With today being National Coming Out Day, I thought I would give the story of the day someone very close to myself and my family came out of the closet. That day is today, and that individual is me. I am bisexual. My story starts out confusingly enough, many years ago....
My mother's way of teaching sex education was almost encyclopedic. Her methods of explaining "the birds and the bees" were so technical and used so many "appropriate" words, that, until the age of 14, I actually thought that a vagina was the female word for the butt. I remember asking my mom what was wrong about being gay. Her response was, "They do it up the butt". I thought, "Well, doesn't everyone"?
I remember being fascinated with breasts at an early age. It didn't matter how big or small, how perky or round, count me in. But again, it wasn't until the age of 14 that I found out what made a woman...well, a woman. I was taking the trash out to the alley dumpster. The next door neighbor kid had thrown away part of his porno stash, and, on the top of the pile, was a copy of Penthouse Genesis. Genesis was the magazine Penthouse released at the time that showed the things that Penthouse couldn't get away with.
I opened the magazine up and was disgusted. "Oh my god. This girl is deformed. She has two asses. So does this one.....and this one. Oh. My. God....These. Are. VAGINAS? I'm supposed to put mine in THERE? NO WAY. NO THANK YOU." But I hid the magazine anyway. I was a "straight" kid. That's what I was supposed to do.
Throughout my teens, I fantasized about every girl I knew. Boys weren't even an option. Masturbated like a rabid wolverine. Sex education class was offered in high school health class. Of course, my mom refused to let me stay in class to participate. She felt that it did nothing but "encourage young people to have sex". I was hoping it would explain to me how sex worked. I remember seeing the pictures on the doctor's office wall of the male and female bodies split in half with everything labeled, and I still couldn't find most of the parts ON MY OWN BODY.
My health teacher was a little, old, Native American woman, who loved to inflict punishment on the two or three Jehovah's Witness kids that refused to take sex ed in her class every year. She had us go to the library every day for that period. Our alternative assignment was a 60 page, hand written, single spaced report on the health topic of our choosing. Just to be a smart ass, I chose to write my paper on sex. Most of my source material came from a Witness book called 'Questions Young People Ask: Answers That Work', which supposedly dealt with the moral and ethical issues involving sex and dating, but was mostly the perspective of a bunch of 80 year old men on the current teenage sex and dating scene. Got an A.
Anyway....moving on. As I was finishing high school and becoming an adult, all of my "worldly" (non JW) friends were saying "Come on, man. Just come out already." But I felt that I was firmly 100% straight. I had known other people in the church that were flamboyantly gay that had families and felt sorry for them. But me, no sir, straight as can be. At the time, I was still very homophobic, and had a hatred for gays and lesbians. I was brought up to hate them. My parents even taught me, "Don't call them Gay...that's their word. Call them homosexuals. That's what God calls them".
I started working at Chase Bank in '98. They were a very diverse company. At the time I worked there, I believe 38% of the employees on the campus were LGBT. That really opened my eyes. When all 3 of my supervisors, my Director, and two of my cubical mates were gay men, you can't help but break down that wall. You start to realize, "What is everyone so scared of. Why are these people a threat"? That was just the beginning of my experience with the gay community.
I answered a personal ad around the same time(I had stopped practicing as a Witness in 1996), and met a girl for lunch. Her name was Angel. We met at a sub shop. She walked in with steel toe boots, a tank top, shaved head and a pierced nose. It was love at first sight. At the end of our meal, she said, "Just to let you know, I'm lesbian."
"I sorta figured".
"My girlfriend cheated on me with some dude and I thought I would get back at her by doing the same. I can't go through with it though".
"That's cool".
We were best friends from that moment on. She took me to her favorite hang out, Ain't Nobody's Biz, a lesbian bar in Central Phoenix. We would go for karaoke every Monday night. Angel eventually started telling me, "Dude, you need to come out". This is when it got really confusing.
I placed an application at a local gay book store and gift shop, the Obelisk, as a cashier/stock person. I figured the best way to know if I'm gay is to immerse myself in the community. During the interview, the owner asked me how long I had been out to my parents. I told him I was straight. He said, "You realize, this is a GAY book store. You're going to have days where all you'll do is alphabetize the GAY PORN or GAY EROTICA". I explained to him my confusion and my dilemma. I told him, that to me, this was the most logical way to figure things out. He hired me on the spot.
My god, what an experience. First, to realize that gay people just weren't Puerto Ricans in pink feather boas...but old committed couples, gentlemen that reminded you of your grandpa, businessmen, the girliest of men, and the most embarrassed manly high school football players coming in after school to pick something up for their boyfriends.
The owner taught me so much. He was never to busy to answer a question. "What's Stonewall? Who's Harvey Milk? What's the deal with the rainbow? Why are the fat, hairy guys into me?" One thing he said to me, something I'll never forget, is this: "Adam, so many people classify themselves based upon who they're fucking. Being gay, or straight, or bi, is a lifestyle. It's in here(points to heart) and here(head). To base your whole life upon who you're sticking your dick into...that's just sad". I really took that to heart. I realized that I was physically attracted to women but I thought like a gay man.
Around that same time, Angel took me to my first gay club. I walked in and looked around. I then sat down on a couch and started crying. It was the first time I had been somewhere where I felt like I belonged, like I fit in, like I wasn't going to be judged or looked at funny. Angel leaned over and said, "I know honey. It's ok. Welcome home".
That night, I must have had a dozen guys come up to me. Poor Angel would step in and say, "Sorry, he's one of us, but he's not one of us just yet". Over the years, with Angel by my side, I made out with a couple of guys. I enjoyed it. But nothing much has happened other than that.
Since Angel and I had parted ways, I kept the secret to myself. Then came my wife. We got to a point in our relationship where I knew I could completely be myself and nothing I could say or do would scare her away. We would talk about our fantasies, and I would test the waters. We would be watching TV and I would test the waters and say something like, "Damn Taye Diggs looks hot", and she would be cool. Then we got to talking.
She wants me to be myself, just like I want her to be herself. I know she's not the country girl she was sort of pretending to be the night that I met her. She's told me she loves the fact that she has someone that can love her and be romantic with her and still have those times where she feels like she has that gay best friend.
I've been involved, in some way or another, supporting the LGBT community for a number of years now. In Albuquerque, I DJ-ed at Pride two years in a row. I'm proud to say today that I an now officially part of that community, that they are my brothers and sisters, and that together we will fight for the rights we all deserve.
