After faring well academically in elementary school, I decided to ship myself off to an “International Baccalaureate” public middle school program to further my academic pursuits. I was, admittedly, a bit of an overachiever. This accelerated program, almost entirely white, was housed in a neighborhood school where 99% of the students were Black. My mother, who taught science at a nearby public elementary school, dropped me off on her way to work. It took about 30 minutes to drive from our home in the wealthy, predominately white suburbs of South Charlotte to my new school, tucked away in a working class neighborhood just a few minutes from I-77. Strip clubs and long-abandoned drive-in movie theatres peppered our daily commute.

I was a happy-go-lucky little boy, unabashedly feminine in the way that young boys can be when masculinity isn’t yet quite so hegemonic. I would run and jump and skip on my way to class, unaware that this was no longer appropriate for boys in middle school. After a few days of 7^th grade, a few of guys came over, laughing, and asked me if I could dance for them again. They were referencing my playful way of skipping and whistling that had become habit. Sheltered in the suburbs, I had no way to comprehend my new environment, clouded by racial tension and a kind of masculinity regimen. Middle school was bad enough as it was; the stark segregation between the school’s programs didn’t help matters.

Not too long after the dancing debacle, I was crouching down at my locker, fiddling with my books and deciding whether or not I needed my protractor, when a class began to file out of the room to my immediate right. As they began to walk past me, I heard some of the guys in the group laughing. I didn’t think anything of it; I had already gotten used to kids laughing at me – which, in middle school, is what you assume anyone is doing when they laugh with your back turned to them. Without warning, one of the guys kicked me square in the back, knocking the wind out of me and slamming my forehead against the metal locker. Shocked, I looked up as the guys were walking away laughing, mumbling something about “Yea, he’s a total fag.” Out of what was I’m sure a combination of both kindness and pity, one of the girls walking behind them stopped to let me know I had something on my back. It was a yellow post-it with “Kick me if you think I’m gay” scribbled on it in black felt-tip ink.

At this time in my young life, I was a confused conservative child who argued with his seventh grade English teacher about abortion – a product of my father’s penchant for Rush Limbaugh. I didn’t actually understand any of the arguments, but I was familiar with the talking points. Similarly, I had heard many people use the word “gay” to describe people, but I had no way to comprehend what that meant. From what I had heard on the radio, it seemed that being “gay” had something to do with having sex with animals, pedophilia, and generally being morally bankrupt. It came as something of a surprise then, when I found a sticker attached to my back that labeled me as such.

I was quite sure that I wasn’t interested in sex with animals or children. I did, however, feel a peculiar attraction to other boys. When I was 12, my mother stumbled across my collection of steamy man-on-man porn pictures that I had spent hours downloading and printing out on our home computer while my parents were out. I kept them stashed in the lining under my cat’s pink bed. Needless to say, such a thing is hot when you’re alone in your bunk bed, but decidedly not when you see it dangling between your mother’s fingertips. The photos were, shall we say, well worn. My personal favorite was a picture of a hot three-way going on in front of a fireplace. All the men were dripping wet with sweat as they fucked each other silly. Now, clutched in my mother’s hands, even the sexiest picture looked dirty and shameful.

My exploration of the Internet was not curbed by her unwelcome discovery. Since I had first happened upon them while cruising around Prodigy (one of the first dial-up Internet providers in the US), I had been fascinated by “M4M” (men for men) chatrooms. I was so fascinated, in fact, that I had logged countless hours reading the endless chit-chat that scrolled down the computer monitor. When two of my friends came over to spend the night, I decided to divulge to them my experiences with these strange cyber-rooms filled with mysterious men. Why I thought it prudent to share with them my curiosity, I’m not sure. As if discovering my porn collection wasn’t enough for the mother of a 12-year old to try to wrap her head around, dear old mom overheard our entire late-night conversation. When she approached me a few days later to talk about it, I managed to negotiate my way out unscathed by telling her that we should simply cancel the service. Out of sight, out of mind, I hoped. Confronted with the damning nature of my actions, I was just as freaked out as she was... (continue reading)