Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest (14 page)

I got a teaching job in a small town within easy driving distance of Rochester, because I knew that if I was going to get help, I had to be able
to see a psychiatrist. For seven years, three days a week, I left school and went to Rochester for psychotherapy sessions. I paid it all out of my own pocket because I had no medical insurance. I didn’t even dare to take my legal tax deduction, for fear somebody would find out. At that time, seeing a psychiatrist automatically branded you as crazy.

I wanted desperately to change. There had been a guy in Korea everyone knew to be a homosexual; the other guys would joke about him. I didn’t want to be known as one of “them,” so I worked and worked. After lying on the psychiatrist’s couch for a whole year, all of a sudden, one day, I realized I was very angry. It scared the shit out of me, because I didn’t know the anger was there, I had buried it for so many years. I had a hell of a time learning to deal with it. That was in the days when psychiatrists wanted you to get it all out at once—just go into a rage and spit it all out. I couldn’t.

After seven years of this—and, of course, the psychiatrist was encouraging me to date again—I still hadn’t figured out I was gay. He pronounced me cured, said I was fine and I didn’t need to come back anymore. I believed him, but I noticed when we shook hands the last day, he didn’t look at me—he looked at the floor. Later I realized he knew better, but didn’t know where else to go. He was under the gun of his superiors and didn’t dare say, “Look, Henry, accept the fact that you’re homosexual.” And if he had said that, I might have freaked out.

Things started to go really bad. I’d send for pictures of gorgeous young men and then get pissed off at myself, tear them up and throw them out. I was a little over thirty years old and horny as hell.

I saw another psychiatrist once a week for four years. He was shrewd and nonjudgmental. He just let me talk and pointed things out occasionally. I spent a lot of time putting myself down, since I thought I was completely worthless because of my homosexual desires. I was convinced I was rotten, that there was nothing good about me. One day, after about a year, he zeroed in on me. He pointed out things I had said I’d done that were good, and then he insisted that I say out loud, “I’m a good person.” I felt like I was being strangled. It scared the shit out of me. I tried every trick in the book to avoid admitting there was anything good about me, but he wouldn’t let me out of it. This guy was a tough old fart. Finally I said it, and after saying it I almost started to cry, but instead I started to giggle like a little kid. I couldn’t stop giggling.

That was the turning point, when I started to get better, though I still considered myself straight. I saw him for another three years, and whenever I would get into my self-deprecating mode he would turn the screws. I couldn’t get out of it. He never told me, “Look, you’re homosexual, accept it.” I think he knew I was so paranoid about it that if he had just told
me to accept it, I would have freaked out. He let me discover for myself. I was shaving one morning, looking at myself in the mirror, and all of a sudden I realized I was seeing beauty in my arms. I was never a physical specimen, but it didn’t matter. I was beginning to see some beauty in myself.

After four years with him, I began sneaking up to the Twin Cities on Saturday nights. I would go to the Hennepin Baths—this was all before AIDS—and I’d watch the queers. I’d go in the steam room and of course they’d come in. They obviously wanted to do something, but I would ignore them and feel horrible about it. Then I heard about a different bathhouse, went there, and started getting into sex. It was very exciting, but I still had the guilt and still considered myself straight.

I started going to a bar called the Gay Nineties for about the last hour on Friday nights, just to watch the queers. But one night, a little voice in me started saying, “These are my people.” That voice kept on coming again and again, “This is where I belong, these are the people I belong with.” I was still rejecting being gay, but the voice wouldn’t stop.

When I was forty-four, on Thanksgiving weekend, I was at a gay bar in La Crosse called the Down and Under. When I saw two very macho-looking guys sitting at the bar, I thought, this bar can’t be gay, they’re not gay. When they started kissing passionately, I was shocked. After all this time, I still thought all gays were nellie queens. Then I thought, boy, if they can be gay, I can too. That was the moment I threw in the towel— that was my coming out. I saw a gorgeous guy dancing by himself in the middle of the floor, so I went out and started dancing with him. Why was I spending twenty-five dollars a week on the psychiatrist, when I could be spending it on myself, having fun? The next week I told my psychiatrist, “I’m gay, I realize now. I don’t think I need to see you anymore.” He said, “That’s fine,” we shook hands, and he wished me luck. I can never describe the weight that was lifted from my shoulders. At forty-four years old I felt I was just beginning my life.

I got ungodly promiscuous for the next four years, and thank goodness it was all before AIDS. I think when anyone first discovers his sexuality, he’s going to go crazy for a while. There were two bookstores in Rochester. Going into them probably wasn’t very wise for a public school teacher, but I wasn’t the only teacher going. We could sneak in the back doors off the alley and somehow there was never a problem. They had glory holes, and young straight or bi guys would come in wanting a blow job. They were horny and usually a little drunk and hadn’t been able to pick up a girl in a bar. Sometimes I would bring one home—gorgeous men. Those were the ones that always turned me on, more-or-less straight or straight-acting guys.

I’ve
never had a relationship and I’ve never wanted one. I suspect that I’m not capable of it, or maybe I fear it. I’ve had some wonderfully exciting sexual experiences and still do occasionally, but AIDS has scared many young guys away from even the safest sex. I like being independent, free to come and go. I just met a neat guy about my age at a picnic in Minneapolis. We had good conversation, but I could see he was also very interested in me sexually, which is not what I want. I want to be friends with guys my age, but I don’t want to get into sex with them. I prefer to have sex with a younger guy or not at all.

Coming out to myself and other gays didn’t make me instantly at ease with being gay. If anything, it made me more paranoid. I probably would have been fired from my teaching job had my gayness been discovered. There were plenty of good Christian teachers and administrators who would have seen to that. I’m still not ready to come out publicly. In this town, gays and lesbians who are open about it get hate calls and death threats. I’m fine with being out to a few good friends and supportive relatives.

My dad would make a sexual joke and then laugh lasciviously. He regarded sex as very dirty and nasty and funny. My mother regarded it as very dirty and nasty and not funny. A young neighbor girl in the little town of Money Creek had gotten pregnant and Mother said, “Well, she got
herself
in trouble.” Her eyes got big, which made me think it was really bad.

Until I was about ten years old, anytime I was walking upstairs in front of my dad, he would goose me all the way up the stairs. Apparently, this gave him some kind of thrill. When I was about ten and protested, he didn’t do it anymore. He was verbally abusive, and he played mind games with all of us. We never knew what to expect—sarcasm, insults, anger, or a putdown joke, all of which we were expected to accept with grace. Dad’s temper was one of the most intense I’ve ever known, and expressing anger was perfectly acceptable for him. For us kids, however, getting too angry meant getting punished, sometimes severely.

I have suspected that my dad may have been a closet homosexual, given his extreme frustration with life. He didn’t have the access to therapy I had, so I suppose he dealt with it in the only way he could. He hated homosexuals. As Shakespeare said, “He doth protest too much.” But he also seemed to hate women. When television came out and we’d see entertainment shows with a woman in skimpy clothing, you’d think a heterosexual man would have enjoyed it. But Dad would say, “God, she thinks she’s smart.” He always put women down, treated my mother like dirt under his feet. Outside the family he was a very popular man, as abusive people often are, but inside he could be cruel.

My relationship with my mother was infinitely better, but there were things that weren’t right. She gave me too many enemas when I was little. I think she got some jollies from that. Kids were given enemas a lot then—people thought it did them some good when they were sick—but I got enemas when I know I didn’t need them.

Church played a great role in formulating my guilt feelings, because in those days the church controlled people by making them feel scared and guilty. And of course it still does, especially the religious right. I was quite religious until I came out of the closet and started reading the gay underground news, such as
The Advocate.
Since I’ve learned how the church has discriminated against gays and many other groups in the name of Christianity, I’ve become very hostile toward the Christian religion.

When I was about thirteen, going to a country school, I discovered masturbation. There were three of us boys in the eighth grade—that was the entire grade. One day, one of these boys and I were walking home and a little white terrier dog was following us. We took the dog to a secluded spot down by a little stream and my friend beat it off. Within the next few days, I tried it myself. That’s when I became aware of sexuality.

I was a real good friend of one of the other boys in my grade. He kept asking me to stay overnight at his place. Naturally, we would have slept together. I never went, because I was sexually attracted to him and was afraid that once we got to bed I would grab his cock and start playing with it, and that would be unacceptable. I had this fear instilled in me about the awfulness of any kind of sex.

I was always interested in wildlife and conservation, so in 4-H I built wildlife shelters to place along the edges of our fields, and another one which I demonstrated at the county fair. If I were to get a blue ribbon there, I would go on to the state fair. I knew all the boys had to stay in a dormitory at the state fair, and I was afraid of what I might do, or what one of them might want to do with me, so I purposely did a poor job at the county fair.

My worst fear in high school in Winona was having to take phy. ed. and be in the locker room with the other boys. I suppose I was afraid I’d get a hard-on, even though other boys did frequently, much to my fascination. But more than that, I think it was the competition—playing football and basketball. I didn’t know how. We didn’t play those games on the farm. During basketball season, the teacher would come in, take roll, toss out the basketball, and go have coffee for the rest of the hour. I was glad when he left us on our own, so we farm kids could go over to a corner and talk and stay out of the game.

There was something horrifying about phy. ed. and I hated it. When we played basketball, we had to dribble down and make lay-up shots. That was the most foreign thing in the world to me. The city kids had no mercy and would chew us farm boys out royally when we did something wrong. Very often, I would get sick and stay home on the day I had phy. ed., especially if we were going to be wrestling, which I hated most of all. I don’t think there was ever a day I was sick that wasn’t a phy. ed. day.

Joining choir in my sophomore year got me out of phy. ed. one day a week. I loved music anyway. I loved singing, and choral music is still one of my favorite forms. I also wanted to learn to play piano, and bugged may parents until they finally let me take lessons. For some reason, my dad hated music and didn’t want one of his sons being a musician, even though many of his relatives were. Joining choir was probably what caused me to end up majoring in music in college, because I discovered the beauty of great music that I might not have otherwise.

When I was about a junior in high school, I tried to screw a cow. I had gotten up on a bushel basket, ready for action, when I heard my dad and the farm owner coming to the barn door. So I never consummated my act of love with the cow and I never tried it again. Another time I was going to fuck a sheep, but the sheep was so dirty it wasn’t possible. I tried to have a calf suck my cock once, but one lick ended that. The calf’s tongue was so rough, it was extremely painful.

I never heard the word “homosexual” until my senior year in high school, when I was trying to put the make on a friend of mine. To keep me away he said something like, “There are three kinds of homos—homo sapiens,” and homo something else I can’t remember, “and homosexuals.” That’s the first time I knew there was a word that described my sexual feelings. The words gay, faggot, and queer weren’t passed around like they are now. Some guys I knew were effeminate queens, but I didn’t think of them as having sex with other guys. I didn’t like them, felt embarrassed in their presence, and avoided them. I’m still embarrassed to be seen in public with guys like that.

During my senior year, I drove my dad’s car to school and gave a ride to a neighbor boy who was in the ninth grade, a real cutie. Sometimes in the wintertime, when it got dark early, we would sit and talk at the place where I let him off. One time I got him to sit on my lap and I beat him off, but I felt so guilty about it I kept him at arm’s length after that. I know he wasn’t gay, but I’m sure we could have had some exciting times had it not been for my guilt.

I put myself through college by playing in a dance band. There was a
high school kid who was in the band also, and within the next two years he and I got to be pretty good friends. Oftentimes when we got back from a dance job I gave him a ride home. We’d sit out in front of his house and talk about sex, if I could get him on the subject. Sometimes I jacked him off and sometimes he did it for me, but we never took our penises out of our pants. It was very erotic. He was straight, as far as I know.

During my years in college, I began to get more and more bothered by my homosexual feelings. I’d assumed this was a natural phase boys go through—maybe I’d read it somewhere—and that by the age of eighteen it would change. I tried to do some dating and to force myself to have fantasies about girls when I masturbated, but it didn’t work. By the time I was a senior in college I was becoming a nervous wreck about all this, so I was staying away from sex, for the most part. Just after I graduated from college, I went to Rochester to see that first psychiatrist, the one who told me to do some dating.