Hate’s in the mind

What goes on in the mind of someone who’s so eaten up with hatred for gay people that they resort to killing someone they believe may be homosexual? Yesterday, Mark Malone was sentenced to 30 years in prison for murdering Jeff Akers in Walton-on-Thames, England in February of this year.  More on that story here.

Mr Malone had stabbed Mr Akers so deeply that the entire 8 inches of the knife used in the ferocious assault was embedded in his back, completely severing his eighth rib and puncturing his right lung. He staggered from the toilet where the attack occurred before collapsing.

I cannot comprehend the mindset capable of such savage brutality. It’s completely lost on me. At what point did the programming start which resulted in an act of such barbarous inhumanity, leaving one man dead and another rotting away in an institution not to mention the negative impact on the lives of those left behind who loved Mr Akers, not least his partner of 22 years, Mike Drew.

Was Mr Malone perhaps homosexual himself? They do say that those who have the greatest hatred for homosexuals could very likely be ‘that way’ themselves and are unable to deal with it. So, seeing people out there living the lives they are too cowardly to carve out for themselves, are seen as targets who are ‘flaunting’ their sexualities and therefore fair game to be vilified.

Looking closer at Mr Malone’s criminal past, it seems he had a history of violence against people he perceived to be gay. Where does all this anger come from though? Growing up, I often heard homophobic taunts in the playground from other kids and you’d hear it from teachers who wanted to ‘make a man out of you’ on the playing fields. What has manliness got to do with sexuality anyhow?

There is an assumption that homosexuals aren’t ‘real men’ but what does that mean? It’s like saying that all lesbians are butch, wear hiking boots, possess a toolkit, own every album by the Indigo Girls and strum acoustic guitars at all-women camps. The same kind of drivel surrounds gay men, who are perceived by many as being sissies who dress up as women and hang around public lavatories soliciting other men for anonymous sex.

We need to educate people as to what being gay really means and we need to start early, in schools and through community-based initiatives. We need to show people that being gay is entirely to do with who you find attractive and are able to fall in love with. Love is rarely mentioned in conjuction with the lives of gay men, bisexuals and lesbians. By breaking down the misconceptions and preconceptions, we can foster a society based around acceptance of others and maybe, just maybe, incidences of this nature will stop happening altogether.

A website dedicated to Mr Akers can be seen here.

I’m back!!!!!

Right, well I’m back and what’s happened in my absence but the dashboard here at WordPress has gone all space age.  I must confess to loving it but then after a week of hermit-like living, everything appears exciting in comparison.

I’ve also discovered the answer to one of life’s little quandaries and that’s here.  When I first got my Sony media player, I couldn’t get on with the headphones at all so had to buy some others but they gave up the ghost this week so after trying to use a cheaper set (which are shite) I’ve had to go back to the original set and even though I can see sense in the arrangement, they feel bloody awkward on.  What was wrong with how they were originally is what I want to know?  I never had any difficulties with them.  Did anyone here?

Last weekend, I travelled up to Liverpool to Michael Causer’s memorial service held at the Anglican Cathedral.  It was very moving and the language used was inclusive, there was no talk of sin and people of other faiths and none could take something from it.  Looking across at the photograph of Michael, I couldn’t believe that this young man was no longer with us.

I happened upon a jokey message left by Michael at Facebook and I felt an incredible sadness.  Michael had come out, a battle in and of itself and wound up being murdered by homophobic thugs!  I hope these cowards (because that’s what they are) get a sentence which reflects the severity of this brutal crime.

I met Michael’s family and a more friendly and accepting bunch I’d be hard pushed to find.  They had no problems with Michael’s sexuality at all.  Had he lived, he would have grown in strength and confidence as an out gay man.  They are lovely people.  They even allowed me to stay over due to there being no one at the hostel I’d booked online and that says a LOT about them … they were fortunate to have Michael if only for a short while, he was fortunate to have them xxx

I must mention Vikki whom I met at the cathedral.  She was a male-to-female transsexual.  She had been badly beaten up in a similarly motivated attack, ie one of hate, fear and ignorance.  She stood up during the service and said a few words inspired by Michael.  Her birth name had been Michael so she was in effect saying goodbye to two Michael’s that day!

I’m glad Ulla got her rainbow pride bag.  Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!  You said you’d squuuuueeeeeee mate and indeed you did.  That’s one of Ulla’s words and I love it.  Ulla, I’m honoured to know you and to be able to call you a friend.

I’m glad to be back.  I can get round to see you all now….

The knowing look…

I’ve always been able to spot other gay people, whether they be men or women.  I know loads of gays who can’t tell and it amazes me.  I don’t know what it is about ‘us’ (getting all tribal here Ulla!) but I can tell.

Yesterday I was working about 30 miles away delivering leaflets around a village, for some extra pennies.  I had my media player on, was listening to the Rolling Stones and intermittently jerking my body along to the music and just getting on with the work really.  About halfway through the ‘drop’ (technical term there for a leafletting round!) I saw him.

A gay man!

He was walking towards me, he saw me and I saw him.  He kept his eyes straight ahead as did I until we were almost on top of one another (in my mind we already were but that’s another post entirely) then his eyes met mine, solidly and steadily and in that moment, two gay men were fully and completely aware of one another.

He knew I was, I knew he was and there was that point of connection.  I could smell him, taste his mouth, his sweat, his body underneath my fingers.  I felt a rush of tension and excitement course through my body.  For that brief moment we were locked into one another and then his gaze shifted as did mine and we went on our way.

The colleague who was walking behind me noticed nothing nor did my other colleague who was walking just ahead and who turned round to tell me something in that moment.  I glanced back to where he was and he did also.  Once again, there was eye contact.  A second or two longer than would be usual then he turned away as did I but I was still aware of him.

The way he walked. His full, sensuous and eminently kissable lips. The sound his boots made as they connected with the gravel. The way his sweater clung to his chest. The nape of his neck. Mmmmmmmm. That look, which means everything to a fellow gay person yet which remains elusive to just about everyone else is just beautiful.

We’re everywhere and it’s marvellous!

The rainbow’s bluer today…

Yesterday, I did something which surprised me.  I denied my sexuality to someone who really doesn’t have a problem with it out of a fear of them perhaps viewing me differently.

I was chatting away with them and the subject of gay people came up.  My friend said “I’m not being funny here Jon but you mention gays a lot.  Are you gay?”  He was smiling when he said it.  I suddenly felt totally ashamed and guilty.  I said “no but I’d like to be” and he laughed.  “I’ll have to write that down, that’s a great response” he replied.

I don’t know why I did it.

Well, I do know why I did it because it would change the dynamic between us on some levels and because he has spoken of people not coming out until later in life and how he can’t comprehend it at all because “we all know what we are don’t we Jon?”  Yes, it’s true.  I have always known of what I am but dealing with it has been another thing entirely.  Anyhow, the conversation changed and I was relieved but the feeling nagged away at me.

I got back home, Ulla was online and I spoke with her about it.  I was totally and utterly disgusted with myself, I felt like a complete letdown.  She told me not to be so hard on myself, that coming out and being comfortable with one’s sexuality is a process.  She’s right, it is.  What shocked me I suppose is how I not only denied it but wanted to push the whole thing away from me and kind of disown it.

I thought because I had done the Coming Out interview, had fantastic gay friends and in many ways had made peace with who I am that these awful moments were gone altogether.  Having spoken to someone the other day about just this, he said it’s hard to free yourself of all the negative ideas and opinions and that occasionally, there will be tough days.  He talked to me about Internalised Homophobia and how that plays a part in eating away at a positive gay self-image.  He’s right, it does.

My head’s in a bit of a spin at the moment and I don’t know where I’m at on some levels. I do know that I’m gay and in the main I’m happy and comfortable with it.  I just sometimes get the sense from wider society that because I’m homosexual my sexuality is in some ways inferior to heterosexuality because it’s not about anything more than intimacy and having fun!  How fucked up is that?  I need to stop thinking and playing things over and just get on with it.

Thanks for listening, I appreciate it.

Shattering myths….

Shortly after coming out earlier this year, I got chatting to a friend and he said “does this mean you’ll start being all camp and buying records by Kylie Minogue, going on pride marches and waving rainbow flags?”  I replied “why would I?”  He said “well, that’s what gay people do isn’t it?”  I was taken aback by this.  Is this how gays are perceived?

I don’t possess a single album by Kylie Minogue or Madge (as Madonna is affectionately known by her trillions of adoring gay fans) nor do I wish to because I don’t like that kind of music.  I do however like Blues, Prog Rock, Heavy Metal, Jazz, Folk and World Music among many other genres.  Does enjoying a meaty guitar solo pulled out of the bag by messrs Gary Moore or Joe Satriani make me any less queer than say dancing round the room to The Village People whilst vacuuming?

There are so many assumptions floating around out there about what constitutes being, in my case, a gay man.  Let’s get this next one out of the way as soon as we can.  I don’t like cabaret, musicals or show tunes! I feel ill when I hear Shirley Bassey’s voice coming out of the radio speakers at home and have to get up as soon as I can and switch it off.  I abhor the sweeter-than-sweet warblings of both Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand though I am able to appreciate how technically proficient both of them are, I’d just much rather not have to endure listening to them if I can help it.

I don’t cross-dress. I shouldn’t have to write this but again these are assumptions based on sexuality that a lot of people make.  British writer and doctor Vernon Coleman cross-dresses and argues that the majority of men who do enjoy wearing women’s clothes are in actual fact heterosexual.  Quite why being gay automatically means I would want to don a frock is beyond me.  Still, when the only exposure some people have of gay men is when they see them dressed as nuns at pride events or in stock video footage whenever a news story features us in some way, can’t really help.  Plus, one now well-known and cherished out gay tv presenter began his career dressing up as a woman and that only adds to the misconceptions.

I’m not effeminate.  When I told one person of my homosexuality, she looked me up and down and said “no you can’t be” and I replied that yes I was.  “No” she again said.  I responded “well, why can’t I be?”  Her answer was “well, you’re not limp-wristed are you?  Are you sure you’re not a bit Bi maybe?”  I said that no I wasn’t.  She looked at me puzzled.  There was then an awkward few moments while she adjusted to the news that standing in front of her was someone she knew, who wasn’t camping it up but was in fact a homosexual.  She still asks me periodically if I still feel I’m gay, I tell her that I am and she gives me the same disbelieving look.

I have known and met a lot of gay men who are affected in some way but I’ve met far more who are no different in their outward appearance and manner than heterosexuals.  Most of us, gay or straight, don’t fit the media profiles of the archetypal good-looking guy or gal anyway.  The simple fact is the vast majority of us are quite ordinary in every way and gay men and women are no different.  That doesn’t mean we can’t scrub up well when we want to but we’re just run-of-the-mill in reality and the only difference between us is who we fall in love with and find sexy!

This next one is a little trickier to reply to.  There is an assumption that one ‘becomes’ gay due to bad sexual experiences with the opposite sex.  There is of course an element of truth in this statement because the very nature of one’s homosexuality means any attempts to have sex with men/women (delete where applicable) is going to be fraught with frustrations. I have never had a good sexual experience with a woman but this hasn’t led me to want to be gay whatever that means, it has however clarified my own feelings regarding my sexuality.  I engaged in sex with women because I wanted familial and societal approval, not because it actually appealed to me.

I hope I’ve gone some ways to picking apart these frankly downright bizarre stereotypes and misconceptions.  I’m gay, that’s not because of a whole list of external variables which may or may not be true for whole swathes of society.  It’s by virtue of the fact I am sexually, emotionally and romantically attracted to men.  It’s as simple as that really.

Going with the flow…

Earlier this week, I was in a village reasonably local to me conducting a traffic survey.  It was a back-breaking 12-hour shift and incredibly boring but we got two sizeable breaks and the money was good so it could have been worse.  I was there from 7am-7pm.  Luckily for me, I was situated near the shops and about 100 yards or so away was a public lavatory.  We had our first break at around 11am so the person I was working with and myself made our way to a little cafe and had a pot of tea between us.

The problem with drinking hot fluids on a very cold day is that it goes through you like a dose of salts and within 20 minutes or so I was heading to the urinals and again about 40 minutes after that and then twice more in the following hour and a half.  Our second break was around 4pm and yep, same thing happened again.  I found myself trudging off to the toilets only this time I wasn’t alone when I got there.

You know that feeling you get when you know something’s awry and you can’t work out why you think that?  I walked through the door and on the immediate right was the trough.  The sink was on my immediate left and there were two stalls further along on the right past the trough with a quite uninviting baby-changing facility on the wall opposite those.  The place absolutely reeked of the most acidic-smelling piss, the stench of shit not far behind in the olfactory stakes.

There were two men standing at either end of the trough.  It wasn’t a long urinal, there was really only enough room for one more person to fit between the people already there.  I personally didn’t fancy jostling to take a pee so went over to the first stall and as I did so, I noticed two sets of eyes following me.  I felt very uncomfortable indeed and because of that, found it difficult to actually go so by the time I’d undone my jeans, opened my fly, got the old chap out and managed to start urinating about a minute or so must have passed.

During this time, I heard no urine flowing in the trough next to me which I thought odd.  My initial reaction was that I was going to get attacked and robbed and this impeded my flow somewhat, it was coming out in dribbles even though I was desperate.  There was a strange silence next to me from the two men.  I could sense they were there but there was no sound whatsoever.  It was quite unnerving actually.  After what seemed like an age but in reality was probably no more than two minutes after I’d initially walked in, I finished.  I put everything away and walked back out.

The two men were still standing where they had been when I first saw them, they had their cocks out and could see they were grinning broadly.  They were half-turned to face me, their eyes boring a hole right through me.  It was then it dawned on me, these guys were there to play.  I felt no need to be there one second longer than I had to.  I washed my hands very quickly and got out of there.  As I did so, they both laughed and said something between themselves which I couldn’t make out.

I walked away and kept looking back but they didn’t emerge immediately, in fact it was nearly 20 minutes before they finally left and went their separate ways.  I was a little bit shaken up by it if I’m honest.  There was a sense of threat from them and what I can now see was an underlying sexual tension.  I don’t think they’d been there by accident, the toilet itself was more than likely a cottage and known for ‘homosexual activity.’

What surprised me was how brazen they were about it.  There was no way you could misconstrue their actions should you have chanced upon the place as I had, it doesn’t take 5 minutes to have a piss and even if it did, urine’s got to flow hasn’t it?  I’ve personally never had a problem with gay or bisexual men using public lavatories for sex and I don’t now.  What I’m a little uncomfortable with is the way I was made to feel by going in there.  It was an intimidating atmosphere.  I’m a gay man so it shouldn’t bother me right?  Wrong.

I can remember going to a bar in Brighton about 10 years or so ago with a gay pal who was just coming out.  It was called The Bulldog and men would rub themselves against you as you walked down to the toilets and that was a little disquieting at the time but I had made the decision to go into that environment so I couldn’t complain.  I hadn’t however chosen to go into that toilet with any motive other than needing to empty my bladder so it’s not unreasonable to be able to do that without being propositioned first.

Chatrooms…

What is it with gay chatrooms?  They are some of the most intimidating and unfriendly places on the ‘net in my opinion.  There’s something about gay chat which I’ve never understood and I’ve been in so many now that I feel I’m able to talk without relying too heavily on generalisations.

On every gay site I’ve used that has a chat facility, there are lists of rooms that are available (30’s, 40’s, 50’s, Coming Out, Advice etc etc) yet in all honesty, they might as well all just be called Hook-up and Get Laid or You Can Come In and Say Hi But We’ll Completely Ignore You Until You Leave or We’re Just Going To Check Out The Profile By Clicking Your Name and If We Don’t Feel You’re Up To Much We’ll Not Bother Chatting To You.

Having read Ulla’s post (which is here) about actually chatting with a lesbian in an online chat, I wondered why we, as gay men, seem unable to do the same.  I remember when I first came online in 2001 there were hundreds of chats to choose from in msn and I spent a very happy 2 or so years attending chat, meeting new people and there was a real sense of solidarity among us.  Some of these people I’m still in contact with today.  Isn’t the purpose of chat to actually chat?

I’m gay.  That’s the term bestowed upon me due to how I feel in relation to my romantic/emotional/sexual feelings but it’s not the sum total of my being.  In there is an intellect, a personality, a sense of humour, hopefully compassion, acceptance, empathy and a whole load more so why is that a LOT of gay people seem to think that if someone isn’t their type that they’re not worth knowing or if they’re not doing something to their genitals or someone else’s, that they’re somehow missing out?

I used to have mixed feelings towards the term ‘gay’ because it seemed to place an inordinate amount of emphasis on sexuality and what ‘we’ get upto in bed but now I wonder whether there is indeed something to it because everywhere I look in the gay media is a heavy reliance on sex, sexuality, sex tips and techniques.  Yes, we’re gay.  We enjoy fucking but it’s not all we are surely?!?!?!?!?!?

Let’s say the average gay man has sex three times a week for an hour apiece, that’s still leaves 165 hours a week doing other things.  A third of that time will be taken up by sleeping, another third by work and I bet there’s more time spent grooming and showering/bathing within that week than by actually having sex so why is there so much emphasis placed on it?  *sigh*

Noticing men….

Growing up, I learned to fake interest in women sexually so would watch straight guys and how their eyes travelled when espying a ‘fit’ woman then I would do the same when out and about.  I was trying to fake it to make it, or not make it as was the case with me.  Well actually that’s not entirely true, I did ‘you know’ a few times – NEVER AGAIN!!!!!

Anyhow, I was in town yesterday with a friend and we stopped outside the local shopping mall to have a sit down and a cigarette, yeah yeah I know I’m supposed to have stopped but this quaint old fag needed a fag (!) so I relented.

It was a warm and sunny day and people were out in summer clothes.  I became aware of myself noticing the men, a lot of them in shorts and t-shirts, only I had proper feelings commensurate with that.  There was nothing idle about my show of interest as had been the case with women.

I was getting butterflies, it was lovely.  I spent so long fighting and denying myself and now I can actually allow myself to enjoy the sight of a good looking man and feel no shame whatsoever, just lots of nice tingly feelings.  I’m enjoying my burgeoning self.