National Coming-Out Day

We here in America have a bit of an obsession with creating special observance days for just about everything you can imagine. These observances can range from the significant (yesterday was World Mental Health Day) to the humorous (Monday was National Kick Butt Day) to the bizarre (this coming Saturday is Be Bald and Free Day). Today is a day of several notable observances. For example, today is Emergency Nurses Day, so be sure to thank a nurse you know. Today is also the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction, but the parade was canceled due to unexpected meteor showers. Finally, as I am sure many of you know, today is also National Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work and School Day (seriously...I promise I'm not making this stuff up!).

But probably most significantly to me and many of the readers of this blog, today is National Coming Out Day. So, since I've already come out, and since I have never taken the time to write this out before, I figured I would begin to share my own coming-out story. I think it is probably unique enough to provide a bit of entertainment, for though I was smart enough not to come out to my parents while one of them was driving the car, the circumstances were yet far from ideal.

Now, I understand that blog posts ought not be too long, but I do want to take the time to write out the story thoroughly, so this will be the first of a few installments of my story that I will post in the next few weeks. Perhaps that will make the story more "bite-size" and thus possibly people will even read it! So, fasten your seatbelts, and prepare to be mildly amused.

My Coming-Out Story, Part One: Not Yet Old Enough to be a Congressional Page

Imagine a family whose roots are all from the South as far back as we can trace. Then add the fact that 3 of my 4 grandparents and my step-grandfather all served in the military during World War II. Finally, note that while I was growing up, my family attended (at least 3 times a week) a self-proclaimed "fundamental independent Baptist" church (1611 King James Bible-Only, naturally). By now, you have probably drawn the conclusion that my family was pretty much the Cleavers of the red states (is it mere coincidence that my mother's name is Donna Reed? I think not!). About the only time I ever saw my dad more upset than when I came out to him was when I said I thought Bill Clinton was a good president.

Yet somehow, this family that bled Republican red ended up in a very blue state, and that is why I was born in Los Angeles, California. From nine months before my birth, I was in church constantly. The church we attended, while not quite to the point of referring to their property as a "compound," did have a locked fence surrounding the entire grounds. It was in this nurturing environment that I began to learn how things were "supposed to be" in the world.

Now, it may be difficult for some of you to relate to my experience growing up. While being slightly facetious about the "compound" reference earlier, the church I attended did indeed share some characteristics of such a place. Though it would be a stretch to call it a cult, some things that happened there were borderline cult-ish. For example, nearly every aspect of my life (be it education, religion, social, or political) was centered around our church. I attended the church school (where my mother was a high school teacher), so my schoolmates were primarily from the church, and all our classes were infused with the church's view of the world. Even my friends in my neighborhood were mostly kids from my church who lived nearby. We watched very little television, NEVER attended movies in a theater (gasp! for shame!), and generally had very little to confront us with anything other than what we heard from our pastor at church (helpful things, like denim was evil, music with drums in it was from the devil, and everyone who did not use the King James Bible like we did was going to hell).

To give you an idea of how sheltered I was, I had absolutely zero awareness of the existence of sex until my dad sat me down and had the classic "birds and bees" talk with me when I was 12 years old. I did not even know at that point that girls and boys had different equipment (my only sibling was my younger brother). The only reason I found out then was because my penis had started to get hard on occasion, but I was so completely un-self-conscious that I didn't notice, and it was causing some embarrassment for my parents. So my dad figured it was time for "the talk."

So, especially as a younger child and into my teen years, because I was so isolated from the reality of the world, I had no reason whatsoever to question what I was being taught (because nobody and nothing in my life contradicted it). Thus, I accepted as truth what my church said concerning homosexuality. As my pastor explained, homosexuality is caused by one of two things (again, I promise I'm not making this stuff up!)....

• The first way a man becomes a homosexual is by being sexually molested as a child. This may cause him to become gay when he was not before.
• The second way a man becomes a homosexual is through prolonged exposure to pornography. You see, the first time a guy looks at straight porn, it is very exciting for him. However, over time, he needs more and more variety and extremes to arouse him. Eventually, women just don't do it for him anymore, and his only option is to look at pictures of men. And thus he becomes gay.

Confusing to me at the time, this teaching revealed to me the first-ever crack in my pseudo-idyllic existence. I was never molested and I had never seen pornography of any kind, but as early as the third grade at age 9, I felt an attraction to other boys that I did not feel toward girls. It was nothing sexual at that point, for I was still three years away from even knowing what sex was and several years away from comprehending that gay guys put it where????? But I knew that my best friend Marc was someone I felt good being around, in a different way than others. Looking back, in spite of the warped circumstances, I can kinda smile at the innocence of those incipient attractions I was experiencing.

Well, my parents, ever vigilant against things that might corrupt their sons, soon became concerned that the warm weather of southern California would force us to gaze upon the muscular torsos of young, blond surfers guys, with their perfectly-shaped biceps and their ripped, six-pack abs cascading down to the little trail of hair that vanished beneath their swimming trunks, drawing our attention to the beautifully-shaped bulge beneath their.....oh, sorry, got distracted for a moment....

Anyway, the best way to avoid naked people is to move somewhere cold, and thus the decision was made by my father (and submitted to by my mother, as was her place according to our church) that we would move to the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

And that part of the story, my friends, will be told in Part Two. Click here to read.

And finally, for those who just came here for the pictures....