Sexual Odyssey

Eliot's Interview

There is explicit content in this interview

I identify as a gay male or a homosexual man, but to some extent I use those terms kind of haphazardly because I don’t believe that desire can be bound within frames.  As indeterminate it is, I do kind of know boundaries where my interests remain and that is squarely in a homosexual way.  I also would kind of almost call myself a queer gay man because I don’t believe that people are gay or straight. I believe in bisexuality. I believe that sexuality is a continuum.  If a man were to say, “Well, I’m a gay man, but I’ve had sexual relationships with women.  I’ve been sexually attracted to a woman” I would believe he was legit. I know a lot of people who don’t believe that. 

I realized I was attracted to men when I was in seventh grade, and I was totally freaked out about it because it came out of nowhere. 

Now, I know I was a very stereotypically gay child.  I was not athletic. I loved music and the arts.  I loved to read, and I was a big nerd too.  I didn’t do stereotypically masculine things.  I was labeled as kind of a sissy boy.  I had no idea of what any of that meant.  I also wanted to be a girl when I was little. I was such an articulate child that when I was very young, like between the ages of 3 or 4, I would have these long conversations with my mother about how I wanted to be a girl, and I loved watching My Little Pony and Anne of Green Gables. I liked to read The Chronicles of Narnia and Little Women. Jo was my favorite character, for what that’s worth. Whenever I’d watch these things I would want to dress up in women’s clothing. I would put on my moms slips, or I would walk around in her high heels.  My sister had a lot of dress of up clothes.  My sister is 20 months younger than I am, and when I was really little my parents were ok with that. 

I eventually got to an age where that was not what my parents wanted me to be doing.  My father is a Methodist Minster, a pretty conservative Methodist Minster actually.  When I was in third grade my parents took me to a therapist, and I assume it was because they thought I had a gender identity crisis.  Looking back, that was when I first had an inkling, though it didn’t really register with me at the time, that there was something going on within me that wasn’t considered normal.  I thought it was bad or negative, though I didn’t understand why that might be.  I only saw the therapist a couple of times.  It was either because I started telling her what she wanted to hear or I just quit. I remember telling my parents that I didn’t like it.  They might have decided to quit taking me, I don’t remember. 

When I was in fifth grade, that was around the first time that kids ever called me a faggot, so I asked my parents what that meant.  Looking back on that now, I know that was a really dreadful thing for them to hear.  A couple of years ago, when I was confident enough in my self and comfortable enough, I asked my parents if when I was little that they had a fear or a feeling that I was going to grow up and I was going to tell them that I was gay. They told me that yes that was true.  When I was called a faggot that was probably a confirmation that might happen. 

When I was in seventh grade, being in the throws of puberty and all that crap, I realized that I was attracted to men.  At the time I was attracted to girls too.  I thought I was, and it seemed genuine to me. I never had a girlfriend.  I buried those feelings or that desire, and I did not tell my parents about it.  I knew that they would probably send me to a therapist again, and I didn’t want to go.  With my father in particular the therapist was a pretty deep source of anger for me.  It was not what he did so much as the things he did not do that made me feel like I couldn’t be honest with him. 

The repression lasted until I was in tenth grade. The only time that I would ever admit anything to myself was at night within the context of masturbation.  I’m a pretty frank person.  I’m not afraid to be graphic about things.  When I was in ninth and tenth grade I admitted to myself inwardly that I was attracted to men. I came to peace with that, but I also became very religious when I was in ninth grade.  The active repression transferred into sublimating those feelings into the category of lust.   I believed that they were bad. 

When I was a junior I really had a wrestling with God period in the sense that I had come to peace with how I felt.  I didn’t believe that I was damned because I was attracted to men.  I also couldn’t reconcile the idea of being damned with the idea that God has created me.  He knows who I am.  He knew who I was before I was born.  I couldn’t reconcile all those perceptions of God with the feelings I was having.  How could God know this?  How could he have created me to be this way and then in certain passages of scripture damn me?  How could he condemn behavior that to me was just like well this is just the way I’m hardwired?  What am I supposed to do about this?  I came to a sense of peace spiritually at that time.  That was always what was the most important thing for me. 

I did not have any sort of sexual interaction with men until I was 18.  I didn’t even kiss anyone, a girl or a boy, until I was 18 years old.  I never needed to actually experience anything sexual to know that I was gay. 

I began, I guess, what would be considered the coming out process, when I was a junior in high school.  I told a friend of mine. I kind of gradually throughout high school would tell friends of mine.  I identified as bisexual then.  After overhearing a conversation with a girlfriend of mine, my mother confronted me when I was at the end of my junior year.  I thought that I was being very discreet, but a mother is a mother.  I think my mother has psychic powers.  She confronted me because I couldn’t articulate what I knew internally at that point.  She came out point blank and was like, “What were you talking about on the phone? I need you to tell me what you were talking about.”  She asked me if I was gay, and I said, “Well not exactly.”  I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, and somehow, without stating it outright, I made it clear to her that I was attracted to men too.  I was talking to her about that, but apparently it was a lot more blatant than I was aware of.  My mother was in the same room, which looking back on it I think well god that was really stupid. 

I had a long wrenching terrible conversation with her and had the whole AIDS conversation.  Once you open doors into yourself it can become very hard to close them in regards to sexual things.  She and I agreed not to talk to my father about it at the time. In part because I was terrified about how he would react.

 I came out to my sister when I was 18, and by the time I was a senior in high school.  I was totally resolved with who I was in terms of identity, and I identified as a gay man then.  I eventually came to the point where I felt like I could not not tell my father because my parents raised me to be honest and not to be ashamed of how I felt, what I thought, or who I was. My mother told my father before I could. That was in the spring of my senior year and that was kind of the last step out of the closet that I felt like I needed to take in order to actually feel free.  My father didn’t react in any of the ways I thought he would, and my fears were totally irrational.  I mean they were very real, but in many respects they were unfounded or unjustified.

For a long while there was a lot of tension between my parents and I because my parents do not believe that homosexuality is God’s plan or is right or ok.  There was never a level of I’m just going to damn you out right, or I’m going to disown you.  I’m no longer proud of you as being my child, or I don’t love you.  There was never any of that at all.  As the years have progressed, my parents have continually surprised me.  They have grown with me not in the sense that they’ve changed their minds, but they’ve just become a lot more comfortable and at ease with the fact that this is the way things are. I’m not going to change.  I’m not going to agree with them. They’re not going to agree with me.  That’s been dealt with, and we’ve moved on from there. 

Particularly since I’ve been in a relationship with Steven.  He and I have been together for over a year.  I’m not keeping that aspect of my life apart from them, and that is a big change.  My mother will ask me how he’s doing.  They will interact with me in a way that is just day-to-day reality. My mother, more so than my father, is really surprising.  That was really healing in a way from how difficult my adolescence was.

I’ve been out of the closet, and I haven’t gone back in.  I wasn’t blatantly out when I came to Davidson, but I didn’t charade as a straight guy.  If anyone would ask me if I was gay I would tell him or her the truth.  I came out to my roommate in October right before I published a piece in Libertas that outed me to the entire campus.  He was just like, “Oh ok, well thanks for telling me.  Whatever, lets move on.”  He was from Athens, Georgia and I didn’t feel like he was going to react negatively.  I felt like it was important for him to know before I did that piece, and before guys on the hall might come up to him and be like, “Did you know that John’s gay?” 

My experience with my freshman hall was really good too.  They were just the biggest group of oddballs and weirdoes.  It was really different to me than any other group of people.  I’ve been really fortunate.  I felt very isolated, lonely, and alienated at various points for different reasons, but I’ve never felt attacked or condemned.  I’ve never been called names by anyone. 

I had a run in with a jackass football player when my boyfriend and I were holding hands outside of Vail Commons last spring.  I went totally ape-shit at that point.  He was walking with a bunch of other football players and just made some smart-ass comment like, “Isn’t that so cute?  Will you hold my hand too?”  I absolutely seethed about it for weeks.  I eventually got him into a conference room with the health educator and dean of students.  After I cooled down, I basically just talked to him.  We didn’t talk about how angry I was because I just wanted to fry him for being hateful.  I did it so I could be face to face with him and tell him how what he had done impacted me. I’m much more inclined to stick up for other people than I am to stick up for myself unless I’m completely backed into a corner.  When a friend of mine is disrespected that makes me go totally berserk.  He was extremely humble [in the conference] in a way that I thought was bull-shitty. He listened to me and heard me.  It became pretty clear to him that that was unacceptable behavior.  I haven’t had any other problems.

My boyfriend and I will walk hand and hand around campus. We do it tastefully, and not in an out of line way.   We will kiss each other and stuff like that.  To my knowledge we’re the only one’s that are actually really visible, which is kind of an odd feeling.  It really encourages me [to see other couples].  That’s why I really love going to pride festivals. I’ve been to one for two years at Duke.  I just love seeing couples.  When I was in high school I didn’t think that was possible.  When I was a junior in high school I would never in a million years have thought that now, right now, I would be in a relationship for the length of time that I have been.

If I’m still dating the guy I’m dating when I graduate then I’m going to move to Chapel-Hill with him.  I’ve been in that area a little bit so I know that it’s an accepting area.  I’ve learned to love a lot of things about southern culture, but because of where I’m from in Texas I’m familiar and kind of fluent in southern culture, but I don’t feel like I don’t belong in it. I feel like there are a lot of things I don’t like about it.  I’m not really interested in living in the south. 

I would like to go to graduate school for pursuing a graduate degree in creative writing or English. I’d like to be a professor and teach creative writing and literature.  A lot of the schools I’m interested in going to are in the north-east, but I’m kind of a bit of a bumpkin at heart. I don’t think that I could live in a huge urban area and never have access to being in the country.   I need to be in a wide-open space where I can see trees, and I can see the sky.  I need those sorts of things to seem grounded. 

I wouldn’t want to completely sequester myself and only associate with queer people, because I basically think that’s kind of stupid.  I could have that tendency, but I don’t believe in separatism. I have problems with groups or movements that in order to reclaim themselves end up inverting a dynamic that basically discriminates other people. I don’t think that solves anything.  I think that those are as implicitly grounded in discrimination and hatred, and I think that hatred really does stem from fear.  I’m not interested in that.  I certainly would like to live in an area that would be considered diverse.  I consider myself to be a pretty strange and weird person, and I like being around that. 

Well I’ve talked to a number of Georgia’s sexuality classes for freshman.  I’ve gotten questions like, “Do gay men just want to have sex with other men and not be in relationships with them?”  It’s never really directly been that way, but I’ve asked questions or had conversations with people where subjects like that kind of came up. 

I know a lot of gay men that I consider to be shameless hoes. I fully believe if done wisely and safely is good.  I do not believe that sex is a bad thing.  I do not believe that people are amoral or immoral because they have some sort of one night stand with someone because I’ve done that.  I don’t regret it. I have absolutely no shame in that, and I think that if you’re on the same page as someone then it is fine.  Everybody needs endorphins released, and that’s one way to do it. 

Most of the conversations I’ve had with people have more to do with how gender and sexuality intersect.    I do not confuse whom someone is attracted to with how they identify themselves. I do not believe that identity is solely circumscribed by someone’s sexuality, and I think that people who do that are really making a mistake. 

My father was very athletic in high school he was a basketball player.  He loves sports and physical activity. I inherited his love of being outdoors, and I love to backpack.  I’m not one of those prissy guys who do their hair and wear all these nice clothes.  I’m not like that at all.  When I was grappling with all the issues related to sexuality, I never had this huge hang-up like, “If I’m gay am I a man?”  That was never a problem for me, and it was because of the way my parents raised me.  I’ve told them that too.  My mom has stopped the “I just sit and think sometimes that you just need to find the right girl.”  Well maybe she thinks about it, but she doesn’t tell me.  I don’t discount the possibility of meeting a woman, but the probability is pretty d@*# slim that that’s going to happen. 

I have had some people ask me questions related to sex.  Like, “What exactly is the sexual relationship between two gay men like?”  I’ve also had a lot of conversations with other gay men about how divided into roles and role-playing sexual relationships can be.   Who is the dominant one?  Who is the passive one?  Who gives it?  Who takes it?  Who is the top?  Who’s the bottom? I think a lot of it has to do with the same hang up.  If a guy is penetrated then it is culturally understood as him being effeminized and being emasculated, and I just think that’s bullshit.  I mean in my relationship with my boyfriend it isn’t an either or thing.  We do not have set or prescribed roles.  Depending on what mood I’m in and depending on what mood he’s in, we will basically flip flop.

I really wouldn’t say that it offends me when people ask questions. If someone asks me a question that seems outrageously naïve and ignorant I’ll inwardly be shaking my head.  When I have gotten questions like that it has never been in a disrespectful manner.  I do appreciate it.  I know a number of people who have not had exposure to people who do not subscribe to what would I guess be considered conventional sexuality.  The knowledge that I have been one of the only people that they’ve known who is gay has made me feel a little strange.  When they have come to me and asked me things, it made me feel good that they felt comfortable enough to ask me about it.

Sometimes I think, “If you’re comfortable of who you are and if you know this is who you are and if you’re not ashamed of it then why are you afraid that people are going to reject you.” If they do then just say f@!* off, it’s that simple.  But it’s NOT that simple for people. That has been a struggle for me to some extent. 

I knew people in high school who were gay, but I never would have approached them.  I just would not have done it.  I just did not feel comfortable.  For me to find being out at Davidson to be so different and similarly isolating was not what I expected.   Having my sexuality be public makes people in the wings [who are questioning their sexuality] scatter away from me and avoid me.  That has been hard.  There was a group here my freshman year [and the people who went] were totally closeted.  We would all talk and hang out. I went clubbing with a group of other people, and one person in particular to this day does not in any way acknowledge me in public.  He does not say hello to me.  He doesn’t make eye contact with me, and that really made me angry when I was a freshman.  I didn’t in anyway want to cast suspicion on them. I’m much more mature about that now, but it made me feel like I was less than human or something.  The longer I’ve been here the more I’ve kind of found a way to be.  I have a safety net here.  Most of my friends are straight women.  I’m friends with guys too, and I’m friends with a fair amount of straight guys as well.. 

I strongly believe that a part of orientation needs to be devoted to making people aware that they should not make any assumptions about other people here.  I think it’s important for those people who might be secretly waiting and hoping that sexuality will be brought up.  I also think it’s important for people who have not been exposed to the reality that some people are gay.  There are people that you can easily identify and people who you never in a million years would guess are gay.  I know some of those.  I actually don’t have too many complaints about the administration in regards to their openness and attentiveness to issues like that. 

I feel like in terms of curriculum it’s great.  In the English deptartment I’ve only had one class where it really was not kosher to queer texts.  I’m sure it depends on the discipline, but in most of the human sciences, the humanities, or the social sciences [the classes at Davidson are very inclusive].  I feel like there are enough professors who broach that in some way.  The campus is gradually moving towards being more accepting and affirming as opposed to simply being tolerant.   I do feel like the southeastern ethos hangs over the campus in terms of what is acceptable to talk about, which I think is totally bogus. 

I think that gay-dar is a basically a big play up of what would be considered mostly stereotypes.  For me it has a lot to do with manner of dress, specifically the way people carry themselves, and their mannerisms as well, sometimes their voice inflection. 

I don’t think that I would be considered that effeminate of a person.  I would call myself more androgynous, but I do have really definably “gay mannerisms.”  The way I walk, the way I talk, and the way I use my hands are what would be considered stereotypically gay.  I’m aware of that, and it doesn’t bother me at all. 

To some degree it is almost like a 6^th sense. The most sure fire way of telling is by looking at the eyes.  It is all in the eyes.  I think it has to do with a willingness to make eye contact.  I really believe that many straight men will not make sustained eye contact with other men.  If a guy is walking and meets another guy on a sidewalk they will typically glance at each other and then look away.  Gay men don’t do that.  I think that gay-dar is much more applicable to men than it is to women. 

This does not define everything about me.  It’s not something that I bring up for the sake of bringing it up.  For example, if I’m with my boyfriend and I meet someone I frankly and unabashedly introduce him as my boyfriend. In that sense it will come up in conversation, but not because I want to make it clear that I’m here and I’m queer. In one way or another it is going to surface. 

I don’t really consider myself to be that political of a person.  I do care about it, but I have some problems with the way that some groups go about trying to lobby.  I would say that I’m probably more charged about political issues that relate to sexuality than I am to other topics.  I have some serious hang-ups with the whole marriage thing.  I believe that men should be allowed to marry men or women to marry women. Legalizing same sex marriage would de-legitimate those relationships that are not monogamous, and I don’t think should happen. 

I’m completely monogamously oriented.  My boyfriend and I are exclusively committed to each other.  I’m not poly-amorous at all, but if two people are in a committed relationship and have had sexual relations with other people, and they’re ok with that then I think that’s fine.  I don’t have issue with people being poly-amorous.  I’m not sure that my boyfriend and I would get married if we were able to. 

I have a pretty painful relationship with the church because I do not consider myself to be a Christian anymore.  I do not practice Christianity.  I do not identify as Christian, and I haven’t for several years.  I could not stomach being a member of a body of believers that would not consider me to be a legitimate Christian.  I just couldn’t deal with it.

I think Queer Eye For A Straight Guy is hilarious. I love watching it. I think it is hysterically funny.  It does perpetuate stereotypes.  I would horrify them to no end because I’m messy, and I clash.  I don’t think that many shows push the stereotypes, which I would like to see.  I would like to see some super masculine gay man on a TV show.

I honestly have no idea where I’ll be in twenty years.  I very likely could or could not be in the United States.  If they ever somehow amended the constitution to solely define marriage between a man and a woman I would be so tempted to expatriate.  I more likely than not will be an academic.  I hope that I am in a committed relationship of some kind.  I would like to have children or to have a child. I would like to have seasonal housing in the New Mexico area because that’s my favorite part of the country.  When I turn 30 then I’m officially a member of the dead fags society, but I’m not going to cry.