My First GLBT Acquaintance, by Pat Gourley

I saw that today’s topic was actually Dancing with the Stars. I am aware that this is the name of a long-standing television series of the same name that I think involves teams of contestants in competitive-dancing with often B-grade celebrities. And I must admit I have never watched a single minute of this show and I mean no offense to anyone who enjoys it. Really how can somewhat like me who is addicted to reruns of The Big Bang Theory and the Golden Girls throw shade at anyone else’s TV viewing habits?

I could I suppose make a big stretch and turn ‘dancing with the stars’ into a metaphor for one of my past particularly enjoyable LSD adventures but instead I’ll write a few lines on last week’s topic: My First GLBT Acquaintance. Let me say right out of the box I have no idea who my first real GLBT acquaintance was since like all of us of a certain age I was birthed into the stifling cauldron of a falsely presumed heterosexual universe. We were in many ways unrecognizable to one another until we demanded to be called by our real names. A nearly universal experience we all relate to was the question of whether or not we were alone asking “am I the only one who is this way”. Our first acquaintance would I hope for most of us be a glorious answer to that question.

As I was writing this and had Pandora playing in the background I was unaware of any tune until Lou Reed’s masterpiece Walk on the Wild Side just came on. Released in 1972 this opus chronicles the adventures of a cast of characters all headed to New York City and a ‘walk on the wild side’.

I would take the liberty to say that through transexuality, drug use, male prostitution and oral sex they may have all been looking for and perhaps found that first GLBT acquaintance. Holly, Candy, Little Joe, Sugar Plum Fairy and Jackie all seem to have been based on real people from Reed’s life in NYC back then. All of whom I would say were very queer people.

We were fortunate in this SAGE Story Telling Group to get a glimpse of this albeit dangerous but deliciously exciting world Reed describes in his song through the frequent writings of a dear friend who died recently. As he related to us on several occasions his walks on the wild side started in the tearooms of downtown Denver department stores but would eventually be played out most emphatically on the streets of NYC. He often honestly provided glimpses into this world, that like it or not, is an integral part of our collective and frequently personal queer history. Thank you, dear friend!

For the sake of this piece I am going to say that “acquaintance” implies a mutual recognition that we are both queer as three-dollar bills. When using this definition the task of identifying my first acquaintance is much easier. This first person I suppose also represents my own personal “walk on the wild side”. As I have written about on previous occasions this ‘acquaintance” was a man 20 years my senior who I had been passive-aggressively courting for a year. We took a real ‘walk on the wild side’ and had sex (my first!) in the biology lab of my Catholic High School festooned with crucifixes on the wall. It was Easter week and I was a soon to graduate Senior. I am eternally in debt to this man for launching in very loving fashion my great ongoing gay adventure.

If there has been one thing that our liberation efforts the past century have provided it is that many but certainly not all new ‘recruits’ to the queer world do not have to have that first acquaintance involve a ‘walk on the wild side’. The fruits of success I suppose though work remains to be done and for some us perhaps a sense of nostalgia for a long gone but often very exciting times.

© July 2017

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

My First GLBT Acquaintance, Ray S

In my Book of Standards, little boys were supposed to have sports heroes, like baseball, football, Jack Armstrong, and the guys that had their pictures on the Wheaties box.

No, not me. My heroes and role models were male movie stars. At the time in my adolescent years I wasn’t aware that these crushes were the signs of my beginning acquaintance with what became of my life’s journey on the road to homosexuality. Little did I know, nor did I question, why I found these men appealing and attractive, but these acquaintances lived quietly in my pre-teen subconscious.

There was Franchot Tone, Clark Gable’s second mate on Charles Laughton’s “Bounty.” Never did care for Tom Mix or Gene Autry, but give me Randolph Scott anytime. Then there was a guy named Lou McAlister—“the boy next door.” By this time I was beginning to wonder: did he like boys too?

All this time it was my imagination creating these illusions that did not register as latent gayness. That developed shortly thereafter, upon the arrival of slow but sure puberty.

“First Acquaintance.” Looking back so many years, it is hard to remember which “first.” This is like so many other impertinent questions posed to a newly “out” GLBT person—and you want to reply with “None of your damned business” or proceed to bore the questioner with your life story. TMI.

Let’s see, does First Acquaintance mean actual physical contact or maybe talking about IT with a like-minded shy and timid boy? All that fooling around with your cousin of the neighbor boy when you were 6 or 7 years old doesn’t count. It wasn’t’ a heart to heart talk with the priest or some other spiritual counselor. In fact, the first instance may have been your “first” but I avoided clergy at all costs, and the same can be said for Boy Scout leaders.

There was a chance encounter at a movie house in Richmond, VA. I was stationed there during the war, after I had finished basic training. A teenaged U. S. Navy boy sat next to me in the darkened theatre and I noticed somehow our knees began to become acquainted.

As I stated before the rest is none of your damned business!

© 17 July 2017 

About the Author 

My First GLBT Acquaintance, by Phillip Hoyle

My first gay acquaintance had a rather elegant name, Edward F. Printz, III, something I never expected of a person from a western Kansas farm. I knew him as Ted. Of course he drove a tractor, but he also sang at school, was the drum major for the high school band, and by the time I met him he’d been hired as the music director for our little college. My last semester there Ted led the choir I sang in and taught me vocal technique. I learned so much from him.

While I was unschooled in language like “gay” and had heard “queer” as an old fashioned word one of my grandmother’s used with some regularity, I knew in a flash that Ted would be interested to do some of the sexual things that I also would be interested to do had I not got married a year and a half before meeting him. I really liked his buoyant and outgoing personality and hoped he would never ask me to do those interesting things with him. I knew I would not ask him to do them with me. Still I realized that we were much the same and came to understand that sameness to be gayness. I picked up the gay word from reading a book in the school library, a sociological study that along with its main topic defined some common gay male words. I learned more about this world of gay and found myself interested, oh so interested.

 I felt no compelling need to enter that world but still was curious. Ted and I became life-long friends. He became a regular visitor in our home after I graduated. Since we had moved to the city where his voice teacher lived, Ted visited us some weekends. One summer while he was in graduate school and lived with us, Ted served as tenor soloist in the Chancel Choir I directed. Our friendship became more complex. The relationship between the ever-teacher Ted and the ever-student Phil endured until Ted’s death on his 47th birthday, April 29, 1994. Eventually I did enter Ted’s gay world. I lived as an openly gay man and dedicated my fifteen years of massage work with HIV positive persons to his memory. And I recall his wisdom and humor almost daily.

© 17 July 2017 

About the Author 

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general, he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com