Soy Made Me Gay

It’s amazing how growing up in the south can scour the fairy right out of a kid.  I grew up in the redneck-saturated rural south in a town that couldn’t legitimately be called a town unless the only frame of reference was Antarctica.

For the first part of elementary school, I played with everyone.  If the boys were playing kickball, I played kickball.  If the girls were playing dolls, I played dolls.  Then, around the fifth grade, I noticed a change in everyone around me.  The boys started to be interested in girls in a way that I was uncomfortable with.  Their language became rougher and offended my young Mormon ears.  The girls were now interested in the other boys and no longer wanted to play with me, either.  I was sensitive and was still one of the smallest kids in my class.  My athletic abilities hadn’t progressed like the other boys and soon I was soon outclassed. I hung around the cheerleaders frequently and could even be found making posters and cheering on the sidelines at games.  When I reluctantly played on the pee-wee football team, I ended up crying when we lost the game.

I cried easily.

The friends I had were those who fell out of the group for whatever reason: the tomboys, the freaks, the emo kids (before there even were emo kids), the poor kids, the protestants who were actually trying to live their religion (and thus pushed to the edge of society), the fat kids, etc.  My mom was proud of me for befriending the unpopular kids, but to be honest, I would have dropped them in a second for a chance to be one of the cool kids (and occasionally, I did).

Entering the seventh grade posed a problem.  My school was so small that every boy who wanted to be on the football team got a uniform.  This meant that almost every boy from seventh to twelfth grade was on the football team.  I hated football, but when I voiced my concern to the adults around me, all I was told was that if I wanted to fit in, I had to play.  I did see one way out, however.  A few years older than me was a kid who was great at basketball.  He was also smart and was considered one of the “good kids”.  No one bothered him for not playing football – mostly because he was so good at basketball that they understood his desire to focus on one sport.  I decided to not play football, but join the basketball team.

Even from my first practice, I knew deep down that I was never going to be good at basketball.  I kept playing because I genuinely enjoyed it (lack of talent aside), but I knew if I was going to survive, I had to throw my efforts into the other two areas: smarts and being the “good kid”.  To be honest, I didn’t have to put much effort into it.  I always got good grades and the level of education was so poor that cruising by was easy.  Everyone knew that I was Mormon, so that took care of the “good kid” part.

All that was left was to kill the “sissy” side of me.  Cheering on the sidelines was out and I monitored my actions and words closely to make sure no overly feminine gestures or phrases escaped.  I played up my image of the “smart kid” and fought back against attacks with cutting remarks and talked in big words, which confused my enemies (seriously, I was like a nerd in a frigging ABC Family movie).  I was the teacher’s pet and at such a small school, having the faculty on your side was an advantage rather than a crutch.  Soon, the other kids didn’t bother me at all, but then again they didn’t talk to me, either.  In order to protect me from everyone else I had successfully, but unintentionally, pushed them away.  When Columbine happened, the other kids (and a couple of faculty members) threw a wary glance in my direction.  I was a disgruntled outsider – was I going to shoot up the school?  Little did they know that I didn’t even know how to load a gun.

My senior year, I went to a farewell party for an acquaintance at another school who was moving away.  I went with a friend from elementary school (one of the tomboys) and after about an hour of awkwardness, we left.  As I waved by, one of my acquaintances’ friends yelled, “fag!”  I was confused.  I didn’t recall saying anything especially “faggy” that night.  In fact, I hadn’t said hardly anything.  My friend assured me that it was nothing I did, but the guy who called me a fag was just “like that”.  It was also the first time that I had actually been called a fag – before then, a combination of my family’s status and my sissy-suppression had prevented it.

It would be years before I stopped policing my mannerisms.  I no longer get a twist in my stomach if my wrist hangs a little limp.  I don’t hyper-analyze my speech and worry if it gets too high pitched.  I’m just me and I’m generally happy with who I am, but sometimes I wonder what I would be like if I never made a conscious effort to never cross my legs “like a woman”.  Because now, even though I just act how I act, I still pass as straight.  When most people find out I’m gay, it’s usually a surprise.  If they did have a suspicion, it was almost always because of what I would say, not how I would say it.  My forced masculinity is ingrained now, but what if I had kept cheering on the sidelines?  What if I hadn’t deadened my excitability in order to appear manlier?  If I had been more relaxed and accepting of myself then, what would I have been like now?

You know, straight Mormons didn’t ask to be straight.  It’s not their fault that they go through their life attracted to members of the opposite sex.  We shouldn’t blame them for who they are.

I know this probably seems silly, but I’m being serious here.  A lot of times we look at straight Mormons with an “us” versus “them” mentality, even if we don’t realize it.  I’ve done it.  A lot.  I’ve caught myself generalizing straight Mormons (especially straight Mormon guys) as intolerant and closed minded.  I’ve even thought that straight Mormons needed to really change their attitudes in order to be real disciples of Jesus and by doing so I immediately became the type of person that I was criticizing.

Should more members of the Church be more accepting of people who are different?  Absolutely, and first person in line for such a change should be me.  And you.  And everyone else.

One of my best friends in high school was my cousin.  She was captain of every team she played on – including the cheerleading squad.  She was an “A” student and was literally the most popular girl in school.  I remember once she confided in me that she felt like an outsider and that no one really liked her.  The most popular girl at our school was admitting that she didn’t feel as though she fit in.  I was confused.  How did she possibly feel as though she didn’t fit in?  I mean if anyone didn’t fit in, it was me.  I was one of only a handful of boys that didn’t play football, a closet gay, into computers and other nerdery, articulate (we are talking the rural south here), and I was a fan of the WB series Popular (this alone probably would have gotten me lynched had it been widely known).  I felt that all this separated me from the popular kids and even though I put on an exterior of not caring about what people thought, on the inside I was desperate to be one of the cool kids.  I didn’t fit in, but I wanted to.

Or did I fit in?  As Mormons, we were part of a minority in a Baptist stronghold, but I was from a “good” family and this alone shielded me from a great deal of abuse by the other kids around me.  “Their dad knew my dad” after all.  I now think about the kids who didn’t have respected families.  The kids who were even more awkward than I was, who were raised by their grandmothers in double-wide trailers, and always wore Wal-Mart brand jeans.  I’d like to say that I was nice to those kids and that we lifted each other up, but I didn’t.  More often than not, I’d give token kindness, only to abandon them when one of the cool kids showed passing interest in me.

Even now when I sit at Church, I sometimes have nagging feeling that I don’t belong there, that I am too different.  I am the puzzle piece that got put in the wrong box and doesn’t fit in with any of the other pieces.

But I am wrong.

All the pieces fit do fit together.  The problem was that we got caught up trying to make the picture of two kittens on the box.  What we didn’t realize was that the puzzle was never meant to make those dumb kittens.  It was meant to be swirls, giant splotches of color, and textures.  It’s the picture on the box that is wrong, not the pieces.  Crap, the picture isn’t even rectangular.

If we think of perfection as everyone conforming themselves to an perceived ideal, then we trying to make a couple of kittens from puzzle pieces that were never meant to make that in the first place.  Perfection is completeness and wholeness: the complete and whole version of ourselves.  In the last Conference, Elder Wirthlin gave a talk in which he urged those who felt themselves falling away because they felt different to stay.  He explained that the Church not only accepts diversity but needs it.  Instead of accepting me in spite of my differences, the Church needs me because of my differences.

Will I accept the challenge?  Will I use the talents, gifts, and experiences that the Lord has blessed (yes, blessed) me with as a way to lift up those around me?  Will I be a friend to those around me that feel different – be they the artsy kid sitting in the back row in jeans or the ward “power couple”?  Will I show understanding to the gruff member of the Church who reacts negatively against gay people because he feels insecure in the current state of the world and what it all means for the future of him and his family?  Will I be a true disciple of Christ?

Lord, please give me strength.

Hey everyone.  I hope you all will forgive the mass email, but at the time it seemed to be the best way of going about this.

In an effort to live my life in a manner that is less shut off from those that love me and, you all being my family, I feel you should know what is going on in my life.  To make a really…really long story short, I’m gay.  It’s something that I’ve known since I was a kid and even before I knew what “gay” was.

(I use the word “gay” for myself rather than the Mormon acronym “SSA” for reasons of principle, which I won’t go into here.)

It hasn’t always been easy living as a member of the Church and gay.  On my mission I was, for the most part, able to put my sexuality on the back burner and devote my efforts to service but after coming back, I began to realize that I wasn’t going the be able to follow along the path of marriage and family quite like “everyone else” which, at times, I found very frustrating.

Both my testimony of the Gospel and my sexuality are inseparable parts of me and the internal battle between the two seemingly polar opposites became very, very tiring.  After years of confusion I finally decided, thanks to some much needed revelation from the Lord, that I wanted to live according to the commandments and not live as a “practicing” gay man.  I felt at peace with my decision to stay in the Church even though I felt that God’s love for me was independent of my own choices.  I haven’t completely ruled out the possibility of marriage and family, but for me it doesn’t seem to be a possibility anytime soon.

So, that’s where I am now.  I’m by no means perfect, but I have the goal to live a life that reflects my testimony and I am actively seeking to accomplish that.  It can be difficult at times as my friends slowly get married and move on with their lives and seem to leave me behind.  It can prove frustrating, too, when I am faced with ignorant and plain inaccurate views of homosexuality by some members at church, but I have great people around me who love me unconditionally and I feel lucky to have them in my life.  I also feel that God loves me and that’s, you know, a big plus.

I appreciate all of you and the consistent support that you have given me.  I love you all even if I don’t call to talk to you very often.  My friends know your names because I frequently talk to them about you and your families.  If you have any questions, you are more than welcome to give me a call, or if you’d rather, an email, or neither.  I’m flexible :-).

Your brother,

Cliff

I came across one of those list articles on the internet “revealing” six historical figures that lived much of their lives celibate (by choice).  Part of me wondered if they were only celibate from the ladies (wink, wink).  With examples like Hayden and the guy who wrote Peter Pan, it isn’t that far of a stretch of the imagination, but as I read further, I came across Ghandi, Nickolai Tesla, and Sir Isaac Newton.  Tesla viewed sex as a “drain on creativity”, valuing his work over the marriage and family.  As I read, I remembered an article in Blender where Rivers Cuomo (lead singer of the band Weezer) talked briefly about his more than two-and-a-half year vow of celibacy (which is no small feat for a rock star, I’m sure), which he did for meditation and creative reasons.

Here I am, celibate, young, and creative, and yet I spend almost every evening staring at an empty Word document for hours before giving up and going to bed.  Seriously.  I don’t have a wife/kids/girlfriend/boyfriend/California-domestic-partner to take up my time and energy.  I’m not actively pursuing any of the above, yet I find myself devoting hours of effort into writing and creating only to end up with virtually nothing at the other end.

If sexlessness were the key to great thinking, one would assume I would have a couple of PhDs, a successful string of novels, and my own humor column in the New Yorker by now, yet here I sit in my inadequately air-conditioned studio apartment in the south with a hard drive full of empty .doc files.

I blame my nemesis.

To be honest, I don’t think my nemesis even knows that he is my nemesis.  To be more honest, I’m really not even on his radar.  While I was in college, I was selected by the faculty to direct a short under the guidance of a famous TV director (well, the director wasn’t famous, but the TV shows he directed were famous).  The script that was selected was written by another student.  He was also made a producer on the short.  (For those that don’t know, in television producer > director.)  I read through the script and groaned.  While I liked the premise, I hated just about every part of the execution.  The dialogue was unrealistic, the humor was inconsistent, the pacing of the script was abysmal.  I took out my pen and went to work rewriting.  By the time I was finished the pages ran red with my notes.  Some pages were even completely crossed out.

At our first pre-pro meeting, we went over my notes for the script.  The first one I presented was completely shot down by my nemesis.  So was the second…and the third.  Realizing that none of my notes were going to fall on willing ears, I threw them out and decided to shoot the script as is.

It was an uphill battle for a while.  I was cowed by the producers into casting an actor that I thought was terrible (who happened to be good friends of my nemeis), the semi-famous director was unable to teach the class due to a death in the family, and I faced constant criticism from my director of photography.  I eventually felt vindicated, however.  The fill-in instructor (who generally liked my work) suggested we drastically cut down a scene and in the edit we essentially removed the lines from the pages that I had thrown out earlier.  When the movie was reviewed by the student newspaper, my direction was applauded (which is funny as I realize now how terrible it was), and the criticisms the reviewer made of the script also reflected my ignored notes.

We graduated and I took a job with a production company in the southeast while my nemesis moved to LA.  We kept in touch off and on – each comparing accomplishments.  He was mostly doing production assistant work for various TV shows while I worked on regional commercials – usually as the editor, but in other capacities as well.  At the end of last year, I was able to work as the 2nd Assistant Director (a title that sounds more important than it actually is) on a cable TV show in LA and I figured I had him beat for a while.  I ended up hating the job, however, and decided that I wanted to start moving my career into online content production – both written and video.  No matter how hard I tried to concept an idea for a site or even to write portfolio-building articles on my regular blog, I usually ended up with frustrated attempts and abandoned sites.  My friends that often tell me I need to write a book only exacerbate the problem as I am unable to finish even the shortest of stories.

Recently, I heard the writer/producer interviewed on NPR.  NP-freaking-R.  A stunt for the comedy website that he and his friends had started had gotten him into the Guiness Freaking Book of World Freaking Records.  A couple of days ago I saw that the podcast segment of the site was in the Top 100 on iTunes.  I’ve always considered myself more talented than him.  My ideas were simply better and I wasn’t the only one that thought so, but as I sit in front of yet another blank Word document, I realized that my nemesis has something that I don’t have.  Whatever it is, it allows him to take his tired, mediocre concepts and turn them into something that gains national attention.

I’m the one that is celibate.  I’m the one that has long lonely evenings in which I can churn out the worlds next great novel.  I’m the one.  When is this lack of doing it going to get me some talent?  Without it, I’m just a penniless twenty-six year old sitting on his cheap Ikea couch without the possibility of getting laid.

(sigh)

In the end, I’m happy for him.  In reality he isn’t the talentless hack I sometimes wish him to be.  My frustration actually comes from jealousy.  When I look at my life and wonder how I will make an impression or am I doomed to be a forgotten terminating branch on someone’s pedigree chart?  Some thirteen year old boy scout who is earning a genealogy merit badge will ask his mom a hundred years from now if I was a baby that died in child birth, but after checking, she’ll see that no, I actually lived to be quite old, however there wasn’t any record of me getting married or having any children.  I guess I am hoping to fill my life with something that people might remember me by – even if it is someone who picks up some random book in a library.  If I can’t have the one, I should be able to have the other, right?  Maybe not.  God doesn’t care about whether our name becomes a byline.  All He cares about is that we learn to love others and find our way back to Him.  It’s by service to others that we find the fulfillment that we seek.  If it can’t be our family, then it should be those around us who need our help and our talents (which is the real reason that we have them).  Still, NPR….

Tesla, you suck.

Straight guys have become really gay lately.  Sure, you don’t see too many singing show tunes and appreciating Jane Austen, but they have managed to adopt some gayery that would make Matthew Broderick proud.  (What?  He’s straight?  …really?)

5. Cycling Clothes

I guess you could call it the “Lance Armstrong Effect”: no matter how revealing the clothing, no matter how rainbow-flag colorful it is, you get a sports star to almost single-handedly beat the French and you’ll have a cavalry of straight two-wheeling imitators in stretchy-pants tearing through your neighborhood every Sunday morning.  At least, most of the time, the guys who don the contour-hugging shorts have the body to pull if off (unlike the “Greg Lougainis Speedo”).  French-beating aside, Pearl Izumi sounds like a designer that should appear on “Project Runway” not ESPN2.

4. Metrosexuality

Guys paying attention to fashion and personal appearance have become such the norm (especially in urban areas) that the traditional view of masculinity was dubbed “retrosexuality”.  Thanks to evolving opinions on what makes a man a man, a guy can now be plucked, trimmed, can-tanned, teased, man-scaped, and even pedicured without being labeled a “confirmed bachelor” by his friends.  I’m all for straight guys getting their “queer eye”, but just don’t go overboard.

3. Men’s Health Magazine

It used to almost be a cliche: what do you find in both men’s and women’s beauty magazines?  Pictures of scantily-clad women.  Well, this man-Cosmo was one of the first to break that pattern.  You couldn’t have more shirtless guys in its pages if you put up a disco ball and started blasting Moby remixes.  Sure, the headlines read “What She Wants” and “The 7 Things Every Woman Looks For In A Man”, but, come on, who really buys Men’s Health for the articles?

2. Ultimate Fighting

You’re flipping through the channels and you come across two guys wrapped around each other in Lycra trunk shorts pummeling each other until the blood flies.  No, those naughty websites haven’t infiltrated your cable, you’re just watching the UFC or one of its clones.  I’m not a queer theorist, but come on, there is less homoeroticism on Logo.  Watch the match long enough and you’ll end up seeing the buff, half-naked guys work themselves into positions that would make Perez Hilton blush.

1. Sports Team Butt Slap

Ah, the the classic example of straight-male bonding that makes it ok for you to reach out and touch someone.  To bad it doesn’t extend outside of sports.  Ace that final?  Awesome!  Butt-slap!  Nail the presentation!  Cool Beans!  Butt-slap!  Finish your first countdown-style blog post?  Freaking A!  Butt-slap!

I’d grown accustomed to seeing L and then, last week, Kira kills him just like that.  No more careful conversations between him and Light.  No more homoerotic undertones (the foot massage, I mean please).  No more constant eating.  Boom, dead L.  I watched The Death Note this week and I felt let down.  It seemed as though they were stretching out the series.  Part of me feels that it should have died with L.

But maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe the series will now be better than ever: what I thought should have been an end is really just a turn that leads to a new and exciting path.  Maybe there is hope after all….

I won’t lie.  This weekend sucked to high heaven.  I’m only now barely getting over the weight of the pain and doubt.  Yesterday, after work I came into my apartment and went straight to sleep on my slightly-too-small Ikea couch.  I posted a mildly cryptic, overly dramatic message on my Twitter and made one of those illogical deals with myself where I decided that if no one checked up on my when I woke up, I would stop going to church.  It was one of those self-gratifying deals that you don’t go through with, even if the conditions are met.

I woke up an hour later actually feeling better.  I checked my email and Facebook account.  Nothing.  I checked my cell phone.  My mom had called-twice.  I talked to her for a while and then made pancakes.

I guess we all are allowed our emotional breakdowns every once in a while (even if we aren’t allowed them, it looks like I’m going to have to take them anyway).  I’ve always believed that it doesn’t matter how many times we fall down, as long as we get back up again.  Well, I’m getting back up.  My left knee has a pretty deep gash, I’m walking with a limp, and I’ll probably be in a foul mood for the rest of the week, but I’m getting back up.  Where do I go from here?  The same place I was going last week…just a little slower.