My Gay Awakening

Growing up in the '90s, I didn't get much exposure to gay life or culture. My first introduction to the word 'gay' was in elementary school, when I was bullied for being gay. At the time, I didn't know that I was, in fact, gay; as far as I was concerned, I was just me. It wasn't my fault that I had a high voice, even for a pre-pubescent boy; my schoolmates knew nothing of the recreational crossdressing I did with my family. I was bullied for wearing shirts from the GAP - "You know what GAP stands for, right? Gay and Proud - you're saying you're gay and proud." It bothered me that I was being teased for something that wasn't at all relevant to my life or who I was as a person; bully me for being weird, sure, but could it be that all of the bullies were right? Was I gay? The first conversation I had with my mom about gay guys was when she told me that she worked with one at Younker's and that he told her that a good gay guy always douched his ass before sex; it didn't even occur to me to question why. Honestly, I didn't give being gay much of a thought.

I was sexualized at a young age; my mom pretty much let me watch whatever I wanted, my dad was the same way. I was watching horror movies from the time I turned six; any fan of horror movies knows how sexual they can be. Despite my early introduction to sex, I remained ignorant about the act itself; I thought the man just got on top of the woman - naked, obviously - and rocked back and forth. I had no idea about penetration or that orgasms existed, much less how good they could feel. Sex wasn't something that interested me enough to even give it much thought - those were the days before the internet was a mainstay in day to day life.

As a kid, I always thought it was weird how my body reacted around other boys. When my cousin Mikey and I would wrestle, my penis would get hard; I had an obsession with penises - I wanted to see them and touch them, but I didn't know why or what I was supposed to do with them. I also was incapable of understanding the intense feelings I had for certain men; I once had a dream that I was saved by Dr. Samuel Loomis - played by Donald Pleasance - from the Halloween movies; after that I felt a warm, glow in my chest whenever I thought of him. When it came to the men that I encountered in real life, I just felt an extreme attachment to certain men, wanting to be close to them. It didn't matter to me if the guy was related to me or significantly older than I was - if I felt drawn to a man, I felt drawn to him, no questions asked. Subsequent men who gave me warm squishy feelings included Christian (Ewan McGregor) from Moulin Rouge! and, oddly enough, Isaac (John Franklin) from Children of the Corn.

I was an incredibly hyper child. My mom often referred to me as 'running around like' my 'pants were on fire.' I turned four in October of 1994; I should have started school the following year, but because I was so energetic and refused to sit down and color or follow instructions, my mom made the decision to give me another year to grow out of it. I started kindergarten in the fall of 1996; this meant that I was roughly a year older than the other kids in my class - at least chronologically. I was often in trouble in grade school - at one point, one of my teachers suggested to my mother than I had ADHD; the teacher recommended that I get put on Ritalin, but my mom refused to drug me. I grew out of it by sixth grade, as if overnight. I no longer got in trouble for being loud and obnoxious in class, but started getting good grades and becoming the favorite of my teachers - I was polite, always turned in my work, and caused no problems.

My cousin Anthony - through marriage - was a year younger than I was; I vividly remember when he went through puberty. He introduced me to masturbation; I remember being fascinated by how much bigger his post-puberty penis was compared to mine, not to mention the hair. It did upset me a little that I - a year older - wasn't the trailblazer for the four of us boys who were born in 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1994 - being the de facto leader of the group wasn't enought for me. It wasn't until mid-way through my seventh grade year - 2003 that I realized that maybe something was different about me.

By then I was so used to being called gay that it really didn't even phase me anymore. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't gay - I thought women were beautiful. I started watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on FX that year. Buffy was a show that I'd been aware of when I was younger; I'd watch bits of it when it was live on TV, but I didn't have the attention span to watch an entire forty-one-minute episode, let alone an entire season of twenty-two episodes. Still, I asked for the Buffy comics that I saw at the stores. I didn't realize it at the time, but the reruns I was watching were about halfway through the second season, which, in my opinion, is when the show started to find its footing and get very good. I watched in awe as Buffy lost her virginity to her vampire with a soul boyfriend, Angel, only to have his soul ripped way, returning him to the evil Angelus. I was shocked when Buffy's great love became her greatest enemy - and at such a vulnerable time. All I knew was that I was engrossed in the story and that I was desperate to find out what would happen next.

I was aware that Buffy had ended its run the previous spring; when I watched the explosive two-part season finale "Becoming" I thought that it was the series finale. As Buffy battled Angelus before the statue of the demon Acathla, I was genuinely on the edge of my seat. I cried out in surprise and delight when - just before Buffy beheaded Angelus with a sword - his soul was returned to him. Willow's spell had worked! As Buffy slowly realized that Angel was back - that it wasn't a ruse - I was flooded with excitement; I cried along with her. When I saw that the portal to Hell that was housed in Acathla had opened despite Buffy's best efforts, I flew off of the couch to kneel in nervous anticapation in front of the TV. What was going to happen next? Was Buffy going to allow her love for Angel to overshadow her duty as the Slayer? Was that how the show ended - with Buffy choosing Angel over the rest of the world? I was gutted - sobbing - when Buffy stabbed Angel through the chest with her sword, at the pain and surprise in Angel's eyes before he was sucked into the Hell dimenion, closing the portal. I jumped onto the computer and looked online, relief flooding over me when I learned that that had been the finale of season two; there were five more seasons. There was a chance that Angel could come back and be with Buffy!

For the rest of that day, I lay on the couch, reliving those powerful moments over and over in my head. Why did I care so much? It was only a TV show, after all. The loss of Angel - however fictitious - hurt me deeply; I could feel Buffy's pain. What I didn't understand was why? Why did I specifically relate to Buffy so much in that situation? It probably took longer than it should have, but by the end of that night I realized two things: I was gay, and I had a crush on Angel.

David Boreanaz was an incredibly good-looking guy in his twenties and thirties - still is today. I loved his broad shoulders, brown spiky hair, deep set, smouldering brown eyes, and his smile - God, his smile made me giddy. I fantasized about having him look at me with that smile, of kissing me the way he kissed Sarah Michelle Gellar when filming those scenes for Buffy and its eventual spin-off, Angel. I hated that I had to keep it a secret, because I wanted to tell everyone about my newfound love for the sexy actor and the fictitious brooding vampire; my friends - girls - that watched the show got to talk about how hot they thought James Marsters - Spike - was; I wanted so badly to discuss my crush openly. I even had a dream that Spike and I were hanging out; I liked Spike, but I didn't like him in the way that I liked Angel. Don't even get me started on Marc Blucas as Riley; although I often masturbated to the sex scenes between Riley and Buffy, I hated the character with a passion and was so glad when he left early in the fifth season.

It wasn't until the next year, the spring of 2004 that I finally went through puberty. Over the summer of 2003, my uncle Tony had pointed out that I was started to get shadow from facial hair; to me it just looked like a blue tinge to my skin. Next came the hair - on my legs, arms, chest, armpits, and groin. I was hoping that when my voice finally dropped that it would be deep baritone, that I would stop being teased for my effeminate voice; I was disappointed when my voice remained 'gay.' While I no longer sounded exactly like a girl, I maintained a soft, Michael Jackson-esque voice that did little to dispel everyone's assumption that I was gay. To make matters even worse, my voice took a stuffy, nasally sound, very similar to Sarah Michelle Gellar's.

Had I been born ten years later than I was, I might have grown up with more exposure to gay culture and life; maybe I would have figured it out earlier, been able to avoid the feelings of disappointment and anger that I felt. I frequently asked myself if I was actually gay or if I'd just been told that I was so many times that I have begun to believe it. Obviously, I was gay; there are pictures of me as toddler wearing my mom's heels; I'm surprised I didn't perform a perfect z snap the minute I was delivered from my mother's womb. Still, it would have been nice to not be so ignorant to everything for so long; I can only imagine how the gays of the past had felt - back when being gay had been illegal, punishable by death. If I have one regret about my childhood it's that I took it so hard when I found I was gay - really beat myself up. I tried so hard to deny it, to be like everyone else; I was so ashsamed. As much as I loved highschool and think back on it often and fondly, I know that it could have been even better if I'd been strong enough and able to be honest about who I was. It would have been nice to date someone who was inexperienced as I was, to figure it all out when it was expected to be awkard and new.

I am eternally grateful to David Boreanaz for being my gay awakening; I can't think of a better first "love" than him. I'd like to think that if I'm ever fortunate enough to see him at a convention - I don't think he even really does conventions - that I will be brave enough to tell him that he was my gay awakening. Honestly, I probably would end up keeping it to myself for fear of making him uncomfortable and not seeing it as the compliment that it truly is. I am glad to read that he has been extremely vocal in his support for the LGBTQ+ community and that when told that he is someone's gay awakening, that he is glad and touched. Part of me worries that that's just a PR spin to keep himself out of trouble, but who knows? Maybe he can like women without being weirded out that men find him attractive to - imagine that. Would it be too fantastical for me to dream of meeting him and having a clandestine gay love affair with him?

Whenever I watch Buffy now I still feel those warm, glowy feelings whenever Angel is on the screen. I'm eternally grateful that my gay awakening was an attractive guy. Imagine having a crush on Steve Buscemi; he's a great actor and seems like a lovely guy but sexy is one word that could never be applied to him. I was lucky enough a few years ago to come across stills from a nude scene that David Boreanaz did in a movie - let's just say he does not disappoint... if only tween me could have had access to them.