My friends in Upward Educate, a college preparation program, have been the most accepting of my homosexuality. In the following essay I describe the importance of being honest about my sexual orientation. I provide a short story that applies this imperative truth when I was at an Upward Educate convention. The parts are labeled.
Essay
My nerves are actually on edge and I’m shivering as I type this annoying piece of literature. I am a homosexual and I’m not going to lie, it’s an interesting place to be. This shaking and resistance to publishing my story is not because God is telling me to "choose" a better lifestyle: it’s because I hear too many horror stories about gays getting killed and I also think about how many people will awkwardly approach me in the future to ask about it. I publish these journals because coming out is something that for certain reasons needs to be done. The main reason being sanity and another being public awareness.
The general public is not as bad as it seems, every hour hearing someone say fucking faggot, or that’s gay. You kind of get used to the creative ways people bash you after a while. The names hardly bug me because it is simply the generations background speaking. The hard part for me is trying to teach people it isn’t a sin or a choice.
I’ve been this way since the first time I stepped in the boy’s locker room. Homosexuality deals with sex, that doesn’t mean I’m a pervert dement who needs counseling. It just means that my body is sexually aroused by a male’s body instead of the female’s body. Unfortunately because it is viewed as a sin and seen as a sexually confused mishap, homosexuality has led me down several dangerous paths.
Now that we know I am gay I usually get the question, Why? Again, walking into a room full of naked guys and getting aroused sexually isn’t a choice. Just as if you were straight and walked into a room full of women, chances are you would be pitching a tent really quick. The best explanation I have for being attracted to guys is a scientific one. I have two older brothers and there was a miscarriage before that. This does not mean I’m saying having two older brothers and their aggressive behaviors made me passive and weak. I am however saying I accept the "Older Brother Theory", which suggests that the more brothers you have the more likely the womb condition will create a gay baby.
Why is it necessary to admit being gay and provide a controversial theory to support me? It prevents awkward moments in the future for the most part. If people know I am a homosexual and see a theory to back it up they begin to understand that my life isn’t any more disgusting than the next persons. It’s imperative to comprehend it isn’t a choice. It is also important to take each persons case individually.
There is no more I could really say to summarize this socially ignored subject. I can’t believe I am finally telling people I am attracted to males. Of course being homo is not all I talk about. I discuss it a lot because I deal with it everyday. It’s like the girls who gossip about all the cute guys they want. Except when I bring up that I think a guy is hot it’s usually viewed as a little, well, queer.
Open With Friends
Short Story
Finally, I think to myself, I am here at Upward Educate. This is a place where all my worries are non existent. I am happy here because tall Jack pines and
There has to be a thousand of them! I walk towards Fitzgerald, the building that holds the pool and gymnasium, and I open the door only to see a pile of people I don’t know standing in a now claustrophobic hall. I begin to panic for some reason. My mind just wants to be home in bed thinking about life. I hate people! They are loud, judgmental, and I immediately assume they have nothing useful to offer me.
Ah, finally, something of a little use to ease my mind, a friendly face. A face that knows I am gay. Dan, the sexy rat who I kind of am attracted to, greets me with his blue eyes saying nothing. He of course is talking to a girl with casual conversation.
“Hey.” Dan says nearly checking this girl out. “How’s it been going lately?”
Smiling in response and being slightly bashful this unfamiliar girl answers, “It’s going pretty good.”
Dan says back the obvious, “Well that’s good.”
Pushing my way through a couple of other unfamiliar faces I casually say smiling as I always do at Upward Educate, “Dan.”
He simply smiles and says, “Hey, Jake.”
I never really like to get into long conversations with anyone. Usual just some sexual puns and harmless jokes is what I like talking about on the spot. Besides that, Dan is a guy and I always feel conscious, regardless of how others view homosexuality, that they may feel I am either checking them out or hitting on them. And besides that, even though we spent six weeks on the same campus over the summer, this place was packed and I needed to find someone to tell me what the hell was going on for the day.
Later on that day I had my opportunity. Something I never realized that I would actually feel comfortable doing. I don’t just go screaming I am a homosexual; I like to passively give clues to the idea. Besides this, my friends here in Upward Educate mostly knew or at least had thought I was gay at one point or another. However the words used daily started annoying me by half day.
I was sitting on the bleachers in the massive crowd of other people in this college prep program talking with my old roommates when something out of the corner of my eye made me turn my head automatically. A guy in a white t shirt was walking up the bleachers to the top. Shit, I thought, I am going to check him out. Sure enough my eyes went right across his smooth face. He had short slightly spiked blonde hair and of course, my favorite thing ever, blue eyes.
Even worse, as I continued to eye gawk him to get more information about his body language, maybe the slight chance he was gay, he caught my eyes and squinted slightly. I turned away embarrassed realizing I was just caught checking him out with absolutely no chance he was gay considering the confused squint he gave me with his eyes.
I figure one of two things happens when a guy just realized I was looking at them sexually interested. Either they blow it off thinking it was just an odd kid looking around out of boredom or they think to themselves that fucking faggot was checking me out. The third option, I never really think happens. That is the one that says oh my god he is sort of cute. I figure even if I was checking out a homosexual they wouldn’t be interested.
Luckily my male roommates, who were cool with me being gay, didn’t realize I was just checking a straight guy out. Though I felt slightly embarrassed I never usually made eye contact with people when I talked to them anyways. So they wouldn’t have realized anything out of the ordinary. Eye contact with someone who knew I was gay and was a male was something I tried to avoid.
Laughing back I joked, “I couldn’t see out of that eye for like a day and now one eye sees better colors than the other!”
My other roommate Daren laughed, “No fucking way! That’s great!”
I heard someone say behind me as we were eating our lunches waiting for other activities, “That’s gay.”
That’s gay, Faggot, fucking faggot, and any other reference to homosexuality catches my subconscious attention faster than my own name. Luckily I have learned to control my reflex to turn my body to those terms as if someone were trying to get my attention. This time it wasn’t someone I knew. But I felt that sooner or later I was going to have to ask people to stop using the word gay as stupid.
The day continued with its various Upward Educate activities that promote education. I had gone to a Psychology seminar, a Social Moron seminar, and a seminar that had no one to teach it. It was a busy day also because I got awarded for being a leader. In Upward Educate I am popular; in school I am the kid who tries to get by like the one hundred or so million other people who have distracted dreams because of the education system. I was awarded for leadership. I felt like a celebrity because that is how amazing this program is. They make you feel like you’re human and not just another faggot destined to live in
I never really cared about stipends, but any opportunity to spend more time with my friends, my true friends, was something I cherished. I cherished them because they were just as weird as or weirder than me. They came from open minded families like mine that dealt with a little more struggles than the average bear. They also were raised in a generation that has socially destroyed the meaning of the word gay.
We were standing in line with about 20 people or more in it. We were all talking to each other exchanging stories when one of my roommates who we nicknamed Jew Fro came in with a funny hat. His hair was extremely curly and the hat made his black curls seem to protrude from an unknown abyss. He has these bug dark eyes and a tall extremely awkwardly skinny body.
Christian, who had been talking with me all day and had also been informed that I was gay said to Jew Fro, “Your hat looks gay.”
These were my friends; nothing they could ever say or do could ever really offend me. This did not and doesn’t offend me when used in joking, but I needed and was compelled by the inexplicable to call him out on using the word gay as stupid.
I passively chuckling said, “You just used the word gay as stupid.”
This is when another Upward Educate student who is extremely straight looked at me a little funny. His eyes moved back and forth and he took a small unnoticeable step away from me. I noticed it because I was expecting it and had come very aware of homophobia signs. I have come not to care.
I continued to jokingly say emphasizing gosh, “Gawsh Christian, I thought you were my friend. Don’t use that word. Gawsh what’s wrong with you? Gawsh!”
