Flashback, '93

I came out when I was still in high school, in the early 90s. I took my boyfriend to the senior prom. (He was a 24 year-old senior at the local Ivy League University...It seemed hot at the time but looking back, it's just totally creepy). At the time I was out and proud. I attended local Act Up rallies. I joined a Queer Youth group. I wore those rainbow colored freedom rings around my neck when they first came out, for fuck's sake, back when you could buy them at Urban Outfitters. I went to more AIDS rallies than I could ever count. So there were never any issues for me at that age. I think maybe the gay shame stuff started when I got to college. It was a super liberal artsy place and seemed perfect for me, but everyone was SO liberal and political and in your face about gay issues that I got kind of turned off. Before, I'd been this sort of lone teenage warrior fighting the good fight on my own. But suddenly it felt like these causes didn't need me. These people were smarter than me, could speak better than me and were the biggest queens I'd ever met. Most gay guys I'd known up until that point had been sort of hippies or grungy guys with long hair, like me. Stoners and slackers with hearts of gold. This new group of political warriors were from the rave scene, did scary designer drugs and had highlights. I withdrew into myself and began an affair with my suite mate, a closeted jock from the school's almost non-existent basketball team. For some reason, having closeted sex with this male archetype seemed to be a an even bigger political statement than the rallies I'd used to attend. It was my silent "fuck you" to the uber gays who had made me feel like a dumb kid, because now I was boning the kind of guy they lusted after but thought they could never have. I used sex to make me feel better about not being smart enough for them. The affair ended badly, with the jock trying to kill me one night after we had broken up. I'd picked up a cute guy from the health food store on campus and was rolling around naked in bed with him when the jock busted in and punched three holes in the wall. He threw the health food guy off me, who then grabbed his clothes and fled. I ran into the living room to call campus security but the jock ripped the phone out of the wall. I still had the receiver in my hand so I clocked him in the face with it, knocking out two of his teeth. It gave me enough time to run out of there.
As fucked up as that was, I was secretly happy it had happened. It showed that the jock really loved me, and was man enough to prove it. None of those guys with highlights would ever tear down a door to get at me in a jealous rage. It was raw, male emotion at its strongest and scariest, and I was hooked from that point on. Watching gay rallies, which used to hold so much power for me, now meant nothing. I suddenly understood that the real fight was going on behind closed doors.