…taken before a walk in the woods later that day which will either be denied for the rest of their lives or be included as part of their wedding album.
The More You Know
Comic Relief
Some Things Are Too Difficult To Explain
Feel a sudden urge to go somewhere?
Yup!
Stories – The College Years (Part 3)
Previously on Battlestar Galactica…
So THIS Is What It's All About: Ric Hathaway
Ric was another Louie's regular, although I don't remember him ever showing up at a GSA meeting. A couple years older (I believe he was 20 or maybe 21 when we met), I was enraptured. On yet another Friday afternoon at the table plans were being made for the evening. Ric turned to me and asked what my plans were. "Just going back to the dorm and watching some television," I said.
"Posh! Come out with us!"
And by out, he meant Jekyll's, which billed itself as Tucson's newest and gayest disco,
"I dunno," I said. "I'm not much of a going-out kind of person."
"Well, if you change your mind, here's my address," he said, handing me a slip of paper. Tina's driving and we're leaving around 9. If you want to come with us, be there and we'll all go together."
I walked back to the dorm, butterflies dancing in my stomach. On one hand I was being honest when I'd said I wasn't much for going out; on the other hand, I desperately wanted to get to know Ric better and yes—I wanted to see what gay life was really like.
The butterflies didn't dissipate, even when, several hours later I was walking down 4th Street (or maybe it was 5th Street—I honestly don't remember) to the house he and Tina shared. I knocked on the door and Ric answered, giving me a big hug as I walked in. "Welcome! I'm so glad you decided to go with us. This will be fun tonight!"
I seem to remember one more person joining us—it was probably Don Hines—before we headed out. We all piled in Tina's big yellow sedan and drove to Oracle & Drachman, where Jekyll's was located.
At this point, some 42 years later, memories of that evening are little more than a blur, but some things do stand out. I remember paying a three dollar cover charge to get in, but I also remember I was not carded. (At the time legal drinking age in Arizona was 19, and I was still 18.) In fact, I was never carded, except at Maggie's in Phoenix years later—and then only because the bouncer wanted to know my name. (But that is a story for a future installment.)
Looking back, I'm sure Jeckyll's would be judged a dive by anyone's standards then and now, but for me it was absolute magic. I'd never been to a disco before, and here I was in a gay disco. There were men dancing with men, women dancing with women, and lots of people of—as we politely say today—people of indeterminate gender being their own fierce selves.
A wraparound bar greeted you as you walked in. To the right there was a sunken wooden dance floor and DJ booth. To the left was an elevated area with booths and tables.
And the music…I'd never been exposed to music like that before and I was entranced. It was here I first heard Giorgio Moroder's From Here to Eternity, Themla Houston's Don't Leave Me This Way and Cerrone's Love in C-Minor to name just a few. Disco wasn't something that had been on my musical radar at all, but it became something that I love to this very day.
Not apologizing.
We stayed until the bar closed that night, and afterward walked down the street to grab an early breakfast at Denny's. It seemed to be the place to go after the club shut down. Drag queens mingled with leathermen, and we were in the middle of it all. When we were finished eating, Tina and Ric drove me back to my dorm room, my head absolutely spinning.
I don't remember exactly what happened after that first night out together, but at some point Ric showed up at my door and didn't leave for a week thereafter. If my encounter with John had left me scratching my head, wondering what all the hoopla was about gay sex, Ric showed me. OMG…Ric took me places I didn't know existed and left me begging for more.
Ah, youth.
An obvious romance was brewing—at least in my eyes. We spent nights wrapped in each other's arms, sleeping on blankets in front of the fireplace at this house when we weren't at my dorm. When he'd left his beat-up army surplus jacket in my room one day, I brought it with me to Louie's that afternoon to return it and he said, "You like it? Keep it."
I wore it like a second skin.
But then something happened, and I was left wondering what precipitated it, other than what I now know to be the uncontrollable hormones of young gay men. Ric stopped coming around. We weren't doing anything together any more. He'd become very hard to get hold of, and when I did he was distant. And then the answer arrived. I was told by someone at the table that he'd been seeing some other boy; someone who was not from GSA or the table. I was crushed. When we finally connected, there were tears. At the time I just didn't understand. I thought we were something special…
Within weeks after the breakup, I became very ill. My tonsils and under-jaw glands swelled up. I went to Student Health and was diagnosed with mono. (I'd gone all through high school without coming down with the scourge, for obvious reasons, so it came as no surprise it finally hit when it did.)
I'd let my folks know what was going on and they expressed parental concern. I assured them I was in good hands with Student Health and basically spent an entire week in bed, missing every class. (Yeah, I felt that bad.) Shortly after my recovery, I received a very strange missive from my dad. It was an article about upper respiratory gonorrhea that had been clipped from the Phoenix gay paper. On the bottom he'd written in big block letters, "Don't give him anything but love."
Now keep in mind this was months before I finally came out to the family, and this left me confused as hell. How did he know? Where and how did he get this article?
The student mailboxes were adjacent to Louie's, so I didn't actually open the mail or read it until I was already sitting at the table. I guess my jaw must've dropped to the floor because they asked what was going on. "I just got this from my dad," I said, passing it around the table.
They all agreed: "He knows."
Next time on Battlestar Galactica…
Stories – The College Years (Part 2)
Previously on Battlestar Galactica…
The Table
It was shortly after my second meeting with GSA that I was introduced to the table at Louie's Lower Level.
Louie's—located in the basement of the Student Union—was the funky laid-back alternative to the more traditional and sterile campus cafeteria upstairs and doubled as a great gathering place for students before and after class. Think lots of dark wood, Tiffany lighting, and plants in macrame slings. Kind of TGI Fridays on a budget. (It was 1977, after all.)
I'd been going there since I started at the university, but until my second GSA meeting and a group of us headed downstairs afterward to grab a bite to eat, I'd somehow been completely oblivious to the fact that one long table off to the east side of the dining room was home base for many of the campus homosexuals.
It was there where I met my tribe that spring: John Maguire, Ric Hathaway, Chas Dooley, Don Hines, Kent Kelly, John Marion, Abe Marquez, Tina, Marco, and many others who became friends, mentors, and yes, in a couple cases, even lovers over the coming months. I shall do my best to give each their proper due since so many of them are no longer with us.
Chas Dooley
I actually met Chas before GSA or Louie's. He was a good friend of Andy's and visited him a lot when I was in the old dorm. Chas was young, black, proud, flamboyant, and simply had no fucks to give. He intimidated me when I was still in the closet; once out I came to admire and adore him. In fact, there were times over the next couple years I wanted nothing more than to jump his bones, but while the interest seemed to be mutual, the timing was always off and it never happened.
I lost track of Chas sometime between 1978 and 1980. He'd moved home to Louisiana and while we'd continued to correspond eventually a letter was returned as undeliverable and the phone number I had for him was disconnected.
It was in 1991 or so that I was walking home from the Castro to my apartment off Church Street in San Francisco and I passed a handsome black man coming my way. We made eye contact, smiled, and after we'd passed almost immediately turned around. "Chas?" "Mark?" We rushed to each other and hugged. He was late to be somewhere, so we couldn't catch up. We exchanged numbers (I guess everyone ends up in SF eventually), but not for lack of trying, we never did reconnect.
I have tried to track him down, both through normal channels as well as through the Social Security Death Index (you never know, and if he's gone I'd like closure) but there are hundreds of Charles Dooleys listed online (but none in the SSDI), so I've given up hope of ever reconnecting with him.
The First Time: John Maguire
I wasn't particularly attracted to John. We'd both become regulars at Louie's and had gotten friendly, enjoying each other's company, but while there were many tasty things on Louie's menu, lust of John definitely wasn't one of them. One Friday afternoon we were at the table talking and discovered we were both still virgins. He looked at me and asked, "Do you want to do something about that?" A thousand thoughts ran through my head in a flash, and I blurted out, "Sure!" It was one of those, "Oh fuck, why not?" moments.
We didn't go out on a proper date beforehand and there was no romance; he simply showed up at my dorm room at the appointed time and we got naked. I won't go into all the gruesome details, but let's just say the experience was far from what I think either of us had hoped for. After he left I thought, "This is what has everyone in such an uproar?" John and I were still amicable after the encounter, but something had definitely changed and neither one of us really put any further effort into our friendship developing further.
I have no idea whatever happened to John. Upon returning to school for my sophomore year, many people had disappeared from GSA and the table, John being one of them. I heard he'd moved home to New Jersey.
And again, like Chas, there are hundreds of possible John Maguires online. So…yeah, tracking him down, living or dead…not going to happen.
Next time on Battlestar Galactica…
Stories – The College Years (Part 1)
Okay…remembering and writing about all this is fun!
Previously on Battlestar Galactica… (In case you're wondering, I'm calling it this as a throwback to my original posting of these stories on the old blog, written at peak Battlestar Galactica popularity.)
While I suppose I could have come out publicly in High School, for a variety of mid-70s reasons I chose not to. I had consciously decided that I would announce to the world once I'd moved away from home and started college. Based on my mother's earlier reactions to gay men—which was surprising considering she was an interior designer and had worked around them her entire career—I wasn't entirely convinced it would be warmly received by the family and wanted to be as far away as possible when I dropped the proverbial bomb.
My first semester at the University of Arizona was—not surprisingly—a difficult one, if only for the usual problems of any first year college student. I had never lived away from home, and while I made friends easily, in the beginning I knew no one in Tucson.
My first dormitory roommate was a Japanese-American gymnast. I don't remember his name or even what he looked like at this point other than he had a body that wouldn't quit. He was a gymnast, after all. Might've been a fantasy come true if not for the fact he was virulently homophobic and made it known almost immediately. While I was still firmly in the closet, I knew this was not going to work as my plans for coming out slowly began to coalesce in my head. After a week or so I swapped rooms with a guy down the hall I'd gotten friendly with.
My new roommate was Karl Kilgore, a tall, blond, good-looking civil engineering (?) student from southern California.
Karl and I got along famously. We shared the same world view, liked the same music, and enjoyed each other's company.
I still hadn't come out yet, but the guy in the room adjacent to ours read me from the moment I arrived on the floor. Andy was…flamboyant…out and proud. He was one of the first gay men I met who was not. taking. shit. from. anyone.
In many ways he took me under his wing for those first couple months at the university, keeping my secret to himself. I remember one day toward the holidays we were chatting and he flat out asked, "When are you going to end this charade and just come out?"
I was quite taken aback, and at the same time relieved that he knew it was time as much as I did.
Along the same time this happened, I was over at the campus planetarium one night, when a series of events were set in motion that led to my tearing the door off that closet and bursting forth into the light. I was touring the exhibits when another boy caught my eye, one David Miller.
Another freshman, David was from the hills of West Virginia and frankly, turned out to be sweet as fuck. We struck up a conversation and a friendship soon formed. Was David gay? I didn't get that sense about him at all, but I didn't get "wholly straight" either. I remember that when I told Andy I'd made a friend outside the dorm he quipped, "So…Mark's got a boyfriend."
No, that wasn't it at all, but when the opportunity presented itself for me to switch dorms and share a room with David, I jumped at it.
David accompanied me back to Phoenix for Thanksgiving that year and my family loved him.
The Christmas and New Year's holidays came and went, and upon returning to campus for the spring semester I'd resolved that this was now the time to come out.
One evening in late January, after we'd gone to bed, I said to David, "I have something to tell you."
"What is it?"
"You know that guy Adam I told you about? The one I met up with again at the library?"
(Adam was a guy from Phoenix whom I'd met and buddied up with during the Freshman Orientation weekend on campus the past August.)
"Yeah."
"I like him."
"Great! You made another friend. What's he like?"
"No, I like him, David. I really like him."
(It should be noted that nothing had ever actually happened between Adam and I at the library or anywhere else for that matter—but I was mightily infatuated with this now newly-minted frat boy I'd reconnected with.)
"What are you saying?"
"I'm gay, David."
There was an extended silence. After several minutes he said, "I have a confession too."
Was David about to tell me he was gay? I mean, that would be awesome.
"My uncle is Christine Jorgensen."
Now while I hadn't been officially out, I had done my gay history. I knew who Christine was.
"We don't talk about uncle George much anymore," he added.
Of course, this opened the conversational floodgates and for several days thereafter it seemed all was well in the world. David showed no signs of being freaked out, nor had his attitude toward me changed in any way.
HOWEVER, a little over a week later, David announced he was moving out of the room and in with—in his words several months later—"an Iranian who never bathed."
I soon learned that shortly after my coming out to him, David—who never had a drink in his life—had gone out one night and had gotten absolutely shit-faced. He returned to the dorm at 2 am and basically went door to door telling everyone on the floor, "Mark is a fag!"
Well, I was now officially out. It also explains why there was no hurry to backfill that empty bed and how I ended up with a single room for the remainder of the semester without having to pay for it. Membership has its privileges.
The question remained, "What now?"
Andy suggested going to one of the GSA (Gay Student Organization) meetings on campus. After ignoring his suggestions and the adverts in the student paper for weeks, one chilly February night I decided to head over to the student union and check out this GSA.
Nervous doesn't even begin to describe what I was feeling. Would I be accepted? Would they like me? Would I get raped by a group of sex-crazed homosexuals?
It turned out two of of three were correct and I left the meeting with my virginity intact.
When I first entered I was greeted by a guy named Phil Oliver. His first question—something no one had ever outright asked before—was "Are you gay?"
I answered in the affirmative.
The meeting was actually a bit of a bore, but I met a group of people who almost immediately became my tribe and ultimately confirmed two famous quotes from Richard Bach's book Illusions:
All the people, all the events in your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.
and
The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.
Next time on Battlestar Galactica…
Stories – The School Years
In the original incarnation of Voenix Rising—that I stupidly deleted in 2011 after realizing a link to it had been sent out in the signature line of emails I'd sent to recruiters—I'd written multiple posts documenting my coming out and first tentative steps into gay life. It was one of the few things I truly regret not having backed up.
More recently, I've been following Mike Balaban, a gay historian on Instagram who is doing much the same thing, this time with pictures. From what I've seen we're about the same age, and considering how everything else in the world is fucking awful right now, it's inspired me to relate my stories again, to do something positive.
Grade School
Like a lot of gay men, I'd known I liked boys instead of girls from an early age. When I first discovered masturbation in fourth grade, it was sex between men and women that captured my imagination. But then my focus turned more and more to the imaginary men in these imaginary encounters, and finally coalesced with my Phys Ed coaches and the men—not the women—in the Sears catalogs exclusively fueling my fantasies. Oh, how I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Summer Catalogs because it meant shirtless guys in swim trunks!
Growing up, my exposure to men-who-love-men had been less-than-ideal. I don't know if my mom already sensed my budding gayness or if she was just trying to—warn?—me, but I remember her coming into my room one evening in advance of a visit by my dad's brother. She turned on the television (or changed the channel) to show me an interview happening with Truman Capote. "That is a homosexual," she said, "And so is your Uncle Eddie. I don't want you to be alone with him." The old child molester trope…
My uncle was nothing like Truman Capote. He wasn't a butch queen, but neither was he anything like the mincing, lisping example my mom was so keen to show me. Anyhow, I took some solace in knowing I wasn't the only one in the world like that, and not the only one in the family. [Spoilers: If I only known the full extent!]
I remember my uncle (especially after I became an adult) as loving, generous, and very, very funny. As a child I always thought him so cosmopolitan for living in New York City. I mailed him my coming out letter in the late 1980s (because somehow he hadn't gotten the news), telling him I was "living the life" in San Francisco and hoping we could connect over drinks sometime to share stories. After not hearing from him a couple years thereafter, one Christmas in the 90s a card arrived from him with a five hundred dollar check enclosed and a note that read, "I'm sure you'll be able to put this to good use in 'frisco."
High School
My freshman year in high school was the first time I fell in love with another boy. His name was Tom Pleger.
It was odd how we initially met. I was crushing hard on his best friend, a guy named Jim Hurst, with whom we all shared a Freshman Communications class. Jim wouldn't give me the time of day, but Tom and I soon discovered shared interests and we started hanging out together.
Tom's family belonged to a neighborhood Lutheran church. I'd been raised Lutheran but my family was one of those Christmas and Easter churchgoing broods. That was, until I met Tom and convinced my mom that we needed to start attending—and more regularly than just twice a year. (Ulterior motives, of course.) She was initially reluctant since this church was Missouri synod and we were Wisconsin. (How that makes any difference is just one more reason when I came out I gave up on organized religion altogether. It's all bullshit.)
Anyhow, we started attending on a regular basis and I found Jesus and developed a typical teenage religious streak that no doubt absolutely drove my dad (who was very non-religious) to absolute distraction.
Sadly, my romantic overtures to Tom were not reciprocated, and my confession of true love ended our budding friendship about a year after we met. Nothing more was said of it, and surprisingly, when we crossed paths at church he and his family were still cordial.
It was during my sophomore year that—perhaps because of my newfound churchgoing habits—my mom decided that I was well overdue for my Confirmation; a right-of-passage that would allow me to start taking communion. This led to classes led by the new, young, cute, and very liberal pastor who had just come on board. I remember the subject of homosexuality coming up during one of our question and answer sessions and he pointed out that Jesus never said anything about the subject…
Anyhow, these classes threw yet another boy into my life, Mike Knigge.
Mike was a year younger than me and a few inches taller. His family had recently moved to Phoenix from Lake Zurich, Illinois, a small suburb north of Chicago. From his description (he was terribly homesick) it sounded like a wonderful little hamlet, and I often fantasized moving there with him after we finished college and building a beautiful English Tudor home (my preferred architectural style at the time) with a huge swimming pool and cabana out back. I don't remember much of our year or so together, but it must've been something special because I grew to love him as well.
Like Tom, it all fell apart after I confessed my feelings to him.
My junior year, after Mike, I took a break from romantic entanglements with boys, no doubt because no one had entered my life to pique such interest. I spent the year concentrating on existing friendships, including the one I shared with Jean Davis.
Jean and I were inseparable; partners-in-crime. People thought we were dating, and even though she was the first—and only—girl I've kissed and made out with (there was never any sex)—I only ever thought of her as my best bud. I think she viewed me as something more however, and when I ended up leaving Phoenix to go to the University of Arizona in Tucson, we both breathed a sigh of relief when she decided to stay behind. It was a breakup without any of the associated drama.
My senior year brought my unrequited love life new trouble in the form of Daniel Baxa.
Tom and Mike were just warm-up acts. I fell hard for Daniel. But sadly, like Tom and Mike, it was ultimately not meant to be.
His family had just moved to Phoenix from somewhere and I have no memory of how or where we met or why we even started hanging together. Why do teenage boys do anything?
Why did I keep falling in love with straight boys? Because at the time I knew of no other gay boys in high school—or at least none I was even remotely attracted to. The ones who were gay were so obviously gay that they were the subject or scorn and ridicule wherever they went. It was the mid 70s, after all. Despite Stonewall years earlier, was no gay marriage, no Love, Simon positivity swirling around gay relationships.
Daniel was a bad boy. He smoked. He drank. And yet he drove a pink 1968 Mustang and loved ABBA. He was…confusing. As our friendship grew, he wasn't above physical contact, and many evenings while laying on my bed watching television, a spontaneous wrestling match would erupt, with one or the other of us getting pinned with obvious erections involved. But that was as far as it ever went, much to my disappointment. I often fantasized about just kissing him while pinned, yet never garnered enough courage to actually do it.
I was obsessed with Daniel, going so far as to climb up on the roof of our house to watch him arrive home at night from his job at Sirloin Stockade, telling my parents I was up there to "look at the stars." I even got a job at the same Sirloin Stockade the final summer before I headed to college—ostensibly to earn money for college—and it showed me what an absolute jerk he could be when it wasn't just the two of us together. It didn't sour me to him, but I learned that great life lesson of people weren't always what they seemed 100% of the time.
When I finally confessed my love, there was no big scene. I told him I loved him and he responded, "Oh, you mean like a friend?" "No," I replied. The color kind of drained from his face as I recall and he said something to the effect, "Look Mark, I like you, but I'm not…"
Holding back tears, I left his house and went home. That fall I moved to Tucson.
I heard from a mutual friend sometime later (who, by that time, also knew I was gay) that our parting left Daniel hurt and confused. He hadn't been ending our friendship; he was simply straight and didn't want anything more.
After getting his address from the same mutual friend many years later, I wrote him a letter, apologizing for the misunderstanding and asking if he'd like to talk. I never heard back.
Next time on Battlestar Galactica…
Too Many Notes
I guess I'm officially old.
This Thread
Which actor, singer, or media personality made you realize you're gay?
— Sam Kalidi (@samkalidi) June 15, 2019
For me it was Robert Conrad in Wild Wild West. Or maybe Guy Williams in Lost in Space. Or James Franciscus in the Planet of the Apes movies. Or Chad Everett in Medical Center. There were so many.
What say you? Leave a comment!
I Approve Of This Message
https://www.facebook.com/IWillMeetMadonna/videos/800627796973683/
Agreed
Smokin' Hot
Over the years, many of you have left comments such as, "Ewww!" or "He'd be cute…without the cigarette," when I've posted pictures of men smoking. Okay, I get it. I agree it's a vile habit that more often than not leads to cancer and a host of other inevitably terminal health ailments—not to mention the stink it leaves on your clothing. But there's also something I find undeniably erotic about it as well.
I've never smoked—probably in defiance of my mother, who when I announced as a child I had no intention of ever smoking she quipped, "You say that now, but wait until you get older. Everyone smokes," (it was the 60s after all)—but when I first came out, I was smoking-neutral. I'd have sex with smokers and non-smokers alike.
I don't know what prompted it, but somewhere around the mid 80s, smoking became an automatic disqualifier for me. Just as if you had no hair on your upper lip—which I readily admit now was incredibly shallow—if I spotted a cigarette in your hand I wouldn't give you a second glance.
But several years later, that changed. Seeing some hot guy smoking went from being an absolute turn-off to a guaranteed head-turner. I still wouldn't date anyone who smoked because of that stink, but from a distance and for a brief sexual encounter, it would immediately get my attention.
Maybe it was the Marlboro Man era in which my hormones came into full bloom, or maybe it's simply an obvious oral fixation (as if you hadn't noticed I also like pictures of men sucking cock), but whatever the root cause, I find certain photos of men smoking incredibly erotic.
The more you know…
I'm Going To Hell
"Trust me. This gets rid of semen breath every time."
Happy Birthday Steven Stucker
Comic actor Stephen Stucker would've turned 71 years old today. The man who played impish Johnny in Airplane! (1980) and Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)—a character who relished sales at Penney's and who noticed Leon's fluctuating largeness—became one of the first public figures to announce that he had AIDS. Stucker relied on metaphysical healing, vitamins, a positive outlook, and a healthy diet to combat the syndrome, which he suspected he had as early as 1979 and which he somewhat questionably attributed to past blood transfusions and intravenous drug use. He passed away in 1986 at 38.
June
Well, You Did Ask!
Old Gays New Slang
When I first saw this yesterday tears were streaming down my cheeks from trying to stifle my laughter.
I've heard, understood, and yes—used—everything except "Bop." So I guess I'm not old after all. (Of course it could just be because I'm married to a young stud…or that we watch Drag Race.)
In Honor Of The Day
"Too Many Notes"
Where It Began
From Fearsome Beard:
I was but a young boy when people like me lived in the shadows.
Thanks to a few courageous souls who had had enough, I'd never really fully know that life they were forced into.
(Or forced into marrying someone of the opposite sex solely to keep up appearances, the way my dad was. – MA)
Boys Will Be Boys
Via.
George Michael Was A Filthy Gay Fucker And We Should Honor Him For That
From Noah Michelson:
Last night, after word spread that pop star George Michael died at the age of 53, I sent out several tweets honoring the man who meant a lot to me as a queer young man who came out in the late '90s. My first tweet instructed those unfamiliar with Michael (and the brilliance of what he created) to seek out his music. This was my second tweet:
I suggest we all find a public bathroom wherever we are and go and have sex in it with a stranger tonight to properly honor George Michael.
— Noah Michelson (@noahmichelson) December 26, 2016
I was referencing Michael's well-publicized history with cruising for sex in public places (he was arrested by an undercover policeman in a Beverly Hills men's room in 1998 and again 10 years later in London). While I was being cheeky in a way that I thought he would appreciate in the big Wembley Stadium in the sky, I also meant it. It was my way of paying tribute to how open, outspoken and unapologetic he was about who he was (once he came out in 1998), his sexuality and looking for gay sex in what could be referred to as non-traditional locales.
But shit soon hit the fan. People who thought I was being "disrespectful" and "tacky" and "tasteless" flooded my Twitter mentions. A few people commented "too soon." Others couldn't believe that this was the only aspect of his life that I had chosen to concentrate on (which means they obviously didn't read my aforementioned tweet). How dare I! One person called me "the 2016 of people" (which is actually kind of amazing) and another promised to "piss on my grave" when I died (I mean… don't threaten my corpse with a good time, right?).
I tried to explain that as a queer, sex-positive man, this part of Michael's life―these moments of queer sexuality and his sex life that were made very public―helped to reorganize and shape how I saw and embraced my own sexuality, which was nothing short of a miracle considering the homophobic and sex-negative culture we live in.
My tweet wasn't a joke and it wasn't rude or disrespectful. If you read it that way you're implying that gay sex―public or otherwise―is shameful. I don't and neither did Michael.
A Little Bit Of My Faith In Humanity Restored
There's a Reason I Used to Disappear…
…into the bathroom with the Sears catalog when I was a teenager.
And don't even get me started on the summer swimwear catalog!