure.

Two sex researchers recognize a sexual continuum with heterosexuality at one end and homosexuality on the other. Alfred Kinsey wrote, “Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories…The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.”

The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid developed subsequently by Fritz Klein takes into account that many people change their orientation over time. He believed the concept of sexual orientation is an ongoing dynamic process, an experience to which I can thoroughly attest.

My most recent evolution from bisexual to gay might be seen to support the gay idea that bisexuality is a transitory phase. Instead, I hold with Dr. Klein that my process changes over time. Although I never have been and never will be exclusively heterosexual, I know damned well bisexual is as much a part of me as homosexual. My dreams tell me so.

Just as I was getting ready to post this, I found a great documentary on bisexuality. The entire movie is over an hour long, but worth a look if you have the time: http://www.logoonline.com/video/bi-the-way/1616890/playlist.jhtml.

First time out

By the time I was eighteen, I was easily aware of my attraction to both genders. My same sex attraction never bothered me because I never self-identified as homosexual. My attraction to girls—my bisexuality—somehow eliminated guilt and discomfort I might have felt about being attracted to boys. I was so comfortable in my bisexual skin.

At any rate, I spent my teen years enjoying more male sexual contact than female because I was not very successful at attracting and dating girls. Furthermore, I attended an all-boys school where contact with girls was limited. Other boys undoubtedly developed strategies for attracting girls; I developed a game plan of sorts for initiating encounters with other boys. At that level, I liked boys more, but at the time I’d have enjoyed more heterosexual encounters.

Before I was eighteen, I had already experienced “adolescent” contact with several different boys, but recognized that I would have to lose my virginity to a girl. Naturally, this prospect excited me, and in my sixteenth year I pursued my goal with single-minded enthusiasm. Now attending a small co-educational boarding school, I established a relationship with a female student, and eventually consummated the act.

I remember my first heterosexual “lovemaking” as unpracticed and hurried fumbling in the dark. It was probably little different from anyone else’s first-time adolescent fumbling. The deal, however, was done, and I wore my new status with pride among my peers.

No question: I liked the sex and wanted more. The short story is that my girlfriend and I continued our trysts until we got caught and expelled from school. I finished high school at a public school where I enjoyed the cachet of mystery and rumor that surrounded me. The irony is that I got in more heterosexual trouble throughout my early life than I ever did homosexual trouble.

At eighteen I entered college at a time when the Vietnam War was sucking up young American men like a bellicose vacuum. A couple of years later I succumbed to a lifestyle that had little to do with academia and lots to do with skiing and partying. I dropped out of college which put me directly in the crosshairs of conscription and a potentially one way ticket to Vietnam.

I avoided the draft by being gay, which was my first trip out of the closet. I told my father, equivocating that I wasn’t really homosexual, and that I was only claiming the orientation to avoid the army. Still, I said the words out loud; the army psychiatrist believed me and wrote HOMOSEXUAL large across my paperwork. And I wasn’t even ashamed as I walked to the door past the drill sergeants and the poor saps headed for basic training and Vietnam.

I suppose it’s also ironic that calling myself homosexual led to my first overt and complete sexual congress with another man. I was always bisexual, never exclusively heterosexual, but now utterly and absolutely homosexual. It’s been a long, strange and I think unique trip. I wouldn’t change a bit of it.

Gay pride

I reconnoitered. I like knowing the ground before I enter a situation, especially one involving thousands of people. Denver’s PrideFest 2009 anticipated attendance by upwards of a hundred thousand people at Civic Center Park. Before I become part of a crowd like that, I want to know where stuff is located before it gets difficult to find.

I attended PrideFest on advice from my friend Brian, who recommended it as an essential component of my coming out. At first I didn’t understand why gay pride is so important, and thought it enough just to say I was gay. Now I enjoy greater understanding; enjoy is the active word. Being gay means helping other gay people come out of the closet, to accept themselves and expand that acceptance to family, friends and community.

My first impression on walking into Civic Center Park was of homeless people inhabiting whatever shady and comfortable places they could find. They contrasted sharply with more well-heeled vendors and gawkers like me. My thought was that homeless people don’t have the luxury of celebrating their sexuality; they’d be happy celebrating something to eat.

When I returned to the park the following morning, homeless folks were not in evidence. They were replaced by a full throng of gay and gay-friendly people browsing booths now stocked with all manner of services and merchandise. There were petitions to sign, causes to join, message tables, animal care and adoption offerings, psychic prognosticators, music and hundreds of mostly yummy food booths. Gay pride was paramount; diversity was the name of the day.

But the most striking thing to me was that here there weren’t—didn’t need to be—any closets. Everyone, from gawkers and tourists to vendors and practitioners, were either gay or gay-friendly. They assumed I was gay or that I accepted gay as viable identification and lifestyle. Freedom and authenticity were liberating. I could be who I am and meet with not just acceptance, but approval. I wandered among my tribe.

Although I had fun almost beyond description, my experience of “outness” and continuity taught me being homosexual is my personal orientation. Being gay, however, brought me together with a community of like-minded people. It was inclusive, enclosing and accepting; it was all okay, it was all good.

We gays have come a long way in terms of public acceptance of homosexuality. A hundred thousand gay people and allies walking openly and blatantly through Denver streets, demonstrates that times have changed. Yes, as a community of gay souls we still have much to do. We may not have it all, but as community we have it all together. Boy did it feel wonderful.

Round and round...

I am saddened on this day. While much of my process creates a liberated lightness of being, today my baggage is going round and round on my carousel. Last week my former wife and my daughter left our home for a new life in California. I received my final divorce papers in the mail a day after they left.

While there is relief at closure, I also can't help going round and round with the pain and trouble caused by my being closeted and obviously not handling any of that well. I never married to hide my gayness because at the time I was enjoying life hetero. The homo part crept out, however, and although I didn't know it, I must have been unhappy. Can you really be unhappy if you don't know you're unhappy? Denial and hindsight.

So now I will climb back on the horse of my own life and process. This will undoubtedly be a good thing once the baggage spins off the carousel, especially since I figure there are only about twenty years left to enjoy honesty, liberation, freedom, and pleasure.

I cannot deny today's melancholy though, because that would short-circuit my process. I will indulge it for as short a while as I can manage. I'll get over it.