The First Person I Came Out to – Sage Telling Your Story

Strangely I find myself vacillating a bit on this topic. I
assume I would ordinarily not consider the first person I had sex with since
that would be a situation that would seem obvious to both of us. However in my
case it was with a man I sought out initially seeking an answer to the question
was “I gay or not”. More accurately what I was asking at the time was am I a
homosexual or not?

The person I sought out to help clarify whether I was really
a big homo or not was most certainly not an openly gay man. This was after all 1965 in suburban Chicago
and he was on the faculty of a Catholic High school. It was a diocesan school
staffed by Holy Cross nuns and though several of those nuns were progressive in
the extreme there was no Gay-Straight alliance as an option for extracurricular
activity.

Initial contact with this man would have been in late 1965 or
more likely sometime in early 1966. Though I am not totally clear about this I
do think I was genuinely seeking him out, as one of my high school counselors
and a person 20 plus years my senior, to help me answer this perplexing
question with no pre-existing assumptions about his sexual preference. Even at
age 16 I was not seeking a cure but would have probably been very reassured to
be told it was just a phase and that I was actually quite a masculine straight
arrow.

There had certainly been lots of enjoyable nude swimming with
male siblings and cousins to say nothing of the nearly obsessive urge to see my
dad and the occasional uncle nude. These preoccupations proceeded by several
years my seeking out my guidance counselor for help and advice. So I may have been drawn to him
subconsciously hoping he really was like me. And of course his Old Spice
shaving lotion and hairy physique I assumed, an assumption later validated, and
his being bald may have all helped to create a situation I would often in
future years find irresistible.

Minus the Old Spice aftershave, which thankfully faded from
the scene sometime in the 1970’s, I think the hairy and bald aspects are quite
accurate physical descriptions of both of my long-term lovers, both named David,
and they combined to occupy 30 years of my adult life. Why I remain today still
hard-wired to pursue the mature and preferably quite hairy older male is
interesting and a bit of mystery to me. So many of my queer male peers prefer at
least in their dream worlds something younger, thinner and less hirsute.

Some months into that year of counseling sessions before
fruition so to speak I decided this guy was really on my side and very sexually
attractive. Long story short we did it eventually and it was as I recall the
Friday before Palm Sunday after school in the biology lab. I absolutely did not
fall into spasms of guilt post orgasm but rather was on cloud-nine for days and
spent most waking hours relishing the thought of our next get together. I guess
when one has ejaculated all over another man you have then come out to them
certainly as someone with homosexual tendencies if not as full blown GAY.

The coming out process for many of us though is a recurrent
theme that we are required to play out repeatedly since the attitude of society
in general is that heterosexuality is always the unexamined assumption. I have
for years though preferred to always give everyone I meet the benefit of the
doubt and assume they are queer until proven otherwise.

About the Author

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

A couple of years ago, I
did a story on my unsuccessful transgender friend. He/She had his male organ
removed in a premature sex change operation; he missed his organ so much that
he committed suicide. This was in the 1960’s. His name was “Romain”; well his
given name was Richard. I met him in the 7th grade. Romain was the
first person I was truly honest with. But it was more like he read me – what
they call nowadays “gaydar”.

Romain had an IQ of 160,
he was technically a genius. Geniuses see things, relationships that ordinary
people cannot. He was a year younger than I, but he had developed a significant
number of friends in West Greenwich Village, in poetry clubs and art studios,
that sort of thing. Sometimes I would tag along to meet them. So even in the 7th
grade I had a sort of reasonably gay-positive social life.

For a while I even lived
in an apartment on West 14 Street. In those days, gay men were so “unspeakable”
in the early 1960’s that we sort of did not exist. It was a kind of repression
I guess. But the positive side of not existing is that we had a certain kind of
freedom. We could cruise in Washington Square Park, and no one would notice.
Mostly if cops saw us, they would not put two and two together if two guys
winked at each other. If two men held hands, which happened occasionally, the
public would assume they were cousins from a Hispanic country.

In a word, at an early
age, I learned about the dangers transsexuals face when it comes to the
question of deciding yes or no to the surgery; I appreciated the nascent gay
culture coming alive in Greenwich Village, New York.

About
the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City,
Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker
for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally
impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s.
I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few
interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I
graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

Tag: The First Person I Came Out to

The First Person I Came Out To, by Pat Gourley

The First Person I Came Out to, by Louis