Essays: June 2004 Archives

(Written in Ogunquit, Maine, 2:30am with the sound of ocean surf in the background)

It's rare in life to realize the completion of something monumental in the work of a life. Most people struggle through life from one thing to the next, never once stopping to think of what their thoughts have been; what got them there; what kind of person they have ended up being.

A few days ago, it hit me. It was enlightenment, if you will. It occurred to me that after a lifetime of struggle, self doubt, self loathing, that I had everything. I have a home, a mate in life that would always be there for me, financial security, love, and, most importantly, the ability to appreciate everything.

To my astonishment, the one thing that made this all possible was the one thing that I have spent my entire life despising. It is the one thing that I have blamed for most of the hardship, self-doubt, self-hatred, and despair that life has given me. It is being a homosexual. It is what it is. It is not being queer, gay, poofter, faggot, or any of the other emotionally charged terms that society has seen fit to bestow upon us. It is simply, to be accurate and non-emotional, homosexual.

This is what it has given me. It has given me the pain of being different; not a small thing when living with a species that hates anything different. It has made me the target and recipient of physical, and emotional violence. It has forced me to a place in life that suicide seemed to be my only option, three times. It has made me curse the very people who brought me back to life after my decision to end that life. How dare they! They are normal. What right did they have?

It has made many of my dearest friends suddenly want to walk the other way upon hearing about me being a homosexual. A friendship in college that I was developing suddenly ended when someone in my dormitory told him that I was a homosexual (faggot was the exact term they used). But he didn't come talk to me about it. That would have been too simple, too logical, and it would have given me, a faggot, too much dignity. No. He wanted me to feel shame and humiliation for being homosexual – even the absence of any further acknowledgment as a human being. He wanted me to feel something much worse; the absence of his friendship. So, he stopped talking to me. What heartless bastard would do this you ask? The answer is, all of you, depending on the time and place. That feeds on other things. Such as the psychological need to feel wanted and to be a part of things. He never talked to me again. I don't honestly know how many did this, there were so many. I lost count.

Others were more devious. They would call me in the middle of the night and ask me how much I charged for a blow job. Didn't they know that I could recognize their voice because one of them was the Resident Assistant (RA) on my floor? I could hear him and his friends laughing in the background. The next morning, they would say hi to me, barely able to keep themselves from laughing about it, and always with a smirk on their face. One even put his arm around me and asked me (in front of the others, of course), if I would drive out to the lake with him, presumably to give him oral sex. The others laughed. I turned the tables. When I put my arm around him and said, without cracking a smile or a hint of disgust, "That will be fifty bucks. More if the others want to watch." He quickly withdrew his arm from my shoulder, and was disgusted. The others looked away. I left, went to my room, and cried. Everything from high school was happening all over again.

I remember vividly being around a group of students in college in the cafeteria, when the subject of bisexuality came up. The subject quickly changed when one of the girls said, "You guys, bisexuality is gross." That was the end of that subject. I remember thinking at the time, "My God, I'm so glad that she doesn't know that I'm a full homosexual!" It would have been another lost friendship. And, maybe at the time that would have been true. When we go to Idaho next August, we will see her and her husband again. We are now friends. People can and do change.

Occasionally, I would meet another homosexual at college. We had a way of knowing each other, but we were all so scared at being "found out", that we rarely did more then exchange eye contact. It was sad in a way. My college life consisted of trying to do the best I could in my classes, all the while spending so much energy to try to keep a secret. This is probably the most profound part of gay life that straight people cannot comprehend. Not many I know have some secret about themselves that they spend most of their lives trying to keep from others. It does take a toll on the soul.

So now, after years of being away from that, why is my life so perfect? It's perfect because of what being a homosexual has done to, or should I say, for me. I always thought about it as a curse and something that I had to endure. And, when my life was over, the reward for going through a life of misery that others had subjected me too, would be everlasting burning in Hell for the sin of being homosexual. God loves all of us who do things such as beat up or kill homosexuals, and he's willing to forgive us for that because He hates homosexuals even more than he hates what we do to them. With religion, everything is a negotiation.

What has being a homosexual done for me? It has done for me what it did for Michelangelo. It has given me a view of the world that very few of my straight male counterparts can even comprehend. I look at everything differently. I realize that all the grief I went through as a young man for being homosexual was just the other side of the coin. Since I was able to survive my own attempts to end my life, and the attempts of others to attempt to kill me in high school, I have an appreciation for other things in life, such as a flower. Not the way most people do. People will look at flowers, say something lame such as "aren't they lovely", and go about their business. It seems a terrible insult that the parent plant sacrificed everything to make this happen. I think that demands more than the adjective of "lovely" being applied to them. I study them. I study the shapes, the smell (good or bad), the profound effect they are having on my senses, and their roll in changing the world by their presence here.

Being homosexual has made me realize that there is no difference between being in awe of some creature such a bee and marveling at what she does, or lying in a pool of my own blood after being beaten to a pulp wondering where I am, and why I should be feeling pain, but feel nothing. It's an odd sensation. Both are filled with wonderment and fascination. Why did this happen? Is this my role in life? Is this what I do? Is that my purpose? Was I in that place at that time to be beaten by this group of men to aid in their passage through life? Was that part of my purpose, or was I nothing more than food to fuel their hate? Am I fulfilling some need, just as the bee who goes about her business of fertilizing a flower?

Being homosexual has made me realize that there are those who have empty lives. I rarely go to newsgroups on the internet anymore. You can find anything there. I read some from a newsgroup talking about gay marriage. One man said, "I'm willing to give gay couples marriage licenses, as long as you get fifty couples together, and force them to give each other blood transfusions. After that, they can have their marriage licenses." I presume he felt that at least one person in the fifty couples would be HIV positive, or have AIDS. Everyone else in the group would therefore contract the disease, and eventually, there would be no marriages left from that group, because everyone would eventually die. And this, my friends, is why the human race is doomed. It has no ability to see beyond it's own hatred. As for the man who wrote this, I see a man who will never savor fulfillment in life, who will live his life consumed by such hatred, and at the end of his life only have his hatred as his companion. That's the thing about hatred, it doesn't like to share.

Being homosexual has given me the ability to realize that those who dislike or hate me are suffering from the disease of hate. And, that doesn't come at a small price. If they hate me, it will never stop with me. It will eventually pollute their relationships and their family. In the case of some, their children will inherit their hate, and it goes on and on.

They will never have the ability to be friends with whoever they choose to be friends with – no matter what, without other baggage being in the way, such as, what will other people think? It will never occur to them that in the very short time they will spend here in this life that extraordinary things could happen to them. They will miss it all.

They will never have the ability to openly and unapologetically weep at the passing of Mimi in Puccini's La Boheme. When Calif summons the Princess in Turandot to give him his three riddles to solve, upon which he will become the Prince and rule the Kingdom, did he ever stop to think of anyone but himself? He solved the riddles, only to enrage Turandot. He knew he couldn't win her love by force, so he gave her a riddle; announce my real name by sunrise, and you are free. Of course, throughout the night, she tortured and killed many, trying to make them tell her his real name so that her and her ancestor's would not have to be disgraced by being with the likes of him (or any man, for that matter). Despite all the killing, he declares that in the morning he will triumph. He declares this to himself, in one of the most stirring arias in all of opera; Nessun Dorma! All the time, you can hear in the back ground the sorrows and torture of people.

Everyone in the audience cheers at his determination of triumph. "At daybreak, I shall conquer! I shall conquer! I shall conquer!". I want to say to Calaf, "You fool. At what price do others pay for your victory, and what horrors are left to come? You sacrificed your father and others who love you for this? Their blood is on this victory of yours." How relevant is this you ask? I don't know, you tell me. We are at war in Iraq and have tortured people, all the while declaring in our arrogance that we will conquer. The only question left that I have to ask is, "...at what price, and what horrors are left to come?"

So, a few days ago, it occurred to me, "My God, Bill. You have everything. You have spent a lot of your life convincing yourself that there are things worth living for, over and over and over again, as if to convince yourself, as in a 12-step program for homosexuals. Suddenly, astonishingly, you believe it! Only, you are surprised at this."

A few days ago at work, we were talking about free speech. It has taken me a long time to open up to the guys I work with. I mentioned that people were coming to my site more and more, because of the Abu Gharib prison photos I had published. After I mentioned to one of my coworkers that I would probably be taking them down soon, he said that it was more important than ever that I keep them up because the news agencies were being pressured by the Federal Government to remove them, because it looked bad for the United States. It was a free rights issue. I mentioned that I didn't want to give Ashcroft a reason to shut me down. My co-worker said, "Bill, he can already do that for having a site that advocates a pro-homosexual activist agenda."

What is significant to me on a personal level is that this was openly stated with no attempt to sugarcoat it. And, it was not only okay with these two straight coworkers, but it was totally accepted. I realized that there was no judgment and they were letting me know, whether they knew it or not, that they are my friends, and it doesn't matter that I'm homosexual.

So now, I look at my life and realize that I have it all. I love what I am, I have a great partner who loves me, I have only a few friends in life, but all have shown that they don't care what I am, in fact they love what I am. I have a home filled with love. And, for the first time in my life, it hit me that I didn't hate myself for being homosexual. I love what I am and I love that it has given me the sight to see what others cannot see. That surprised me more than anything else. I never hide it. I don't think I flaunt it, but it seems easy to spot because I am just being myself. I have no desire, time, or energy to care about what others will think of me. I am just, me. And, that is a good thing!

I used to tell people that if I could be straight, I would be. That if I had kids, I would want them to be straight, because life is easier. But now, I realize how much I would be giving up. In essence, I would be giving up the most wonderful gift anyone could have; the unique ability to look at the world and see more of what it has to offer, in all it's good and bad.

Now, the only thing that will complete my journey would be marriage. The ability to put a label on what Kent and I have together and the ability for society to see us together and say, "A couple, not gay or straight, but a couple. We accept you. Welcome to our family."

Before I die, I want to feel that.