The Gay Thing

I'd like to recount for you the many occasions when people have apparently felt they could enlighten me as to my unconscious homosexuality. This has happened so often that I have thought it worthy of serious consideration. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not gay (I'm just a little bit "poofy"). I don't fit many of the stereotypical "gay" characteristics: e.g. I don't like Kylie Minogue, I have questionable personal hygiene and I'm a shithouse dancer. Oh yeah, and I've never kissed or had sex with a guy and I'm quite partial to pants-less females (of course, these considerations are secondary).

I've been surprised on a number of occasions, at how I've inadvertently been drawn into gay environments. Once, during a family get-together in Brisbane (actually the funeral of my grandmother), I, along with a group of cousins decided to find a bar to have a drink and shoot some pool. We settled on the bar called the Sportsman Hotel, completely unaware that it was, in fact, a gay bar. Not that I was completely oblivious to some same-sex "hand holding", I just didn't think anything of it (gay people are everywhere, apparently). I should have twigged after a couple of guys in the toilets invited me to a party where the theme was "blue hard-yakka shirts", like the one I just happened to be sporting. A compliment's a compliment, and gay boys sure know how to spin my dials, although I had to decline, returning to my table giddy as a school girl. I started to get suspicious, but it wasn't until, whilst attempting to find the source of someone singing "The Power of Love", I stumbled upon an adjoining room set up for "Pricilla, Queen of Desert" style karaoke. Another time I went to see a friend performing her poetry during a female poets reading at a gay bar called Salon Kitty. I swear there was some sort of conspiracy with the toilets, which were positioned just so that the seats wouldn't stay up, so that one hand was required to hold the seat up whilst peeing.

I don't mind that people think that I'm gay, in fact I've incorporated into my self identity, (although, some "hardcore" gays might feel that my "little bit poofy" doesn't qualify me for the positive entitlements of the label). I must admit that I get a bit of kick out of winding people up, especially my mother, who takes a diplomatic approach to my "may be gay" situation, i.e. "I'd be supportive of you, but it's a hard life..." What, harder than being sexually repressed and marrying a someone you have no sexual interest in?

Another story, (on how I lost my virginity) - I once spent a summer fruit picking with a friend, Dan. We lived together in a caravan, which my parents had kindly lent us, so that we could more easily commute to the orchard. It was during this summer (the tail end of that seemingly endless summer that follows the finish of year 12) that I decided to give up my virginity to my then girlfriend. And so it was that many a condom wrapper was lost to the countless nooks and crannies that are found in a pop-up caravan. My 18th birthday party signalled the end of our adventures. I'd struck a deal with my parents, who were to tow the caravan back, allowing me to commandeer the family home for my party, whilst they spent the night in the country. I shudder to imagine the sight as they packed up the caravan and discovered the evidence of my conquests.

Meanwhile, at the party, my friends and I had whiled away the night, and were well into the morning (occupied, as we were, by the Jehovah's Witness' we'd cornered on the front porch for a good "questioning") when my parents returned. Dan was the first to encounter them, and my mother sinisterly whispered to him "We found the French letters..." Dan managed to circumvent them to warn me of the impending doom, before making off. Resigned to the situation, I went to seek out my parents and face the music. My mother demanded an explanation so I told her of the recent progressions in my relationship with my then girlfriend. Her anger was immediately replaced with relief when she realised that her "obvious" conclusion, that I'd been bonking Dan, was proved false.