Tag: Phillip Hoyle

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Ever Neverland by Phillip

I live on an island at times, one I visit when I need space, need to be away from responsibility, or need to exercise my imagination. I’ve gone there many times, flying away from my peers, my family, my school, and my work. I have been aware of such flight since childhood.

Was I a flighty kid?
Was I lost in dreams?
Was I?
Am I now?

I know my dreams have been important, especially the daydreams that tend to take me away into adventures I could not in any other way experience. But once I entered a dream that endured and became real.

I had a dream of love, a dream of love shared with a man. A dream of love discovered. I shared and cultivated a relationship with another man who also needed and desired the same. A dream of love that transforms to the depths and heights and that still occurs daily, feels grounded, and fulfills common needs. I entered this Neverland holding hands with a man.

There was no map. Oh, if you compared the plats, you might think you were in Denver, but that’s not really where this story occurred. No pirates lived there. Perhaps some Indians did and some lost boys! I loved the place. I’m pretty sure there was buried treasure; I’m sure I found it. The cast of characters: only two mattered then, Rafael and I.

Awaiting the arrival of the No. 10 bus I met a younger man named Rafael. I didn’t ask for his last name as I proffered Phil from my end of the pleasant conversation. (I wonder now if I had, would he have said Martinez or Pan?) We boarded the bus; that’s when we began to fly. We talked together as we rode about a mile, then he—this cute, warm, smiling man—got off to make a transfer that would take him to work. The contact seemed to me so much more than a bus ride. It was more like freedom of movement, even flying as we talked and laughed and studied one another. The experience happened again the next week—same place, same bus, but more information, more smiles, more laughter, more looking into one another’s faces, and less awareness of others who didn’t even seem to be present. A third experience seemed to establish a yearning for more, much more, but my Rafael Pan didn’t visit the nursery of my infatuation. I started searching for him—walking the streets near the bus stop alert to every biped in pants, wondering where this young man could be. Finally I met him again. We talked. I touched him, I touched him again. I gave him my phone number and an invitation to get together. Then two months (they could have been years) of no contact convinced me I needed this man in my life. I wanted his friendship, his presence, his charm, and his love. I would survive without him but kept alert to the possibility of seeing him again in some unexpected place. There and then I wouldn’t be as casual in my conversation. My friends were amused. One thought I was giving the situation over to the universe. I had a different thought. Finally Rafael phoned leaving a message. That next day and for many days to follow we flew together.

We met by happenstance the morning we waited to board a bus. A few months later we connected with a passion that was so total as to make us two the only occupants of my Neverland. Rafael Pan and I played house, played lovers, played sex, played decorator, played god. We came together in our fantasy island with an intensity neither of us had ever experienced.

Rafael was living alone when I met him and not doing very well. He was always late, always short of cash, always in crisis. His crisis was much larger than he could imagine. He was dying from hepatitis C, a disease that had reached full term (over fifteen years) and that was having a devastating effect on his liver, spleen, and brain. Already it had ruined his life. Already it had robbed him of much of his cognitive function. What I met was a dying man out of control, a beautiful, sweet man with a funny voice and endearing misuses of English who seemed to like me, a younger man who was lively, conversational, warm, loving, needy, sweet, open, vulnerable, and who became an obsession for me.

I lived there in Neverland with a double life. So did my Pan. We both worked daily but found great relief when we got home at night. Rafael greeted me with open arms then as if we had never before met but had known each other for millennia. Some of my friends got to meet my charmer, eat his cooking, and enjoy his warmth. For awhile life seemed good.

Although life in Neverland thrilled me, it wasn’t perfect. Its ATM was flat broke. There were money problems, clinic appointments, and a court appearance for a problem that only slowly revealed its true parameters. The clock inside Rafael’s bad-health crocodile kept ticking away towards its pursuit of dominance. But Pan transformed it with his own enfolding heart. In the extremity of his life I watched as he reached out with strength and love to a nurse, to his parents, and to me, his lover.

I worked through it all knowing I needed to keep a passable bridge between my worlds, knowing someday I would have to leave this fantasy place. I spent a huge amount of time helping his family cope with his homosexuality and eminent death. Finally I lost Pan who flew away from our love nest on the summit of the Hill. Unable to fly, I trudged home along the streets of Denver, the city to which I had moved in order to rebuild my life. Of course, I was sad, sad, sad as I reentered the life I had never really left. The going there now seemed difficult, the letting go painful. Where did my Pan go? Of course I don’t know, but he left me with a fantastic treasure of love I keep warmly nurtured in the innermost sanctuary of my heart. Our brief life together changed me, and I am determined to keep alive the treasure I discovered forever in Neverland.

Denver, 2012

© 23 November 2012

About the Author


Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Pig Latin by Phillip Hoyle

I feel like the kid on the playground who feels left out, the one chosen last for a team, the one who has to read to the class but knows she won’t do well, the only one that doesn’t know Pig Latin. I feel like my father did when he picked up one of his grandsons at middle school. My nephew and a friend sat together in the back seat and talked with one another about their computers. Dad said he didn’t understand a thing they said for the duration of the twenty-minute drive home. I feel like I’ve fallen behind the whole world, sure I’d find questions on the current GED test incomprehensible. I feel like I’m falling off the grid. “Stop the world, I want to get off” captures some of my sentiment, but why this despair? I get around life just fine, enjoy reasonable work, nice enough friends, and occasionally even leadership. I’m not sure what I feel is despair, but I do feel pressures of a new job, one that I am interested to do but realize that it pushes me into a world of assumed knowledge that I don’t possess.

Computers are not new to me. In the late 1980s I met several PCs with their word processors. For ten years I successfully wrote book-length manuscripts using my PC WPs. To my family’s consternation, I’d tie up the home phone line in order to visit a friend’s bulletin board that gave me access to Shareware and some games. I heard the talk, appreciated the crude graphics, and came to appreciate the advantages my computer and word processor gave me. I enjoyed my experiments with Paint Brush and even tried my hand with some simple data bases.

I had bought the PC in order to write. I bought it at the suggestion of a writer and an editor, purchasing it at the outset of a project I had agreed to do and finished paying it off when I received my writer’s fee. I learned on the job by making mistake after mistake and solving the problems sometimes on my own, sometimes following the advice of others more experienced than I. So I learned to adopt my software and computer function with DOS smart commands, a few new programs, and several creative uses. I paid attention to what the computer needed and became at least moderately efficient in my applications. In the 1990s I entered a conversation—one of those on-line things now usually called a blog—one concerned with topics of professional interest; but I didn’t find the discussions all that interesting or pertinent. I think my life was changing too quickly, my interests moving towards the visual arts.

Still, I wrote. Still I maintained some records in a database. Still I experimented with Paint Brush. But most of my attention was focused on my art table with paper and ink, canvass and paint, design and technique. When my editors at the publishing house no longer could tolerate my antique technology, I got an Apple, then another more modern PC, and finally my PC laptop that went so fast I could never keep up. By then I had lost the curiosity factor. The WP was okay although not as convenient as the writers software I’d liked for years. Word for Windows didn’t thrill me. In fact, I never really got used to Windows. It seemed as if the attempt to make the computer more user-friendly just irritated me. I couldn’t see what was happening.

I believe my quick forays into Cyberspace were really the most intimidating factor, the ones that left me feeling like I wasn’t cutting it. I recall scares when my computer would start doing frightening things. I wondered would it die a cruel death? Explode into flames? I didn’t know but timidly accommodated myself to this unfriendly playground world.

Oh it’s gotten better for me in the 2000s. I am more at home, but suddenly I am working with “The SAGE Blog”—it always reminds me of the old movie “The Blob”—and threatens to engulf me, taking over my time and attention, and threatening to alter me in ways I don’t invite. I guess the problem is that the Blog is so social in its nature: its contributions, comments, and maintenance. I’ve always worked with people successfully, but now it seems too many of them are speaking Pig Latin or some other language I don’t easily understand. One very friendly and helpful techie said, “Well, Phillip, welcome to the cyber world.” But I’m not a techie or even a Treckie. I’m on a journey of learning but feel like I’m floating through this new, endless space with no thrusters. Still I am learning.

This in Pig Latin:

Omesay aysday Iway eelfay atthay Iway annotcay understandway atwhay isway expectedway ofway emay. Easeplay ebay atientpay. Iway aymay otnay understandway ethay echnicaltay eedsnay ofway ybercay ommunicationscay ellway, utbay Iway amway oingday ethay objay. Eoplepay owhay oday understandway areway akingmay itway appenhay inway itespay ofway ymay eeblefay attemptsway. Ifway ingsthay ogay ellway, ouyay ancay eginbay eadingray oriesstay onway ourway ownway ogblay extnay Ondaymay. Atwhay unfay itway illway ebay.

Quick; back to English.

Some days I feel that I cannot understand what is expected of me. Please be patient. I may not understand the technical needs of cyber communications well, but I am doing the job. People who do understand are making it happen in spite of my feeble attempts. If things go well, you can begin reading stories on our own blog next Monday. What fun it will be.

Again, thanks for your patience. I’m learning. Say a prayer or something for me that I will do the work well.

Note: This piece was read to the SAGE Telling Our Stories group at the end of September last year, just before this blog appeared. We’re celebrating the completion of our first year this month!


About the Author


Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Epiphany by Phillip Hoyle

Stay with me for a minute while I wander through the hallways of old church buildings where I worked and where my choirs sang. The choral year began with me making selections of anthems for each holiday and theme sometimes in consultation with the liturgical calendar although I did not work in a liturgical church. Still, making music in a modified gothic building made me conscious of the long-lasting traditions of church music and of the many reforms that music had undergone. And of course, I liked music from many ages and in many styles.

I learned that the liturgical calendar held some oddities. The year began soon after Thanksgiving, five or six weeks before New Year’s Day. Advent announced the coming Christmas celebration, but thanks to the endless playing of holiday tunes in malls, over airwaves, and at concerts, by the time we got to Christmas we had reached our tolerance. I thought it might be nice to save a three-wise-men song for Epiphany, but what meaning would it have for nice Kansans played out with such music? Christmas was over, the gifts open, and the trees trashed or stored for next year. I realized that for our church I’d have to modify my approach. So Epiphany drifted by without much notice, Epiphany that in western tradition (Roman Catholic and its reforming offspring) pointed to the baptism of Jesus and that in eastern tradition (Orthodox Catholic of various national identities) to the arrival of the Zoroastrian Magicians from the East.

Now stay with me a little longer while I tell you a bit about my religious experience. The Christianity I received came delivered intact. It honored the biblical revelation as being sufficient for all times and assumed that with slight differences in perception the good news was sufficient for all cultures. Yet the form of its understanding relied on an accommodation of an 18 century philosopher! It was systemized in a simple way and taught to children and adults as the truth. I was happy with it, studied the bible, sang the songs, taught its tenets, prayed to the God it taught in the ways it prescribed. That Christianity allowed for individualism—after all it was a 19th century accommodation of the Gospel and the Enlightenment. It assumed that the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ had occurred, that biblical epiphanies, such as the appearance of the risen Lord to the apostle Paul, were true. It assumed that the need for further revelation was over, the age of miracles concluded, and the truth already delivered!

It made sense to me. Its personal emphasis was one of belief as in the confession of faith represented by the public question, “Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ?” and by the time I came along, its existential element was caught up in the idea that you “take Jesus Christ to be your personal savior.” Assumed also was the idea that this belief would make you a better person and that you should pray and go to church regularly.

The system was a reform of the orthodox doctrines of ecclestical authority based on an apostolate, and so forth. It was also a democratic accommodation of church structure and authority that fit in with the American ethos very well. Special gifts of the spirit were generally relegated to the ancient past as no longer needed for faith in the modern age.

The very rational religion seemed official; I found it sufficient for a very rational me. Happily I went on my religious way and into religious work at which I excelled. One could say I had a very rational calling into the ministry of a very rational church.

But non-rational elements kept creeping into my systematic bliss, and some of them seemed blissful to me. Reading Christian theology written by English Dons, I wondered at their preoccupation with classical gods and myths. Why did their inclusion seem so important to them? I didn’t understand, yet in my own mind I heard and treasured the drums and chants of Native American tribes, their stories and folkways, and eventually I came to appreciate how they illuminated my Christian understandings. I spent a lot of time planning religious education events, and affective elements from other religious expressions made way into my designs. I directed choirs in the very rational church and one guest asked if ours was a charismatic church. “Why do you ask?” the senior minister queried. “Well, because of your choir director.” When he told me, I wondered if I seemed to her to be lifted into some kind of charismatic ecstasy. Well, I did get to dance in church.

Please, please stay with me. We’re getting to the story. At a personal level there were those homosexual stories I’ve told you about, experiences that for me seemed to hold so much godly content, that seemed so centrally to define who I was, experiences that revealed personal truths that ran counter to democratic voting-block opinions. My personal truths promised to interrupt the church’s general flow of power and tolerance thus leaving me quite vulnerable. The truth of my personal faith belied the tentative acceptance of gays by the rather liberal faith community I in which worked. Perhaps I was looking for some personal epiphany to redefine who I was in relationship with the now-seeming insufficiently enlightened Christianity I had long accepted. I started separating myself from the religion of my forebears. It wasn’t that I quit being Christian or turned my back on God, but that my Christianity became more personalized, luring me out of the institutional door, so to speak. Now it wasn’t as if homosexuality didn’t exist in the church. That seems obvious enough to our age. But the homosexuality was closeted and often frantic. It was as if everything about religion worked for homosexuals except the institutional rejection of them. That’s got to be a terrifying dilemma. One gay minister had an epiphany and organized what became the Metropolitan Community Church, a special home for LGBTs that eventually began to seek inclusion in the National and World Council of Churches only to be rejected. (Oh well, what’s new?)

I slipped quietly out the back door of the modified gothic buildings and made my way to the big city. I attended the MCC until I got over some of the initial trauma of my leaving both marriage and ministry. Then I began being irked by openly gay clergy. What was that?

Finally I had an epiphany. Mine was not a view of God sitting on the high throne of Heaven, of the resurrected Christ appealing to me in his very human body, but rather, a vision of the homophobia that resided deep within my heart, my body, my mind. It was the homophobia that lurked behind all the nice things I had thought about gay folk and about my gay self. The content of this epiphany—really an emotion-filled insight into myself—was that the culture had kept the upper hand even deep inside me. Slowly through this new vision of myself, I was converting into a self-loving gay human. My homophobia that got focused on a gay church and gay clergy really was my self-hatred that had to be removed, that had to be loved out of me by the God of love that I had long professed, and that had to be loved out of me by the open and costly process of loving men and being loved by them.

Well … I don’t quite know how to move this story to a close, but I do love you people who listen to my stories. I do love you people who so beautifully love gay me. For you are the embodiment of my great religious epiphany.

Denver, 2012

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Finding Myself by Phillip Hoyle

A search began when in my twenty-seventh year my friend Ted introduced me to the gay novel. That first book was Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner (NY: William Morrow & Co., 1974), and Ted claimed it had just about everything in it. I took this to mean every gay theme. Reading it I discovered several topics and scenes of interest but was unable to find myself in the story. My own story included a life-long sexual response to men that lived peacefully alongside my commitment to a marriage and a largely conventional heterosexual life. The day I finished Warren’s book, I undertook a literary search for my gay self.
     
I read Robert Ferro, Edmund White, Paul Monnett, Richard Nava, Ethan Morddan, and many other authors of gay fiction over many years. Eventually I read Felice Picano’s book Ambidextrous and found myself. It wasn’t actually me, but the book described bisexual experiences and feelings similar to some I had as a child and teen and, thus, brought me relief that I wasn’t alone in the world. I was at least barely recognizable among gay males and no longer wondered if I was an outsider in this outsider existence. 
     
I was elated to find commonality with a writer who described the book as autobiographical fiction. I read more of his books including Men Who Loved Me and realized my sameness with Picano was limited. While I enjoyed his sense of spirituality and his vigorous personal searches for love, his stories included drugs—lots of them; mine was drug free. I continued to read Picano and other gay novelists who were being published in ever-increasing numbers looking for other glimmers of my life, hoping for a light to lead me into an unknown future.
     
My friend Bill told me he found himself in Paul Monnett’s Becoming a Man. He had been deeply moved by the book and felt it affirmed his experience. I read the book with interest for it allowed me a glimpse into the lives of the author and of my friend. I assumed that most details of Bill’s life differed from those in Monnett’s book, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t connect with the book very deeply although the beautiful, effective writing seemed very important as a gay statement. It simply wasn’t my story. I kept reading but mostly felt like I was still an outsider in the gay world that so fascinated me.
     
Then my life changed radically. I separated from my wife and then left my profession that I had found growing too gay-unfriendly for my taste. I began to live as a gay man and to write on a regular basis. In both, I set out to explore my life experiences in order to understand more about who I had become. I made interesting and helpful connections of diverse themes that seemed to make sense of my experience. As I wrote, I kept reading but didn’t find myself in these books, that is, until thirty years after reading my first gay novel. 
     
I was stunned and pleased when a few weeks ago I read the chapter “East of Ashshur” in Aryeh Lev Stollman’s The Far Euphrates (NY: Riverhead Books, 1997). Stollman’s character Alexandre tells the story as son and only child of a Rabbi and his wife living in Windsor, Ontario. In this chapter, the protagonist stated for the second time that he was not shamed by his homosexuality. I had heard the statement loud and clear at its first occurrence rather early in the book. Then in this chapter the sixteen-year-old Alexandre entered a period of study structured by his religious tradition. He embraced the practice but not its traditional goals such as becoming holy or knowing God. He moved himself into a world related to the Hebrew calendar and sought self-knowledge in the light of the moon. Daily standing before the mirror, he combined physical self-examination with intense reading of anatomy and physiology. In these twin ways, physiological and philosophical, he sought self-understanding. The statement’s repetition occurred toward the end of his year-long intense self-examination that included much more than Alexandre’s sexual feelings and led him to the affirmation of his sexuality that he could see might pose difficulties. Still he felt unashamed. 
     
My experience also has left me unashamed. Early on I knew I liked boys (eventually men) and understood it as a part of my life that I might outgrow. I did not reject it in my teens, and some fifteen years later I didn’t feel shocked when I fell in love with a man. During those intervening and following years I made an intense inquiry into the nature of human sexuality with a focus on homosexuality. I wanted to understand. My attempt was not carried out in a formal retreat like Alexandre’s. In making my inquiry I realized other folk were not interested or at least not at ease over my quest, for instance, my wife fell asleep when I wanted to read her the most interesting things I thought might be helpful enrichments to our sex life and others seemed afraid of my interest. So I did retreat into the relative privacy of my office, late night reading, library research, and internal thought. My reading spanned social science, sexology, biology, social ethics, philosophy, theology, literary criticism, poetry, fiction, and journalism. Like the teenager Alexandre, I observed myself and read about things I thought, felt, and experienced. Like him, my thirst for knowledge was insatiable, and like him, I was unashamed. 
     
My inquiry had begun way back in childhood when I started reading about American Indian culture, life, and history not aware I was studying myself. Then I added theology, then sexuality (my overt self-examination), then music history, and always exhaustive reading of novels—international works in translation, gay novels, Native American novels, murder mysteries, and more. 
     
I continue my reading quest, but most important, now I write to know myself, somehow to be true to my own self. Through my personal accounts and fiction I am seeking to express what I have learned and know. I write my childhood sex and friendships. I write my teenage fascinations with girls and boys. I write my marriage, one in which I dearly loved my wife while I became more acutely attentive to my homosexual needs. I develop characters who speak of my sexual values, reflect on my thoughts and feelings, and by their own adaptations, lead me into new perspectives about myself. I develop characters who do things I have only dreamed or never dared to dream, and in the writing become more aware of my needs and desires. I write how my life affects my work. I write how my self-knowledge creates tensions in my family and vocation. Still though, I see myself riding bikes with my best childhood friend as in Ambidextrous. Still, I stand before the mirror of self-reflection unashamed as in The Far Euphrates. The searching and finding continue as they surely will for the rest of my life.

Denver, 2011

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Casual Sex by Phillip Hoyle

Sex has never felt casual to me. Some have suggested that because of this I am not really gay, like the drag queen who claimed to my ex-wife that I wasn’t gay because when I had his beautiful body on my massage table I didn’t have sex with him. He echoed the complaint of much of the gay liberation movement that grew up during the time of free love and open relationships. The early gay movement presented these opening salvos of value to gain attention in order to gain civil rights for yet another segment of American people. They championed free-love among other rights. Still, even the most cursory look at “out” GLBTs reveals a much more complicated world of relationships, sexual practices, and preferences.

I really have no problem with the idea of casual sex. It’s fine with me although I have never been truly casual. When I came to Denver to live, I had sixteen different partners in my first sixteen months. The meetings began as casual pick-ups in bars. “Let’s have sex,” one smiling man at Charlies night club suggested. I agreed, and off we went to my apartment. The casual got a little more complicated when we negotiated what to do. It turned out we both wanted to do the same thing to one another but eventually found a mutually agreeable compromise and the once-again-casual fun began. Afterwards we talked about our backgrounds and found similar experiences, and in the exchange he emerged as a complex person, as much as I. Casually or otherwise, I liked him, his body, his openness, his personality. The several times we got together were great fun with vigorous sex, but I felt responsibility towards him and myself. Sex has always been like that for me. I feel like Johnny Carson, who said the reason he had so many divorces was that when he had sex with a woman, he thought he was supposed to marry her. When with men I don’t think in terms of marriage, but I may as well. If I’m casual in the initial act, I’m not casual in the aftermath when a real person emerges. Perhaps I was too long married, too long a pastor in churches. I just can’t maintain interest to an unattached sex organ.

Casual sex is probably the wrong expression for what I have observed in bars. There are forms for seeking to get laid that include pick up lines, banter, back-and-forth exchanges of glances, words, drinks, dances, kisses, and sometimes introductions. Even getting casual sex relies on long-established rules of communication. It’s rare to find it any other way since communications have to be understandable. 

I seek mental and emotional accord as well as sex. I want real, lively people in my life. I’m just that way. So… I’m a certain kind of gay person. I love sex but always lean towards complex relationships with complex personalities. That’s how it is for me: not too casual.

While I protest my interest in casual sex, I freely admit I have had sex outside of a committed relationship. I had sex in addition to a committed marriage, and in these variances I am not alone. In general, men seem happy to engage in casual sex even though there are social strictures against it. They do so in war; they do it when away on trips; they do it at home even with the possibility of getting caught and charged. The care of children and their mothers is a societal concern that has tended to limit the number of wives and keep men in control. In addition, control of family lineage and the distribution of wealth have long been preoccupations among the powerful. Societies don’t want to get out of control just because their men have too much testosterone, so they have developed standards of faithfulness within human marriages.

Men having sex with men don’t have to worry about pregnancies, so when Gay liberation became an issue, gay’s fought for sexual freedom as well. Gay men felt free of relational obligations until the discovery of the deadly STD HIV, then the co-infections such as hepatitis C, and then the re-emergence of syphilis. Then gay men had to calm down, refocus their attention, be less casual about it all, but they still wanted to suck it, still wanted to stick it, and still wanted to feel it buried deep inside and often with lots of different people. They (we) wanted the fucking intensity, and the rubber made it possible.

The accusations I have heard that I was not really gay, seem to point to an established form of free love, meaning casual sex within gay meanings. I am even more casual. No. I’m not. Nor am I particularly hung up. I want sex within friendship’s larger possibilities. I’m not interested to simply play out someone else’s fantasies. I want to relate at some more complex level. So I think in terms of sexualized friendships, something more akin to fuck buddies with the emphasis placed on buddies. This institution provides more than sexual release. As a form of friendship, it bows somewhat to the terms of contractual relationship. It certainly is more complex than John Richey’s young protagonist in the novel Numbers, much less goal-oriented than his adding notches to his whatever or adding variety to his numbering. It moves away from such quantitative goals to supplement them with a quality experience that I believe can only come with repeat performance. At least that’s my fantasy.

The current interest in establishing gay marriages by law seems to move the emphasis away from casual sex, but we must also remember that men who have been married to women all their adult lives still want and often get casual sex. The same surely will be true with gay men who seek formal, structured relationships, yet they seem willing to do so for financial, personal, control, romantic, or other reasons. Also they want it as a civil right and surely will win in this confrontation with general society.

© 17 February 2011

About the Author 

Phillip Hoyle lives in
Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing.
His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups
of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in
church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients
in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
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Vulnerable Gay Me by Phillip Hoyle

     A minister I had met just that day asked me, “Should we kiss now or later?”

     “Now’s fine,” I flippantly responded wondering if he was kidding. He wasn’t.

      He pushed me against the wall, pressed his body against mine, kissed me full on the lips, stuck his tongue in my mouth. He seemed to be boiling over with passion while I had been expecting a laugh or a nice, gentle kiss. Perhaps he sensed I would end up getting more than I had agreed to and wanted to make his claim. I wasn’t asking for anything from him, but I did get quite a lot. 

     That morning three of us, including a regional minister, a pastoral minister, and I, an associate minister, traveled together. I was excited about the trip to a city several hours south of where we lived. Since we travelers wanted to get to know one another better, we all rode in the front seat. (Obviously the events occurred before bucket seats became standard.) Being the youngest, I sat in the middle with my feet on the hump. A few miles down the road the muscles of my lower back started to tighten. There just wasn’t enough room for both feet to be comfortable so I placed my right foot in the well next to the pastoral minister’s feet. My leg rested against his. I was able to relax and was pleased that he didn’t pull away. So I rested my leg there much of the way to the town where we were to lead religious education workshops the next day. I was slated to room with this same man. 

     We checked into the hotel and had a short break before dinner at a nearby restaurant where we would join other workshop leaders. As we waited, the minister and I talked freely about his work as pastor and my as an associate. From our conversations on the way down, I knew of this pastor’s singular work in communications and education and of a literature program in the congregation he now led. I clarified some questions about his programming and also got a feel for his personality. As we talked, he complimented me on my personality and intelligence and said how much he thought of the minister I worked with. A few minutes before leaving the room to meet the other leaders, he asked if we should kiss. After we kissed, he indicated he had liked my leg next to his and took it to be an invitation for us to do more together. I knew our touch could be interpreted in that way and realized that I may have actually hoped to be accepted thus, but still I felt shocked by his passion. I may have said something corny like, “Thank you.” At least, I should have.

     I didn’t like the live music in the restaurant. It was too loud and not one of my favorite styles. After dinner we took a walk along the riverfront but due to the cool air soon returned to our room. There we opened up to one another even more, much more than kissing. There was massage and, eventually, sex. He took the lead but the next morning told me he had never shared sex with another man who was so active. I guess he thought I should simply play a role of passive bottom for him, but I was too creative, too excited by the things we were doing together. I was the most top-like bottom he had met. He told me, somewhat prematurely I thought, that he was pretty sure he could fall in love with me. 

     Now I knew about love. I knew quite a lot about sex. I knew even more about myself. And now I’m describing my vulnerability—a sexual vulnerability—a readiness to open myself to a man I didn’t even know but who I saw others trusted. Why was I so ready to kiss him with passion? Why was I so ready to have full-out sex? I was up against a new kind of gay experience like that in books I had read, one that was ready to have sex with almost any available man. Here I was opening up to a discrete, married man who was horny as a goat and who saw me as a delectable younger fruit ready for the picking. But that last perception was to occur to me only later. Here was a man who proposed we kiss. I was ready. I was aware that the kiss could lead to more.

     I had long experienced the tension between being vulnerable and defended in the sexual arena. The year before I had fallen in love with a male friend but had pledged myself not to go sexual with him. After all, he was a newly-wed. At about that same time my wife in frustration said, “I just wish you’d get your sex somewhere else.” Those conditions set me up for what happened, but I’m not looking to blame anyone. There were more contributors, for example, I had not had male-to-male sex since age fifteen. And, of course, that evening I was away from home with a stranger who desired me. I was needy and not shocked by my condition. I was also lucky. This late 70s sex without protection with a man who had lived and worked in large cities did not leave me with an STD. 

     I was vulnerable not only to the sex that night; I was also ready to have an affair. I had heard his words of maybe-love and a couple of weeks later, when I called him, I realized that he must be running scared, even experiencing guilt feelings. That didn’t suit me. I didn’t want the guilt feelings of another to spoil our relationship as it surely would have. My formidable defenses arose. I never called back. 

     Several years later when I saw the pastoral minister at a regional conference, he said, “Let’s go fuck.” 

     I responded, “I don’t have time.” 

     He countered with a smile and a chuckle, “I thought you’d say that.”

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”


Read more at Phillip’s blog  artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Breaking into Gay Culture by Phillip Hoyle

I didn’t break into Gay Culture but rather carefully walked in prepared for my entrance by my good friend Ted. Over many years he had coached me, revealed the ins and outs of much of the culture by taking me to gay bars, introducing me to gay people, teaching me the language both spoken and unspoken, introducing me to gay novels, showing me more of his life than I really asked to see, and talking endlessly with me about gay experience. His tutoring took on a different seriousness when in my mid-thirties I told him I’d made it with another man, a friend of mine he’d met years before. From that point on, Ted simply assumed I was gay whatever non-gay decisions I made. His assumption led him to open even more of himself to me rather than shield me from realities that would certainly become important should I leave my marriage and go gay full time! Ted was my effective educator.

About two months after my wife and I separated I made my entry into a world I had only studied. Three blocks from my apartment I entered a bar named The New Age Revolution, a bar I had seen while walking with my wife and had wondered if it could be gay. Why else would it have such a name in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I had thought about when I would be ready to go alone to such a place, thought about when I’d go there as a gay man. Would I be courageous enough to do so? Of course, I would. After all, I didn’t separate from a twenty-nine-year-long, perfectly fine marriage to an understanding and lively woman whom I adored without intending to live a fully open gay life. I had already begun preparing to leave my profession of thirty-two years, one in which I realized I would not be able to live openly gay. So I glanced in the mirror, took off my tie, straightened my clothes, walked out the apartment, descended sixteen floors in the elevator, waved at the security guard, exited the building, and walked those three blocks down to the bar. I went early, way too early according to Ted’s instruction. He taught me never to show up before ten. I’m sure I was there at 9:00. I suppose it was a weeknight; I had to work the next day. The place was nearly deserted. There was music. A few people stood around talking to one another. I went up to the bartender, said “Hi,” and ordered a beer; I don’t recall what kind of beer but it was in a bottle. While I slowly sipped at my drink, I looked around at the decorations. This place just had to be gay. I couldn’t imagine any other saloon that would display a decorated dildo on the wall behind the bar. I was pretty sure I had made it to the right place.

This was not only the first time I had been alone in a gay bar; I’m sure it was the first time I’d been alone in any bar. I grew up in dry state with a prohibitionist mother and had married a tea-totaller. I had drunk beers on occasion, but had never gone to a bar before I was in my thirties and living away from Kansas. I had rarely even paid for a drink. I thought about a gay friend of mine who said he sometimes went to gay bars simply for the spiritual aspect of it, as a point of identity, participation, and presence. I stood in the bar that night not talking to anyone, thinking about how being there certainly was a kind of spiritual experience, one of great importance to me. I was finally present publicaly as a gay man. There I was beginning my future life as openly gay.

I drank another beer. Finally I nodded to the bartender, left a generous tip (changes must be commemorated with great generosity), and exited the door. I walked thoughtfully up the hill all the time watching peripherally for anyone that might have seen me leave the place; after all I was in Oklahoma. I entered the apartment building and returned to my home. I suspect I played music and messed around with some art project. I thought about making gay saints for my next series of mixed media works. Would I become one I wondered?

That evening I walked into a bar but wasn’t breaking into gay culture. Actually I was breaking out of several important, long-standing straight relationships. My entering gay culture passed as quietly as that first night in a gay bar by myself, and I’ve never regretted that short walk some fifteen years ago.

Denver, 2012

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Over the Edge by Phillip Hoyle

Cringing, I wiped cobwebs from my face that day as if I were in a movie navigating the canoe downstream through an African jungle of reeds. Would we be attacked by crocodiles? Would snakes drop out of the trees? Would we be overturned by a hippopotamus? I certainly hoped not and knew boas, crocs, and hippos were in short supply along the Black River that flows through the desert south of Carlsbad, New Mexico.
 
“The water splits into two channels just ahead,” I shouted back to David. “It looks like more water goes to the left.”

“Then take it to the left.” So I guided the canoe into the passage past rocks and willows. Still no snakes; and then we were beyond the reeds with their spiders. We continued to paddle, not in a hurry, just looking at what lay ahead.

David and I enjoyed each other’s company. We were both ministers who shared leadership in religious education and got a kick out of being together. We were attending a ministers’ retreat at the Tres Rios Area Retreat Center not far from where the Black River emerges from Carlsbad Caverns in southeastern New Mexico. The prior evening the retreat group had made a short canoe trip upstream to where the water appears from beneath a dry, rocky riverbed. At breakfast David asked the retreat director if the river was navigable downstream and found out one could canoe about half a mile, then make a short portage, and then canoe another three quarters of a mile. 

“Would you be interested to go down the river with me?” he asked. 

“Sure,” I answered, although I am not particularly the outdoorsy type. Still, I liked spending time with this man. We had already been talking about how we hoped someday to find a mastodon tooth or other age-marking relic at this site on the western edge of the old Permian Sea Basin. Perhaps we would make our discovery on this trip.

During an afternoon break we walked to the canoe rack. I suggested we carry the canoe a few yards down the road to a place where I thought we could easily get it into the river and ourselves safely into the boat. David asked, “Why don’t we just put in here. The access looks easy, and the water’s barely moving.”

“But this seems quite a bit higher than where I was thinking,” I countered, my indoors preferences showing a little too clearly. “We’ll probably have to navigate through some riffles or walk in the water.” But we followed David’s suggestion and started our unusual adventure.

As we left the reeds I warned, “The stream separates here again. Looks like more water on the left.”

“Go for it,” David advised. We did. I ducked to avoid an overhanging tree branch, and when I looked ahead screamed, “It’s a waterfall!”

We plunged over the rocky edge dropping about five feet into a deep pool. I held my straw cowboy hat as the canoe went under and turned over. Sputtering, I bobbed to the surface, took a big breath, and grabbed for the canoe. “You okay, David?” I asked my likewise sputtering friend.

“Yeah. Boy that was a surprise.”

“Are you hurt?” 

“I don’t think so. I did bump my shin on the canoe. I’ll be fine,” he reassured me. “How about you?”

“I’m fine,” I lied as I found a foothold on a rock. The 50° F water came up to my neck. “I’m standing on the bottom here. If you hang onto the canoe I think the current will push you over to the shore. Then we’ll see if we can get the water out of the boat.”

We were successful and finally got the canoe righted and emptied. In the process I felt my right knee giving way. As the current continued to push against my leg, I tightened the muscles gripping the rock with my feet. What I didn’t tell David was that my knee had dislocated in the fall and was threatened to give out again. I was starting to feel chilled. I suggested David carefully hoist himself into the canoe while I held it secure against the shore. Then he held it while I slithered in like the jungle snake I had feared.

“I hurt my knee,” I admitted when I got safely aboard. “But I want to go on down to the first portage. I want to see the river. We can come back up here to get out.” I pulled off my shirt to wrap my knee and re-secured my lifejacket. The desert sun warmed me as we paddled downstream. 

Huge cottonwood trees provided shade over some of the river, and in these bosque giants blue herons nested. I’d never seen such large birds perched in trees. The whole area took on an exotic aura for me. As we drifted, sunfish jumped right next to the canoe. I wondered if anyone fished here. Surely few people had floated the river. As I examined the bank, I was fascinated by the way clusters of prickly pear cacti hung over the precipice like green waterfalls sometimes extending ten feet or more to the water’s edge. I thought of the mounds I’d once seen on the high bank above, ruins of the homes of people who lived in the area long before white or Spanish arrivals or even the Athabaskan Apaches migrations. I wondered at the history and the exotic, profligate beauty of this ancient desert terrain. 

When the river got too shallow, we turned back upstream, then dragged the canoe up the steep slope to the road. After we hoisted the canoe back onto the rack, I limped to the dormitory while David fetched ice and an ACE bandage from the kitchen. With my leg elevated, I lay back in an easy chair and told other retreat participants about our misadventure. Finally I closed my eyes playing back scenes from my own point of view richly embroidered by movie cuts from Saturday afternoon matinees of my childhood. 

Certainly this was an unusual day of adventure and new experiences, a singular time I will long remember and often retell. The waterfall threatens to grow higher, the river longer, and of course, my torn meniscus more painful. 

Denver 2010

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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SPECIAL EDITION: PRIDEFEST 2013

Today’s Special Edition presents stories by three authors. 

One Summer Afternoon 
by Ray S

“What are you doing, father?” It isn’t quite summer, but almost. And this afternoon the question was voiced by one of a couple of gay revelers passing by as I waited for the next #10 bus.

“Waiting,” I replied and then quickly added, “for the next bus.” Then it struck me, the title by which I had been addressed and then my prompt reply.

First, I am a father and today is the national holiday honoring fathers. Just coincidently Denver’s Gay Pride Sunday. There certainly are statistics establishing how many gay fathers there are. Guess this is our special day as well. One never knows who will turn up a father; do you?

Second, I thought after the boys passed by that the word “waiting” looms either ominously or in joyful anticipation for all of us, and in my case—for what or whatever the future may hold.

Besides the initial carnival character of the setting at Civic Center and then the Pride Parade, I was aware of the general ages of the celebrants. Don’t gay men grow beyond downy-faced Peter Pans that will never grow up or full-blown bronzed Adonises with such an abundance of self confidence and arrogance? This question was haunting and even more so after countless hours of observing the beautiful, bizarre, minimally-attired populous. Was this whole charade dedicated to the Fountain of Youth and the exciting discovery of carnality? Here is a parody of the song. “Old Soldiers never die,” etc. that goes “Old Trolls never die, they just fly away.” Is there nothing to look forward to besides a good book, getting fat from countless dinner parties, recounting lost opportunities with other disappointed brethren, indulging in the occasional gay porn DVD in the lone comfort of your bed, and on and on, so be it?

Then like the first blush of the sunrise my eyes were opened wonderfully to the real world of beautiful, crazy, happy, gay attendees of this huge street party celebrating many other positive aspects of the right to be who we are and equal to all the rest of the seemingly God’s chosen.

The exterior physicality has a way of transforming. The ultimate result is the chance for a real inner beauty to emerge, if it hasn’t been there already. The value of friendship, companionship and love beyond the flesh core. The truly life-sustaining elements of all GLBT relationships. And of course human nature will see to the sometimes overarching flesh thing.

Waiting one summer afternoon. Well just relax, breathe deeply, look around you, see the beauty and love in all of us, and eventually that bus will come.

© June
2013

About the Author

One Summer Afternoon
by Merlyn

Pride Sunday 2013 was the kind of summer day that will always be special. Michael and I walked in the Pride parade along with the color guard with Ray S; Cecil and Carl rode in a convertible  At the end of the parade Cecil and Carl joined us on the corner of Colfax and Broadway for awhile to watch the parade pass. We had fun looking at all of the people. Carl stood up and watched as the green Rolls Royce drove past that Cecil and he had ridden in last year.

We spent 8 hours helping out in the Prime Timers and The GLBT Center’s booths on Saturday and were planning on enjoying Sunday.

We would have to leave around 3 to go over to his daughters house for a father’s day dinner for Michael at 5pm.

After the Parade was over we had about a hour to walk around before Michael was supposed to work at his church’s booth. A storm went though with strong wind but no one cared. I was planning on checking out the four Prime Timers booths to help out if one of them needed help for a couple of hours.

Everything was under control so I decided to enjoy myself. I walked by Michaels booth he was wearing the red hat with flowers all over it, he was having a ball putting stickers on the people that went by. It was crowded and I was in the way, so I decided to walk around.

I saw a bench that was in the shade and sat down. I really enjoyed being able to sit on the bench and not do anything but watch and talk to some of the people that stopped for a break.

Two men in their 30s feel asleep in each other’s arms laying on the grass 20 feet away where I was sitting and no one cared. When I was in my 20s or 30s I could never have imagined a world where it would be OK to do the kind of things that seem so natural today.

We made it to dinner a few minutes late, had a real good time and came home around 9PM. We laid down to relax awhile before we watched the end of a movie we had started Saturday night. Both of us fell asleep, We woke up just in time to go down to and go to bed around midnight, but that’s another story about a different day.

© June 2013

About the Author

I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.

One Summer Afternoon 
by Phillip Hoyle

As a dedicated people watcher, I sat alone on a coffee shop patio watching the parade go by in front of me. The East Colfax show was endless, varied, noisy, quirky, clean, stylish, unwashed and in rags. With loud sirens blaring, Denver Fire Department trucks sped by. Cars stopped to parallel park; other vehicles impatiently continued up and down the street. I watched a never ending flow of people and automobiles loving what I saw. Then I thought of the parade I’d see on the following Sunday, the Parade for Denver PrideFest 2013.

I first attended PrideFest in 1999. I wanted to go but realized I might not get to do so since my son Mike and his wife Heather and their four young kids were staying at my apartment. They were slated to leave Sunday afternoon to return to western Colorado where they lived. Early that morning one of my granddaughters asked to go to the playground she remembered from an earlier trip. “We can’t,” I explained. “The playground is closed because a parade is lining up in the park.”

“A parade,” she responded with excited eyes. “We can get candy!”

I told her I didn’t know if they’d have candy, but there would be lots of clowns. We did go down to Colfax to watch the events, and the children got much more candy than they had ever gathered at a parade. Back then few children attended the parade, so the candy givers were quite excited to see the stair step youngsters seated in a row on the curb and quite generous with their portions. So I saw my first PrideFest parade through the eyes of my grandchildren who loved not just the candy but every minute of the spectacle. Together we saw floats, dykes on bikes, bands, drag queens, politicians, dancing boys, and leather men. I thought how differently the world presented itself to my grandchildren when compared with what it showed me or my children.

Pridefest 2000 added a new perspective for I was in love with a man who was dying from the ravages of HIV and his anti-AIDS medications. I was dedicating much of my time to be with him for doctor appointments, chemotherapy, clinic visits, yard work, and socializing. I wrote in my morning pages on Saturday that I was going to meet Tony and Roy the next day to see the parade no matter what Michael, my partner, wanted. I wrote: “I’m going to be at Marion and Colfax and cheer on the troops.” I did see the parade all the while knowing that the two men I had been deeply in love with both wanted too much to fit in. The first one wanted to fit in with the beautiful; and this one, Michael, with the ordinary. When Michael said he was just an ordinary guy, I suggested to him that he was just an ordinary Queer! The differences these men represented helped me realize how much I was thoroughly queer and queerly individual.

I don’t recall anything particular about PrideFest 2001—perhaps I didn’t attend it due to my too-recent loss of Michael to AIDS—but in 2002 Mike and Heather and kids were back visiting and my life was once again changing drastically. The plot was that we attended Buskerfest on Saturday and PrideFest on Sunday, the former as a family, the latter accompanied by my wild friend Dianne and her boyfriend Craig. The subtext of the story was that a man I had become obsessed with but had not yet spent any time with—Rafael—was now, just that weekend, entering the main stage of my interest. The family met my good friends Roy & Richard as well as Rafael, my new flame who was setting off Roman candles in me both Saturday and Sunday nights. I left him early Sunday and Monday mornings to rush home and make breakfast for my family. I don’t know if I even slept for three days. Again I was seeing my changing life through the eyes of my children and grandchildren, and my friends. I was extremely attentive to the grandkids at PrideFest where Kalo, then nine, disappeared. I spotted him sitting on a high vantage point watching the nearly nude mob of gay guys dancing. He saw me looking at him and smiled and waved. Still he watched. Oh my, I wondered, do we have another generation of queers in the making?

The next year, 2003, Kalo was back but without his parents. He was spending a week with me in an improvised urban survival art camp. Sunday featured PrideFest. This time, with me coping with my loss of Rafael to death a few months before, Kalo and I joined Roy and Richard and Tony to view the parade. We also spent time that day with a group of body-painting lesbians. I wondered at the child’s perspective but saw him be very mature around the girls, wide eyed during a drag show, and worldly wise in the way he reported all the things to his parents. Kalo also met my next partner, who did not choose to join us at the festival.

But in 2004, I announced to him—Jim—I’m going to the parade. He accompanied me.

In 2005, I met a long-time drag queen friend of Jim’s. He’d never mentioned he’d even seen drag shows let alone knew and really liked Scottie Carlisle, a long-time drag queen, once Empress of the Royal Court.

In 2006, I met the author of the first gay novel I ever read recalling how important that book was to my development as a gay man.

I don’t recall what happened in 2007.

In 2008, I was in the Rockies on retreat where I read my short story about the parade and PrideFest adventures of Miss Shinti, a white miniature French poodle. The week before I went on retreat, I had urged my friends Roy and Richard, “Make sure Jim goes to the parade. Call him. Insist.”

“Why?” Richard asked.

“Because I don’t want his condition to become terminal.”

“Huh?”

“He has CEATTG,” I informed him. Richard looked concerned. “Chronic Embarrassment At All Things Gay,” I clarified.

The 2009 parade brought me insight into pride, politics, and church. It also introduced me to parties surrounding the festival. I made a record of all these things with my new camera. For me, the highlight of the parade that year was the stilt-walking drag queen Nuclea Waste, festooned with multi-colored long balloons, surrounded with a consort of adoring Speedo-clad dancers, each in similar fashion but decorated monochromatically.

2010, and 2011 provided more insights into my own gay life. In 2012, I loved it when the walker-toting elder brigade from SAGE made their way down the street, and I got all teary-eyed when a group of young GLBTs reminded us not to forget about AIDS.

And now in 2013 I am at yet another PrideFest. I want to know more about my world and my gay self and am delighted that what I really appreciate this time is how much the festival attracts straight folk and how, beyond the extreme costumes and hype, the most queer thing there seems not queer at all: men holding hands with men, women holding hands with women, hand holding that seems not at all self-conscious. And many children are here with their parents. How I wish my own kids and grandkids were here this time. It all seems so normal, except that I never once hold hands with my partner. Drat. What’s wrong with me?

Oh well, Happy PrideFest 2013. What a wonderful summer afternoon.

© June
2013

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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SPECIAL EDITION: PRIDEFEST

Today’s Special Edition presents stories from three authors.


Breaking into Gay Culture

by Michael King

It was a little over 4 years ago that I got the nerve to go to the Gay Pride activities at Civic Center. I had gone about 15 years ago and ran into someone that I knew and at that time I was so far in the closet that I couldn’t admit even to myself that I was fascinated and curious about the gay culture. Having seen someone that recognized me freaked me out. So after all those intervening years, I finally got up enough nerve to check things out again. My problem wasn’t with being gay, but with other peoples’ reactions. But now I was retired and my only concern would be my kids’ reactions. I figured it didn’t matter much at this point in my life now that they were grown. But I saw no point in saying anything unless I had a lover. I didn’t know much about gay culture and was uncomfortable with going to bars, straight or gay. And for the most part I was unaware of the gay activities and groups where I might meet others and learn about these things.

So I leisurely strolled around Civic Center Park and observed, but without much understanding of the goings on. I was approached by this elderly man who handed me a green card about a luncheon held on Wednesdays with a group of gay men called the Prime Timers. The little gentleman I later got to know. His name was Francis Acres and I credit him with opening the door for me to discover a part of myself that was yearning for expression and acknowledgement. At the time I thanked Francis for the invitation and stuck the green card in my pocket fully intending to trash it when I got home. However just as I was about to throw it in the garbage I looked at it again. Suddenly it seemed like it was the thing I had hoped for. I called the telephone number on the card and left a message for someone to call me with more information. I didn’t get a response. On Wednesday I called the 20th St Cafe where the “Nooners” luncheon was held and found out the time it started. Not knowing how long it would take by bus, I got there quite early. Don Harvey and Jim Michaels were there, greeted me and explained the procedure for buying the lunch and some information about the group. I watched as the members came in and had my first exposure to a gay activity. By the third Wednesday I joined Prime Timers and have been going to events and activities ever since. I started going to the Monday “Coffee Tyme” where last year, I met my lover. Slowly I was feeling more and more comfortable with the group activities and discovered that many older men had also been married, raised children and came out late in life. Others have always been gay while a couple of the guys I met were not only out, but still married. I was no longer the only one with a family and straight friends. I got involved in The Denver Church, later to be known as The Center for Spiritual Living-Denver. And about 2 1/2 years ago, I started going to activities at the GLBT Center. 

         When I met my first lover at “Nooners,” I finally told my kids. A surprise to me, they all said that they had always known. My oldest daughter said, “I knew you were gay before you did! Ha, ha, ha.”

          Now on Mondays we go to the Telling Your Story group, of which this writing is for this week. On Tuesdays is the Men’s Coffee group. Wednesdays is “Nooners,” Thursdays I go to The Open Art Studio and on Fridays I volunteer at the front desk.  “Nooners” on Wednesday and The Center for Spiritual Living on Sundays are the only regular activities not at the GLBT Center. Of course there are other activities now and then, some monthly, others only one time events, others a few times a year. We also belong to the Colorado Front Rangers.

          I’m now experiencing one of the most rewarding and happy periods of my life. I am very comfortable being myself and doing things I would never have done in the past. I went to the celebration of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” with my two lovers dressed in drag, fulfilling a fantasy I have had for a long time. I rode sitting on the back of convertibles in two Gay Pride Parades, waving like the queen that I have become. Last month I had 4 outfits, including 4 wigs and 3 pairs of shoes as I participated as Queen Anne Tique in The Gray Stocking Review. I am recognized by people that I don’t remember meeting because I’m almost always wearing large and often unusual gages. Gages is the name the kids use for body jewelry worn in piercings. Many of mine are 0 gage. I only wear 6 gages in my nipples. I also have a few tattoos, even though there is nothing particularly gay about that.

          A comment that I make perhaps too often is, “I was born a king, but it took me 70 years to become the queen I am today!”

          When interviewed by Channel 4 after the vote to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” I looked so gay, it even surprised me when I saw it on the news. The anchor introduced the interview with this statement, “Michael King, a gay activist.” When I heard that remark, I realized that I now have a mission. I will let everyone know that I love being myself. So I guess that by now, I’ve truly broken into gay culture almost totally and feel so wonderful for having done so.

Except for Sunday, Thursday and Friday, while I am either at one or the other Centers and while Merlyn is at the Gym, both of us are always together.

About the Author

I go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover, Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and doing the SAGE activities,” Telling your Story”,” Men’s Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio”. I am active in Prime Timers and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and drag.

Exaggeration 

by Pat Gourley

In thinking about this word I realized that it is something that I have many times been accused of when acting my most “queenly” and uninhibited. I do though think that exaggeration may be an innate queer quality that has certainly in the past and continues today to serve us well. I am not sure that what is really happening in my more exaggerated moments, and this would be true for the queer world at large, would not more accurately be described as exuberance.

If I might take the liberty to use an example I see often around this [storytellers] table it would be Michael’s earrings. One could easily view these wonderful adornments as certainly exaggerated and quite over the top. I choose to view them as an example of his exuberance for life.

[Editor’s comment: Refer back to the picture of today’s first author above to see Michael’s earrings.]

Early on especially for young gay men and women it is often exaggerated tones of voice, hand gestures, clothing choices and body English that seem almost to be expressed unconsciously that attracts the attention of the straight world. It is viewed as something quite queer by our hetero parents, siblings etc. but for us most often it is something arising from our very souls and seems to us to be quite a natural expression. Something not contemplated or premeditated but simply expressed spontaneously.

What is “reparative therapy” for example in part but the attempt to squash our innate sense of exaggeration or our true sense of exuberance for life? Usually it is men who fall into these programs and are encouraged to be aware of speech and hand movements to tone it down and present themselves in more manly and subdued fashion.

A personal example of my own “exaggeration” I suppose could be the gardens I have planted over the years, often over the top and full of color. If you knew what you were looking for you could simply walk down the block and spot the queer house many feet away. I wasn’t trying to exaggerate but merely was expressing my exuberance for brightly colored plants and lots of them. Oh, and I have an extensive collection of purses that I hope I still carry most often in a very fey manner.

How else but through exaggeration do you breakthrough the soul-crushing curtain of heterosexuality that smothers us all from cradle to grave? Particularly, the exaggeration of difference becomes vital in forming our queer identities. Subtly does not get one very far.

A perfect example of productive exaggeration to refer to this month is our annual celebration of the Stonewall Riots. This momentous event of course occurred at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village NYC in the early morning hours of June 28th, 1969. This action was started and sustained for three days by the most exuberant members of our community, drag queens. Wikipedia defines a drag queen as: “…males who dress and act in a female gender role, often exaggerating certain characteristics (such as make-up and eyelashes) for comic, dramatic or satirical effect.” (Emphasis mine)

One of the most poignant descriptions of that event is in Larry Mitchell’s iconic tome from 1977 The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions.

Action Fierce Against the Men

One warm and rainy night, the faggots and their friends were gathered in one of their favorite cellars dancing and stroking each other gently. Suddenly, the men, armed with categories in their minds and guns in their hands, appeared at the door. The faggots, true to their training for survival, scrammed out the back windows, up into the alley and out into the anonymous night. The queens, unable to scram in their gold lame and tired of just surviving, stayed. They waited until boldness and fear made them resourceful. Then, armed with their handbags and their high heels, let out a collective shriek heard round the world and charged the men. The sound, one never heard before, unnerved the men long enough for the queens to get into the streets. And once on the streets, their turf, mayhem broke out. The word went out and from all over the devastated city, queens moved onto the streets, armed, to shout and fight. The faggots seeing smoke, cautiously came out of hiding and joyously could hardly believe what they saw. Elegant, fiery, exuberant queens were tearing up the street, building barricades, delivering insults, daring the men.

So they joined the queens and for three days and three nights the queens and their friends told the men, in every way they knew how, to fuck off.

(Larry Mitchell, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions, 1977. The book is long out of print but a few used copies can be found and a PDF version is available on line.)

Let’s not forget this Pride 2013 as Larry Mitchell so eloquently states in his book; “it’s been a long time since the last revolutions and the faggots and their friends are still not free.”

Denver, June 2013

About the Author

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



Gay Pride 

by Phillip Hoyle

Kalo sat cross legged watching the Gay Pride Parade on East Colfax as GLBT floats, dancers, marchers, banners, balloons, and bands made their way from Cheesman Park to the Civic Center. It was his third Gay Pride Parade, the event his dad claimed to be the best parade he’d ever seen, combining the intimacy of small-town acquaintance with the glitz of big-city resources. This time Kalo was alone with his grandpa and a few of his grandpa’s friends. It was a new adventure, the capstone to a week of art experiences in the big city. While making plans for the week I, his grandfather, told his mother we could include the gay parade. She said that was just fine. Kalo agreed, so he and I joined the crowd to see the spectacle and to visit the festival on the mall below the Colorado State Capitol building.

Ten-year-old-cool-man Kalo experienced a day of surprises that he watched with fascination, yet without alarm. His perfect visual memory recorded events and impressions that he seemed to treasure. When Kalo returned to Missouri, he told his parents a number of the highlights—the diverse crowd, the gathering of punk-rock lesbians, the woman who wasn’t wearing a shirt, the body painting, the drag queens, and more—but when his dad asked about the parade, Kalo said it wasn’t as good as the other ones he had seen.

“Why?” his dad asked.

“There were too many beer ads.”

Beer was there—everywhere—in the parade, along the route, and at the festival; everywhere folk slurping, swigging, sloshing, and spilling beer. Whether or not the kid saw all the full and quickly emptying cups I don’t know. He did notice the floats with fifteen-foot-high pitchers, enthusiastic dancers, beer banners, and loud music.

When my son relayed his son’s evaluation, I laughed and said, “He’s right. One of the main sponsors of the event is CoorsLight! They had several floats.” Of course, Coors looks at Gay Pride as effective advertising. They know how many gay bars, if not individuals, purchase their products across the West and value the important gay market. So they cooperate in order to stimulate corporate profits. They can also claim a liberal and open attitude.

I’m not proud of the alliance although I have no real objection to beer drinking. Archaeology clearly demonstrates that humans were brewing and drinking it thousands of years ago in the Middle East. They probably did so everywhere farmers raised grain. They still do, both where they have little advertising and where the market is hyped with the latest media technology combining pro-suds and pro-sports.

Yuck. I just spilled beer on my leg. The kid was right, at least to my sensibility; the Parade does have too many beer ads and way too much beer. Perhaps I am just not that much into the Dionysian revels, being too much Apollonian to simply laugh it off and lap it up. Of course, I too can down my beer even if I prefer another brand. But I don’t feel any pride over it; nor do I feel shame, guilt, or degradation.

Pride and lack of pride stem from a popularized psychology of minority concerns. I’m not into the slogans, but I do value gay pride. By contrast, I know many gay men and lesbians and others who are pleased as punch to be who and what they are but who want no identification with the rollicking groups of dancers, drag queens, leathermen, Dykes on Bikes, and such. But they do benefit from the hard work at The GLBT Community Service Center of Colorado where the festivities are planned, from the public profile of PFLAG members who proudly march for their kids and friends in this public display, and from the quiet work of lobbies for human rights within American law. We can be proud of that. I am. I’m happy to be at the festival drinking a beer or two, eating a sandwich, looking at the booths, watching performances, hearing music, and laughing with friends and acquaintances at this annual family reunion of sorts. It’s nice. I like it.

I’m proud to be here because I know at base it’s political. This mass of proud folk has a voice. Legislators and administrators admit it although sometimes with great reluctance due to their fears of not being reelected. Businesses recognize it with big buck grins. I’m not proud of the shenanigans of some of the revelers here, but I recognize the power Gay Pride represents and its balancing effects in Denver, in Colorado, and in the good ol’ USA. Show your colors, Denver; wave your rainbow flag, Colorado. Be proud enough, USA, to change a few more policies, even some in the military.

Dance, shout, celebrate. Okay, drink a few; even a few too many if you must. Take the bus home or stay over at the close-by apartment of a friend on Capitol Hill. I like our Gay Pride Festival and just hope all of us proud gays will get home safely, meaning without STDs, DUIs, ODs, or DTs.

Denver, 2010

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”