In those days the term "gay" had everything to do with happy summer days, Enid Blyton adventures and light-heartedness. for it had not yet been adopted as an alternative name by the very well-hidden homosexual community. No television or radio programmes ever referred to gayness and as far as I knew there were no gay characters in the books I read.
Given this context, it was perhaps no surprise that later on I became somewhat homophobic. I was quite disgusted by it all and occasionally shared schoolboy tales of what we imagined gay men did together. Because of our ignorance there was much smutty laughter. Probably, the worst insults for other boys were "pufta" and "shirtlifter".
I loved girls and I loved women and I could not imagine any other kind of loving. I didn't have a single gay friend at university or through my teaching career and when I come to think about it, I don't believe I really got to properly know a gay man until I was in my sixties. That's when Steve became a regular at our local pub and I would often converse with him though interestingly the topic of his sexuality and LGBQT+ battles very rarely cropped up. We were more likely to talk about his singing or my country walks.
It's still a little strange to me that through blogging I have got to know several gay men. There's Andrew in Melbourne Australia, Bob in South Carolina, Travel Penguin in Washington D.C., John Gray in North Wales and Steve Reed in West London. For whatever reason, it seems that blogging is a medium that many gay men are drawn to.
The aforementioned men have taught me a few lessons - the first one being that each gay man is different from the next. They are not all the same. Another important lesson they have taught me is that private sexuality does not define someone. As in the heterosexual world, sex is just one facet of somebody's life. There's a lot more to be said - about gardens, dogs, holidays, books, trams, journeys, politics, the arts, childhood memories, food, friends, current affairs and so on and so on.
To those particular men and to the other gay people I have encountered through blogging, I just want to say a massive "Thank You". You have educated me and diminished my homophobia - like tackling a cancer with laser beams, reducing it to the size of a frozen pea. Other people's lives matter - black people's lives. women's lives, the lives of the disabled, African lives, the lives of those who live in poverty and now at last I recognise that this also applies to LGBTQ+ lives. I am just sorry that I took so long to get here.
We are all products of our environment, aren't we? When I was growing up, my sisters had a very good friend who was different. I didn't think much of it, he was fun to hang around with, very outgoing. My sisters were allowed to go to Expo '69 with him, so there must have been something different about him, my parents trusted him with two young women. He was also an excellent swimmer which is what most impressed me.
ReplyDeleteMy auntie Ethel lived with her girlfriend and nothing was made of it. It wasn't until I was grown that I realized they were lesbians.
In the eighties, I worked on a pulmonary unit and we got all the AIDS patients, mostly gay men. It was heart breaking, they all died.
I don't think I'm homophobic but I always worry that I could come across as that and I would never want to offend anybody, which makes me wonder if I'm awkward around gay people.
Well said. Some of the saddest times I had was when someone realized they were gay. We've made some progress in the way we deal with LGBTQ people but we have a long way to go.
DeleteThe gay men I have met through blogging are all mature. Their journeys will have not been easy. People like them have paved the way for younger gay men and women to have less troubled journeys.
DeleteThank you YP
DeleteHowever you got here, and however long, or short, it took, is the way it was done for you.
ReplyDeleteI think we are all very much alike, other than who we love, but love is the answer and that's all that matters.
Thank you for saying what you said; it means a lot to me, and probably to a lot of straight people still questioning what it means to be gay.
You cannot help who you love. I think that you and Steve and Travel Penguin etc.bravely followed what your hearts were telling you to do. You did not pretend otherwise.
DeleteFor me there was no other choice but to not live a lie.
DeleteMany of us grew up in monocultures where those different in any way were figures of fun. We never knowingly encountered anyone different except as comedy stereotypes ( it was many years before I realised that the Julian and Sandy jokes were at the expense of Kenneth Horne). I hope working in a university environment and, yes, blogland, have contributed to my re-construction.
ReplyDeleteThroughout our childhoods, acts of homosexuality were illegal in Britain. Society has come a long way since then. Our own children have grown up in a more enlightened age with regard to sexuality.
DeleteWhat is important is that you, and I, got there.
ReplyDeleteStubbornness can be a good thing in many situations... but not all. There are times when change is the right thing.
DeleteI like that you are so upfront about this. So far, I have gay friends online and people who might be gay but dont say so in real life: nobody who is gay and out is a regular in my life. Yet. I guess we have a way to go
ReplyDeleteThe journey continues after this pause for thought.
DeleteHomosexuals and transexuals have always been around, in ancient times as well, and in some cultures publicly. In the U.S. our Puritan ancestors have a lot to answer for in our attitudes toward gay people and nudity. :( I'm glad you got to understanding and acceptance; we are so much more alike than we are different.
ReplyDeleteIn the end what does it matter - as long as we are not hurting anybody.
DeleteA very open and honest post, Mr P. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you taking the trouble to read it ma'am.
DeleteI will join you with my "Thank You", I knew about homosexuality earler than you having met a few gay men through workplaces. I used to wish another word could be found though because I still associate gay with being happy, joyful, and children's books where children had gay times on adventures or at the beach etc.
ReplyDeleteNowadays a gay time on the beach would be rather different I believe.
DeleteThat's a kind post. I can't really agree gay men are not defined in some ways by their sexuality. I've quite a number of medical appointments of late and not one person has assumed my partner if female aside from one last year. But every time I am just waiting for it. I don't see it as a burden to carry everyday but it something that is with you every day. I am fortunate that I have never had family issues about being gay, except for with my father who never mentioned it, liked R and buried his head in the sand. That's preferable to the way many parents in those times reacted. Not that I ever came out but it became quite clear when I was living with R and introduced him to the family over time. My sexuailty does not define me (cliche I know), but it is a big part of me and not something I just switch on in moments of lust or passion.
ReplyDeleteI am in danger of going on too long. I appreciate your post.
Thank you for your reflections - based upon experience.
DeleteWhat a sensitive blog and so well written. The world of the blog does open us to all people and I expect many of us have gone through the same experience as you. I am so glad to have met, through the written word, people who are not 'different' but fellow people wandering through life exactly the same as myself.
ReplyDeleteI like the notion that we are all just travellers wandering along but maybe taking different routes.
DeleteGrowing up in a West London suburb I became familiar with many people who were "different " in one way or another. A severely disabled young girl that we played board games with, a Jamaican family's kids that we played hopscotch with in the street, an openly gay man I worked with during my Saturday job spell in a department store. As a child and then a young adult these were simply kids I played with or people I worked alongside. I suppose acceptance just grew naturally from there.
ReplyDeleteThe East Riding of Yorkshire was almost wholly white Anglo-Saxon and pretty much remains so.
DeleteThank you, well said (everything you write is well said.)
ReplyDeleteYour approval is valued.
DeleteI salute your honesty, Mr. P. It's never too late to learn and grow. We are products of our environment to a great extent, which includes many things - family, community, school life, work life, time period in which we live, etc. And in many cases of prejudice, we are starting with many strikes against us that limit comprehensive and compassionate understanding.
ReplyDeleteI knew about homosexuality vaguely - not sure how or when I first would have learned, but it wasn't from my family or community or school life or I think I'd remember. It might have beeen through reading, as I read voraciously and above my age level - but the first gay person I knew well was at university, part of a new group of friends I met through my boyfriend. The gay friend had a girlfriend at the time and I didn't realize he was gay until years later, when catching up on news of old friends and I heard he had moved to a large city and become well known in fashion design before dying from AIDS. I was sad that he hadn't been comfortable being himself when we were at university, happy he had eventually done so, and sad again that it meant he died so young.
Thank you Jenny. An interesting contribution.
DeleteGlad I could be of service! LOL
ReplyDeleteSeriously, thanks for your honesty. It's often said that the single biggest predictor of anyone's homophobia is whether they know a gay person (or have a gay person in their family). It's easy to hate an abstract idea but it's harder to hate an individual.
The cultural message when we were growing up was that homosexuals were bad, so I completely understand why you would form negative opinions as a young person. I myself fought against being gay when I was an adolescent, until I realized fighting it wasn't going to do any good. Fortunately I think young people nowadays are far more accepting and tolerant.
You were not the guy in the pub! There are other people called Steve.
DeleteI look at my own grown up "kids" and recognise that in lots of ways - including homosexuality - they are far more open and accepting than I ever was.
I followed a similar trajectory of learning about gay people as a child, out growing my homophobia and becoming acquainted to some through blogging though I knew actual gay people when I was still in my teens, one who died of AIDS.
ReplyDeleteThanks to blogging, I still continue to evolve in my thinking and have become more liberal on several aspects of my beliefs though I still don't consider myself a liberal in today's modern sense of the word. Steve Reed has gone a long ways towards helping me understand things in a deeper way too and for that I'm thankful.
In various aspects of life, resisting change is foolish.
DeleteYou tickle me YP
ReplyDeleteOver the years I’ve seen a change in you
I really have and I’m glad I call you a friend
DeArheart xxx
Thank you John. Yours was the first blog by a gay man that I ever read and it helped to open my eyes.
DeleteI commend you for your honesty, and also for your willingness to change and grow. When we know better, we do better, right? I grew up with a transgender kid (back in the 70s and 80s before there was even a word for it) and it's never seemed like a big deal to me. We're STILL friends, in fact, all these years later. I first got to know some gay people when I was college age, and by the time I was in my 30s I had several close friends who were gay. Gregg was a drummer from high school until around the time he turned 40, so he had plenty of gay friends and acquaintances, too.
ReplyDeleteKnowledge is Power... but it is also Understanding.
Delete"I didn't have a single gay friend at university or through my teaching career."
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that you must have had discernibly gay colleagues at least from about the turn of the millenium. Especially as an English teacher. But they didn't become your friends or you theirs.
To me that really shows how once we set off in a certain way we can be incredibly socially self-sorting.
Happily some of that sorting has shaken a bit looser as attitudes to homosexuality have changed since circa 1965.
A very open and refreshing post. However I would be surprised if "I didn't have a single gay friend at university or through my teaching career." is accurate. You may well not have known. I know some people who lived a life as their physical self rather than their mental self until very late on when something (in one case the death of the marital partner) allowed them to become their true self. After all, as you pointed out, homosexuality was until recently illegal in the UK and even more in many parts of the world.
ReplyDeleteBetter late than never, Mr. P!
ReplyDelete