Tag: LGBTQA

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Baths by Gillian

There’s a city in England called Bath, and it has baths.
Does it ever!
It’s had them since the Romans settled there around the time of Christ, though there was a Celtic shrine there dating from about 800 B.C. 
By the 2nd century A.D. the baths were enclosed in a wooden building and included a caldarium bath, a tepidarium, and a frigidarium – no translations required, I think!

After the Romans left Britain in the 5th century the baths fell into disrepair but were later revived in several stages and the original hot spring is now housed in an 18th century building which contains the baths themselves and the Grand Pump Room where one could, and can, drink the waters.

Anyone who has ever read any Jane Austen has heard of Bath, and those watching the movies of her books have seen it on screen, as Austen’s heroine’s are inevitably off to Bath to “take the waters.”
In the early 1960’s you could still bathe and/or drink the waters flowing through the original Roman lead pipes, though for health reasons the waters have now been rerouted since the 1970’s. Just one more reason my brain is addled, I guess, as I was there lounging in the steaming water in 1963.

I was at a loose end, having recently graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in Geography – and what is God’s name was I supposed to do with that? In a shattered still-post-war Britain jobs were hard to come by and anything remotely to do with geography – cartography, geology, exploration in general – was male-dominated. I had a temporary job in Bristol, a city close to Bath, transferring eons of data onto Hollerith punch card – do not bend, fold, staple or mutilate – somewhat ironic as I spent most of my later life working for IBM where in the later 1960’s everything was taken off punch cards and put onto magnetic tape!

I met Lucie at a lecture. I have no memory of that talk, not even of the subject, nor how I got to talk to Lucie, but it was one of those immediate bonding moments. I might rather have thought of it as simply lust, or at best infatuation, on my part that is, but I had not come anywhere close to acknowledging such feelings for women in myself back then. We became friends, hiking at weekends, “doing lunch,” going off for picnics in her rattletrap old Austin 7 – something of an equivalent in Britain to the Model T in this country.
I was deliriously happy.

Lucie was extremely attractive and sexy. I’m sure I was not the only woman whose body parts twitched simply at the thought of her, and an endless line of men constantly offered to lay their lives at her feet. She went from one torrid affair to another, or sometimes indulged in them simultaneously, but every man fell short in one way or another.

So one day Lucie and I rattled off to Bath, not to take the waters – we had packed bottles of cheap chianti – but at least to lounge in them. For this purpose Lucie wore a very sexy very skimpy bikini that drove my heart rate up to what I’m sure was a dangerous level, especially while coming slowly to a boil in the “caldarium!”
She talked of her latest inamoratas, mainly grieving for one who had recently left to do a post-grad year at Rice in Houston. I had noticed with before that Lucie’s men were frequently viewed more favorably in absentia.

After a few minutes’ silence, bobbing about it the hot water, I was practically asleep despite my elevated blood pressure. Suddenly I heard Lucie’s voice, as if in a dream.
“Let’s go to America.”
I started and gulped and did in fact take the waters, if unintentionally.
‘Yeah. OK.”
And that was that.

Just as well for me that she wasn’t hankering after some guy in Baghdad or Darfur. My answer would probably have been the same.
Doesn’t it seem that the pivotal moment that changes the course of your life forever should be marked with something more dramatic, more insightful, than,
“Yeah. OK.”

©  10/22/2012

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After
graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered
Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965,
working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got
divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have
now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.
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Culture Shock by Donny Kaye

For all those years that I existed in
the closet I had an impression of what homosexual culture was.  My narrow
perspective was formed by the very same institutions and people that had
created in me the sense that who I was and the sexual energy that stirred in me
was wrong, something to be changed,  Something that even warranted a death
sentence.

I was confident that I would be regarded as dark and sinful and lacking in
moral integrity. I learned from the culture in which I existed there had to be
a sense of moral depravity on the part of those who engaged in homosexual
behavior.   

The culture taught that homosexuals were degenerates and even a threat to the
sanctity of American family values.  Certain politicians had identified
for the American public that homosexuals, especially those who asked for their
rights to marry were no different than terrorists.

Homosexual acts and those who committed them had always been described in less
than flattering terms. After all, gay men were the equivalent of dog fuckers!
Jokes abounded about the likes of homosexuals.  Homosexuals were seen as a threat to all
things decent and good.  Sodomites. Psychiatric nut cases.  Child
molesters. In the minds of some, homosexuals were regarded as “The Revolution”.

As a man of a certain sexual persuasion, I existed in the closet with greater
intensity, extremely fearful of the culture that I would enter if I were ever
courageous enough to step through the door that I had locked and sealed so many
years ago.  Even though I knew who I was, or at least of the sexual energy
that stirred in me, I felt the guilt and the shame from the cultural
understandings of homosexuality by association. 

The shock of the homosexual culture as described by the predominant culture was
so intense, disgusting and terrifying that the thought I could ever cross the
threshold of the doorway, kept me from the very essence of who I am. To enter
such a culture seemed an impossibility. 

At this time in my life the true shock for me that is experienced is in the
disgust I hold for those who perpetuate the lies, judgments and condemnation of
this culture, my culture. 

What I found, once I found agreement
within me to cross the closet threshold and enter the culture that I had feared
for so long; my judgments, my concerns and my fears were immediately disproven.
I read a quote of Dan Savage’s which
begins to address the experiences I am having as I coexist in this family I am
coming to know as my family of choice. 
“…what goes down under my roof is a social conservative’s wet
dream.” 
Within the container of my family of
choice I am in the experience of profound compassion, the expression of deep
caring and consideration, and a refreshing occurrence of people existing with
one another in truth. Yes, there are exceptions but isn’t that true
generally?  There seems to be an
increased level consciousness that I experience as I interact with my newest
family members.  I am realizing that for
the most part they act with integrity, openness and a deep sense of personal
responsibility.  They exist with dreams
and a propensity toward creating peace and living consciously. 
My Friday night experiences on the
dance floor at Charlie’s attest to the capacity of diverse people to coexist
with one another in a spirit of celebration and lightness.  Men dance with men, women with women in some
instances.  And at the same time there
are hetero couples moving about the floor, alongside men following the lead of
their female partners.  Some of the
individuals on the floor are dressed in drag, either feminine or
masculine.  Manly men, gorgeous women,
dykes, butch, fem, it doesn’t seem to matter. 
Old coexist with young.  Black
with white, all the demographics I was taught to fear move in unison to the
music, most significantly with engaging smiles, occasional winks and
always  a parting hug as the music stops
and couples move from the dance floor back into the whole of human kind. 
This is my culture.  It reflects consciousness and allowance for
each to be precisely themselves.  It is
sensible, and reflects hope and desire to live peacefully with the rights of
individuals, assured and respected. It is a culture that reflects true family
values. 

About the Author 


Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite. He has lived his life posing as a hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that of a gay male. In recent years he has confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated life. “I never forgot for a minute that I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the deepest corners of his memory. Within the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family and friends. Donny is divorced and yet remains closely connected with his family. He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of the GLBTQ community.

    

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Life After Truth by Carlos

I have been outed!

My partner, Ron, and I solidified our relationship on May 1st, entering into a civil union within hours after Colorado enacted them. In preparation for the historical event, we had our tuxedos dry cleaned, purchased new wristwatches to signal a new dawning, and planned a private celebration. I found myself strangely calm, that is until hours before the ceremony when I couldn’t cinch my cummerbund or tie my shoelaces. Suddenly, I understood why some people metamorphose into terrors just before their big day. It was becoming real. After all, I was committing to one man for a continued lifetime of discoveries…in real time.

Upon been ushered into the Wellington Webb Building, I inexplicably unleashed all fears, all doubts, all anxieties, and I became child-like with anticipation. Dignitaries congratulated the couples; families and supporters whooped it up; even tired agents at the Clerk and Recorder’s Office maintained genuine smiles of inclusiveness, conveying this was our day to declare that we in the LGBT community were taking another step closer toward full-fledged citizenship. I realized this was a victory in spite of it not offering full marriage rights.

Being so dapper, and hopefully so cute, every reporter wanted to photograph and interview us. Though we have never been in the closet, admittedly neither have we worn our relationship on our sleeves. That morning, we kicked the closet door open and agreed to every photograph, every interview. Only one reporter was ingenuous, an interviewer who forgot to mention she represented a conservative religious publication. Initially, her questions were innocent enough, perhaps to lull us into complacency. However, my suspicions were aroused when she queried us about whether the legalization of civil unions could in time lead to marital contracts by blood relatives or parties of three or more, arguments that have been used by homophobic institutions to prevent our forming legal families. I caught a whiff of the dankness from the rock from which she had crawled. Upon learning of the organization she represented, I unleashed a diatribe of impunities, informing her in no uncertain terms that as a former believer, I had long ago rejected its patriarchal, sanctimonious, we-are-the-chosen-of-God attitudes. To her credit she stayed in place as I defined the difference between those of us who embrace our spirituality and those of her belief who cater to their religiosity. I informed her that my unconditionally-loving God, was present and, no doubt, was at that moment dancing an Irish jig to a Mexican marimba band while singing in key of his sons and daughters whom He loved and validated and in whom He was well-pleased. I felt victorious as she slithered away, although I doubt that anything within her doxology had changed. After all, oppressors never see themselves in need of transformation, never realizing that bigotry wrapped in prayer is still bigotry. It is for us, the former oppressed, to raise our voices and our fists and repudiate their canons. Only when they feel the ire and the tension of our convictions, do they relinquish their self-appointed power…and then only grudgingly.

When Ron and I were finally ushered into the magistrate’s arena, my stalwart, stoic bravado betrayed me as tears bubbled up in the corner of my eyes, and we solemnly repeated our vows and exchanged rings. It was finally real; it was now official. Reflecting over the last few days, I feel different. For some reason that I am only now beginning to understand, I feel so much closer to my beloved. Our union bonded us as though we were enveloped in a lotus of love.

The next morning I was awakened by the ringing of the phone. Groggily, I answered. Friends were calling to inform us that our pictures of the night before were posted on the internet. My initial reaction was one of nothing-good-can-come-from-this, much like Howard Brackett’s reaction when outed in the romantic comedy In and Out. Apparently, people we have influenced throughout the years were heralding our exodus from behind the closet door. We had been fully outed, no ifs, ands or buts. Therefore, we accepted the inevitable, recognizing that in spite of ourselves a new chapter was opening up in our lives. There was little to do except be grateful for an act of synchronicity. Anonymity was no longer an option. Thus, we accepted our outing with courage, knowing honesty and love can never be wrong.

A new sun has truly arisen, and something good has emerged from it. Therefore, let us live our lives as though we have been outed. Let us finally be free, free, free. Let the echoes resonate in every nook and cranny as we slam the closet door behind us and build a new foundation for a brave new world.

© 20 May 2013

About the Author



Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.


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Getting Caught by Ray S

What a vast subject–depending on what you get caught at or doing. Certainly someone will recall, as I did, the old saw “getting caught with your pants down.” (Don’t you wish.) Caught by the boogy man in a bad dream when you were a kid. You remember. Running, running, running, and the harder you tried the more your feet were stuck in the mud-like glue on your path. Finally kicking and screaming you wake up escaping a horrible fate.

There were numerous times when you thought you didn’t get caught only to live with lingering pangs of conscience. With effort and appropriate therapy this too passed.

Then there were those delicious times when you were engaged in an activity in which you were tempting fate at getting caught. Those are the memories of “caughtness” that enrich our life experiences.

It all boils down to caught-positive and not caught-negative, so for me and maybe you I’m still out there catching that falling star.

2-4-13

About the Author

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The Facts by Donny Kaye

The fact is that I am a man of a certain sexual persuasion. As a man of a certain sexual persuasion I am finding a new, more relaxed countenance in which to experience the challenges as well as joys of life’s twists and turns. In this place of honesty, I find myself in a continuing revelation of happiness as I experience all that is my life without feelings of reservation about just being me. The fact is that I’ve not always experienced my life from this perspective. There had always been a reservation about me that if anyone in my life knew that I liked men in the way that I do, I would be judged and excluded from relationships as primary as my parents, siblings and immediate family, not to mention my own children, former life partner and friends who had become part of the fabric of my life, over sixty plus years of existence on the planet. The fact is that I worked very hard to create an illusion about my identity that even had me fooled for much of my life. That expectation started for me in the earliest years of my life when I was declared “such a good little boy” by my parents and others immediately engaged with me in life. The fact is that “when striving to be the best little boy,” even in the body of a grown man, there was no spaciousness for someone who preferred men. This meant that I spent a lot of my energy loathing the very essence of me. The fact is that by creating an illusion about my very nature I have consequently created a situation where those who were close to me are still searching to define their relationship with me now. What I have realized is that there is a disconnection that has occurred with others as I have worked to connect with myself. The fact is My life belongs to me. Those close to me are fortunate that I am sharing it with them. If I love them I cannot share a lie. If they are to love me, I will let them love me. The fact is this has resulted in losing the love of a lot of people, at least temporarily. But if they loved a character that I was playing for them, if they loved someone who wasn’t me, then that love was already dead. The fact is there are people in the world who will love me for who I truly am. The experience I am realizing now, having come out, is that happiness is more complete when not holding reservation about being who I am. The fact is I had money, careers, degrees, vacations, every material thing! Nothing ever made me as deeply happy as “coming out”!

About the Author

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite. He has lived his life posing as a hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that of a gay male. In recent years he has confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated life. “I never forgot for a minute that I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the deepest corners of his memory. Within the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family and friends. Donny is divorced and yet remains closely connected with his family. He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of the GLBTQ community.

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Queer, Just How Queer by Betsy

Imagine that we could measure an individual’s degree of sexual orientation by taking, say, a blood test. This would be an ugly world indeed with a rigid caste system. The most heterosexual would be on top and the most homosexual on the bottom.

Newborns would be immediately tested at birth. Here’s one scenario.

“Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. You have a healthy baby boy measuring only two on the “queerometer” He will be your pride and joy.

Or the dreaded scenario:

“You have a healthy baby boy, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. He has 10 fingers and 10 toes and all his parts. I’m sorry to tell you that he tests positive on the queerometer. He’s a 9.6”

“Oh, says Mrs. Jones, gasping for breath. A 9.6 ! Does that mean, does that mean? “

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” says the attendant. At the age of eight years you will be required to turn him over to the Department of Corrections. He will be yours until then. Enjoy!”

Or the following close-call:

“Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. You have a beautiful baby girl. She appears to be in perfect health and all her parts are in the right place.” However, she does measure a five on the queerometer, which, as you know, is high. The state will provide you with all the materials you need to guide her in the right direction. If you use the manual wisely and stick to it, she will turn out just fine and I’m sure she will live a normal life and give you many grandchildren.”

Or imagine a world in which LGBT people took on a particular hue at puberty. Say, a shade of purple. The really dark purple ones would be the really, really, queer ones, and the light violets would be only slightly inclined to be homosexual or transgender, or bisexual, or queer. I can see the pride parade right now. A massive multi-shaded purple blob oozing down Colfax.

Parents who suspected queerness would dread the day puberty started for their child. Of course, in this world everyone starts out with lily white skin. So the outward signs of race and ethnicity would not exist. In this world their would be no race and ethnicity. Only sexual orientation has meaning.

Of course, in the real world there is no such thing as a queerometer or purple-skinned LGBT’s. The world we know is so very much more complex than that.

In our world we have a choice. Not a choice of whether or not to be queer, but rather we choose to be in or out of the closet, we can choose to accept or deny our queerness, we choose our behaviors every minute of every day. A great raising of awareness over the last few decades has given us even more choices. At least, this is true for the most part in this community that we know so well and in most cities of this country. As acceptance becomes more and more prevalent I am very thankful, indeed. I am thankful everyday, that I have been free to choose to live my queerness with honesty and integrity and pride.

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Mistaken Identity by Ray S

On an October day some years ago a second son was born to Ethel and Homer. They say he was almost ten pounds which seems like quite a lot for the slight mother. She later used to tell the story about dancing at parties when she was in her 8 1/2 month and how observers wondered how such a little woman with such a huge belly could keep up the Charleston dance step. Seems as though everything came out alright, no pun intended.

The new member of the family thrived on the love and attention from Mom and Dad. The older brother adjusted to the baby’s intrusion on his one-time monopoly of fair-haired first born (seven years difference) Apple of Everyone’s Eye. The seed of sibling rivalry was beginning to germinate but then manifested into an attitude of seeming denial of the little brother’s existence. If necessary the obligatory special occasions would be observed; that is, birthdays, Christmas, and Easter, etc. This pattern persisted into old age.

Early childhood revealed the physical differences between him and the girl next door.

The father’s dutiful instruction on the care and hygiene of the foreskin. How to pee standing up to the toilet. All quite SOP for his age.

Then some matters developed interesting turns. For instance, no one, least of all the child, thought there was anything odd that he had his own Patsy-Ann doll with a doll-sized truck full of little dresses lovingly sewn and/or knitted by mother. An actual talent for painting and drawing came along with a fascination for paper dolls. As time past he couldn’t manage to catch a ball much less win at kick-the-can or sports in general. The end result being a lifelong disinterest in sports or anything competitive.

One day after an exploratory adventure with two neighbor brothers he discovered you could do lots more with certain body parts besides eliminate one’s waste. And it was good!

As he developed emotionally as well as physically way in the back of his mind he became aware of being different.

He, through self awareness, ridicule, bullying, and abuse from older peers questioned his proscribed identity, and this happened before he even knew the words describing one’s sexuality. Ultimately with a contraband copy of Dr. Kinsey’s Report the revelation of twenty some years of mistaken Identity came home to roost. And the struggle went on until the day that the door fell off the hinges of the closet where he and so many other aged fairies resided. The mistake was theirs.

About the Author

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Walking in the Grove by Nicholas

It’s a gentle place. It’s a quiet spot in the middle of the busy park in the middle of the noisy city. The National AIDS Memorial Grove sits in one of the few natural ravines in the eastern end of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. It is secluded but surprisingly only a few steps from busy city streets and busy sections of the park.

Before the place was consecrated as the National AIDS Memorial, it was a non-descript, out of the way quiet respite in the heavily used eastern end of Golden Gate Park. It was always one of my favorite places in the park. With only a short walk from my apartment, I could be in a completely quiet and peaceful domain. When it rained, a slow stream flowed down the center of the ravine. Tall redwoods, scrub oak trees and large shrubs shaded the area. Soft blankets of fog would float through the tall ferns in the lush ravine. A sort of path meandered through it, wandering up a slight incline toward the western end. In that crowded park, it was an area overlooked by most hikers. I loved to wander through it, stopping at times to rest on a stone or log and meditate in this little wild outpost of nature left alone in the mostly manicured park.

Begun in 1991, the AIDS Grove is actually a federally designated memorial site like the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington and Mount Rushmore. Volunteers constructed a serene place where people can come alone or in groups to hold memorial services or just to remember among the rhododendrons and redwoods. It is a place dedicated to all lives touched by AIDS.

In the grove are six flagstone gathering areas, numerous Sierra granite boulders and 15 freestanding benches. The paved Circle of Friends, located at the Dogwood Crescent in the eastern end of the Grove, is the focal point of the area. Presently, nearly 1,700 names are inscribed in circles radiating out from a center point. When completed, the Circle of Friends will include 2,200 names of lives touched by AIDS.

Some of the names I know, many I do not and most are hard to read in those concentric circles. But whether their names are there or not, I think back to Bill and Chester and Wayne and Ari and the day I announced to a friend that I just was not going to go to anymore funerals for a while.

It’s still one of my favorite spots in Golden Gate Park though it is a busier place than it used to be and doesn’t have that wildness it used to have. At first, I didn’t like the change, this intrusion of gardening on what had been a private little unkempt respite in the city. But I have since come to love the Grove. It is good to remember. I urge you if you are ever again in San Francisco to seek it out and spend some time there, quietly.

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

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Porn Scorn by Gillian

To be honest, I don’t scorn porn.

To do that I’d have to think about it, and I don’t.
I never have.
I barely, no joke intended, know what it is.

I have a vague vision of assorted people in assorted numbers and assorted combinations doing assorted things of which I can have no concept as my imagination begins to falter somewhere in, I suspect, the early stages of so-called ‘Soft Porn.’
The reason I don’t think about it is not that it freaks me out or sickens me, except for child porn, which is a different thing all together, I’m talking about consenting adult stuff here, but simply that it does not affect my life.

At least, as far as I know.
Perhaps in a general societal way it does, but for every study that shows it’s negative effects there’s a corresponding one demonstrating the opposite.

So, I simply don’t know.

What, I asked myself, if it affected me personally?
What if Betsy was in fact playing the lead in some geriatric triple X movie?

Or what if I discovered that she was off with a whole group of dirty old wrinklies watching dirty old movies when I thought she was at the Senior Center doing Yoga stretch?
Sorry, but really! Can you imagine this group?
What did he say?
I don’t think he said anything. It was kinda grunting.
What’s he doing now? Could you do that?
With my arthritis?
Did you ever do that?
If I did I don’t remember.

The fact is, that unless you want to fly away on attitudes and prejudices formed by others, it is realistically impossible to hold an informed opinion about a subject on which you are completely ignorant.

Every argument has an opposing one and statistics on pornography I imagine to be about as accurate as 1950 statistics on homosexuality.

As to fiscal concerns the guesstimate seems to be an average spending per capita of less than $50 per year, so nothing to break the family bank. And, by the way, I couldn’t help myself and I had to get something to compare that figure with, and found that in 2007, just as an example, the Iraq war budget equaled an annual per capita expense of $121 thousand, and hey, I don’t have to contribute via taxes to support porn watchers so…..no worries there either.

Perhaps in the end my lack of opinion and concern is simply a result of my naivety, and if I really knew what porn was, I would have definite opinions.
But at my age I doubt that I’m going to find out.

And this quotation from Erica Jong would scare me off.
I’d be afraid of staying too long.

She says,
“My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.”

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Goofy Tales by Ray S

Ten A.M. and it is getting hot already. Today is a holiday and the Eda M. Fisher Junior High School is closed. I am home alone at our one bedroom studio apartment. Mom and Sylvia are at work even though it is Washington’s Birthday holiday.

I am trying to figure out what I can do with the day besides make up my studio couch bed, clean up the kitchen, and squeeze some fresh Florida orange juice.

Too early to go to the movies at that big theater on Collins Avenue with the funny name, CINIMA, and I am so new to that school I do not know anyone to pal around with.

Instead of getting dressed for school, I just put on my bathing trunks, and with that, the idea surfaced that it could be interesting to investigate the roof top deck of this modest two-story apartment. I could check out the hot water solar heat apparatus; see what the place is like where I’d heard people went to sun bathe.

The more I thought about this adventure the more possibilities crept into my imagination. What if I decided to take a sunbath and if no one was around why not risk being discovered doing so nude? What a wickedly wonderful thought for a lonely 14-year-old boy whose thoughts were now soaring into unknown territory. I couldn’t understand why the idea of being discovered by another like-minded but older man came into my head.

Up the stairs, beach towel in hand, and on to the threshold of the unknown. The rooftop was divided into an area of solar heat water pipes and then a space with a privacy fence and benches all around for socializing and sun bathing. Quite nice and a degree of privacy.

Anticipation, being the dominant emotion, the thrill of doing something forbidden, the possibility of discovery and whatever would or could follow, seemed to move me magically into some other world.

Beach towel in place on the deck in a seemingly remote corner, I dared to slip out of my trunks and exposed myself to dear old sol and whatever might transpire. I became aware that all of this activity was causing a pleasant feeling of arousal, and as I lay there with my eyes closed basking in the warmth of the sun, my hand helped with this newfound feeling of well-being. The day was off to a good start.

“Hey, Kid! What are you doing?” The jarring voice of a would be teen Venus standing over me in the altogether called. When I came to my senses I was confronted with, “that’s what girls looked like without clothes.” It certainly wasn’t anything like the showers at boys gym class.

If in retrospect I had any knowledge of a Botticelli nude–female, that is–this specter looming over my prone body would have fit the bill. She knelt down beside me and whispered, “Here, let me show you what we can do with that.”

Perhaps 15 minutes later Venus was joined by a boyfriend. I imagined his name was David. They spread their towels on the deck, he slipped out of his bathing suit and suddenly the spirit of Eros overcame me again.

It was at this moment I realized that I could and would wait for my David to come and carry me away to somewhere where the gods know how to play anyway they want to, and Venus, lovely as she is, could climb back into her clam shell.

© 23 February 2013




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