Boy George, Troye Sivan, and Me

I spend a lot of time puttering around on the internet.  Every morning I get up and start googling random crap and cruising through YouTube subscriptions and trendings.  It inevitably happens.  At some point a search for one specific thing will lead me to something completely different and it will be that something completely different that will unexpectedly educate and inspire me.

Today I ended up on this video on YouTube.  It’s an interview from 1984 between Johnny Carson and Boy George. 

History lesson time.  Before James Corden rode around in a car singing with superstars and Stephen Colbert lampooned newsmakers with mock earnestness, there was an old white guy who sat behind a desk and did some interviews and cracked some jokes.  In the interest of full disclosure I wasn’t a fan.  But a lot of folks tuned in because, really, he was the only game in town until folks like Joan Rivers and Arsenio Hall brought life and variety to the late night talk show arena.  But Carson was kind of the godfather of it all. 

So, picture it.  1984.  The AIDS crisis is evolving.  Ronald Reagan is president and neither he nor his First Lady, Nancy, will acknowledge the crisis because they don’t even want to be associated with the dirty word “homosexual.”  That doesn’t stop religious leaders and conservative politicians from making hay on the suffering of others by demonizing the victims of the disease while declaring “God’s judgment” on “sinful and deviant lifestyles.”

In the midst of this ignorant morass of silence and blame and fear comes…Boy George.

That picture is a screen capture of Boy George from the Johnny Carson interview.  It was the second time he had appeared on Carson’s show but the first time with Carson.  The first time he had appeared the iconic Joan Rivers was hosting.  This is a fact that Boy George jokes about in the interview with Carson by commenting, “The last time I was here you were in drag.”  Carson quickly distanced himself from the joke, clarifying that it had been Joan Rivers and not Carson with whom he had appeared.  If I’m right, this is a picture of Boy George and Joan Rivers from that first appearance. 

So, back to the video of Carson, the old White guy with his sense of humor that seems to ignore other people’s senses of humor, and Boy George sitting on the opposite side of the desk in all of his Boy George glory.  In 1984.  Amidst fear and ignorance.  And remembering that the culture of the UK is usually about 20 years ahead of culture in the US.  So, for Boy George, the smallest things he said or did at home were met with raised brows and anxiety here in the United States. 

Carson introduced Boy George, who comes in and makes the joke about Carson being in drag that Carson finds so repugnant, and then the interview begins.  It’s clear where Carson wants to go with the interview. 

Not long before this appearance Boy George attended the Grammies and made a joke about wondering when they music industry would see a real queen dressed as a drag queen.  Carson brings up the controversy his comment caused and Boy George brushes it aside, pointing out that in the UK you can say things like that and people laugh but in the US it’s basically a big scandal.  This brings up a conversation about “all of the stupid questions” Boy George had been answering since his arrival in LA from LA radio personalities. 

“What are some of the dumb questions they ask so I know which ones to avoid.  I mean, the first one has got to be,” and Johnny Carson makes sweeping gestures with his hands.  “Why do you dress like that?”

You can hear Boy George’s eyes rolling in his answer.  “I’ve answered that one so many times I’m going to avoid that one.”

“Okay, so what are the other questions?”

“Well, basic things like ‘How long does it take to do my makeup?’ you know and just boring things about my childhood.  Which was just the same as anybody else’s really.  Pretty dull.  Pretty boring.  So, Father Christmas, you know, and grazed knees, that kind of stuff.” 

“Yeah, but you can’t blame them, can you, Boy George, for asking those kinds of questions.  Because you are rather controversial.  It is something new that—“

“But after like three years of seeing me you would think people would be a bit used to me by now, you know.  I mean, in a country that has Liberace, I am hardly revolutionary, am I?

And the audience cheers.  But see the difference between Boy George and Liberace is that Liberace’s glam was still masculine.  He still wore tuxes and suits while performing.  So what if they were covered it glitter and sequence?

Johnny Carson continues.  “I’m trying not to be square you see.  I come from the middle of the United States.  State called Nebraska, which is right out in the middle of the country.  Rather conservative.  Now if I was your dad and you came home one day and I didn’t know it and I walked in and saw you as a young man—I guess you were about fifteen or sixteen when you started actually….wearing the make up and the costumes—I wouldn’t know how to react myself.  I think I would be adult enough myself to try to handle it but—“

“What do you got to handle?”

“Well, the effect that you walk in and you see your son dressing with makeup on.  The average person….”

“Okay, well, you’re going to have Halloween in a couple of weeks, you know.  What’s the difference between somebody dressing up for Halloween?  It’s only because people think it’s serious that they get frightened.  They look at me and they say, ‘Well, it’s not a Halloween party.’  So you have to have a reason to dress up.  There is nothing wrong with being different.  Why do you have to have an excuse to enjoy yourself?  You know there are people out there taking drugs, killing each other, fighting.  And like I just don’t see that you have to wait once a year, Christmas or Halloween, to enjoy yourself.  I think it’s a load of rubbish.  I think there is nothing wrong with dressing up and enjoying yourself if you want.”

“I think you’re right.  I think what you said before though…people are probably uncomfortable though with some things they don’t quite understand or something that’s different from them and they get uptight about it.”

I’ll leave the transcript there because it speaks to the points I want to make. [Go and watch the video, though.  It’s fascinating. ]

In 1984, when Boy George was being interviewed by Johnny Carson, I was in the sixth grade.  I remember my class’s Halloween party.  We still dressed up “back in the day” and spent the afternoon munching candy and watching movies.  One of my classmates dressed up as Boy George.  I knew it was a Boy George costume because she had obviously done the makeup and hair thing but she had written “Boy George” on her t-shirt.  My teacher, who was about the age of Johnny Carson, had a conniption.  He ranted about the costume being inappropriate and offensive.  And it was a female classmate dressed up as Boy George.

Of course this was the same teacher who demanded a male student remove his earring.

This was the mentality of the time.  It’s gotten better, to be sure, but we still have such a long way to go.  Someone I follow on social media just tweeted today that if people fought as hard for the poor as they fight against equal rights and protections, poverty would be history. 

But Johnny Carson, in this interview, actually makes a point.  He pointed out that people are uncomfortable with things they don’t understand or things that are different from them.  And make no mistake about it—Johnny Carson and Boy George and a significant segment of the audience knew that this conversation had nothing to do with make-up and clothes.  This was about identifying as something other than straight (on Boy George’s side) and the fear of validating something that not even the president would even speak about (on Johnny Carson’s side). 

I don’t know what the conversation was like in the UK or other parts of the world, but in the United States, at this time, coming out wasn’t an option for many artists and actors.  For example, George Michael at this same time was making it big with Wham!.  And speculation was just as bad.  If I had a dime for every time I heard a story about the members of New Kids on the Block having their stomach pumped to find gallons of bodily fluids, I could have retired at age 20.  I even remember watching some awards show with my folks one time and hearing my mother comment about how masculine Grace Slick from Jefferson Starship was trying to be while performing “We Built This City.” 

More and more I find myself stopping in my tracks to take stock of how far we’ve come, not just in the LGBTQ community but as a society.  Sharing our stories, when we can and how much we can and in whatever overt or veiled language we can, changes things.  It started somewhere.  It didn’t begin with Boy George on Johnny Carson and it’s certainly not going to end with marriage equality or the overturning of North Carolina’s disgusting law.  We all play our parts, when we can, how we can.  We show our faces with courage.  We move in small circles for our own safety.  We speak from behind the curtain of the internet to protect the people who love us. 

I’ve written before about Troye Sivan.  Last week Troye Sivan tweeted, “I am forever indebted and so so so grateful for the LGBTQ+ people who have come before me.”   This hit me for a variety of reasons but the truth of it is so poignant.  Troye Sivan, global recording superstar, gay, out at 20, changing the world.  But not just him.  Jordan Gray (@TallDarkFriend), trans contestant on The Voice UK, sharing her powerful story.  Noah Galvin on TV—a gay man playing a gay teen on The Real O’Neals.  YouTuber stars from all over the world, out and proud and sharing their stories, continuing the fight for equality so that the next generation of LGBTQ people won’t have to struggle so hard.

Just as Troye Sivan, still fighting with his beautiful spirit and his powerful words (“Without losing a piece of me, how do I get to heaven?”), doesn’t have to fight as hard as Boy George did. 

But here’s the flip side of Troye Sivan’s grateful statement.  My response:  “The ones who came before are grateful to the ones who come after; you’re still changing the world & us.”

You see, this is the reality in which I live.  The world has yet to open for me.  The light of peace and acceptance (of the world toward me and me toward the world, for that matter) hasn’t reached the dark recesses of my “closet.”  But I celebrate these rewards that have been hard won and the ability of those who can live in that light.  I am thrilled when I see Troye Sivan changing the world with his music.  I am thrilled when I read about Cole Ledford’s “Fifty States of Gay” project.  I am thrilled when I see someone like Jordan Gray on a national/international platform like The Voice, not only sharing her gift and her story, but doing it with Boy George himself watching and tearing up for each of her performances.

And all of these and more give me hope that maybe the world will change enough for me and this light will break open my prison door.  You see, in a place where teachers flipped out over girls dressing like Boy George and students assaulting other students just because they might be gay all with the blessing and support of a Church that loves Jesus but not enough to actually listen to the things Jesus says—for people who lived in these places, people like me, then and now, people like Boy George and Troye Sivan mean nothing.  They could be from a completely different world, somewhere over the rainbow (if you’ll pardon the expression). 

But from within my closet, I hear their words coming to me from that magical place of hope.  They inspire me, the one who came before who, from the shadows, fought and still fights,   It’s a cycle, I suppose.  An enormous wheel.  Where does what one generation give to the next begin and end? 

I hear their words and they tell me of a time I will be able to be me without causing the people I love and who love me a pain they don’t deserve for something not in their control anymore than the pain I’ve suffered for things outside of my control.  I’ve lived as a victim of the world’s ignorance for this long.  With these glimpses of hope, I can wait.  I will not victimize others to escape my lot. 

So I keep watch.  I listen.  I write and I speak what I can, when I can, how I can.  And I hope I make a difference.  Probably not as big of a difference as Boy George, Troye Sivan, or Jordan Gray.  But hopefully a difference, if only to one person.  Because that one person still has the potential to change the world.

Addendum:  About 30 minutes after posting this entry I found the interview of Boy George with Joan Rivers.  An astounding difference.  Night and day.  Whereas Carson backs away from Boy George, Joan Rivers sings his praises, calling him "cute and sexy."  

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The View from Here

I was a strange child.

Well, okay.  Maybe “strange” is a bit over the topic.  Let me try a few other words. 

Unique?  Peculiar?  Unusual? 

Getting closer.  But I think all of those words still miss the reality.  Not to mention they carry with them a bit of a stigma that needs to be unpacked.

How about…creative?  Pensive?  Imaginative? 

Hrm.  Those are good adjectives that described me as a child but they still aren’t quite capturing the reality I’m trying to describe. 

Maybe because there is no easy, clean-cut way to describe people.  Or, in this case, the result of what people become because of the coping mechanisms they end up using.

Let me explain.

Today I’m having one of those “stuck on the outside, looking in” sort of days.  It’s a phrase that basically means there’s something separating you from all of the activity you want to be a part of.  Think of it like walking down a city street and passing a huge window through which you see a party going on.  Fun looking people eating great food while laughing and dancing and celebrating life in one another’s presence. 

The reality, though, is that when I say this, like many other people, I mean, “I’m trapped on the inside, looking out.”  In other words, I’m stuck inside myself and the reality I experience, longing to be a part of the world I see around me.  This isn’t a new phenomenon for me.  A lot of LGBTQ people feel this way, especially when they are literally trapped inside of themselves for fear of revealing who they truly are. 

Some of you might recognize this experience.  Growing up, particularly in my teenage years, school was not a pleasant experience.  It wasn’t that the academic work was difficult; I would have had straight A’s if I would have decided that was what I wanted.  What made it difficult was watching the people around me and, in many cases, wanting to be involved in what they were doing but never daring to step up and be involved.  I was awkward and inept, like all teenagers, I suppose.  But the big thing that kept me from coming out of my shell was fear of simply coming out.  How would I dare try to hang out with one of the guys that simply radiated cool when it wasn’t his charisma that attracted me to him but how incredibly attractive he was?  Sandy brown hair, bright green eyes flecked with gold, not a zit in sight, and (don’t you dare laugh) a permed mullet that was so damn sexy back in the day.  Not to mention his sense of humor, his quick wit, his athletic body….

….you get the idea.

Like I said, some of you will recognize the experience.  And you’ll also recognize the fear that grips you in these situations because you’re so worried about being “too interested” in something he or she does or says.  What if I laugh too hard?  What if I ask the wrong question?  What if I just say the wrong thing and he figures out who I actually am and what I actually see when I look at him?

When those are your fears, when you live with the anxiety of being discovered and outed, it just becomes easier to withdraw and live inside yourself.  If you don’t interact you don’t risk interacting too much.   Sure, that means watching the world move on around you—people laughing, having fun, falling in love, having relationships—but it’s worth the occasional twinge of pain at being left behind if you can protect yourself.

Isn’t it?

I mean, look at it this way.  If the story I’m about to share would have happened today, it would have ended quite differently.  When I was in ninth grade I was the victim of what today would have been considered an assault.  Or worse.

It was in an art class.  “Back in the day” we were required to take a certain number of art classes, music classes, writing classes…the artsy classes that are only occasionally offered now as electives because there’s not enough time in the day to indoctrinate students on taking standardized tests.  These classes were mandatory in my school.  It was a large room that seemed to ramble on in every direction.  The main part of the classroom was near the door.  Large, wooden worktables with worn tabletops which had been nicked and painted and stained by generations of pubescent Picassos were our desks.  I don’t remember what the teacher was lecturing on that day or what we were actually working on but I do remember the sense of panic I experienced when one of my classmates took a wire used for slicing chunks of clay off of the larger blocks and, from behind me, wrapped it around my neck and pulled it tight.  I’m not sure how long he held the wire around my neck but I remember the laughter of his friends and the pain when he finally released the wire.  I don’t know where the teacher was when this happened; he never did find out about it.  Plenty of students on my side of the room saw what happened but no one ever said anything.  Probably because I never said anything.  I forced myself to laugh, as if I was in on the planning of the morning’s entertainment.  I knew that if I made an issue about it my complaint would just draw more attention and more attention was not what I wanted.

If this was the kind of thing my peers did when they only suspected I was gay, what would they do if they actually knew I was gay?  If I said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, walked the wrong way, talked the wrong way, gave someone too much attention….It was just easier (and safer) to withdraw as much as possible within myself.

I think this is how my imagination and creativity blossomed. 

I began to write in junior high school, which for me began in seventh grade.  Puberty had arrived, bringing with it a number of realizations that couldn’t be unrealized.  This is when I started pulling back within myself.  But once there, apart from the world outside, I would create worlds and scenarios.  Sometimes I would even bring the people around me from the “real world” into my imagination; if I couldn’t hang out with them in the “real world,” I could hang out with them in my fictional world where I could be the cool one that they wanted to hang around and emulate. 

So I wrote stories starring mythical versions of myself and the people who were either too cool for me to talk to or the guys I was too attracted to that I avoided lest they look into my eyes and see my soul.  Looking back at the thought of writing those stories I have to admit I’m embarrassed—but not for reasons you would think.  I’m not embarrassed because of what I turned my fear and anxiety into and how I attempted to capture the personalities and characteristics of my classmates.  It was the writing that was cringe worthy. 

I think some of the best writing, some of the best fiction, has to come from something relatable and something real.  Learning to take my struggle and turn it into a narrative in which I learned to expose my thoughts and feelings to even fictional versions of the people around me was an important lesson for me to learn.  I still do it.  In These are the Days, I’ve inserted pieces of myself and people I know into the characters.  In the new story I’m working on I’ve taken it a step further and am actually using people I knew as the rough outline of the characters in the story—and it’s working really well.

Where am I going with all this?  Well, I have two points I need to make.

The first point goes back to where I began:  I’m having a “trapped on the outside, looking in” sort of day.  It’s been….an undisclosed number of years since my high school days but old habits die hard.  There are a many people whose own paths mine has connected with in some way, whose light I find refreshing and inspiring.  Being a connection oriented person I find myself aching to learn more about these people.  This is why I hate doing “meet and greets” at concerts; the twenty minutes or so I have with the artist or artists isn’t nearly enough for me to develop that connection—especially when I have to share the artist with other people with meet and greet tickets.  So, for example, when I try to interact with people through social media and my attempts fall flat, I feel like I’m looking in through that large window at fun people having a fun time and I have no idea how to get involved. 

Still happens. 

I think it will always happen. 

So I think it’s important to remember that I’m in control of how I respond to this feeling.  If I let myself be consumed by the sights that are holding my attention through that window, I’ll become rooted to the spot.  I’ll never find a way in and I’ll just make myself feel worse and worse.  But if I choose to change my perspective, to leave that spot and turn away from those tantalizing sights, I might someday find my way “into the party.”  Or…better yet….I might find something even better to be a part of.

Remember, though, that the grass is never greener on the other side. 

The second point is this:  You aren’t alone.  I know there are people reading this who can identify with my story.  I know there are people out there who are victims not only of the ignorance and prejudice of the people around them but who are also victims of their own coping strategies, the things they do to make it through life.  Things like disengaging from the world around you because you’re too afraid that the world around you won’t accept you.  It gets better.  It really does.  And the experiences you had or are having, experiences like mine, will give you something.  They’ll give you lessons to help you be a better person.  They’ll give you motivation to become a better person.  And they may stimulate your imagination and creativity to help you help others to stimulate their imaginations while telling them that there is absolutely nothing wrong with who they are. 

From the Church's Shadow

I blogged before about growing up in the Church and for the most part it was a pretty positive experience.  I was fortunate to have some open-minded, progressively theological adults in my life at the time.  Unfortunately, though, these few adults weren’t enough to counter the conservative culture that was pervasive in my area and the era in which I grew up.  One loving, accepting Sunday School teacher wasn’t enough to coax me out of the closet.  Since those teenage and young adult years I have been surprised and even shocked to learn who else around me had to keep their true identity hidden for the fear of what would happen if they were discovered. 

The problem with growing up in the Church is that the Church is always at least a generation behind the culture.  For example, the “women’s liberation movement” began in the 60’s and moved through the 70’s (and still has a long way to go on many fronts).  Most mainline protestant denominations slowly welcomed women into the ranks of ordained clergy (pastors, priests).  The Methodists, Presbyterians, some Lutherans, some Baptists all began ordaining women in the later 70’s and 80’s—pretty much a generation behind women taking their place in the secular workforce among male counterparts.  But not all denominations have moved to accepting women as church leaders.  Some Lutherans, the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and many, MANY fundamentalist denominations who adhere to a strict, contemporary interpretation of scripture divorced from original culture and context still insist women must remain silent (1 Corinthians 14.34) and that wives are inferior to their husbands (1 Corinthians 11.3) and should be obedient to their husbands (Titus 2.4-5).

The same holds true for topic of premarital sex.  It’s still scandalous in many church traditions for an engaged couple to “shack up together” before they get married and if they have a child before the priest or pastor declares them married the amount of judgment and scorn they have to endure typically drives many from the church.  I know many couples who have been told by their religious leaders that if they want to be married in this or that church they have to give up living together and remain celibate for a duration of X amount of days/months.  Why?  Because somewhere someone has found a passage or two that can be used to interpret these premarital relationships as adulterous.  Nevermind the fact that for most of history, particularly in Europe, many couples wouldn’t be married until well after the birth of grandkids, usually as they came into the last third of their lives and wanted to “make themselves right with God.”  Marriage, in their case, was something done in the senior years not when the couple began their lives together. 

And divorce, which is actually a topic Jesus of Nazareth speaks of with relatively great detail in Matthew 19, is something that the Church was fairly quick to be okay with.  Why?  Because so many high profile leaders and televangelists were getting divorces and so, to maintain their reputations (and income), they minimized Jesus teaching on divorce to suit their own needs.  And, let’s be honest, it’s easy to disregard your own sin when there’s so many other flashier sins that can attract the public’s attention and on which you can make a living. 

I pretty much grew up in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).  I’m still a member of this denomination though over the years I will admit that I have been tempted to make a jump to other, more progressive traditions.  The ELCA, for the most part, has been a fairly forward thinking institution within the greater Church.  Its predecessor bodies (because it was formed by a merger of existing denominations in the later 80’s) began ordaining women in the early 70’s.  In 2009 the ELCA churchwide body approved the rostering of openly LGBT clergy in “committed lifelong monogamous relationships.” 

This kind of progressive mentality still hasn’t manifested itself in the region in which I grew up or currently live.  In 2009, when the churchwide body made its decision, many local congregations in my area left the ELCA because they insisted that homosexuality was a sin and they would not remain a part of a church body that would allow flagrant (and flamboyant?) sinners to be leaders in their church.  While large, progressive metro areas like San Francisco and Portland and even pockets of Kentucky and Indiana benefited from the decision, congregations fell away from the ELCA in droves in my region. 

The reason I’m giving you this history lesson and introducing you to the realities of church politics is because I’m trying to paint a picture for you.  This is the reality in which I grew up.  This is the reality in which many of us grew up.  Many of us still live in this reality.  The Church, which is so fond of making Sunday School children memorize “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son…” (John 3.16) and make kids sing “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world…,” was the same Church that looked at people who were LGBT and said, “Not you.  God says you’re an abomination.  Here’s a list of passages from the Bible to prove it.”

So growing up in the 80’s, with the HIV/AIDS crisis taking hold of the media and the public imagination, homophobia was on the rise.  The one place LGBT people could have gone to be reassured of their value and their humanity systematically rejected them, declaring that there was no way God could love such wicked, unnatural people.  “God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve” is something many of us chuckle about today but back then it hurt.  A lot. 

LGBT people had no standing in the secular world and the Church tried very hard to take the love of God away.  Is it any wonder that mental health issues correlated with LGBT self-identification? Is it a surprise that antagonists of LGBT people would use that correlation for their own agenda, saying that LGBT orientations created mental illness rather than understanding that isolation and fear and anxiety over the reaction of friends and family and even God created mental health issues in LGBT people?

Self-denial and conformation were requirements for survival or so many of us felt.  What choice did we have?  If we came out as teenagers we would be ostracized or even physically threatened.  If we came out as teens or adults we risked losing the people who should love us unconditionally, our families.  And even God.  We were trapped.  We made choices.  We made commitments that would lock us into a trajectory that would deliver us into a future that, for the most part, would look dramatically different than the past.  For the most part.  Obviously there still remain too many exceptions to the rule and we, as a society, still have a long way to go.

For me, because of my personality and my interests and my education, as I grew older I began to understand things differently.  Within the context of the Church and the Church’s institutionalized homophobia, I eventually learned that the Church’s intolerance of LGBT people had nothing to do with God and had everything to do with narrow minded, superstitious, and even ignorant interpretations of passages from the Bible.  I’ve blogged before about a quote from Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon and the quote that has been a guide for me in my understanding of theology and Church:

“From these Christians who came to [Avalon] to escape the bigotry of their own kind I learned something, at last, of the Nazarene, the carpenter's son who had attained Godhead in his own life and preached a rule of tolerance; and so I came to see that my quarrel was never with the Christ, but with his foolish and narrow priests who mistook their own narrowness for his.”

For me and others like me, it’s an enormous gift to come to a place of understanding in which you know that God loves you for who you are, just as God made you to be.  To shake off the burden of ignorant theology and superstition is a liberating experience.  The God we sought to please by denying who we truly were is the God who lovingly welcomes us with open arms, declaring, “No matter who you are, what you’ve done, what’s been done to you—I love you.”  Seeking God’s forgiveness for something far outside of our control like our biological makeup and internal wiring is no longer a priority.

For me, however, forgiveness still needs to be sought.  And I know I’m not alone.

In an attempt to be what we were told we should be, many of us, as I said, locked ourselves into a trajectory that led us into an unimaginable future.  We boxed up our LGBT selves and put on our straight faces because we never thought in a million years that things would get better for us.  We had “traditional” marriages.  We had children.  We built a life….that didn’t belong to us.  Some of us can extract themselves from this artificial life easier than others of us.  People like me?  Our life…our lies…interconnect with the lives of others with such complexity that to extricate ourselves from these lives would be disastrous.  It’s no longer a case of hidden identity for the sake of our own protection but it has become a case of hidden identity for the sake of the protection of others.  To tug at the threads and unravel the lies would hurt too many people.  So, those of us who have been forced by the culture, by the Church, and those who love us to deny who we truly are….well, we end up continuing to deny ourselves for the sake of those whom we love. 

I celebrate the stories I hear in which LGBT people find ways to navigate out of the trap and can do so on relative good terms.  Some of us can’t do that.  Some of us are still silent.  We’re here, we’re surviving, but…not really thriving. 

So here’s the thought that keeps me up at night.  Because I’ve come to a place where I simply can’t keep silent anymore, I worry about when Troy Comets and not-Troy Comets are going to come together for the first time in front of the people I try to protect.  Because, as much as I was victimized by a culture of ignorance and a Church that should have known better, the people affected by my choice to “try to do the right thing” are real victims.  I can’t not tell my story anymore (which is why I’m blogging) and I can’t not help others tell their story. 

What happens when my ‘two selves” are forced to coexist in the lives of the people I love and who love me?

And I know I’m not alone in this. 

I have learned that forgiveness from God is easy; it flows from God’s loving nature.  I also know that forgiveness from human beings is complicated, particularly from those who feel betrayed by us even when our intentions were the best.  After all, how do you forgive someone for breaking your heart?  How do you forgive someone for threatening to not be there when you depend on them so much? 

I guess this is the shadowed reality of the LGBT community. 

Confession Time

I want to make a confession.  It’s nothing terrible.  It’s nothing tabloid worthy.  It’s kind of embarrassing to think about it now.  But in order for you to appreciate the confession and what’s behind it, I need to give you some background and context. 

I know that you know that there was a time before satellite TV.  Our phones were tied to the wall with wires.  Our movies weren’t on demand; we had to rent them on VHS or Beta tapes at the local video rental place, usually at a mall.  And believe me if your parents were anything like mine there was definitely no “demand” about movies. (Oh, yeah—we shopped at malls.  Amazon wasn’t around back then.) Our music was on cassette tapes and MTV actually was Music Television.  And all the wonders of the internet had yet to be dreamed of.  In fact, computers were just become “a thing” in school when I was in fifth grade.  Some of you might recognize one of these if your parents or partners drag you around to antique shops.

Not having the internet complicated life in the closet.  It wasn’t just the isolation that we experienced at a time in which tolerance for LGBT people was ever fluctuating.  The advent of the internet also made it easier for LGBT people of all ages to appreciate, in relative privacy, the attributes of their attractions.  I’m not just talking about the ease and availability of porn, but I’m talking about being able to “fanboy” and “fangirl” in secret as well.  Today it’s nothing to pull out your smart phone and look up facts and photos of that movie star or lead singer.  Back in the day it was a little more complicated than that. 

So, now, my confession.

When I was a teenager I had a HUGE crush on Corey Haim. 

In 1986 the movie The Lost Boys was released.  It was one of a flurry of Corey Haim/Cory Feldman cinematic team ups that came out in the 80’s.  The best one of if you ask me.  Though, I suppose, Dream a Little Dream comes in a close second.  The Lost Boys had all the big names of the time:  The two Cory’s, Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Jami Gertz.  Beautiful people, dressed fashionably (for the time—don’t laugh), and gyrating to one of the best soundtracks of all time.  But at the center of it all, for me, was Corey Haim.

So, picture it.  It’s the 80’s and you live in one of the most conservative pockets in the region.  You’re surrounded by the small town mentality of “traditional” values, where deviation from the time honored norm resulted in bullying and harassment and even violence.  You know you’re gay; you have no interest in girls and panic regularly in the locker room before and after phy ed.  You watch a movie and become enamored by one of the lead actors.  What do you do? 

You get creative and you get sneaky. 

It wasn’t long after The Lost Boys came out that I was able to talk my dad into buying the family a VCR.  Shortly after that the VCR migrated from the family room to my bedroom where I connected it to my little 12” black and white TV.  Somehow I got my hands on a copy of The Lost Boys and voila!  My crush was in my bedroom.  To this day I’m not sure how I didn’t wear out that video tape. 

 

Let me pause for a moment and make an important point.  My crush on Corey Haim wasn’t just teenage lust provoking the typical reaction from a teenage boy.  Even back then I was more relationship oriented than “sex” oriented.  I would rather connect with a person than hook up with a person.  I just don’t want you going away with the wrong idea. 

So, I had “my Corey” on the huge 12” black and white television.  But there was more to feed my crush.

If you were like me, growing up in the 80’s from the safety of a closet, you may have had a sister.  Somewhere in that sister’s bedroom would be a collection.  Sometimes this collection would be proudly displayed.  Sometimes it would be tucked away for safe keeping.  Sometimes this collection would be inconveniently gutted and plastered all of the walls.  I’m talking about magazines.  But not just any magazines.  I’m talking about THE magazines filled with beautiful teenage boys, occasionally flashing some skin, smiling boldly.  In that smile was an unspoken message:  “So what if you’re gay.  I’m here for you.  Let’s talk about how hot I am.”

Occasionally one or two of these magazines would come to visit me in my bedroom.  They would bring New Kids on the Block with them along with Johnny Depp, Jonathan Brandis, Ralph Macchio, and Jay R. Ferguson of the dreamy eyes who I recently blogged about. 

You see, we didn’t have YouTube to watch clips of our crushes dorking around or sending greetings to their fans.  We didn’t have Instagram or twitter.  Time spent with our crushes was planned out, two dimensional, and required considerable imagination.  And if you were like me, isolated and afraid that the real you would be discovered, a certain amount of calculating resourcefulness was also required. 

So, I had a crush on Corey Haim (for obvious reasons) and in order to feed that crush I obsessed over a movie on a little black and white TV and snuck teen magazines from my sister’s bedroom.  There.  That’s my confession.  I’ll give you a moment to stop laughing before I continue.

Got it out of your system yet?

And now a disclaimer:  The tone of my thoughts from here on might sound judgmental.  I think it could be easy to relegate them to the “Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!” category.  I hope you don’t do that because my goal isn’t to be preachy here.  I just have a thought and, honestly, I’m curious what all of you have to say about it.

I admit that my opinion might be formed by a sense of nostalgia but I almost wonder if, at least where the idea of crushing and fanboying and fangirling is concerned, things were better before the internet.  I know that might be strange to hear.  It’s strange for me to say.  And it’s definitely not in keeping with the opinion I’ve shared in previous blog entries in which I celebrate the freedom LGBT people find through technology.  But bear with me and let me explain.

I think that there’s something to be said about mystery.  Mystery fuels the imagination.  Mystery fills in the blanks when reality fails or answers are evasive.  Mystery drives us to discovery, channeling us through a labyrinth of experience that helps develop identity and character. 

On the opposite end of this spectrum is everything that comes with internet:  Constantly flowing information, more than we can possibly consume and, sometimes, more than we want to know.  I had to laugh recently when singer/songwriter Sia made an appearance on James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke” sketch.  Sia talked about wanting to maintain a sense of privacy in an era where stars have no problem tweeting out pictures of themselves from the dentist.  Just this past week Kim Kardashian West tweeted a picture that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.  A few months ago a photographer managed to “sneak” a picture of Justin Bieber sans clothes, finally showing obsessed fans around the world a side of the Biebster they’ve been wanting to see for years. 

I’m not saying these things are bad.  They just are.  I don’t think it’s possible to ascribe them a value apart from a subjective appraisal and those, I think, I pretty much useless in our culture today. 

I just wonder where the mystery is anymore when anything and everything you could possibly know is instantly available literally in the palm of your hand.  Music doesn’t dance around a topic anymore—it comes right out and says it.  Anyone with an internet connection, regardless of age, can watch total strangers have sex.  Heck, according to certain studies (which, admittedly, are problematic in their methodology), teenagers are having sex younger and younger, leaving absolutely no room for mystery and wonder. 

Do you know what I mean?

I think where I’m going with this can be summed up in this thought:  Everything we receive comes with a cost.   I think there is no better example of this than the internet.  Information flows, educating people, connecting people, creating community, liberating not just LGBT people but people who struggle with abuse, addiction, racism, sexism, and so on.  But when the information gate is opened we can’t pick and choose what information flows lest we make judgments about what information is “acceptable” and what information is “dangerous.” 

I’m not a luddite.  I’m not only fond of technology but I’ve grown quite dependent upon it.  Even if we could rewind time and figure out how to keep the “good things” technology does and eliminate the “bad things” that technology brings with it, I wouldn’t want to.  I wouldn’t want to meddle with that history any more than I would want to meddle with the history of my life and take “missed opportunities” to come out.  Time is.  History is.  We are at this moment in time, with all its good and with all its challenge.  The question isn’t “What should we have done differently?” but rather “What can we do now?”

I don’t know if you agree with me.  Maybe it’s just an observation made by someone who likes to think about things like this.  Maybe it’s something similar to what people who came before me thought about “my time” just like you will think of people who come after “your time.”  It might just be the nature of the universe, to see these positives bring their negatives, leaving people with way too much time on their hands to ask these kinds of questions. 

Regardless of whether or not you agree with my thoughts on the internet destroying mystery and imagination when it comes to the development of sexual identity and the feeding of that curiosity (whether straight or LGBT), I hope we can agree on two things.  First, I hope that we can agree that talking about these things doesn’t hurt anything.  I hope we can agree that coming together and having conversations about things that we either see ourselves or things that others see and bring to our attention can only benefit everyone involved.  Conversation is always good as long as all parties are listening and engaging.

I also hope we can agree on something very important.

I hope we can agree that Corey Haim was so hot!