PRIDE AT 40: WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

My husband and I attended Pride Day in Indianapolis with friends of ours, a gay couple partnered 27 years. This was their first-ever Pride event. Their straight son attended last year, encouraged his dads to go with him this year. What should we expect? they asked. I didn't know what to say.

Like sex, Pride is better experienced than explained. It's party time, yes. Celebration and song, friends, fun. Our day to shine. To dance. To strut our stuff. To remember where we've come from and how far we have to go.

Pride turned 40 this year. The first Gay Pride celebration and parade took place in New York City, one year after the Stonewall Riots of June 1969. Pride has grown into an international event observed annually by millions.

They weren't all at Indy Pride, those millions. One estimate put the crowd at 75,000. My husband and I arrived before many of them did, met our friends (and their son and his female partner) and easily found open sidewalk space along the parade route. Looking down and across the street, I was struck by the size of the crowd—literally. Have we all grown so large, so hefty? In a subculture that worships the body beautiful, many of us, myself included, do not qualify as objects of adoration.

I looked for those who would fit my sexual attraction grid. Mmm, a 20-something androgyne with long brown hair, slender build, green and white striped shirt, tight jeans. Ooh, a man in white shirt, curly hair, shades, beautiful arms, nice chest.

And there, a smiling middle-aged woman in a t-shirt emblazoned with a rainbow-striped shirt and the words "I [heart] my son." I blinked back tears as I would again when the PFLAG contingent passed, as I do whenever I see the parents I wish mine would have been, could have been—accepting, active, advocating. We met a husband and wife attending Pride for the first time. Their teenage son had come out to them two months earlier. What should they expect?

Hoo boy.

As is traditional, lesbians revved their motorcycles and led the parade. I counted four floats featuring scantily clad sexy men. I lost count of the number of politicians and employee groups. It was easy to keep track of the number of floats featuring scantily clad sexy women: one.

Near us a raven-haired woman in a red head scarf and flowing orange dress stood with her two young sons, ages five and six. Candy-throwers and trinket-tossers targeted the kids. Their mom grew accustomed to this and held out her hand as a matter of course for two of the small packets a parade participant was handing out. After a quick glance at the small plastic bags, she handed them to her boys. Finding no candy inside, the children slipped them into their pockets. I checked the packet I received and found a flyer promoting safe sex, a condom and lube.

Last in the parade line came gay men on motorcycles. As they smiled and waved, we made our way to the vendor booths and concert area. Soon we were elbow to elbow, inching our way along. The sky grew overcast, threatened rain. "Let it get hot and steamy," I thought, "so we'll have men taking their shirts off." As if the weather gods heard, muggy weather ensued. Soon every man and woman I passed—without exception—was hot.

But more than their physical attractiveness, what impressed me was their sheer number. I wanted to take photos of each person I passed. I wanted to find out where they had come from. And where they would disappear to at the end of the day.

Living out in the boondocks, I spend 364 days a year thinking I am perhaps the only gay man in the rural Midwest. Then I come to Pride and am overwhelmed by the mass of people. Here, before my own eyes, proof I am not alone in the world. I am so not alone.

Pride for me builds a sense of community. Pride reminds me that I am welcome in the world, that I belong to a tribe of men who love men, of women who love women, of people who know what it is to live and love in liminal space outside society's easy acceptance. Pride gives me a taste of what it might feel like to inhabit a world in which people are celebrated for who they are, how they are, however they are.

Pride gives me hope. Maybe I can expect more of my world, of myself. Maybe I can be the change I want to see.

This essay appeared in The Community Letter, August 2010

PRETENDING

The Internet was in its infancy when I logged on to a sprawling online community called LambdaMOO, a virtual world built entirely of words, where members took whatever form they pleased. My friend Manimal was half-man, half-leopard. MugWump described itself as “gelatinous amoeba-type goo.” Gang_of_Eight appeared as a group of people moving about in concert, often arguing amongst themselves. My character, Melanie, had breasts that swelled a cup size or two as time went on.

It’s all a game, I told myself. It wasn’t real. So what if my heart pounded when RazorJack, a virtual cowboy with steel grey eyes, a rapier wit, and a heart the size of Texas, strode into my character’s circle of friends? No way I could fall in love with him. I was happily married with children. A romantic relationship with him — virtual or real — was out of the question.

My feelings paid me no mind. I ached to be with him. For the first time in my life, love songs on the radio made sense. He and I spent hours together online — hours I should have spent working. (My only internet connection was at my office.) I often pretended I had to work late so I could be with RazorJack.

I was wracked with guilt. What was I doing to my kids, my spouse, my marriage? I kept trying to leave the virtual world, but I kept crawling back. RazorJack understood. He supported me and was willing to let go if I was. I wasn’t willing. I clung to our relationship.

I lost my job because of the time I spent not working. I lost my wife when I realized why I wasn’t happy at home. I lost RazorJack when I told him I was only pretending to be a woman.

This article appeared in The Sun, Issue 415, July 2010

THE STRANGER IN THE LIVING ROOM

He looms large in our living room, silent, dressed all in brown with an olive green overcoat, white rope tied tight around his neck, shoulders, waist, knees. I nearly jumped out of my skin last night when I first saw him. He has startled me several times today. I laugh in sympathy when my husband Dave says, "Every time I see that wrapped bookcase I think it's a man standing there."

Yesterday we were to deliver a set of hand-crafted stepped-back shelves Dave had made as a gift. As rain was forecast, we wrapped the shelves in tarps and roped them down before we realized there wasn't enough available space in the bed of the pick-up truck. We left them behind in the living room. Seen from the side, the shelves look remarkably human.

That we startle easily at a stranger's sudden appearance will surprise no one who has lived with the sobering awareness that violence against GLBT people can strike without warning and with society's tacit approval.

Living in a secluded rural area, Dave and I are constantly alert for strange noises, for the sound of vehicles slowing down outside. Vandals have often targeted our house and mailbox. Not (yet) our bodies. However, it does happen. Recently a gay acquaintance—a kind, gentle sweet man—was fatally stabbed. And friends of friends—a gay retired couple—were bludgeoned to death in their home.

Ignorance breeds fear and fear of gay people lasts a long time in rural areas where people receive little exposure to GLBT persons and culture. Fear can turn to rage, rage to violence.

Yet the threat is not only from without. Seen from another angle, the stranger in our living room might well be me. Those white cotton ropes are the shame-based messages from my past that encircle me, thwart me.

Example: I decide I will at last take the plunge, write a memoir of my coming out experience. I start with great enthusiasm, get up early mornings to write, schedule my time carefully, fill page after page. Six weeks later I fizzle. I'm not good enough to do this; I have nothing important to say; it's too hard. I shelve my dream project.

Example: Put me in a social setting, let me see a man I'm attracted to and I'll come up with 10 reasons why there's no sense in my going over to talk to him. He's chatting with someone else. And if he's not, he wouldn't be interested in me anyway. He's out of my league. What would I say? I can't tell a joke to save my life. And I'm no good at small talk. He wouldn't give me the time of day. I'd look like a fool. He's probably stuck on himself. If he really wanted to talk to me, he'd come my way.

Example: It amazes me how pleasurable masturbation can be. In the blissful moment preceding ejaculation I feel perfectly one in body, mind, spirit and psyche. Such intense pleasure. For free, too! And yet not free—I pay for my fun with guilt, hear the voice of my parents, my upbringing: "What do you think you're doing? You dirty boy. You filthy-minded man. Sex is evil. Thinking about sex is wrong. You always were a bit twisted." So I hide masturbation sessions from my husband. I feel conflicted about what brings me pleasure.

In his poem "Healing," D.H. Lawrence writes about deep wounds to the soul. "Only time can help," he says, "and patience, and a certain difficult repentance/long, difficult repentance, realization of life's mistake, and the freeing oneself/from the endless repetition of the mistake/which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify."

Shaking loose the shame-cords that bind me takes time and effort. Coming out was a first step. Educating myself about gay issues, connecting with supportive people and groups was another. Telling the story of my coming out and listening to others' offered perspective. I limited contact with family members, former friends and others who continued handing me harmful messages—who seemed eager to sanctify messages that strangle.

I may never be totally free of shame or threat of harm, but I can stay aware. I can keep my eyes open to the possibility of threat from without and within, not be totally surprised if and when they appear. I want to make informed choices, do the best I can, live fully as I can as who I am in the time given me. I can easier deal with the stranger in our living room when I remind myself he is still there.

This essay appeared in The Community Letter, June 2010

THE HORSES OF PASSION

Actor Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) recently appeared naked on stage in a play about horses. This is all I know about Equus until our community theatre presents the play. I am anxious to see it.

I don't know to expect a psychic thriller, a riveting suspense story, a whydunnit. Back in the 1970s, after reading a newspaper account of a teenager's horrific crime, playwright Peter Shaffer wondered what could drive a person to act in such a way. Equus was his answer.

My husband and I arrive at the studio theatre early. It's festival seating, so first come, first served. We select center seats on the front row. We become unwitting targets for the lead actor's spittle.

We soon learn that 17-year-old horse lover Alan Strang has been working weekends at a riding stable, and one night blinded all six horses with a sharp grooming pick. He has been remanded to the psychiatric wing of a hospital. The psychiatrist assigned to his case addressees the audience as the lights come up.

Behind the rumpled professional in his suit coat and tie, spotlighted in blue against a gray-black set, a young man stands stroking the skeletal, iron-frame, horse head mask worn by a muscled bare-chested actor in tight black jeans. This coupling grabs my attention right off.

So this is how the horses are portrayed. Eerily effective! And this is Alan and this, one of the horses he will viciously attack. Already I'm asking the question, "Why?"

Slowly the answer unfolds. Slowly the psychiatrist lays bare the boy's secrets. By the time of the climactic revelation, Alan's incomprehensible action seems perfectly logical.

Meanwhile, I keep my eyes on the young man who plays the teenager. He has the surly brooding adolescent disregard for authority down pat. His body carriage signals noncooperation and, over time, a struggle to participate in his own healing.

His hands fascinate me. He clenches them most of the time. Rage? The longer I watch, the more I think perhaps they are hoof-like. Too, his mouth. When contemplating an answer he works his jaws in peculiar fashion. Later it strikes me that perhaps he's feeling a horse's bit in his mouth. This makes sense. Alan so identifies—erotically, religiously, whole-heartedly—with the horses he cares for that he begins to embody them unconsciously. This makes his violence toward them all the more heart-wrenching. Perhaps he redirects self-hatred toward the objects of his affection and worship.

The therapist asks hard questions about the cost of appearing normal. He begins to doubt his profession, the ethics of taking away his patient's drive for life, his unique source of meaning and purpose. "That boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt in any second of my life," he says. While he doesn't excuse the boy's actions, he grieves the loss of spiritual energy Alan will incur in fitting in, in finding a level of mediocrity that will win him easy societal acceptance.

I find my own hands clenching. Isn't this an issue for the lgbtiqq community? At what cost, assimilation? Do we give over our passion, that which makes us unique, in the hopes of being accepted by the masses? By the brokers of political power? By the boss? The neighbors? Mom and Dad? By ourselves?

"We're just like everybody else," I heard a gay therapist say yesterday, addressing a college classroom of ostensibly straight people.

But we're not. Yet. Are we?

Maybe some of us have grown indistinguishable from society at large. But some of us have not. Some of us are different, and different in different ways. Effeminate men, drag queens, diesel dykes, transgendered persons, the queer homeless teens on the streets of our big cities and small towns, lgbt persons of color, anyone with an especially queer passion for life...are we not often set apart, singled out as different, less-than, second-class, targeted for injustice, indifference and more?

We blind our own eyes to community members who do not look like us, live like us, shop like us, who do not share our specific brand of passion.

Hope lies not in assimilation, not in aspiring to mediocrity, but in finding the difficult balance between pursuing our own passions in a healthy way and co-creating an environment for others to do the same. Whenever I see it, this coupling grabs my attention. Give me a front row seat. Better yet, let me get up on stage and be a part of the action.

This essay appeared in The Letter, April 2010

AND NOW I AM A HORSE

REFLECTIONS ON EQUUS • AT MUNCIE CIVIC

STUDIO THEATRE

I'd heard about Equus only from the notoriety Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) received for appearing naked on stage in the revival of the 1970s psycho-thriller drama. I'd not seen Peter Shaffer's play (nor the movie version starring Richard Burton) until Marty Grubbs and the Muncie Civic Theatre cast brought it to life. The show runs through Sunday, 11 April.

In the opening scene a rumpled aging psychiatrist (ably played by Barry McMullen) talks directly to the audience—and to himself. He thinks a lot about the horses, he says. I get the notion he almost identifies with them. Strange way to begin. By the final scene I understand.

Grubbs transposes the setting of the play to Muncie or whichever area small town you are from. Patched-in references to the Hoosier landscape seem forced, while other lines of the play referring to particularly British aspects are left untouched. Yet Grubbs makes the point: the unthinkable could, can and does happen here. Right here. The play centers around a crime of passion: how might an ordinary kid of 17 from a "normal" family from a "normal" city—Muncie, Indiana, say–come to blind six horses? What could bring him to such an act? What implications do his actions hold for the rest of us?

The meaning for psychiatrist Martin Dysart becomes clear. His client has experienced in his young life a passionate intensity that makes what the good doctor has settled for look like an empty husk, an unrealized dream, a sell-out to the demands of profession and society.

And the therapist is asked to cure the patient, to remake him into his own dull, lifeless mold. He begins to doubt himself and his calling.

Teenager Alan Strang (Taylor Anspaugh) has blinded six horses. That much is clear. The mystery is why. The play's structure parcels out this information a little at a time, keeps the audience wondering, wanting more.

Anspaugh's Alan is brooding and recalcitrant, believable in his evasive answers and adolescent scorn of authority. He gives a convincing display of the deeper currents running below the surface. I watch his hands (or are they hooves?—he tries his most to be human when he spreads his fingers–) clench and unclench, the startle movements he makes, the way his mouth works, almost as if there were a horse's bit between his jaws.

McMullen's Dysart paints the psychiatrist as tired, very tired, yet committed to the boy, and awake enough to voice the questions that come up for himself. He alternates between loud and soft, focused and weary. He confesses to his magistrate friend (and perhaps would-be paramour) Hester (an engaging Rita Wessell) the lack of passion in his life, yet his involvement with and commitment to Alan's treatment belie his words.

Alan works weekends at a riding stable. Under the push-pull of his very religious mother (Kelly Myers) and religiously irreligious father (Scott McFadden), Alan has devised his own rituals of worship that involve the horses he adores. He must deal with his sublimated sexual desires and fumbling attraction to an older, more experienced female coworker, played by Tonya Kunkel. She shows the girl as warm and tenderhearted.

The psychiatrist Dysart is torn: can he heal his patient? What will be lost if he does? He brings the audience right into the story, asks them to ponder the questions, as well.

Black. The stepped-back set is black, blue and gray, echoing the dark cave of the psyche Dysart warns us we will peer into, the layers through which we must descend. The few pieces of furniture (a desk, a couch, a bed) seem somehow out of place, spots of the familiar in a landscape of dreams.

The tightly written script keeps me enthralled, alternately repulsed and thrilled. It asks me to think.

The play includes nudity—kudos to Grubbs and the Civic for not shying away from play for this reason—and it serves the plot in making a dramatic psychological point. The characters bare themselves on many levels and take the attendant risks. Their courage moves both the story and members of the audience.

Still, Muncie is not the easiest town to get naked in, literally or metaphorically.

Most days I can easily meet the overly devout Christian mother on Walnut Street; the repressive father who wants nothing to do with God-talk may be sauntering along High Street right now. And the troubled Alan Strang—the play asks me to look inside and see if he's not within me. So too, to look for the weary sell-out, the one who has settled for less than what might have been.

Is there yet hope for healing of these disparate characters within me? What might such healing look like? What do I give up in the way of spiritual energy in order to fit in, to be accepted and acceptable?

As I was born and bred in the Midwest the play sounds several themes with special resonance for me: the role of religion, of belief in a divine spy cam that sees all, of passion, of sublimated sexual desire, sexual naiveté, what and how therapists work and what they claim to heal, the power of secrets, the importance placed on fitting in and appearing normal. Too, there's something about the connection between my regard for chickens and Alan Strang's love for horses. Animals can serve as teachers, companions and open a doorway to that which is beyond our ken.

In some ways I identify with each of the characters: the disturbed passionate teen, the doubting healer, the bewildered parents with secrets of their own, the winsome girl, the compassionate upholder of law and order, the blustering stable owner (Jeff Rapkin), the tough-as-nails nurse (Debby Girtman), the horses (Drew Eberhard, Nick Gilmore, Brad Root).

The horses. Perhaps it is the horses I most closely identify with in the end. On stage they are represented by bare-chested actors wearing huge skeletal metal masks in the form of horses' heads, platform footwear ending in horseshoes. Eberhard's Nugget makes a very sensuous equine companion (would that the erotic connection between Alan and Nugget were explored visually—what we see as the lights come up on the opening scene looks very stand-offish; it doesn't carry the charge one might expect from the story). In the play the horses are a source of primal mystery, stern lessons, controlled power, divine love, selfless service, and ultimately, senseless sacrifice. Who looks deeply into the horse's eyes may be looking into the human heart, as well. Equus invites the audience to do just this.

Muncie Civic Theatre

www.munciecivic.org

April 2-3 & 8-11

THE BEACH

It is the summer of 1981. I just finished college in the spring, and now my younger brother and I are waist deep in Lake Michigan, chicken fighting: His girlfriend, Trish, sits on his shoulders. My friend Serge sits on mine, his crotch pressing against the nape of my neck.

My brother and his girlfriend have no idea that I am gay. I am struggling mightily to stay unaware of it myself. I believe I am destined for a literal hell if I continue to do what Serge and I have been doing in bed at my parents’ house this summer.

As Trish and Serge fight to pull each other into the water, I wage an inner battle against the desire to throw Serge down onto the warm sand and ravish him right here and now: To hell with propriety. To hell with my family learning I am gay. To hell with my burning in everlasting fire.

Big plans, but I don’t act on them.

Later, back on the beach, I scout for a clump of dune grass that might afford Serge and me some privacy. Then I decide not to risk it. I will never openly declare my feelings for this man, but will continue to deny, repress, and hate the love I have for him. I know well the fear of damnation. I do not yet know the world of sorrow, heartache, and grief that awaits my future wife, our children, and me.

This article appeared in The Sun, Issue 412, April 2010

THIS DRAG QUEEN IS NOT A HYR

If there be grace, this must be a part of it: I awaken to frost on the ground and a still-toasty house that has held its heat without the furnace kicking on. I pad about in sleep shirt and cap, naked from the waist down, needing neither sweat pants nor robe. "This is what grace feels like," I tell myself. "Grace warms."

Grace warmed my heart last evening. Coyotes had howled as I locked the chickens in for the night. Yet all my feathered friends were accounted for. Sometimes grace means making it through to bedtime.

I resolve to share my experience of grace with others today, make my world a warmer place. I start by asking myself, "How can I be graceful to Dave this morning?" I find my husband in the kitchen, tell him I enjoyed snuggling with him through the night. I make a small joke ("thank you for sleeping beside me, for not getting out to lie on the cold floor at 3:00 A.M.), then again speak my truth, "You are my north, my south, my east, my west." He looks at me, "I love you, too." And so we restate our love for each other as we do in myriad ways every day. After 14 years it is still brand new. Grace surprises.

When I was growing up, my very conservative church fellowship sang Amazing Grace so often I tuned it out. It's a tired old song, anyway, the crone who shows up at every funeral, black ostrich plume bobbing from her hat. Respectable, uplifting perhaps, and a bit clichéd. Whenever I heard the hymn’s opening notes on the church organ, I wanted to look for the coffin. Nevertheless, I loved an over-the-top rendition by The Impact Brass and Singers. The group toured the country as goodwill ambassadors for one of the Bible colleges our church supported financially. I still remember the first time they sang for us.

Soprano Cindy Phillips had made Amazing Grace her trademark solo. On that last verse, "When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun...," Cindy let it rip, jumping several octaves, her voice rising to meet the sun, raising the roof, bringing our staid congregation nearly to its feet. Grace exceeds our expectations.

Even we knew a good thing when we heard it. Our church invited Cindy and the band back for the July 4 festivities, biggest event of the year in our small town. Her solo blew everyone away and scored us points with the community. Especially from Cindy's lips, grace amazes.

Dave and I perform our morning ablutions and leave for work together, he in the pickup, me in the car. I follow him for a mile. Before he turns right, I flash my bright beams three times to say, "I—love—you." He blinks his brake lights three times in response. Sometimes grace speaks in code.

Once at work, I promptly forget all about grace and being grateful, graceful in the riptide of the day. Yet life goes on doing its work without my participation. Fortunately, grace does not need my say-so.

Early afternoon I receive an e-mail message. A good friend died yesterday. Was found by his best friend who is also one of mine. Heart attack? Something quick, sudden, unexpected. No lingering death, his. Grace? If so, sometimes grace sucks.

Tomorrow will bring amazingly strong winds, warns the National Weather Service. Drivers of high profile vehicles should beware. People with lawn chairs, garbage cans, pets or small children should tie them down, adds the radio announcer. Grace sometimes issues bulletins.

Tomorrow will deliver a tragic accident to the highway near my workplace. A semi-tractor trailer, turn signal flashing, will wait to cross traffic. As my coworker sails by, slows to turn into our parking lot, a panel van will ram the back of the semi. My coworker will describe the explosion of glass, metal and colored plastic: "It was like fireworks!" Rescue workers will close the highway for over an hour as they clear debris, minister to the living. Sometimes grace is sailing on by.

How great our need for grace, for awareness of the moment, of the day, of the gifts given us every minute. An ostrich feather tickles my ear. That old drag queen Amazing Grace leans over, tells me to rise above complaining, self-pity, petty jealousies, thinking I'm not good enough. Life is short, honey, she says. Get a move on. Go all out. Hit the high notes.

This essay appeared in the April issue of The Letter.