All They Care About Is Sex

Brandon and Brittany are two heterosexuals who meet at the Laundromat in a shady part of town. Brandon and Brittany live in a bad neighborhood because it’s all they can afford. Neither have held a job for more than six months because all they care about is sex.

They have sex in front of the washing machines without regard to the discomfort they cause other customers because all they care about is sex. They are in their early twenties, but both have had hundreds of sex partners. They’re young bodies have been ravaged by all the STDs they’ve contracted. Both Brandon and Brittany were introduced to the heterosexual lifestyle choice at a young age by older heterosexual predators.

Brittany invites Brandon back to her sad, sparsely furnished, run down studio apartment so they can have more sex. On the way, they deliberately run over a developmentally disabled kid because they’re evil. All they care about is sex. They laugh manically as they speed from the scene.

Once they get to Brittany’s apartment building, they’re too overwhelmed by their sexual addiction to bother going inside. So they have sex on top of the car’s hood right there in the parking lot. They don’t bother covering up when they’re finished because all they care about is sex. As they catch their breath, they stand there exposed and talked about recruiting kids into the heterosexual lifestyle choice and other ways to destroy civilization.

Just then, a limo pulls up beside them. Inside is a representative of the well funded heterosexual lobby. He informs the kids which Republican candidates can be counted on to further the heterosexual agenda.

Brandon and Brittany watch the news later and learn hundreds of birds mysteriously died in the next county over, and a tornado destroyed a nearby trailer park. Once again, Brandon and Brittany laugh manically because they know God did these things because he is angry about their heterosexual sex.

Brandon and Brittany break up after having sex one last time because all they care about is sex. They’re genitalia will be deformed and will no longer function by the time they’re 40, and they’ll be dead by the time they’re 45 because heterosexuals don’t live very long.

Boys (2014)

I finally got around to watching Boys or Jongens (2014), the teen gay love story from the Netherlands. Sieger and Marc are adorable, and the film is beautiful to look at. It’s a sweet film that I wish was around when I was Sieger’s and Marc’s age.

I was surprised by the setting and rural culture. The small town is quite woodsy. Sieger’s and Marc’s first kiss takes place at the local swimming hole, and their second occurs when they stop on a path through the woods to observe two fawns. Sieger’s older brother has a dirt bike, and he enjoys riding it along trails in the woods. The kids have parties in the woods, and I noticed Sieger’s father has a popup camper in his garage.

I had seen a lot of screen shots and several clips, and I was almost positive I would like this film. I guess I put off watching it because I thought it might stir up my feelings and break my heart a little, and it did.

Sieger is a rather passive boy who hasn’t quite figured out who he is yet, so Marc, the new kid in town, takes him by surprise. He wants Marc, but he’s not ready to come out yet, apparently not even to himself.  When Sieger pushes Marc away, literally gives him a shove, so Eddy, Sieger’s older brother, won’t suspect anything is going on between them, I was sitting here talking back to the screen with tears rolling down my face. “Oh, baby, don’t do that. You love Marc. Don’t ruin it.” And, of course, the film brought up old emotions from my teen years, those intense longings and paralyzing fears. Oh, how I wanted someone like Marc, and at the same time I was terrified of anyone finding out I wanted someone like Marc.

The Prodigy by Gary Cottle

I like to think this is a still from a recently rediscovered film from the ‘60s that was never released because of its subject matter. It’s about a shy young college student named Max who loses his cool summer intern job in the city at the last minute and has to spend the next three months with his grandmother. The grandmother lives in an isolated seaside village in Maine, and she has offered to pay Max to do yard work.

The boy is quite depressed and lonely until he meets an odd young man of about the same age in the local cemetery. Max is usually awkward around strangers, but much to his surprise, he feels completely at ease with Philip…even though Philip is preoccupied with death and frequently speaks of ghosts.

Philip begins taking Max on tours of supposedly haunted locations in town. Philip taxes Max’s patience with his maudlin theatrics, and the two boys quarrel. Philip finally admits that he doesn’t really believe in ghosts, but he wants to believe because he can’t bear the thought that death is truly the end.

On his last night in town, Philip talks Max into breaking into the deserted Drake mansion, a huge Queen Anne Victorian that sits on a high bluff overlooking the Atlantic. Philip explains that the Drakes died in an accident the year before. The house is empty except for a baby grand piano in the front parlor. Philip never mentioned having any musical abilities, but that evening, he sits down at the piano and plays the most beautiful and melancholic sonata Max has ever heard.

The boys admit they are attracted to one another and make love for the first time. Afterwards, Max notices that Philip has become a little sad and asks him what’s wrong. Philip says he was thinking about Max going back to school. Max promises to come visit Philip the first chance he gets. Philip thanks Max and gives him a kiss, but he doesn’t seem to really believe they will see one another again. The boys decide to sleep there in the Drake mansion, so they hold onto one another and grow silent. Just as Max is about to drift off, Philip tells him in a strangely urgent voice that life is short and that he can’t let anything or anyone hold him back. He makes Max swear that he’ll make the most out of his life.

The next morning, Max wakes up alone. Philip is not to be found, so Max returns to his grandmother’s house. The grandmother is upset, but Max apologizes and explains he spent the night with a friend. Since Max is about to leave, the grandmother lets it go and asks Max in a calmer voice where he was. Max tells her he was in the Drake mansion. The grandmother tells him it was tragic what happened to the Drakes the summer before. Their breaks went out, and their car went over the bluff. Their son was with them, a prodigy who had been accepted at Juilliard. Max asked what the son’s name was. Philip, his grandmother said.

Boy Erased, a few thoughts

There are no perfect people in Garrard Conley’s Boy Erased: A Memoir. We learn that Garrard unceremoniously and without explanation dropped his longtime girlfriend when they were seniors in high school. When Garrard’s parents found out he’s gay, he was given an ultimatum: he can never act on his feelings for men, or his parents will stop paying for college. In the summer of 2004, after his freshman year, Garrard’s parents enrolled him in an intensive two-week “ex-gay” program. It did not go well.

Faith-based “ex-gay therapy” became a thing in the 1970s after the medical establishment decided homosexuality wasn’t a disease after all. Many fundamentalists and evangelicals didn’t like this turn of events—how could queers not be sick?—so “ex-gay therapy” was born. Since it is not a proper therapy sanctioned and administered by trained professionals, there are no established peer reviewed parameters and protocols, but if you hear enough stories, including Garrard Conley’s, you’ll notice some common themes. Being gay is often equated with addiction, a sinful addiction. It is supposedly caused by abuse and the withholding of affection by the same-sex parent. Those who refuse to believe this and can’t find a way to make their personal stories align with the mythology are told they are rebelling against all that is holy and inviting evil into their hearts and lives. Of course, there is no scientific evidence to support these claims. It is all complete and utter horseshit, and pushing these toxic ideas on a vulnerable person can result in anxiety, depression and self-loathing.

So why would an intelligent person with a bright future allow himself to be subjected to such torture? Why would loving parents foist such shady quackery on their kid? Why would any decent person, including some LGBTs, become the purveyors of ex-gay therapy? Garrard Conley’s book does an excellent job of giving us some insight.

The short answer is fundamentalism. You can be terribly self-critical if you’re a fundamentalist, and if you’re LGBT, you’re encouraged to be ruthless with yourself. You can get away with being judgmental if you’re a fundamentalist, especially if you claim your cruelty is couched in Christian love. But what you can’t do if you’re a fundamentalist is question fundamentalism itself. You have been trained to think that to question basic beliefs and assumptions is to question God. Horrible things might happen to you, and you might end up going to hell. Hell is not a metaphor in fundie land.

Garrard’s parents did send him to the family doctor when they learned their son was gay. She spoke to Garrard in private and explained to him there was nothing medically wrong with him. She told him that she knew it would be difficult to live as an openly gay man in rural Arkansas, but she explained he had the option of moving to an LGBT-friendly city.

But if you’re a teenager, the thought of leaving your family and friends and everything that’s familiar can be rather daunting, especially if you’ve internalized some of the things you’ve been taught since early childhood, stuff about the evils you will supposedly encounter outside the insular fundamentalist church world.

Boy Erased: A Memoir by Garrard Conley, I recommend it.

The Good Stuff

When I was young, I didn’t picture my life turning out the way that it has. I imagined lots of friends, travel, a cool apartment in NYC or SF. I hoped I would be a successful writer and become independently wealthy. I envisioned lots of encounters with sexy men. I was a terrified and lonely boy, so maybe my big dreams somehow gave balance to the reality I was living.

Maybe those dreams didn’t materialize exactly the way I imagined they would, but earlier I was thinking about how that lonely boy would react if someone told him how things would really turn out.

You’ll have your own apartment. Nothing fancy, and not in NYC or SF, but it’ll be just as good as the house you grew up in, and it’ll be yours.

You’ll have a computer, and that computer will give you access to all kinds of information. It’ll be like having a university library in your living room. You’ll also have an endless supply of books, movies, TV shows and lectures on all the subjects you’re interested in. And the images… Oh, my. Even if you don’t travel the world, you’ll get to see it. You’ll get to see all kinds of art. Every day. And the men… You’ll see countless men, beautiful young men, and many won’t have any clothes on. You’ll see them all the time.

You’ll be able to use the computer to write your books. And you’ll get to publish them. You won’t make any money, but some people will read your books and claim they like them.

You won’t be a world traveler, but you’ll visit a few places, and you’ll get to know Yosemite like the back of your hand.
 
You won’t have friends who live near, and you won’t have a parade of lovers in your bed. You won’t have a boyfriend. But you’ll know people from all over. Once again, thanks to the computer. They’ll know all about you. You won’t have to hide the way you do now. You’ll tell them and show them who you are every day, and they won’t go running in the other direction. They’ll like you for who you are, and you’ll like them. You’ll get out of bed looking forward to connecting with them.

All of that might sound pretty good to that terrified, lonely boy.