I'm not a Gay

I am not a gay.

I just happen not to be. In fact, I’m heterosexual if you need to define me via a commonly-used term. I have a tendency to be sexually attracted to females. That’s just me. If I get a bit ‘interested’ in the trouser-area, it’s because I’ve noticed some smooth-bodied, swollen-hipped lady rather than Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit. It’s just the way I was built.

I’ve tried to remember when I first discovered I liked girls. But I can’t. I’ve just always known. I can recall ‘coming out’ to my parents when I was still quite young. I told them that I liked girls. Neither seemed to give a shit. It wasn’t a particularly memorable day.

I suppose an outsider may have noticed the signs very early on in my life. I tended to play with Meccano and Action Man figures, or fight with local lads in puddles and muddy patches of grass, before going on to kiss one of the screaming harpies stood at the edge of the green baying for blood. As I got a little older, I covered my walls with pictures of Winona Ryder and Dannii Minogue during her Home and Away years. My father wasn’t concerned in the slightest and even helped me build a go-kart without once mentioning my sexual preference. Thanks dad.

In my early teens, when my brain had developed itself enough for me to consciously start questioning my world, I used to wonder if my sensual response to females was in some way ‘learned’ behaviour. I distinctly remember Biology class in school, a class which sometimes doubled-up as ‘sex education’. In much the same way as calculators produce poetry, these lessons taught me of the ‘wonders’ of sexuality when I was at an age that my hungry little body was caught in the curious loop of priapism. We’d get lengthy lectures about the individual roles of men & women in the sexual process, including bizarre x-ray footage of orgasm, which, according to our state-appointed mentor, existed solely for the purposes of reproduction. I used to think that maybe, just maybe these classes had influenced me in some way. To be honest, I used to wonder if modern culture in general was to blame – there is so much straight pornography just a click away, and many of the mainstream soap operas have heterosexual storylines. It's unavoidable.

But as I got older, I just accepted it. I stopped thinking that it could possibly be something I’d brought on myself. I was lucky enough to be close to a large heterosexual group most of the time, and being straight was never an issue to any of my gay friends. In fact, I don’t think that any of the homosexuals I know have ever mentioned my sexuality as a negative thing. Writing this now, I distinctly remember one of my gay friends persuading me to approach this girl I’d fancied for a while. They didn’t judge my wanton behaviour and it was never mentioned again after I’d copped off with her in the local bus-stop after getting her pissed on Babycham. I remember going back to the pub and worrying that my sticky fingers, light whiff of Chanel number 5 and gormless grin would have them taking the piss.
They didn’t bat an eyelid. I’ll always be grateful for that.

Entering adulthood offered-up the biggest difficulties I suppose. By now, I was fully immersed in my sexuality, and remember an incident when I was studying at university. I was approached to work for a newly-opened gay club - to design a logo and flyer for them, ready for their opening night. Of course, I accepted. I was working for them as a graphic artist, not a heterosexual graphic artist. In my mind, my sexual orientation didn’t come into it.

How wrong I was.

Things started to take a turn for the worse when, after 30 minutes of discussion relating to the project, the owner of the club left the table to go print the paperwork. I was left alone with a locally-renowned drag artist who I’d twigged had been looking ‘suspiciously’ at me during the majority of the meeting. I should mention at this point that throughout my university years I used to dress colourfully and tastefully, was known to dance well, spoke with an extremely open-mind and always took time over my appearance. In other words, I was displaying many characteristics of the gay man. Within five seconds of the club’s owner leaving the room, the drag artist eyeballed me with a sideways glance and asked... “are you gay?”

I was mortified. I remember sitting there feuding with myself to give an honest response. Do I answer in the affirmative and run the risk of being discovered? What if I’m invited to the opening night and don’t give license for someone to cop a feel? Or, flipside, do I just tell the truth and face the prospect of losing the work and being judged as a straight man in a gay man’s environment?

Obviously, gay men are lucky. They have the example of the bible and thousands of excitable people with placards to help them with any ‘confusion’ over their predilection. I had to sit there – nonplussed - whilst this man asked me not once, but twice if I was gay. I wanted to scream at him that I really wanted to be gay, but that I didn’t know how to be anything other than a man that fancied women. I saw how much fun this chap must be having on a nightly basis, and how his world was full of colour, sex, music, dancing and generally having a good time. I cursed my straigntness and my narrow-minded ability to not speak up when someone I know states that Elton John is a ‘fucking poofter’. I sank a few inches into my seat before making my mind up as to what to do.

After two seconds, I realised that there was zero chance of me getting a kicking or a barrage of hetero-phobic slurs if I simply answered with my heart. I said ‘no’, signed the papers and was on my way within 25 minutes. Maybe it was 30. All I know is that it was after having several free drinks and a good laugh. And being offered free entry to the club any time I wanted. It was a narrow escape.

But as a straight man, the hardest times come when I lie in bed at night thinking. When I realise that I am part of a sexual subset that will always make me an outsider to the (generalised, of course) aspects of the gay man. The rather unprejudiced taste in music. The ability to leave the house dressed in any way they fancy and still look great. The uncomplicated sexual freedom that can only come from two people with the male penchant for promiscuity. The ability to truly understand the nature of love without the social expectations of monogamy, making babies and gender definition. The character built from having to deal with a society that still has pockets of belief that it’s a lifestyle choice...

I’ll never know these things.

I’m a straight man. It’s just the way I am.

Dee.