Does a gay little walk
March 02, 2017
The Epidemic of
Gay LonelinessBy Michael Hobbes
I
“I used to get so delighted when the meth was all gone.”
This is my ally Jeremy.
“When you acquire it,” he says, “you have to keep using it. When it’s gone, it’s like, ‘Oh good, I can go back to my life now.’ I would continue up all weekend and go to these sex parties and then sense like shit until Wednesday. About two years ago I switched to cocaine because I could work the next day.”
Jeremy is telling me this from a hospital bed, six stories above Seattle. He won’t tell me the exact circumstances of the overdose, only that a stranger called an ambulance and he woke up here.
Jeremy is not the companion I was expecting to have this conversation with. Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea he used anything heavier than martinis. He is trim, intelligent, gluten-free, the caring of guy who wears a function shirt no matter what day of the week it is. The first time we met, three years ago, he asked me if I knew a good place to do CrossFit. Today, when I ask him how the hospital’s been so far, the first thing he says is that there’s no Wi-
by Fred Penzel, PhD
This article was initially published in the Winter 2007 edition of the OCD Newsletter.
OCD, as we know, is largely about experiencing harsh and unrelenting disbelief. It can lead to you to mistrust even the most basic things about yourself – even your sexual orientation. A 1998 analyze published in the Journal of Sex Research found that among a community of 171 college students, 84% reported the occurrence of sexual intrusive thoughts (Byers, et al. 1998). In arrange to have doubts about one’s sexual identity, a sufferer need not ever have had a homo- or heterosexual experience, or any type of sexual experience at all. I have observed this symptom in young children, adolescents, and adults as skillfully. Interestingly Swedo, et al., 1989, set up that approximately 4% of children with OCD experience obsessions concerned with forbidden aggressive or perverse sexual thoughts.
Although doubts about one’s possess sexual identity might seem pretty straightforward as a symptom, there are actually a number of variations. The most obvious form is where a sufferer experiences the mind that they might be of a different sexual orientation than they formerly believed. If the su
Have you ever read The Caucasian Chalk Circle? Don’t. It’s really boring. A leaden, joyless, ferociously unsubtle play about communism that I was forced to peruse when I was 15. It’s low on laughs, to utter the least. But it was a part of my drama class, and I enjoyed acting, so I tried to acquire on board with it. I read it in advance. And, as the class started, I asked the teacher if I could play one of the farmers in it.
There was a pause. I could notice an idea forming in her mind. Here – she mind – here’s a teachable moment. She gathered the entire class into a circle, with me and her at its centre. And she demonstrated to the room why I could never play a farmer.
Farmers, she explained, walk in a certain way: shoulders forward, slouching posture, heavy stride (looking back, I wonder if she’d only ever seen farmers with club feet). Next, she did my amble . Pelvis out, shoulders back, hips swishing from side to side. I believe she even threw in a limp wrist for good measure. Sadly, she concluded, the way I walked was too “poetic”, and I’d never make a convincing farmer. We all knew she meant: I have a gay walk.
Aside from the glaring question that this
The Gay Art Of Walking Fast
Out of the motion blur, something appears. Someone appears. The first thing I notice is the bag slung across his shoulder: a baby bag, slippery and silvery, glistening under a sudden sunburst. Then his oversized fleece and joggers: a short-lived too crisp, a minute too tailored. Less enjoy he had rolled out of bed in sweats and more like he was cosplaying the plan of someone rolling out of bed in sweats. Then his terrifying gait: large, brazen strides led from the hip. He thunders down the sidewalk, matching my pace. I stare at him, awed. He does not notice me at all. We are walking—cantering—gay stereotypes.
For the better part of an hour, we march together. We are two horses escaping the glue factory. We are shivering rats let loose into the bounty and brutality of existence. Side by side, neck and neck, we face our opposition as one. A raucous throng streams from a bus, obstructing our passage. No matter: with practised grace, he parts the crowd like the Red Sea. I tailgate behind him and saunter through without lifting an elbow. Could it all be this easy?
He slows down; I slow down. I speed up, edging past him; he rises to the occasion. We are bound f