Proust, Cole Porter, Michelangelo, Marc Almond and Me

Writings by Gay Men on Their Lives and Lifestyles from the Archives of the National Lesbian and Gay Survey

National Lesbian & Gay Survey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000156577
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: LGBT Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Drawn from years of archive material, this collection, first published in 1993, portrays the voices and experience of over sixty gay men from all walks of life. Here are presented the difficulties of coming out, but also the diverse nature of gay relationships and the impact of HIV and AIDS. Sometimes raw, often humorous, frequently angry, the book gives an honest impression of what it was like to live as a homosexual man in the twentieth century.

1
Beginnings

Edward

Homosexuality was a taboo subject in my early childhood and it was around the age of ten when I first heard the word. I remember seeing a news item on the television and I asked my mother what it was all about. She quickly told me that the item was about homos and they were people who prefer members of their own sex. Not knowing that there was such a thing before and not knowing society's views on the subject, I just noted it down with mild interest and went back to what I was doing. I joined the Sea Cadets when I was twelve and it was not long after this that we were sent to Charing Cross for our flag day. Not having been a member long enough to have been given a uniform I had to wear my school uniform, but they did give me a white sailor's hat, a tray of flags and a collecting tin. I soon became bored with the station and Trafalgar Square so I made my way up the Strand, walking by the edge of the pavement and concentrating all my energies on the prospective flag-buying public. People suddenly started to avoid me, refusing to give me money. I didn't understand why until an old lady I had accosted with a shake of my tin said, 'You're not with them are you dear?' I didn't know what she meant but followed her gaze and looked into the road. I then realized that for the last ten minutes I had been part of the 1978 Gay Pride march. I quickly ducked into a shop doorway - I knew what they said about sailors, I'd been ribbed about it often enough at school ever since The Village People brought out 'In the Navy' - and waited for the march to pass. . . .

Tom

I suppose that my first inkling that homosexuality existed was rather nebulous. I can recall my parents and other adults talking about cissies, nancy boys and mother's boys. My early perception of this was a sense that I was like these people.

I remember during the war when I was being evacuated. I was about seven years old. We were on the train from Paddington to Plymouth. The carriage was crowded with civilians and sailors returning to their ships. All the seats were taken and I had to sit on the lap of one of the matelots. I can still feel the sensual pleasure of that contact, smell the serge of his uniform. I often reflect whether this was the reason for my joining the navy later on. . . .

Michael

When I was seven or eight I remember walking around town with my mother looking at and smelling the men. I had a Blue Peter annual in which there was a photograph of a football team having a bath; I always wished the water had been clearer or that one of them had been standing up.

Between eight and ten I used to stand in front of a large glass, naked, touching myself. I was becoming aware of - or was I rediscovering? - my body and I got pleasure from doing it, but I did not understand why. I was afraid that I might be discovered, and that my mother would be angry; although I do not remember her saying anything to discourage such behaviour I felt it was wrong. I also got pleasure from exposing myself at my window at night. I did not get any satisfaction from the act itself, but I enjoyed the fear of discovery. I still do the former, though luckily not the latter, but the feeling aroused is different. I no longer fear discovery as no one is likely to come into my room without knocking. I feel that my earlier enjoyment was more innocent. It was a reaction to curiosity, both about my body and other men's, whereas it is now purely for pleasure; and it was not sexual for, although vaguely aware that a man and a woman 'made' a baby, I was not aware of the process. As far as I was concerned my interest in men was natural curiosity, both about the unknown and a desire to know what I would be like when I was older. I had no curiosity about women's bodies because I had frequent baths with my mother and felt I knew all I needed to know about the female form. My father had left when I was two years old and I had therefore never seen a naked man.

There was a school trip to the Pennines when I was ten. We stayed in a youth hostel. I was in a small room with three other boys and the coach driver. I longed to see him undressing and stayed awake until he came into the room, but he turned the light out and I could not see anything. The next day I suffered agonies of disappointment when I heard that the other men who had come on the trip and who were sleeping in a dormitory with the rest of the boys had undressed with the lights still on. I felt ashamed of my wish to see them naked, but I still did not connect it with sexual desires; instead I considered it a phase I would grow out of once I could satisfy my curiosity by looking at my own mature body.

As my body matured I realized that this was not true for I was still interested in men. I do not remember how I became aware of homosexuality, but I know it happened at secondary school. It was considered insulting to call another boy 'gay' or 'bent'. I was frequently called it because I was sensitive and disliked sport and the other boys' rough way of talking and behaving. I may have realized from this that to be gay was to like other men's bodies. This was probably confirmed by facetious remarks made in the shower. I would also have realized that what I had actually had a name. This did not reassure me for I did not want to be something that was treated with antipathy and abuse. Instead, I rejected the idea that I might be gay and consoled myself with the belief that it was only a phase.

I still wanted to believe that it was only curiosity which, once satisfied, would fade. However, I enjoyed looking at other boys in the showers and, far from assuaging my curiosity, it increased it. With this came a new sensation - desire. I began masturbating and I thought of boys not girls. I liked to make myself think of girls but whenever I included them in my fantasies I was always more interested in the boys. I also felt I was violating girls I knew by including them in my fantasies, whereas I did not feel this about boys, they were the same sex and, at the time, I believed that what I imagined could never actually be achieved. It was almost a safety-net, for I thought I was thinking of something I would never actually do. I therefore escaped reality.

This changed when I discovered more about homosexuality. I realized that men did have sex together and that, rather than escaping reality, I was becoming part of a reality I did not want to accept. I was afraid of being part of a group that was ostracized by the rest of society, for my insecurity demanded that I was accepted by as many people as possible. I was afraid of being an individual and, instead, tried to conform. This led to the creation of a false role, which I deliberately projected, of an ordinary, straight, middle-class boy. This phase lasted from my middle to late teens. The foundation for its destruction was laid by my hubristic concern over the size of my penis. I had one safety rope connecting me to deception and that was the belief (hope?) that I would be revolted by the physical experience if not by the fantasy. This was severed in May 1989. I had discovered the address of our local 'private shop' from pornographic magazines belonging to my stepfather. I consider it highly ironic that, inadvertently, he should have been instrumental in introducing me to my first gay experience and, by that, to myself, for I fear he will be the one least able to understand or accept it - an example of how we are all responsible for what happens to each other even if we do not realize it?

I went to buy something that would enlarge my conceit; instead I was seduced. The man realized I was gay. He told me to come back later. When I returned at the appointed time, after telling the first real he to my parents, I had enough courage to take off my coat. With hindsight I think I saw a look of pleasure on his face when I did this, but I did not realize the implications at the time. He asked me what I liked, men or women? I was still trying to pretend I liked women and had just a passing interest in men. He asked what I thought of him. I didn't realize what he meant. He asked if I would feel more comfortable with the door locked. Still I did not realize. He asked me what I thought homosexuals did. I answered - still I didn't realize. Then he stepped towards me. I think I at last suspected something for I stepped back. He seemed offended and affronted and asked if I was frightened of him. I replied in the negative, and to show good faith stepped towards him. He grabbed me and gave me my first kiss. We undressed each other. . . .

Mervyn

I remember having what I now know were sexual feelings and fantasies at an early age, even before I started school at five-and-a-half, but I'm not sure. I remember sitting in front of the electric fire in my bedroom supposedly dressing myself in the morning and stuffing my soft toy duck down the front of my trousers to give me a big belly. It gave me what I called a yellow feeling. I also got it when going over a humped-back bridge in the car if it was going fast enough. It was the same feeling that I get when I come. My nanny suddenly came into the room and asked what I was doing with the duck. I was terrified and said, 'Nothing.' It was many years before I recognized these feelings as sexual.

Later, when I was about ten, I used to go and talk to a man who was working on the new houses further down our road. It gave me a thrill, the same old feeling I called yellow. He had an enormous stomach which bulged out above his trousers which were tied round below it with string. I used to think of excuses for talking to him, but he knew they were just excuses and chased me away. I knew I must keep this secret from grown-ups though I had no idea why.

I had one very good friend who was eighteen months younger than me but we spent a lot of time together and frequently I stayed at his house. When I was about thirteen we started masturbating. We never touched one another but did it at the same time, usually before we went to sleep at night, and we talked about it. I said I didn't understand why I thought about men when I did it as, if it was to do with having babies, I would have thought it should have been women I thought about. He was equally puzzled and said that he thought about women with big breasts when he did it. He didn't seem at all shocked by what I'd said.

My family was left-wing and Edward Carpenter was a name well known and talked of in the house but all I knew was that he was a socialist pioneer. I was never allowed to know in what especial way he was so pioneering! I had to wait nearly fifty years till I learned about his sexual politics through the Gay Liberation Front in the 1970s.

It is interesting that being brought up by unchristian adults the moral pressures were very similar to those suffered by children brought up by christians. I thought that I must try to be a good Communist! It was largely a hangover from the very strong puritan influence on the early Socialists.

My first physical contact with another man consisted of a cuddle and then I think he got my cock out and I came almost immediately. It was an enormous thrill but I was worried. I was afraid someone had seen me go into his house and I knew I couldn't tell the reason. It never occurred to me just to lie that he was just a good friend. I was frightened of his friend who was present. I thought him incredibly ugly. I rather feared they might hold me against my will. They gave me a quite big box of chocolates as I wouldn't stay and this somehow made me more frightened. I took the box and on the way home threw it into an enormous patch of stinging nettles. This was during the war and sweets were rationed and they were very nice chocolates. I knew I had to get rid of them as what could I tell my mother about where I got them? When I got home I went straight into the outside lavatory and wiped my cock and my trousers as I had spilt come on them a bit. I then went upstairs and washed my face. I had been told by a boy at school that grown-ups could tell if you'd come by looking in your eyes. I thought that washing my face would disguise it. I said to myself that I must never do that again. In order to avoid meeting the man I changed my route to school so I wouldn't pass his house and in fact did not see him again for two or three years when I ran into him in London. I then leapt on a bus I didn't want to get away. The tragedy is that he was very nice and we could have had a good time and he could have been very supportive to me when I desperately needed it. I tried finding other gays at school, both among pupils and staff, but none would respond to my discreet overtures. They may have been so discreet that they went unrecognized.

The only thing that happened which might be called supportive occurred when I was about fourteen and was a remark by my mother that 'not everyone has to get married . . . some people are happy being everybody's uncle'. This I found to some extent reassuring, though I still thought it my Communist duty to marry and have children and 'be a good citizen'. However, my mother always gave the impression that she would support me whatever.

Andrew

I was aware of the fact that I was somehow attracted to members of the same sex from a very early age, my earliest remembered memory being when I was four years old and had just started primary school. This guy who was in secondary school would carry my satchel home for me and one day he invited me up to his room while he got changed. I sat on his bed and marvelled at his adolescent body. I realized I was in some way attracted to it though I didn't exactly understand why, as you would expect of a four-year-old.

It wasn't until I was eight that I learned of the word 'homosexual'. I was watching the Comic Strip presentation on Channel Four of The Famous Five Go Mad in Dorset, when Uncle Quentin was labelled a homosexual and that it was a crime. I actually thought they were making a joke when they said that, as it felt like the most natural thing in the world to desire and love a member of the same sex. At that time I started imagining pleasure images to help get me off to sleep. A recurring one was that of a tanned, hairless and muscled torso of a man from the neck to the hips.

My first coming-out did not occur until I was fifteen. I was involved with a community play in one of the theatres in Glasgow. It was quite a liberal atmosphere as two other male cast members were out as bisexual. One day I was discussing the film Torch Song Trilogy and one of them asked me, 'Are you gay?' I answered 'Yes' and that became the first time that I had admitted not only to others but to myself that I primarily felt both a sexual and emotional bond towards men instead of women. Up until then I had regarded myself as rather non-sexual, neither heterosexual, bisexual nor homosexual, but someone who was born not to find men nor women sexually attractive.

I was actually quite well established on the gay scene in Glasgow and quite well adjusted to my sexuality when I lost my virginity. It was the day of our local switchboard's annual bus run. This guy had been flirting with me all day. I didn't really think that much of it as I assumed he was just being friendly. When we finally got back to Glasgow we went to Austin's Bar. He then went on to make a very obvious pass that even I couldn't have misinterpreted. I was slightly in shock as he was the first man to crack on to me. So I did go off with him. On the corner of Hope Street and West George Street I was kissed in lust for the first time. We hailed a taxi and went back to his place and had the worst sex I have ever had to date.

Tony

My first homosexual encounter was when I was between eight and nine years old with a boy of about the same age who lived a few doors away from us. It was in playing doctors and nurses, only this was doctors and doctors, which I'm sure many of us have played at some time during our younger years. At this age games were of curiosity more than of enjoyment, wondering what another person looked and felt like. At this time I had no idea what a homosexual was, this was purely curiosity, yet I still enjoyed it, and the danger of being caught seemed to make it secret yet enjoyable. The game didn't last very long as the boy moved house shortly after.

I continued through junior school with no real feelings for either sex, and no preference until I was eleven and went into high school. It was about this time that I started to reach puberty and started, not so much to fancy but find some of the lads in my class attractive. It was then I learned about gays and all the images were negative. 'Gays were this and gays were that', and they all hung around toilets and abused young lads, as well as the sick jokes that grew from such myths. My father would occasionally crack jokes about gays and nothing I heard was either a positive view or the truth.

At about thirteen my feelings started slowly getting stronger. I found that I was starting to be aroused by people of the same sex and because of this I started hating myself. I used to lie awake at night, crying myself to sleep, thinking, 'Why God, why me?' At that time I was determined to turn myself straight. I went out with a few girls and tried to make myself believe that I would be happy and my gayness would go away.

At about fifteen I was going out with one of my male school-friend's sisters, and in the summer I used to go camping a lot, mostly in the wilderness of the back garden. Anyway, one night her brother and I decided that we'd camp out together. We lay there chatting and listening to the radio, then he said to me, 'Are you gay?' For a second I wasn't sure what to say. All sorts of things flashed through my mind. What if I admit it, what will they say at school? I didn't want to lose a good friend. In the end I decided to admit it in a joking sense; that way if the worst came to the worst I could say that I was only kidding. 'Of course!' I said, waiting nervously for an answer. 'Then fuck me,' he said. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if he was testing me or what. I had never been in this situation before and I wasn't just going to climb into his sleeping-bag with him. I still didn't know whether he was testing me or not. So I just unzipped his sleeping-bag and put my hand in. No reaction. He didn't leap out shouting, 'Queer, queer!' I started to feel slightly easier as my hand travelled down his body, then I felt his hand doing the same to me. From that point I relaxed and it went on from there. We made love until about four in the morning, though there was no feeling of love between us. He wouldn't allow me to kiss him, it was purely sexual.

After that there were no feelings of guilt or remorse. To us it was just sex and we enjoyed it. We continued to have sex rarely, only about once every six months, and that was all it was. I didn't have any desire for a relationship, but I did wish he would let me kiss him. During my last few years at school I had three other similar experiences, again just sex, no love, and at the time it didn't matter. For a few years after I left school I still couldn't fully accept my feelings because of the prejudice and ignorance of society as a whole, and I still thought I could change my feelings. When I started work at the supermarket there was a girl who used to hang around the store a lot and I got chatting to her. Eventually, confused, I asked her to go out with me. At the time I wanted to love a woman or at least to know if I could love a woman. A few months later I was at home watching television and I saw and video-taped a film about gay teenagers. Watching the film I could see myself in it, everything that had happened to him was happening to me. The main character even had the same name as me. At the end I sat and cried for half-an-hour, it moved me so much. It was then that I knew what I must do and I finally came to terms with myself.

I finished with my girlfriend and decided that I couldn't handle this alone, that I needed to talk to someone. I had already 'brain-picked' my best friend without him knowing and dropped into c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Beginnings
• 2 Law
• 3 Becoming
• 4 Out
• 5 Convenience
• 6 Together
• 7 Virus
• 8 Pride
• Index of authors