4 1/2 Straight Guys in New York City

I was recently on a trip in NYC for a journalism conference at Columbia University, with a group of about twenty that encompassed most of our yearbook and school newspaper classes. It was actually a ton of fun, and something I’m really looking forward to doing again in my Senior year.

Anyways, between the trips to Starbucks and late-night sessions of Cards Against Humanity, we did a lot of just walking around, looking around, and trying to do as much as possible before it was time to head back. The highlights of our trip were some really good restaurants, being complete tourists in Times Square, making fun of people using selfie sticks, and cancelling plans due to insanely long lines.

Was the twenty-five bucks you saved on a free ticket to the MoMA really worth the four-block wait?

As we were walking out of a restaurant on the penultimate night of the trip, one of the group had asked the rest of us if we had girlfriends. Maybe it was the high of the busy environment, the constant noise or the freezing air, but I fell away from my usual, premeditated response of ‘nope.’ To be fair, this is a perfectly acceptable answer from a 16-year-old guy who spends more of his time trying to hone his Illustrator skills than finding a significant other.

I blurted out something along the lines of ‘it’s complicated,’ which naturally lead to more inquisition. Fuck. I didn’t know these guys super-well, and so as is standard practice, I try not to divulge much until after I have to sleep within a few feet of them all for four nights; I don’t know where people are coming from, and I was having too good of a time to even mess with it in the slightest. When they gave a response of a wondering ‘ooh,’ I somehow only dug in further.

“It would make things weird.” Great. What did that even mean? I was dating one of their sisters? One of them joked “maybe he’s secretly gay,” and I was so close to jokingly confirming it.

But I didn’t.

I’ve known I wasn’t the same as other guys for a long time. I’d always been more appreciative of an attractive guy than a girl (though it’s still easy to appreciate a woman as beautiful; attraction and appreciation are separate entities). It wasn’t until about fourth or fifth grade that I realized what it meant to be straight or gay, and at that same time I realized that guys were supposed to be attracted to girls. I say ‘supposed to’ because let’s be honest, being queer is the exception, not the rule. No one ever asks you if you’re straight, because of course you are. Innocent until proven guilty.

Yeah, I’ll admit that in the locker rooms I’d snuck a look or two. If that sentence made you cringe even a little bit, I’ve got news for you. In a Catholic school (oh, the irony), sex was about as taboo as atheism. No one knew what a vagina was unless they had one or had good parents, and vice-versa. I remember my parents trying to have ‘the talk’ with me, which amounted to my mother recommending that we wait until marriage (though she assured us that things don’t always work out that way), and that we always use condoms. Don’t get girls pregnant. Good to know, but it wasn’t anything more than we’d learned before. Guys were so desperate for a picture of a breast that I’d heard the word ‘boobs’ more times in those six years than I ever did before and since combined. For guys to be offended that someone is looking at them in such a way when they do the same to girls says more about society and the necessity of feminism than much else.

*takes a deep breath*

Then I got to middle school, a public one in one of the more conservative and (to put it mildly) heteronormative environments I’ve been in. One of my more vivid memories about that school was a day I was in art class, and our table somehow got on the topic of ‘gay people.’ Because, you know, we’ve got to differentiate them from the normal people. I won’t divulge his name, but this guy was about as tasteful as a deep-fried stick of butter. We were talking, and he blurted out a sentence I’ll never forget; “If my kid were a faggot, I’d just put them up for adoption.” Now, I realize a twelve-year-old isn’t exactly going to have his adult life solidly planned out, but he was more serious saying that as he was talking about how dude, I had sex with my girlfriend last night! (I’ll let you be the judge on that one). You could tell it was as casual a thing to exit his lips as asking for the time — he’d known only two genders and one sexual orientation in his life, and anything else was abhorrent. I remember getting home, and just sitting in my room. I fucking bawled. How was I going to live a normal life if who I was was somehow so wrong?

Well, the answer to that is obvious to a 12-year-old kid; I don’t.

I tried to turn straight. I got a little more involved in conversations about ‘boobs’, I tried to force myself to find a sexual attraction in women. If I watched porn, it was straight. I started using demeaning terms toward women and LGBT people as well. Because by checking off all the right boxes, I’d become that way, right? This went on for about two years, until about my last year at that school; so maybe eighth or ninth grade. I was stuck in a spot where I was fighting against this part of me like it was a disease. From about sixth to eighth grade, I was afraid to go into locker rooms, to talk or even think about my sexuality, and it really scarred me. I’m still uncomfortable talking about that kind of stuff; not because it’s taboo, but because I spent a chunk of my most ‘explorative years’ hiding from it, trying to change it. Like desperately trying to erase a part of myself written in permanent ink.

After that moment of instant regret on that slippery New York sidewalk, I was asked numerous times what I meant. I didn’t answer them, I just reiterated that it was ‘nothing.’ It can’t be ‘something’ because it’ll fuck with people’s actions around me. If I bunk with these guys again, they’ll go change in private because there’s a gay guy in the room, and they’re uncomfortable. I know that most teenage guys love to soak up any cleavage they can from women like horny, absent-minded sponges, but I’m a lot more reserved with my observation of those around me, and I’m respectful of people, male or female. Maybe I’m just more introverted, or maybe I’ve just learned to keep my dick down if I see something sexually attractive — I’ve had lots of practice. I’ll look at someone if the opportunity arises, but what pisses me off is that when I say that I’ll check a guy out if he takes his shirt off, people get nervous because that’s gay, as if by looking their way I’m targeting them for my next kill. I’m not going to wrap myself in a chastity blanket because I offended someone by taking a second to look their way. They do the same under different circumstances, circumstances that may seem as odd to me as mine do to them.

While in New York City, I had the pleasure of witnessing eight catcalls from guys to women on the street, and (as if there was any doubt) the women never exactly looked flattered. This was over the course of only three days, mind. I’ve heard countless conversations about how hot that chick was, man! while in the presence of like-aged guys. Women can be seen as objects for men, but men are off-limits unless it’s an attractive woman checking them out. People seem to confuse one guy looking at another in appreciation with one guy plotting how he’s going force himself on another. People seem to think that gay men are dick vacuums, always hunting for prey. But in reality, gay men are men who have a different sexual orientation. It sounds stupidly simple like that, but I guess some people need to hear it one more time.

After a while, they gave up on asking what I meant. At that point, I was so far from letting the truth out that it wouldn't matter if they had kept asking all night. My mind was made up; I’d keep it to myself for another day. Well, I guess that excuse isn’t any good now, because it’s out. I’ve told my big secret.

Author’s note: the title is a bit misleading, as it makes it out to be a story of a different sexuality with the ‘1/2.’ However, I admit that when I thought of it at 3am, it was too good a title to pass up.