I’ve never felt I fit in with what I believed was THE gay community, a culture that seemed to be marked by an ease and openness around sex that I did not possess. I've always felt a tension between the family-oriented grown-up part of me and this coy inner-child navigating an overtly sexual community. Over the past few years, as I’ve begun to explore multiple queer communities and identities, it seemed important to understand what originally led me to thinking
I've often thought about what it means to come home to someone. When you come home to someone, there's comfort and consistency. A dog's tail wagging, rich smells from the kitchen and maybe a kid slamming the screen door to escape outside into the air and wilderness and unknown. But coming home feels like too many slices of other peoples dreams. I get lost in them. They're flip books from another era and a different group of people sitting around
I feel half gay. Not sexually that is... I'm not bisexual or sexually confused. I'm clearly hot for men. I just feel culturally half gay. Like somehow I've inherited or learned only a part of the culture, but not actually enough to pass a thorough inspection. If I was to try to board a plane to return to Gay Land, customs would have a field day before letting me pass through. Of course, I don't really feel half straight either.
When I think about my understanding of what it meant to be gay when I was 16, a handful of images come to mind. Walking down Stockton Avenue and trying to sneak a quick look into the old Renegades Bar when the door would swing open. I could never really see in, but stories unfolded in my head around the mystery of that worn-down pub with painted over windows and rough-edged leather bears occasionally outside inhaling a smoke. Quirky wall
When I was seven, I wanted to be a superhero. By the time I was 14, I had moved on to Broadway Star or Professional Nerd, but I still created stories of myself as a superhero as I walked home from school. The stories shifted, but in the end I always saved the day through some daring strategery. These narratives were never particularly violent - even though I was a superhero, I wasn't so delusional to think that somehow I
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Nov. 23rd, 2024 @ 8:00PMEvent Detail Button
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