Tag: Catholic High Schools

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The First Person I Came Out To, by Pat Gourley

Strangely I find myself vacillating a bit on this topic. I
assume I would ordinarily not consider the first person I had sex with since
that would be a situation that would seem obvious to both of us. However in my
case it was with a man I sought out initially seeking an answer to the question
was “I gay or not”. More accurately what I was asking at the time was am I a
homosexual or not?
The person I sought out to help clarify whether I was really
a big homo or not was most certainly not an openly gay man.  This was after all 1965 in suburban Chicago
and he was on the faculty of a Catholic High school. It was a diocesan school
staffed by Holy Cross nuns and though several of those nuns were progressive in
the extreme there was no Gay-Straight alliance as an option for extracurricular
activity.
Initial contact with this man would have been in late 1965 or
more likely sometime in early 1966. Though I am not totally clear about this I
do think I was genuinely seeking him out, as one of my high school counselors
and a person 20 plus years my senior, to help me answer this perplexing
question with no pre-existing assumptions about his sexual preference. Even at
age 16 I was not seeking a cure but would have probably been very reassured to
be told it was just a phase and that I was actually quite a masculine straight
arrow.
There had certainly been lots of enjoyable nude swimming with
male siblings and cousins to say nothing of the nearly obsessive urge to see my
dad and the occasional uncle nude. These preoccupations proceeded by several
years my seeking out my guidance counselor for help and advice.  So I may have been drawn to him
subconsciously hoping he really was like me. And of course his Old Spice
shaving lotion and hairy physique I assumed, an assumption later validated, and
his being bald may have all helped to create a situation I would often in
future years find irresistible.
Minus the Old Spice aftershave, which thankfully faded from
the scene sometime in the 1970’s, I think the hairy and bald aspects are quite
accurate physical descriptions of both of my long-term lovers, both named David,
and they combined to occupy 30 years of my adult life. Why I remain today still
hard-wired to pursue the mature and preferably quite hairy older male is
interesting and a bit of mystery to me. So many of my queer male peers prefer at
least in their dream worlds something younger, thinner and less hirsute.
Some months into that year of counseling sessions before
fruition so to speak I decided this guy was really on my side and very sexually
attractive. Long story short we did it eventually and it was as I recall the
Friday before Palm Sunday after school in the biology lab. I absolutely did not
fall into spasms of guilt post orgasm but rather was on cloud-nine for days and
spent most waking hours relishing the thought of our next get together. I guess
when one has ejaculated all over another man you have then come out to them
certainly as someone with homosexual tendencies if not as full blown GAY.
The coming out process for many of us though is a recurrent
theme that we are required to play out repeatedly since the attitude of society
in general is that heterosexuality is always the unexamined assumption. I have
for years though preferred to always give everyone I meet the benefit of the
doubt and assume they are queer until proven otherwise.
© May
2016 
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.

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My Earliest Queer Memory, by Pat Gourley

This is more difficult to
write on than I at first thought it would be. I believe the realization that I
was different or as Harry Hay was fond of saying “other” was a gradual process
with many little steps and discoveries along the way. This process of
realization long preceded my actual coming out which I define largely as an
internal acceptance and certainly not an initial sexual act. Again paraphrasing
Hay it took years to realize that the only thing I did have in common with
straight people was what I did in bed.
I think this is true of
queer awakening in general in that it rarely initially involves the sexual but
rather a profound and deeply real sense that we are not like our peers in some
fundamental way.  This may take the form
of what society would call gender nonconformity perhaps in dress, actions,
mannerisms and speech but again I think it can be even less blatant and more
elusive than that.  These expressions
despite their honest innocence are often met with quick and at times harsh
rebuke. For me personally it took the forms of loving to cook and garden and
when we did play cowboys and Indians I always insisted on being Crazy Horse or
Cochise, an interesting twist on being “other”.
Oh and of course there
were those times when we played school and I was always the nun.  Prancing around with a couple bath towels
serving as a shawl and headgear for a makeshift nun’s habit. This was behavior that
should have been a siren-like clue to somebody that this little kid was not
fitting into the norm.
My first sexual encounter
with another man was a spectacular bit of mutual masturbation that took place
in the biology lab of my Catholic High School with a wonderful man 20 years my
senior in the spring of 1967. This was though preceded by years of many little
messages some subtle and some others not so subtle that hey I wasn’t like a lot
of other little boys. I date my real coming out though to almost a decade
later. The Gay Community Center of Colorado and the LGBT folks I met there
playing a very significant role in cementing my comfort with my queer identity.
For years I was
fascinated and aroused especially by older men and any snippet of their naked
physiques I could spot and believe me I went out of my way to catch a glimpse
whenever I could.  My dad’s beautiful naked
ass being on rare occasions a wonderful source of inspiration! I was in some
ways sheltered from blatant homophobia in the form of overt harassment because
of my fey nature in part by the all-encompassing cocoon of Catholicism that
totally enveloped my life at home and at school. Something that I really only
broke free of when I went off to college in the fall of 1967.
Though I have no doubt I
was exhibiting less than desirable “little boy” qualities from an early age it
wasn’t until about the 4th grade that I started to respond ever so
indirectly to little cues that this could be a bumpy ride. In hindsight it all
proved pretty smooth from about 1960 until the full Monty so to speak that was
my life by the mid-1970’s. I attribute my coming out being relatively smooth
with little drama , even though it took about a decade and a half, to wonderful
parents and a host of older teachers and mentors along the way that were
accepting and even celebrating of difference and not of course only in the
queer arena.
Queer awakening is rich
with possibilities for growth that are unique to us as a people.  If we make it through this process alive, and
most of us do, we come out the other side so often strong and vibrant
individuals. Despite gains in the areas of marriage equality and military
access the coming out process for most remains initially a unique character
building solo-process with still very few societal supports and unfortunately
to this day many very negative messages. These admonitions to shun the “other”
may not be as blatant and intense as in the past but they still remain and are
quite daunting for little queer folk.
Again it is amazing how
many of us make it through to the other side stronger than ever. And this is
why continued support of community-based organizations that programmatically facilitate
the coming out process remains paramount in moving the gay agenda forward. This
Story Telling Group comes quickly to mind as one such effort.
© 17 Jul 2015 
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.
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Reframing Reality by Pat Gourley

“There’s a quality of exultation in our differences. 
We just have it and
its part of our nature. 
There is a kind of flagrant joy that goes very deep and 
it’s not available to most people. 
Something about our capacity to live and let
live
 is uniquely foreign.”

Paul Monette

Quoted in David Nimmons’ The Soul Beneath the Skin

Reframing reality seems to be the heart and soul of being queer. In fact we could as easily substitute “I am reframing reality” for “I am coming out”. If we don’t create our own queer reality we often live very unhappy and sometimes tragic lives. This reality-reframing can be perilous and the odds stacked against us are formidable which may in part explain our rather inordinate amount of suicide, the use of mind-altering drugs, tobacco and alcohol or our preoccupation with Broadway musicals, opera, show tunes and/or women’s basketball and golf.

My own early coming to queerness in my late teens in rural Illinois while attending a Catholic prep school involved seeking out one of the male high school counselors, there were several, for “guidance” around my budding sense of difference. ‘Gay’ was not a common word in the vernacular at that time, certainly not in Catholic High Schools in Illinois, but I was possessed with the thought that maybe I was a homosexual.

Looking back with a bit of honest hindsight I sought out this particular counselor not because I wanted to be re-assured that I was really as straight as the next guy but rather because I was drawn to his masculine looks, demeanor, large hands and the intoxicating smell of his aftershave, it was Old Spice, which can to this day still conjure up an olfactory hallucinatory hard-on. I really wanted to just have “flagrant sex” with him!

That of course did happen and after that first encounter which was essentially a mutual masturbation session resulting in an orgasm that was so intense I am sure I saw Jesus winking down at me from the crucifix on the wall over our heads. I was then able to leave town the next day for Mound Bayou, Mississippi in a state of “flagrant joy”.

One of several things plaguing my adolescent mind in those years was why I was not experiencing the same excitement and obvious obsession in exploring relations with girls that my male peers were. What was wrong with me? Was my life to be a series of very unsatisfactory experiences with the opposite sex ending in a joyless marriage perhaps further complicated with offspring? Remember this was 1967 and there was no local LGBT Center in town to provide guidance.

Well that first orgasmic encounter with my counselor in one burst of “flagrant joy” totally reframed my reality. Life was not going to be a joyless, sexless drudgery after all.

I did have another lapse into self-doubt about my newfound queer reality a couple years later at college when I again sought out counseling to address the ‘homosexual issue’. This probably followed a couple of frustrating experiences with other men – I mean reframing reality is not all endless flagrant joy. This counselor was also male but not someone I found attractive physically and we ended our therapeutic relationship after the second session when he insisted that I start with incorporating more masculine behaviors into my life including ending our time together with a manly handshake. I guess the logic was if you wanted to be a man for Christ-sakes act like one – now that is a futile attempt at reframing reality if there ever was one.

It was shortly after the sessions on manly behavior that the opportunity for heterosexual sex presented itself. Perhaps it was simply a reflection of the power of the all-pervasive and suffocating reality of the heterosexual dictatorship or more likely my own well-honed neurosis but I made one more very short stab at the straight male thing and had sex twice with one of the woman in our circle of friends. Despite my obnoxious sexual performances this very strong woman was in many other ways very influential in my life and my own development of a feminist sensibility. She went on to have a great life and family obviously unscarred by my sexual ineptitude. She was very sweet and patient but in the end honestly told me that I was really bad at sex. Both times involved trying to perform with my eyes being tightly closed, relying on her guiding hand to find the entrance and thinking the whole time this is so wrong and unnatural to boot! I won’t even get into how it felt to me physically and that when my orgasm did actually occur it involved a very intense, albeit transient, reframing of reality.

The sexual part of my queer reframing of reality has been only one small part of my life however. My innate sense of difference I really do think has freed me up to reframe all sorts of realities. Realities foisted upon me by the politicians, priests, pundits and really society in general. The great life adventure that is being queer is all about reframing reality and you know it really never ends. When the world attempts to lay their realities on to us though we can always wiggle free because we have the great gift of “flagrant joy that goes very deep and is not available to them ” (Paul Monette).

© June 2014

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.