When I was 19, I fell in love with a boy I worked with at the Dean of Student's Office at WVU. We became very close that year, but I never told him I was in love with him. I didn't want to risk losing his friendship which I valued greatly. He was older than me, and he graduated that spring, so we drifted apart. Last night I dreamed of him. I offered him a Coke, and he said he preferred Pepsi, so I went out to the store and got him a Pepsi. He didn't know I had to make a special trip, and I didn't tell him. Ah, the chance to pamper and baby him a little...if only in a dream. 

Erotic Dream

I had a very erotic dream last night. I was in bed with a cute and sweet young man. We were good friends, and we were simply resting. I didn’t expect anything of a sexual nature to take place. Then my friend told me he wanted to say something. Whatever it was obviously made him nervous because he was having a hard time spitting it out. I took hold of his hand and assured him that he could tell me anything. I wondered what had him so worked up. I feared he was about to tell me something awful. Finally he said, “I want to show you my pussy.” I wasn’t expecting that at all, and I didn’t know how to react, so I jokingly asked, “You have a cat?” My friend pouted and said I was making fun of him. I told him that I wasn’t and that I was flattered that he’d want me to see his pussy. He then asked me if he could actually show it to me. I agreed. He proceeded to get up on all fours in the middle of the bed and took down his shorts. I could now see the thing he wanted me to see, and it was beautiful. I wondered if he wanted things to end there. Did he just want me to see it, or did he want something more? I asked if it was okay if I touched him. He said yes, so I reached out and stroked one of his smooth cheeks. That’s when it ended, or I can’t remember anything beyond that. It was so tender and gentle and loving, and so spontaneous and unexpected.

I think in this case a dream really is a wish your heart makes.

I once read about a Christianist minister who, after having underwent bypass surgery, claimed, without any shame or sense of irony, that people with AIDS deserved the disease because of the behavior they had engaged in.

Some thoughts regarding One Nation Under God (1993)

I just watched One Nation Under God (1993) which is about “ex-gay therapy.” It’s available for instant play on Netlfix.

Of course I’ve heard the religious condemnation all my life, and of course I was aware that the medical establishment thought of and treated homosexuality as a disease until the ‘70s, but it was horrifying to hear these seemingly rational, intelligent people try to give “ex-gay therapy” a scientific basis in 1993 by rehashing all this stuff about emotionally absent fathers, overbearing mothers, a need to connect with your innate masculinity, etc. Those theories were out of date twenty years earlier, and the people interviewed in the film were espousing them as if those theories were an undisputed fact. Even the psychologists and psychiatrists who were talking that way decades before should have followed their training as scientists and questioned their assumptions. To have these supposed professionals channel quackery from the 1950s as if no one had called into question the psychoanalytic model is inexcusable.

I think the pseudo intellectuals and fake scientists fool a lot of people. They hear all the five dollar words and the seemingly complex reasoning processes, and they assume the person talking is smarter and knows more than they do. But these “ex-gay therapists” don’t know anything. They’re offering theories about a fantasy world that only exists inside their heads. They are the ones who are crazy. They are out of touch with reality.

One of the things I learned from having a parent who suffered from schizophrenia is that just because a “theory” or a thought process has internal logic does not mean that it actually pertains to anything that exists in the real world.

To someone who doesn’t know any better, Esperanto may sound like just another language like French or Japanese, but it’s an artificial language. There is no Esperanto literature or poetry that reflects the culture of native speakers. There’s no Esperanto love songs that people listen to on the radio on the way home from work. It’s all fake, just like the homosexuality that the “ex-gay” theorists talk about. They assume their mumbo jumbo is correct, and they ignore anything that would dissuade them. That’s not intelligence or science at work there, no matter if they do manage to ape the language of science well enough to fool the average person.

And then to have Sy Rodgers come on as the president of Exodus, this person who was supposedly successful in transforming himself… It was just so bizarre and surreal listening to him preach about how you don’t have to be different, you can choose to conform to expectations. The organization he represented goes around telling people that their god made everyone straight, and you’re either male or female, no room for grey. Rodgers is about as grey and as ambiguous as you can get. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but to preach against it when anyone with eyes in their head can clearly see that your rhetoric doesn’t match who you are is insane.

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   In the film, it was said that in the 1950s and 1960s, gay male patients were shown pictures of men like this and they were shocked if they looked at him too long.

　

　

Today the BSA lifted its ban on gay youth but chose to keep the ban on gay adult volunteers and employees. They saw this move as a compromise. It was an attempt to walk a find line between a more accepting public and their homophobic Christianist church sponsors who threatened a revolt against the BSA if they jettisoned their ban on gays altogether.

The message to gay youth is clear: We will tolerate you when you’re young, but you will never truly belong. You will never be accepted. There is no place for you among us, and once you grow up, we don’t want to see the likes of you around here any more because we think you are evil.

When you’re young, and you’re just getting a sense of who you are as an individual, and you have people telling you this, people who are supposed to love you, care for you and look out for you, the people who are supposed to be on your side--Mom, Dad, Grandma, Uncle Joe, your minister, your Scout leader--before you know how to respond to it and defend yourself against it, it can ruin you, and even if you manage to survive it, you may be scarred for life.

I’ve now gone six months without gaining any weight. Before that, I steadily gained weight for five years. It’s now time to start going in the opposite direction, and over the weekend, I actually dropped a few pounds. I’m also not retaining as much water, which is good, very good.

After my father died, and I lost my home in West Virginia, I moved to California to start over, but I guess I really didn’t have the will. I was tired, and a big part of me wanted to give up. I don’t mean to suggest that I’ve been horribly depressed every single day or that I’ve not had a happy moment. It’s not been horrible all the time, and there have been many happy moments. I guess I lost hope. I couldn’t imagine my life getting any better, and I wasn’t sure it was worth it, but lately I’ve been thinking maybe it is worth it.

We were reminded yesterday that we live in a universe that is actively trying to kill us, and it will eventually succeed. So why help it along? My life may not have turned out the way I wanted it to, or the way I expected it to, but, for now, I still have one. And there are things that I want to do before the time runs out, things that I think are still within my grasp…like getting my novels published, and visiting my friend Dagi in Germany. I want to spend more time in the green summer woods back east, too. Maybe I’m getting a little of my momentum back. I can almost say it and mean it through and through, or mostly, or mean it enough anyway: I want to live, baby.

My parents got me one of these when I was a kid.  I didn't like it.  I was a very passive boy and abhorred violence.  The idea that boys were expected to defend themselves when physically attacked really bothered me.  I knew I wasn't a fighter.  I felt shame and I lived in fear.  I didn't want to be hurt, but it seemed that being vulnerable meant you deserved abuse.  So what were my parents thinking when they bought me such a gift?  That's the trouble, they weren't thinking.  They simply went to the toy department and picked out something that was supposedly for small people with penises. 

I think there’s a wall that separates us from those who think it’s wrong for us to be who we are. I don’t mean those who are merely confused or misinformed, but the ones who still insist that it’s wrong no matter how much we try to explain it to them. I think this might be especially true of other LGBT people who think it’s wrong. It feels like a betrayal. I have no interest in “building bridges” with such people, and I don’t see the need for it. I can coexist with them without cozying up to them. I’m not the one trying to outlaw anyone’s life. I’m not the one saying anybody is hell-bound. If someone is like that, I don’t want to be around them until they stop being like that.

I think there will come a time, perhaps sooner than later, when Christian beliefs regarding sex and sexuality will be viewed as antiquated and as absurd as Christian beliefs regarding astronomy in the 15^th century. And those who refuse to accept the advances we’ve made in our understanding of sex and sexuality will be regarded as shamefully and willfully ignorant and cruel. If the Christian religion survives, I suspect the period we’re living in right now will be seen as a dark and embarrassing era which will serve as a reminder that some Christians can be profoundly stupid and hurtful. As time goes on, more and more people will come to realize that this game we’ve been playing at, this idea that there are strictly two sexes and everyone falls neatly into one or the other category, that the sexes need to be separated, that different roles need to be assigned to them and strictly enforced, that one sex needs to be the master of the other, and sexual pleasure needs to be confined to two married people of the opposite sex… I think all of that will one day be seen by nearly everyone on earth as silly and intellectually and morally bankrupt as believing we are at the center of the universe and everything we see in the sky is revolving around us.

After I graduated from high school, my sister and I went to Myrtle Beach for a few days. One evening we had to stand in line before being served at a restaurant. There was a group of about four college boys ahead of us, and I was tired and bored, so without realizing it, I began staring at them. After a while, I heard one whisper to another, “That boy and girl behind us are watching us.” He seemed a bit confused. Well, I was looking at them because I thought they were cute. I can’t speak for my sister. LOL

Since I am always in the process of becoming, I am not ex-Gary or post-Gary but pre-Gary. I strive to be me. Some, however, think I should be George.

When my parents died, I left my beloved West Virginia--verdant, green West Virginia--and moved to the desert town of Merced on the other side of the country in California in part to get away from people who interacted with me as if my point of view and my thoughts and feelings were of no consequence. If I dared say anything to certain people, what I got back was “praise Jesus” or “give it to Jesus” or a Bible verse or a sermon. The implication always being that I already did or I should completely accept their beliefs. My individuality had no value whatsoever to these people. They didn’t even see me as an individual. I was either already part of their hive or I needed to be converted. All those big fake smiles and the forced and pretend positivity was suffocating and exhausting.

About a year after my head surgeries, my father, out of the blue, told me that he didn’t think I had thanked God for allowing me to survive. It dawned on me that he had hoped that episode in my life would compel me to accept his religious beliefs. I could have easily turned the tables on him and told him that after nearly losing me, it seems he would finally be prepared to accept me for who I am. I could have, but I didn’t.

The Wisdom of Youth

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was just 19. Her husband Percy wrote some of his best poetry before the age of 24. Helen Keller wrote her autobiography The Story of My Life when she was 22. Author Rimbaud wrote his most celebrated poetry while still a teenager. Alexander Pope wrote his masterpiece at age 24. S.E. Hinton wrote The Outsiders while still in high school. And Stephen Crane was 23 when he wrote The Red Badge of Courage.

Of course young people have achieved great things in other fields, too. Music, art, dance, drama, mathematics, science, athletics… Friedrich Nietzsche was a full professor with tenure by the time he was 24. But I chose to highlight achievements in literature because I think certain stories and poetry resonate with us because the authors have shown through these works that they had great insight into the human condition. Insight, maturity and wisdom.

It may be unusual for a young person to write a book or a poem that we still relish and read decades later, but that’s unusual for anybody of any age. The point is young people often have the capacity to see things, have things to teach us, and some are articulate enough to pass on their wisdom and insight.

Maybe it’s true that some people gain wisdom and insight as they get older. I like to think I have. But I don’t think there is any guarantee that we’ll be smarter when we’re older. I’ve known a number of people who have, in my opinion, gotten dumber, meaner, more stubborn as they have grown older. They were more open and more curious about the world around them and the people in it when they were young. With time, they have become bitter, unpleasant, hostile and self-important, not wise at all.

And yet, I have noticed that many older people have a tendency to talk about the young as if they are necessarily stupid and their opinions have little value. While others talk about the young as if they necessarily need our guidance and protection. I think in many cases vanity fuels these attitudes. We want to believe that simply by surviving a number of decades we are more knowledgeable and more competent. But, I think, much to the chagrin of some of us, sometimes the young ones know better.

For instance, those under 30 are the ones most likely to understand LGBT people and support our rights. Those least likely are those over 60. Many young people stand behind us even as we look down on them.