Tag: LGBTQA

Posted on

Aw, Shucks, Good Enough Is Great, by Betsy

Until later in life I never gave a lot of thought to making choices. I had my rules of conduct and, I suppose, used that as a guide to choosing. I did make choices everyday of my life, but I never think of it as “shall I do this or shall I do that.”

It all seemed to come quite naturally and was part of a routine or structure. Back in those days we didn’t have the options that present themselves today. I do believe life was simpler. We chose a path to follow and took whatever came along on that path. We made the most of what was good enough and we made good enough work for us.

I don’t remember choosing between a man and a woman until many years later when I became aware that I had the choice. Even though I was attracted to women, marrying one or even spending my life with one was not an option for me back in 1950. So I, a homosexual woman, married a man. Nevertheless, you will never hear me saying today, “Aw sucks, darn! I spent 1/2 my adult life with a man.” No, I will never say that; those years were good enough, and good enough was great then. I still feel that good enough was and is great.

It serves no purpose to regret any of the paths I followed in my younger years. Had I felt I had more choices, my life would be different and that is hard for me to imagine right now. I love my life the way it is and the way it has been. I love my children and my grandchildren as well as my life partner and spouse. I would not have my children and grandchildren if I had chosen differently in 1950. I probably would not have my beloved Gill had I chosen differently back then. So, I’m glad I went with “good enough,”

I often hear contemporaries say, “I lived in the best of times.” Aw shucks, I’m going to go ahead and say the same thing. If I suddenly, magically became a young person, I would be mind boggled by all the choices presented to me every day. Not just among the plethora of consumer products put in front of us daily, but the choices of life style, career paths, subjects available to study, places to visit, etc.

I am aware that there are many people in this world who have no choice except to take the easiest path to survival. Mind you, I do not believe that desperate situations, inaccessibility to basic, life sustaining resources is good enough, by any means. Such inequity that exists in the world is very wrong. I am blessed that I have never been in such a situation. So I am keeping the discussion here to choices that have been made available to me throughout my life and that have affected my life.

I never spend too much time choosing the right consumable product because I honestly do not feel it’s that important. I like to think my time is better spent in other areas of life which may or may not require making choices. For example, I know I should exercise so, if it is time to do that, It is already on my agenda, I do not have to make a choice about that. The choice is merely between the gym, the bicycle ride, the walk around the neighborhood, etc.

When it comes to choosing clothes for myself at the store, I confess I am not very diligent. Often I come home with something that is not good enough. Then standing in front of my mirror it’s “Aw shucks, this just isn’t what I thought it was.” I think the stores have trick mirrors that make things look better on you than they really are. I have learned in my later years that my lovely wife can pick out clothes for me much better than I can. So I don’t go shopping for clothes unless she will come with me. Usually I get her article of choice home and realize it’s not just good enough, it’s perfect. I don’t buy too many clothes anymore ‘though. Most of the stuff I have held on to are the things that were good enough when I bought them so they are good enough now, even if they are 20-30 years old.

Fortunately as I approach my 80’s I have everything I need and do not find myself having to make choices about what to buy. The choice of what to do comes up occasionally, but that usually has been predetermined and I simply follow an already structured agenda. I like structure. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to be making choices all the time.

I’m afraid I have almost driven my lovely wife crazy with this characteristic or mine.

“Shall we go to Mexico or Hawaii for our vacation,” she asks. My answer is truthfully, “I don’t care, or I don’t know.” “Well, which would you rather do?” she asks. “How do I know,” I answer. “I’ve never been to either place.” Poor Gill.

On the other hand I hate being wishy-washy. If a decision has to be made, I will gather as much information as I conveniently can and just pick one. Too much deliberation just complicates it. It usually turns out that it was good enough and it was great. I can’t ever remember coming home from a pleasure trip and saying “Aw shucks, we should have gone to that other place.” This “aw shucks” situation should be avoided at all cost. But I truly belief it is totally unlikely to occur in my life, because I’m sure most any other choice would have been good enough as well, and therefore the perfect choice.

© 6 April 2015

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her wife of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

Posted on

A Defining Word, by Will Stanton

OK, so I know that two words are a term, not a word; but that is what I have chosen to write about, a term: “sexual preference.” I have chosen those two words because, over the years, they have been used so much, yet they certainly are not defining words.

Yes, I know what people usually mean when they employ that term when asking, “What is your sexual preference?” Most likely, they mean “straight or gay.” I usually answer, “I’m not sure. It’s hard for me to choose between blond or brunette. One day, I lean toward blond; yet, on other days, I’m drawn to dark-brown hair, maybe even black.”
A person’s preference may have little to do with sexual identity. For one example, I can conceive of a person born homosexual whose preference would be to be heterosexual. And of course, someone’s preference might be to a person of the opposite gender.
In addition, a person’s preference may be a partner who is young, or old, same race or different race, very good-looking or, instead, a very good person, looks being of less importance. Many gay guys seem to be preoccupied with the size of male genitalia. Other people could not care less, placing far more importance on someone’s other attributes.
In order to avoid confusion or misinterpretation, I prefer communication to be as precise as possible. Therefore, because genetics and brain structure are major determinants of each person’s drives and attractions, I suggest that the more logical term should be “sexual orientation;” and this is what I use if the subject comes up in conversation. Even then, that term is not completely defining, for people are complex and of varied natures.
And, as long as we are talking about commonly used terms, a little bell goes off each time I hear the frequently used term “bisexual.” My having involved myself for several decades in human behavioral treatment, the term “bisexual” always connotes for me a possible biological influence in someone’s nature or physical structure. After all, human sexuality is not binary, that is, either heterosexual or homosexual. Someone’s nature or orientation lies somewhere on a linear graph. For those individuals who may engage in sexual relations with people of both heterosexual and homosexual orientation, perhaps a more accurate term would be “ambisexual,” rather like in baseball, a “switch-hitter.” Or, if you would enjoy something more humorous, you might use the term “heteroflexible.”
Finally, generally I avoid popular, overused labels when describing people. People are far too varied and complex. Labeling people hinders the process of getting to know and truly understand someone. Besides, for those persons fortunate enough to have become self-actualized and broad in their interests, sexual orientation is only one part of a human, complex personality.
© 02 February 2016

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

Posted on

The Men in My Life, by Lewis

Preamble 

I have lain awake at night more than once this past week thinking about what I might write on this subject, trying to find some common theme amidst the tenuous and sparse connections I have had with two of the three men with whom I have lived. Perhaps it was the place, perchance the time. Whatever the reason, I can honestly say that when it comes to the masculine persona, “Yay, verily, I have barely known ye.”

What are men afraid of? Is it a part of being “macho”? It seems to me that it is not related to sexual orientation. I see it even in this Storytellers group—men are reluctant to share their vulnerability, their pain. Perhaps it is because we are all Baby-Boomers or older. Perhaps it was growing up in the decades of seemingly endless wars, whether hot or cold. It could have been our heroes on TV and movie screens—Charlton Heston, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne. Perhaps it was ubiquitous homophobia, insinuating into our lives the scandalousness of showing tenderness or warm affection toward any man. Whatever the source, it is a theme that has run throughout my associations with men from my earliest days. And that has left a hole in my soul that remains unfilled to this day.

In recalling the men in my life and writing about them, wounds have been opened that never healed but were only glazed over by time and circumstance. They are the neglected infrastructure of my life and I have run into a deep pothole. Perhaps in writing this, I can throw some “cold patch” into it and smooth out some of the pain.

Homer

Homer E. Wright was my maternal grandfather, the only grandparent I ever knew. My mother was the oldest of six children growing up on the outskirts of Pratt, Kansas, in the nineteen-teens and –twenties. A couple of cows and a few chickens shared the yard. Granddad worked his entire life for the Rock Island RR. His wife, Alma, died in 1943 of colon cancer. He continued living in Pratt until he retired in 1952. It was then that he moved to Hutchinson to live with my parents and six-year-old “Lewis the Third” in a newer, larger house on which he made the down payment on the $12,500 mortgage. The house had three small bedrooms, one bath, a single-car attached garage, a large yard, and no basement. Because Dad used one of the bedrooms as an office, Granddad and I shared a bedroom. He got the bed and I slept on a wire-frame divan with removable cushions. (I can remember that I liked to sleep on my stomach and let one leg drop down into the cradle formed by the tucked in sheets.)

Granddad was very generous with his money. He bought us our first TV that same year—even before there was a broadcast station within range. He also paid for my first bicycle and only pet dog.

In 1955, we all piled into Granddad’s ‘52 Packard and headed for Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, and Newport, Connecticut, to see the sights and visit aunts and uncles on my mother’s side. While climbing the Statue of Liberty, I left Granddad’s Kodak box camera on a bench at a rest stop halfway up the long, long staircase. It was gone by the time we came back down. I feared his wrath but, as with other emotions, it was missing in action.

When he died in November of 1955, he left each of his six children $15,000. My parents used the money to pay off the mortgage. We burned it in the fireplace.

As generous as Granddad was with his money, he was every bit as parsimonious with his personal attention. I have no memory of having a conversation with him or any physical touching. Even when he gave me a gift, it was not because he handed it to me. It just “appeared”. With a tip of the bowler to Winston Churchill, he was “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that his offspring scattered to the four winds, Harold to a farm in the far southeast corner of Kansas; Carl to Alaska and Mossy Rock, WA; Merle to Stone Mountain, GA; Ruth to New London, CT; and Verna to somewhere in Texas. Perhaps it wasn’t Granddad. Maybe it was only escaping Kansas that was important.

Dad

Dad was the oldest of four boys born on a farm near Cheney, Kansas. I never knew either of his parents but he told the story of their losing their farm during the Depression. It was the only time he ever saw either of them cry. It moved him so deeply that he resolved to spend his working life helping farmers get the loans they needed to prosper.

My dad was much more approachable than Granddad. Before I was old enough for kindergarten, on Sunday mornings I would sit on his lap while he read the comics to me. I would ask him to “point” so I could follow along. It gave me a great “leg up” on learning to read myself.

His relationship with my mother was almost like a business partnership. If it weren’t for the Sunday evening every month that their bridge club met, there would have been hardly any socializing at all. My ex-wife remembers my mother criticizing my dad’s driving while vacationing. (My dad drove as part of his business. He put 30,000 miles per year on his company car without ever causing an accident.) They slept in twin beds–like Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz but without the bickering—and even dressed in separate rooms. Dad was a “soft touch”. Everybody liked him. I think Mom resented him for being that way but her latent lesbianism meant she couldn’t stand intimacy, either.

Dad had no idea how to parent. Mother handled all the disciplining, including spanking. He didn’t know how to be truly tender, either. When he found the dog Homer had given me dead in the street—I’m not sure it wasn’t his car that did it—he was annoyed at having to find a spot in the backyard to bury him. The only “heart-to-heart” talk I can ever remember having with him was when I was entering middle school and he felt obligated to tell me what a jock strap was for. I think he was more uncomfortable that I was.

Still, I felt I understood Dad more than I ever did Mom. I think I adopted many of his ways, especially the way he took care of business in his office at home, sort of like being there but not being there. That was true of me much of the time while my kids were growing up. It is the biggest regret of my life.

Laurin

There’s a neat kind of symmetry to having been in love with one woman and one man. It would have been even more remarkable were I able to say that I was single for the first 26 years of my life (true), married to a woman for the second 26 years (also true) and then married to a man for the final 26-year installment of my life. I only got to live with Laurin for half that long. Had he not been twenty years older than I, we might have made it to that milestone.

Laurin and I filed for divorce from our wives when it became apparent that we had something truly special going on between us. He had been married for nearly fifty years and he and his wife had five children, all grown. Laurin had the “hots” for me from the moment we first met. He was not shy about expressing it. The way he looked me in the eyes without saying a word embarrassed me in the extreme. His directness was something I had never encountered before in a man.

I was at that time in the process of getting in touch with my innate sexuality. I was seeing a gay therapist in Ann Arbor. He was urging me to go slow. The fact that Laurin lived 55 miles away in Flint, where he taught high school social studies, gave me the space I needed to sort things out. It took a lot of sorting—seven years in fact. We stayed in touch through letters—the snail-mail kind. By 1998, I was openly investigating the gay culture.

That May, I attended a weekend financial seminar for gay men and women over 50. The keynote speaker was Quentin Crisp, author of The Naked Civil Servant. Laurin was there also. We picked up where we had left off. Laurin’s wife had been living for many years in Hylton Head, South Carolina, where they owned a condominium. Although we still lived 55 miles apart, we met on a few occasions for dinner or to attend the monthly meetings of Body Electric in Detroit.

I wrote Laurin a letter to inform him that I thought I was ready to take our friendship to a deeper level. I had been reading books by men who were gay but living a closeted existence within a heterosexual marriage. In the car one day that May, I told my wife, Janet, about a case I had read about involving a Mormon couple who took annual vacations to New York City with their children. She would spend the week taking the children to museums, concerts, and the theater while Dad would check out the gay bars. At the end of the week, they would resume their “normal” existence back in Utah.

Janet’s response was to ask me, “Is that what you want?” I said, “No”. She asked what it was I did want. I told her that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a man. That night, I slept in our son’s former bedroom and we began the process of getting a divorce.

Three weeks later, I participated in a workshop for gay men seeking deeper same-sex relationships. I waited for a response to my letter from Laurin. Nothing came. A couple of months went by; still no response. Finally, one of us called the other. I don’t remember who was which. I asked Laurin about the letter. He said, “What letter?” Turns out, I had typed the letter but never mailed it. Freud lives!

The die had been cast, nevertheless, and the two of us began to plan a vacation tryst in a place with sand, palm trees, and privacy. But first, we needed a trial run. We arranged to rendezvous at the very cabin in Lakelands Trail State Park, MI, where we first met. I was there to greet Laurin as he drove up. He got out of his second-hand Cadillac and immediately removed his toupee and flung it across the trunk. For both of us, the moment marked the end of pretending to be who we were not.

Laurin was unlike any man I had ever met. He delighted in his body and in mine. He was spontaneous, direct, and completely devoted to my happiness. His favorite movie was The Unsinkable Molly Brown (he was a Colorado native). Early in the movie there is a scene where Harve Presnell and Debby Reynolds are laying in the grass under a tree. He sings to his love, Molly, “I’ll Never Say ‘No’”. Laurin vowed that he would never say “No” to me—and he kept that promise for the fourteen years we were together. (This is not to say that he never did things I would not have approved, if given a chance.)

That’s what made Laurin so precious to me. He went wherever I went and vice versa. We couldn’t get enough of each other. I had finally found a man who truly enjoyed my company, who wanted nothing more than to wake up next to me in the morning. For the first time in my life, I felt that I truly mattered to another man. It was like heaven.

© 28 March 2016


About the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

Posted on

Shopping, by Phillip Hoyle

We’d been out dancing together earlier in the week—Ronnie, my wife, and I–and were planning another outing. I liked Ronnie, thought he was really funny and cute in his own peculiar way. He was clever with language and image, always laughing, a serious two-stepper in his western boots twirling my wife this way and that with an ease I could never quite master. We’d go dancing, and she’d keep us both busy so teetotaler she would never have to stop and consider that she was dancing in a country western bar. That afternoon, while sitting in a booth with several employees at the Marie Calendar’s restaurant where Ronnie and my wife worked, I heard him say he liked to shop.

I phoned him to ask, “Were you kidding about liking to shop?”

“No.”

“Do you like to shop for clothes?”

“My favorite.”

“I need you this Wednesday or the next because I have several hundred dollars a friend sent me to buy clothes to wear at my daughter’s high school graduation. He doesn’t want me to embarrass her. I need to spend the money in one afternoon because shopping depresses me.” Ronnie agreed to take me shopping. We met at the apartment and went to a variety of stores.

He asked, “What’s your favorite color?”

“Grey.”

“No, no. We can’t have you in grey. Grey will just wash out on you,” he declared as he whipped down rack after rack of shirts. “Go to the dressing room and start trying on these,” he instructed as he handed me several shirts. So away I went, and down more aisles of TJMax he flew. Several more shirts in bright colors: turquoise, purple, and red were shoved through the door. I tried them on one after another. They all fit and to me looked really good. Then in came pants for me to try. Only one pair didn’t fit. It must have been mis-sized.

Usually I would go shopping alone and get discouraged after two or three tries, feel depressed, and take home clothes that didn’t really fit. This time Ronnie dressed me; everything fit. We went to Burlington Coat Factory where we decided on a silk sports jacket to go with the shirts and pants. I told him I wanted a belt I had seen at the Pendleton store in Old Town. We drove down there only to discover they didn’t have it in my size.

While there Ronnie tried on some western hats at my encouragement. He looked lovely; well I mean handsome; well actually sexy. I told him I’d buy him one that fit perfectly. He refused. I told him it wasn’t my money anyway, but he said, “No.” Around that time I wondered just what I was shopping for. We went back to the northeast heights to Ross’ and found a satisfactory belt. Then we looked at swim wear for the coming summer, and he let me buy him trunks and a t-shirt.

I went to the Missouri graduation outfitted in colors. I still enjoy looking at photos of me in my turquoise shirt playing with my grandson Kenneth. We had such fun. I was happy to get back to Albuquerque to see Ronnie and tell him stories of the success of my clothes. That’s when I clarified another level of my shopping, one that never made me depressed. So Ronnie and I started going out alone at times when my wife was working. We went to play pool even though neither one of us was any good at it. We’d go to those over-lighted straight places and share a pitcher of beer and play with lots of noise making: groans, cheers, and laughter. I suspect people thought we were a couple of irritating queers who insisted on being seen together in public. Finally one night when we were driving north on Wyoming Boulevard I rested my hand on Ronnie’s belly. Soon after that night we started playing sex games together.

I still don’t like shopping and every time I think about having to go buy some piece of clothing I think of Ronnie and our Wednesday shopping spree. I learned about color. I learned not to care about the money I was spending since it was marked for that purpose. I was happy to share the experience with a gay guy who loved to shop. I still don’t like to shop except for art supplies, but I do so when necessary. I miss my fashion consultant and all the things we did together back in those days.

We had fun, Ronnie, Myrna, and I. I had fun with Myrna. I had fun with Ronnie. I loved having a male lover, one close to home whom I could see more than two or three times a year, maybe even two or three times a week. I loved having a male lover who wanted to have sex with me often, and who liked the ways we played off each other. I liked being desired. I liked desiring this very funny man.

Such memories of shopping!

© Denver, 2014

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

Posted on

Compulsion, by Will Stanton

I suppose that it is human nature for many of us to succumb to compulsive behavior. If we attempted to list every possible form of compulsion, we would be here all day.

Eating certainly is one of the most prevalent compulsions, especially in America. I once was invited by a 400-pound man to join him and a few others for dim-sung dinner. I tried to avert my eyes while he ravenously ate multiple courses, along with everything left over from other diners at the table. I will never subject myself to that kind of disturbing experience again. America is so notorious for overeating that someone posted on-line a photo-shopped image of Michelangelo’s “David” supposedly after visiting here and eating too much American food.

Chunky David

I fell pray to overeating for a few years, all because of chronic stress. My partner died. He also was my business partner, and I tried to do both jobs. Further, in our profession, we were required to deal with many people’s ongoing problems, which was hard enough. I also had to be concerned with professional clinical and legal liability. Worse, most competing clinics were thoroughly corrupt, making tons of money, and stealing away most of my clients. Big stress.

For a while, a little place close by, B.J.’s Carousel, became the antidote to my own stress. I must have driven by B.J.’s 10,000 times before someone told me that there was a little restaurant in the back that served solid American-style food at reasonable prices. In addition, the regular patrons and staff were exceptionally friendly and accommodating. Frequently, patrons chatted with each other from table to table, fostering a warm, supportive atmosphere. The restaurant played soft, classical music, rather than the pounding drums and screaming that most restaurants play now-days. Also in the winter, they had a pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room that made the area very cozy. That’s where I would go to unwind.

Once my evening therapy groups were gone, and I had discussed each person’s case with my contract psychologist, and I had prepared the individual sessions notes for the clinical files, I felt drained. I would jump into my car and race down to B.J.’s, which stayed open late, and order an excess of comfort-food – – meat, potatoes, salad, veggies, and (of course) desert. This went on for a few years, and I must have been oblivious to the consequence until it became more obvious. Fortunately, I rarely eat that way now. The fact that B.J.’s since has shut down probably removed a pit-fall from my path.

Over those many evening dinners and Sunday brunches that I had at B.J.’s, I got to know one of the other regular patrons. It turns out that this person had a life-long obsession with trains – – – real trains, model trains, train videos and DVDs, train paintings, train artifacts and clothes. He even chose what cities in which to work so that he could be around trains. His compulsion to continually buy train stuff resulted in his living in a house crammed so full that one would need a front-loader to clear it out. His having a lot of discretionary income in retirement, he could afford to buy a state-of-the-art Lionel “Big Boy” steam locomotive that lists for $3,000.

Big Boy Locomotive

I later found out that the front of B.J.’s was a bar that was known as the place where drag-queens could go and to be in occasional drag-shows. Although popular with some people, I never have had the slightest interest in that phenomenon and don’t quite understand the compulsion to dress-up like that. But, I could not escape noticing them on show-nights when some of them would wander through the back restaurant. I truly admire natural beauty, but I can’t say that any of those individuals fit into that category. I sense that most of them realize that they never will look like ravishing, natural beauties, and some probably dress up with some sense of satire. There may be those occasional individuals who do try to look like Hollywood models. B.J.’s, however, was not Hollywood nor Los Vegas, and I never did see anything appealingly eye-catching. Instead, homely faces, chunky bodies, big feet, ungraceful movements, and lip-syncing tended to betray any efforts to look truly attractive.
Drag-Queens
I recall one individual who, from time to time, would come stomping through the restaurant section in a most ungraceful manner, carrying high-heels, on his way to the dressing area. That poor person’s face looked as though he once had suffered a bad case of acne. Between those pockmarks and his usual grumpy scowl, I might have surmised that this sad person once had worked at McDonald’s and possibly had a compulsion to bob for fries.

I suppose that it is inevitable that, wherever there are drag-queens, there is a certain percentage of them who become titillated with the idea of toying with female hormones. For some time now, I have understood the theory of clinical transgender orientation, and I intellectually can handle that concept. These are the people who seriously think of themselves as the opposite gender, and their transition is carried out, over time, carefully and seriously, with the assistance and advice of professional doctors and therapists.

However, as naïve as I usually am and until recent years, I was totally unaware of the fact that, throughout the world, there is an amazingly large number of young guys whose compulsion is to take massive doses of female hormone, permanently changing their bodies but with no intention of surgically fully transitioning to female. They rashly do this with black-market hormones and without the supervision of professional therapists. Instead, they turn themselves into, what is crudely called, “shemales,” neither male nor female, but individuals with male genitalia and, in addition, breasts, wide hips, and large buttocks. These are the hybrid individuals who Robin Williams jokingly referred to as “The Swiss Army Knife of Sex.”

Finally made aware of this phenomenon, I have tried to intellectually handle well this phenomenon of hybrid gender, but I have a hard time handling it emotionally. What disturbs me most is that many of these individuals start out as very good looking young males; yet their masculinity is destroyed forever. To my personal way of thinking, that is a waste.

She Male


I also understand that such unpredictable use of hormones may not always turn out well. There was one tall, good-looking guy who decided to secretly take hormones. He told me that he always was afraid that his family might find out. Oddly enough, his day-job was as a tow-truck driver. He hid from his coworkers what he was doing by wearing heavy, loose clothes. Then he would change into women’s clothing and go to B.J.’s. Later, after he had developed breasts, I overheard him lament that he was sorry that he had taken those hormones because now he no longer could take his clothes off and go swimming.

More bizarrely, I saw one evening a short, previously normally built teenager, who had been named “Miss Teen Queen,” who, from taking hormones, quickly put on a vast amount of weight and ended up with huge, bulging belly, drooping breasts, and bizarrely wide hips. I found that sight very disturbing. I was very puzzled as to why that boy had such a irresistible compulsion to so dramatically change his body. Did he imagine the results being different?

Then, a skinny, drag-queen waiter told me that he once had considered taking hormones until he saw what happened to one of his friends who had succumbed to that compulsion. His friend took lots of black-market hormones and then (in the waiter’s own words) “really freaked out and totally lost it” when he saw how dramatically his body had changed and also realized that those changes were permanent, especially the expanded bone-structure of his hips. Just the idea of his doing that to himself freaks me out, especially since the friend obviously never thoroughly thought through what he was doing or sought advice from any therapists.

I guess that the “trains-on-the-brains” guy’s compulsion to continually buy model trains, train artifacts and clothes, especially since he has the money to do so, is pretty mild in contrast to the kid who totally freaked out. At least, compulsive train-guy can trade or sell-off his trains if he wants to. And as for me, I can fairly safely continue my obsession with classical music by spending an inordinate amount of time playing and listening to good music. The freaked-out kid, however, will have to live a long time with the all-too obvious consequences of his compulsion.

© 06 October 2015

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

Posted on

Where Do We Go from Here? by Ray S

Where Do We Go from Here? (or something like that)

“What are you thinking about?” my drinking partner Jack inquired. My mind wondered: this may be the last time we’ll get together here in the rosy glow of the pink neon—the trademark of the famous art deco watering hole. Everyone owes it to themselves to visit this Denver landmark in the equally landmark Oxford Hotel. The post-Prohibition décor is purported to be an architect’s interpretation of a cocktail lounge on the HMS Queen Mary. Enough background history.

“Well,” I replied, “you’re leaving for Phoenix and a new home and a new life.” I thought to myself, as long as he can keep the cancer at bay. I wanted Jack to be my friend from the first time we met, and he is that, but now he is slipping out of my life as effortlessly as he slipped in. Where do we go from here? With that, Jack excused himself to go to the Men’s.

Almost magically, Harry the bartender set down two new Martinis—each a one olive and Tanquary up. My thoughts moved from the loss of my friend Jack to the last part of my question, “Where do we go from here?” Jack knew and I realized, like the rest of my past life, I had not inkling. If I woke up in the morning, I only knew to make a pot of coffee—from there on it was up for grabs—once I finally gained consciousness. Unless someone had engaged me for some sort of business, it always was me on call or demand. That is the way I was, am, “housebroken or trained.” Seemingly never having to make an important decision on my own—someone or circumstances always did that for me. When my Day Timer was full each day I could just move from one hour to the next until the dance card was filled—no thought, just move on.

Lost in thought, I stared at that olive at the bottom of its sea of gin and willed it to come up and jump into the little bowl of munchies next to my glass. Better drink some so I can save that poor olive from a possible drowning.

The other day a friend was telling me about discussion with his son the subject of always looking ahead and having a goal, and then go for it. Easier said than done for me, especially when one’s parents hadn’t alluded to any such philosophy—let nature take its course, and I have stumbled on in the realm of being the reactor, always in the state of “ignorance is bliss,” but at this age and the advent of another year to what kind of bliss? Seek a goal seems much too late, besides I don’t think I would be able to recognize a goal, even if that olive made its trip.

Where do I go from here? It is like standing at forks on this road of NOW. The signposts are myriad.

The Yellow Brick Road—but I never got Over the Rainbow.

The Road Home—You Can’t Go Home Again.

The Primrose Path—not all it’s crocked up to be.

The Road to Shangri-La—no way, it’s too cold a trip.

The Road to Mandalay or to Loch Lehman—don’t like to travel abroad

There’s a Long, Long Road a ‘Winding—now there’s one I’ve been on, and haven’t come to its destination yet. Not certain when, but this I am sure of: it will end when you’re not planning for it. You see someone else will make that decision for you.

The hotel restrooms here are a long way too, but Jack made the return safe and sound. “Did you notice the original antique features? Part of the ‘charm’ of this old place?” Those urinals were built for some by-gone giants. You had to be careful; you were a goner if you fell in!

While my friend began a detailed description of what he had learned about the old place, my mind wandered to my recent escape from my self-imposed closet. Finally, a decision I made of my own volition. Ironically, along with the joy of liberation, discovering a loving community, finding and acknowledging the real me, the monkey on my back, self loathing, is still with me.

The Gay Road was a good choice, now which road leads to this self love/hate resolution?

“Hey, snap out of it, you’re missing my Cook’s tour of this place, and put that olive back in the glass.”

© 4 January 2016

About the Author

Posted on

Alice’s Adventure in Purple Passionland, by Ray S

The question had been looming in my frustrated mind for at least forty-five minutes. Where the hell am I, and what can I do? In my haste to leave for this dinner date I neglected to confirm the specifics like apartment number. When I had confirmed that I was at the right building, I was unable to find their names on the directory much less their apartment number. This occurred after mindless wandering between a couple of other similar high-rise buildings. In case you wonder why I failed simply to use my cell phone to let them come rescue me from the street people, I couldn’t remember their number. Would the papers announce: “Little old man found comatose under a loading dock; Doctors suspect senior molestation.”

At that moment I looked up to see two men approaching. Who else but Marty and Bob, one of my hosts and the other dinner guest whom I hadn’t seen for at least a year. I dropped my bag and almost floored them as I threw my arms around them and kissed my saviors. “We thought you had forgotten about tonight,” was all they could say in disbelief, probably thinking, “He really must be slipping.”

As dinner was about ready friend Bob produced a small box of hors d’oeuvres and invited all to sample freshly made brownies. They were made by him and Betty Crocker with the addition of Bob’s own prepared formula of something with the unfamiliar name “Lower List” and “Purple Mist.”

Then Marty’s husband Tucker inquired, “Haven’t you ever smoked pot?” He was incredulously amazed that it was possible that pot wasn’t a part of everyone’s life.

Bob allowed as how just a crumb of the “edible” would be okay. “Go ahead; take this chocolately bit. It won’t hurt.” I later learned that all three of the boys were tripping along nicely. I am reminded of Alice and the bottle with the inscription: DRINK ME.

Sometime between the soup and salad courses I began to wonder at Marty’s mastering the kitchen activities, but the plated dinners made it to the table perfectly. About part way into the salad course and then to entrée, I became aware of a soft haze dropping down over the dinner guests. Having my trained eye for color I can describe for you that it was soft and transparent and in shadings of lavender edged in the finest corona of deep purple no more than a thirty-second of an inch wide. I had been told that that little crumb MIGHT start to react but not to worry.

Dessert was a luscious apple strudel a la mode. I looked down at it on its dessert plate, and it looked up at me as if to say: TRY ME, you’ll like it.” I’d heard that before.

I was enveloped in that Purple Mist when I heard the other three discussing:

What can we do with his car?

It’s parked on the street.

Well, he certainly can’t drive it.

They decided to see if I was able to walk. So Tucker decided to see if I could walk twenty feet. Success! So I could accompany Bob to show him if I could find my car, and then he would drive it into the garage. Then what are we going to do with him besides an anti-climax of strong coffee—as if it made any difference.

What fun I was having wallowing in all of this attention. Yes it was another time and place.

Dear Bob had done wonderfully guiding the old sedan to the garage, after which he took leave of our jolly band. For the next three hours some sort of trigger activated my talking machine. Marty and Tucker kept an eye on their errant guest by sitting up and encouraging other-worldly philosophies on how love prevails.

About 3:30 AM Marty pointed me to the guest bedroom with the firm suggestion I fall into the bed. Tucker said “Good night or morning.” and the two of them offed to their own bed, with the assurance I’d be wakened for breakfast.

After some coffee and fruit I found a good degree of sobriety and lots of sleepiness. No more ethereal lavender-purple mist. As I set about the trip back home, I reviewed this most recent TRIP and what gratitude I had for my two Fairy God Fathers.

Pulling out of the garage, I stopped at the gate and looked up to their balcony and there the two of them were waiving their magic wands in a farewell gesture with one hand while holding onto their diamond tiaras with the other.

“Adieu, my two Fairy queens, with love and appreciation for the finer joie d’vie.”

Alice

Denver, © 7 March 2016

About the Author

Posted on

Forgiveness, by Phillip Hoyle

I grew up in a religious community that preached forgiveness of sin, that awful impediment to right relationship with the divine. One sought salvation or, more exactly, reconciliation with God and sought baptism as a symbol of the washing away of sin. Our church taught that baptism was not magically cleansing but symbolically so. Magic and miracles belonged to the pre-Enlightenment past. The religion was modern, rational, and even democratic. Still, the religious life and congregational experience were not without feeling. As members tried to live what was often called the Christian life some folk felt forgiveness, others did not.

Forgiveness was tied in with a moral insistence that if we were to be forgiven, we must be forgiving. For me, the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi seemed to capture the relationship. It ends with these words:

O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

To my way of thinking, that sixth line could easily and logically read, “It is in forgiving that we are forgiven.” The religious and moral sentiment was: if we wanted “in” we had to invite others in, if we wanted love we had to love, if we wanted hope we had to offer hope to others.

When I was around twenty-five I talked on the phone to a woman who could not forgive herself for an abortion she had sought years before. From my naïve and inexperienced perspective I suggested that God had already forgiven her. I guess I was kind of pep talking her into a theological affirmation that somehow didn’t address the forgiveness issues in her life. In the ensuing years I replayed that conversation and eventually heard in her voice evidence that she was drunk. (As I said, I was naïve.) I suspect that she probably called a different church every time she took up the bottle. There was something in her behavior that harkened back to experiences, teachings, accusations, probably preaching, and perhaps emotional instability. The only thing I could say about my end of the conversation is that I was open, positive, caring, and long-suffering. Eventually I came to understand how difficult forgiveness could be for some folk, especially in being able to forgive themselves or, in a religious sense, to accept that God has forgiven them. My twenties-something world was so simple. I was not plagued with guilt feelings; I was preoccupied with the challenges of career and family-building, enjoying life in a city church where I wasn’t expected to pray for rain. (I had left small churches in farm towns.)

Over the years of ministerial practice I learned to be more compassionate to and tolerant of other people whose beliefs sometimes seemed pathetic to me. I learned to listen with greater complication and to move myself into work most appropriate to my gifts. I felt good in my ministry. Still I knew more and more that I was living in a strange and probably unhealthy environment. My homosexual proclivity placed me in a precarious position, especially as the conservative powers of the 1980s and 90s focused more and more on a concept of otherness, opposed the gay and lesbian search for freedom as legalizing the unpardonable sin. I knew better. I knew the great humanity of homosexual love, its enriching effects in my own life. I valued my homosexuality as well as my heterosexuality and realized that for this to become generally known would relegate me to outer darkness in the view of many parishioners and even many of my colleagues. They would see me as sinful—you know: he desires the wrong sex and he is not monogamous—sins that even if tolerated in distant relatives certainly could not be countenanced in clergy. Quite often I had to forgive people their ignorance and hate while promoting a strategy and spirit of tolerance, service, and love.

At the family core of my life I knew that whatever happened between my wife and me would be forgiven. I already knew that and trusted the two of us to weather the storms of our relationship. It has been so. She forgave; I forgave. She forgave my needs and the pain I brought to her; I forgave her chosen unawareness and temporary anger. We forgave but still separated, and at age 50 I did not want to spend any time trying to represent my complicated self to the churches of my denomination. I chose to continue my St. Francis perspective and prayer outside that organization although I remain connected with my family and some long-time friends. I presume their forgiveness just as I do the forgiveness of the profligately loving God. And I live in open acceptance of others even when they are not particularly open to me.

Denver, © March 9, 2015


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

Posted on

We’re Not Done Yet, by Nicholas

I’m terrible at giving directions. I love maps but I don’t carry one in my head, so I have to pause and really think through how to get somewhere when asked. I also have set routine routes which, if departed from, leave me momentarily confused. I sometimes have to remind myself where I’m headed so I don’t automatically go somewhere else more familiar. And, of course, it’s hard to figure out where you should be going when, really, you’re not going anywhere at all.

New Year’s Day is always a time to reflect on where we’ve been and where we might want to go. A new year always provides the illusion of hope for a new start, a change from old bad habits before we sink back to those comfortable old bad habits.

This topic also seems to be buzzing around the blogosphere with online commentators—of whom there are about ten million—pondering where the LGBT movement is headed now that so much of the agenda that we always denied having has been accomplished. Some advocacy organizations, like Freedom to Marry, are actually closing up shop since they have accomplished their mission. Of course, we will still get funding solicitations from them. Other groups have begun to scale back their operations now that LGB, but maybe not T, issues have gone mainstream.

There needs to be a new agenda, say the blog masters. We’re at a point of having seen many—though not all—statutory barriers to living life gay or lesbian, and sometimes even trans, removed. Now what do we do?

Well, as the line goes, it ain’t over till it’s over. And, guess what, it ain’t over. I get suspicious or maybe even just paranoid when someone declares a movement over. Here it seems to mean that straight-acting, white men have gotten what they want, so everybody else should just quiet down and get on with things, like making money now that Big Money has found that the gay community is very easy to get along with.

So, we still have kids living on the street with practically no chance of a decent future without an education and a home. Bullying is still rampant in schools and school administrators are still reluctant to do anything about it.

If you’re in any way an effeminate male, a drag queen, a fairy, don’t expect the corporate law firms to welcome you. If you’re too strong a woman, your chances for success are probably reduced as well. And trans still makes most people squirm in their executive suites. Remember, in the TV show Will and Grace, Will operated in the corporate office while his flamboyant friend Jack was always scheming for ways to make it.

And, then, there’s us. The aging lesbian and gay and trans segment of the population that the still youth-obsessed society still doesn’t want to face. Many of us live in fearful isolation. Many, if not most, of us still fear being trapped and vulnerable in hostile situations such as nursing homes that are clueless if not simply hateful to LGBT elders. I don’t see myself as shy about who I am and who I live with, but I dread being consigned to some miserable and hostile facility. If school principals are reluctant to deal with bullying, nursing home administrators are about two centuries behind them.

Plenty of LGBT people are still marginalized and there is something we can do about it. Gay marriage was never the whole agenda and now that we have that we can get back to the original idea. We still need to build communities. We still need to figure out in a positive light who we are, how we are different, what we have to offer. In a way, the assimilation phase is over with marriage. Now we can go back to being ourselves. Not just dealing with needs and demands and issues, but with supporting one another and valuing one another in all our crazy diversity. We still need to find each other and join together.

Till death do us part, you might say.

© 4 January 2016

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.

Posted on

What I Did for Love, by Will Stanton

It often has been said that love is the most powerful force in the world. I feel that this belief might have some merit, although it’s hard for me to say. Perhaps I have had too little experience with love to know for sure. I have had brief moments in my life that felt like love, sometimes even somewhat prolonged feelings. I am very thankful for those moments and cherish their memory. In retrospect, however, thinking over my life, it feels as though I had very little love growing up and only moments of it since. Fate conspired against it.

That is why I procrastinated writing this short piece, even though I already had completed, way in advance, all the other subjects on our topic-list. I sensed that this would not be a particularly easy nor happy piece for me to write.

I seem to remember from childhood, rather than familial support and love, more prolonged feelings of tension, anxiety, confusion, dread, even draining of my spirit. It was only later when I learned more about psychology that I realized that my family was what is called a “looking good family,” that is, one that appears from the outside to be stable and normal; however, within, the family is dysfunctional. No, I do not recall much in the way of love in those years.

I had a partner for a while. I know that I was loved. The last years, however, turned out to be very stressful, for he suffered six years with lung and brain cancer. I took care of him the whole time. I know that he continued to love me, but the shadow of death took away much of the joy.

Since then, I have had a few really good, close friends. We care for each other. Yet, I have my own issues now to deal with, and those now predominate my thinking and feelings. Such concerns make it hard to for me at this time to love myself sufficiently enough to reach out and to love another.

During hardship and stress, I have turned to an antidote that is not practical, but does take my mind away from my sadness. In all likelihood, friends would advise me to dispense with this unproductive antidote; but, over time, it became a habit. At times, my mind is drawn back into its imaginings of being totally healthy, being the type of person who is capable of truly accepting and loving himself, and, therefore, has found love with another imagined companion of like kind. I have a creative, vivid imagination; therefore, I can construct scenarios that are superlatively idyllic. They are made of enduring beauty and love.

No, those imaginings are not the real thing; and, assuredly, they take away from my time and energy that, otherwise, could be spent reaching out to worthwhile people who might extend love in a realistic way. Yet, I am set in my ways. Without better health and greater spirit, I suppose that I shall remain as I am—and dream.

Painting by Maxfield Parrish

© 16 November 2015

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.