Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest (17 page)

We did this for two or three years. We were performing oral sex on one another, and anal sex a year or two later. Then it began to fade, because they were getting to the age where that kind of behavior was not acceptable for them. I always felt fine about it and enjoyed it. I knew it was enjoyable for them, but I knew that I enjoyed it a lot more than they did. When it finally ended, it was real hard for me and I didn’t quite know how to deal with it. I felt like they were rejecting me as a friend.

“My brother and I got along real well as young children, but we started drifting apart.”
Left
, Jim Cross and his brother, about 1940. Courtesy of Jim Cross.

I grew up in a pretty religious household, Missouri Synod Lutheran, one of the strictest of the Lutheran denominations. There was no grey— it was all black or white. I went to parochial school in seventh and eighth grade, took catechism, and was confirmed. By this time I knew where my sexuality was headed, but I was still uncertain. At the parochial school I had a teacher who was a dirty old man. He was always coming around, touchy-feely. One day during class he was talking about a particular Bible lesson and he brought this word up, homosexual, and my ears perked up— that’s a word I don’t think I’ve heard. At home that night I looked it up in the dictionary, and then I started going to the school library and finding things with that word in them. I was very curious and learned quite a bit about it just by reading.

Jim Cross as a junior high student: “By this time I knew where my sexuality was headed, but I was still uncertain.” Courtesy of Jim Cross.

My freshman year of high school, I saw this guy and I knew that he was watching me too. Tom was a year ahead of me. I worked on the school newspaper, and he was one of the editors. At first, the attraction was more like questioning—he was wondering where I was at, I was wondering where he was at—until we had spent enough time together and finally realized where we were both at. Then things began to happen. We got to know each other and spent more time together, and one thing led to another. Tom was old enough to drive and had a car. We were sexually active during my sophomore and junior years in high school.

In his early teens, Jim Cross plays the cigarette girl for his parents’ friends and neighbors at their Saturday-night card club, about 1952. Courtesy of Jim Cross.

Tom and I worked together on the school paper for three years, spent a lot of time together, and had a lot of fun. We would go to ballgames and dances with a group of friends, guys and girls, and when the evening was ready to wind down, Tom would give me a ride home. We would sometimes park on one of the roads and sit and talk. It felt real good having someone that I was that close to, but it wasn’t a real heavy thing. We never talked relationship talk. We wouldn’t have known what that was all about, anyway.

I dated in high school, but dating to me was just a fun time. I didn’t harbor any great thoughts of getting married and having kids and living happily ever after. My parents would have liked that to happen, but they didn’t ever put a lot of pressure on me. There were times when they would say, “Why don’t you date her? She’s really nice and you’re so cute together.” But I never went out with high school sweethearts with the idea of going to bed with them. I always thought it was gross. After a while, I think my folks realized that I probably wasn’t ever going to seriously date a woman and get married and settle down. Perhaps that’s one of the advantages of having an older brother—he kind of took care of that.

The jocks—the
real macho guys, the big brutes—gave me the hardest times in high school. I was pretty small, rather petite, and they would get on my case about being a real femme. They used to call me “Nellie,” and I’m not sure they knew fully what it meant. Once in a while I would hear “fag” or “homo.” It used to make me really angry, but I knew that I couldn’t do a whole lot about it. There were three or four of them, twice as big as I was, so I wasn’t about to pick a fight.

My high school years were the toughest, because I was realizing what was going on with me. It was a small school and everybody knew everybody, so you couldn’t get lost; you were always out there, for whatever that was worth. Toward the end of my junior year, my folks realized that I was having some difficulties in school and asked me what was wrong. I told them that I was being harassed by a bunch of the jocks. They talked to the school principal and things kind of leveled off in my senior year, so it wasn’t as bad. But I had a lot of fun in spite of all that. I had some really good friends.

After high school, I was in the Army Medical Corps for three years. I was sexually active the whole time I was in service, but I really came out after I got out of service in 1960. I lived in California for two-and-a-half years and spent a lot of time going out and partying. Then I moved back to the Midwest, where I’ve lived since.

My family is pretty comfortable with my sexuality and how that weaves into the family circle. I’ve been in a relationship for close to fifteen years, and my family is very supportive of it. They’re also very fond of George. He’s like a member of the family, and it’s been that way for a long time. I’ve been in other relationships where it was very similar. They weren’t as long-lasting as this relationship has been, but they were always accepted.

Growing up close to nature, close to all those things that you see come to life, gives you a completely different perspective on how you deal with other people as well as yourself. Seeing life becoming life, respecting that, watching that happen, watching things grow—I kind of did the same thing with myself. It was totally uncluttered. I didn’t have to deal with a lot of people. I had lots of time to think my own thoughts and to process those thoughts. Doing that made me much more respectful of others and of everything in the universe.

I loved being in the country, but sometimes I would get lonely and would crave seeing other people. It was nice to have company or to go to the neighbors’ and visit with them once in a while. And I never really liked the farmwork part of the farm. I saw my mother and father work very hard
for many years and I made up my mind that I didn’t want to work that hard.

But the farm is where my foundation was laid, and it’s taken me a few years to realize how strong that foundation is. Just the fact that I was able to grow up in a healthy home taught me a lot about how to deal with everyday things. I feel like I can relate to all kinds of people, and on all different levels. Being aware of and sympathetic to people who aren’t as privileged, caring for your fellow humans—we used to hear those things a lot from my folks. And just being proud of what one has accomplished or is still accomplishing.

I’ve never regretted any of the things I’ve done, and I’ve done lots of crazy things, probably just because I
am
gay. I’m sure I wouldn’t have done them otherwise. I’m real satisfied with where I’m at at this point in my life, what level I’m at with my own people and with everybody. I don’t feel real uncomfortable, no matter where I am anymore. I won’t allow that. I can hold my own as a human being, and should have the same rights as anybody else. I’ll do what I have to do to get those rights.

Dennis grew up on a 160-acre farm in southwestern Iowa, Montgomery County, between Elliott and Red Oak. Born in 1940\ he has an older brother and a younger sister. A high school teacher
;
Dennis has lived in the Madison, Wisconsin, area since 1966: He lives on a small piece of land near Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, gardens extensively.

I FEEL VERY angry and bitter toward society for robbing me of much of my life. I spent so many years denying and subordinating and hiding the fact that I was gay. A lot of unhappiness and some severe depression were the result of that. Until I came out, I didn’t realize what I had been doing. I can see now that I have been gay all my life, but I didn’t always know it, or at least I didn’t admit it. There wasn’t the option to be myself.

I was married in 1963 and divorced in 1970. I have no regrets about the divorce, but I am angry that I felt forced to marry. There wasn’t any alternative, there weren’t any other role models. It wasn’t fair to my wife either. I loved her, but by the end of our marriage I was having sex with her because I had to, not because I wanted to. The kids were four and five years old, so the divorce was difficult and painful. In those days women always got custody, so I didn’t even fight it. But they were too much for her, so she was very happy for me to take them whenever I would, and I was very happy to take them. Basically, I built my life around the kids—I took them at least twice during the week, every weekend, and all summer.

After the divorce I just drowned myself in work. I was a workaholic, still am, and moving out in the country gave me plenty to do, because this place takes a lot of work. I was teaching full-time and spending basically full-time with the kids as well, so I didn’t have much time to think about other things. At least that’s how I kept myself from thinking. I didn’t come out to myself until 1985. Oh, Christ, if I had known, I could have had those fifteen years that I isolated myself. I had several affairs with women, but it didn’t occur to me that I could have affairs with men.

Seeing
Consenting Adult
on TV is what really got me to come out. This kid told his mom that he was gay and she kind of accepted it, after a while anyway.
¹
This was in early 1985, a really rough time in my life. My
friends were moving away and my kids were graduating from high school. I had devoted the last fifteen years to raising those kids, and they were leaving, so I was getting panicky about what was going to happen.

I called the gay phone line in Madison to get a psychiatrist, because I thought I was sick. I decided to try this because I was going to commit suicide anyway. I had it all figured out, so it wouldn’t hurt to try. I got ahold of Tony, to whom I shall be grateful for the rest of my life. He spent about forty-five minutes talking with me, and suddenly I didn’t think being gay was such a sick thing anymore.

I had been conditioned to believe that the things homosexuals did were very sinful, sick, and dirty. I had gone to an X-rated bookstore a couple of times to look at erotic films. When I saw people standing around in the dark, waiting for other people, I put them in the category of perverts. I thought that was what it meant to be gay, and that was not me, so I concluded that I wasn’t gay. I didn’t know about the gay community. I knew there were gay people in Madison, but I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t know that it was okay, that a normal person could be gay.

I went to the Gay Center in Madison and found out that there were gay bars in town, that it was all right to go to them, and that there were different activities available. These people weren’t child molesters and perverts. Everything happened so fast once I made the first step. I started going to a coming-out support group, and one night I went to a meeting of gay men over the age of thirty. It was a potluck, so I made something real special, and I was about a block from the place when I said to myself, “Dennis, what in the hell are you doing? Go home where you belong.” But I went and, as it turned out, they were normal people. This was all so earth-shaking. You just can’t believe what happened to me inside. When I came out and that weight got lifted off my shoulders, Jesus Christ, I was flying ten miles high for so long. I haven’t thought about suicide since.