As I waited backstage I squeezed my hands together, eyes down, desperate to not have a panic attack. What if I just collapse onstage?
I didn’t collapse. I managed to make it through the speech without being overcome by emotion, by the catharsis. I floated after, a lightness, a shock to the system. I did it. It wasn’t until I got in the car to head to the airport that I completely broke down. Sobs of relief. Letting it out.
A weight lifted from my shoulders that I once believed would live there forever. One of the most important and healing moments in my life, not all the way there yet, but getting closer.
My friend’s birthday party was in full swing, and I tried to channel the same lightness I’d felt only a few weeks back. I sat outside on one of the benches on the patio, nursing a tequila soda. I caught up with friends and acquaintances I had not seen in ages, even met some new people. I was enjoying myself. An acquaintance of mine arrived, already quite inebriated. He walked out onto the terrace. I said hello. We sometimes saw each other at the gym. His energy was different tonight, harsh. He began by insulting my personality, which okay go for it, but then it moved into another territory.
“I see what you are doing. I’m not stupid. I see what you are doing.” He stood too close. Staring down at me where I sat.
“What am I doing?” I answered flatly. More confused than anything. At his aggression, his malevolent smile.
“Oh please. It’s obvious what you’re doing. The attention.”
I was familiar with this tone, this body language—threatening but casual. Flaunting his power. But it took me a moment to process what he might be alluding to.
“Is this about me being gay?”
Spurred, somehow provoked, he sat on the bench next to me and started to lay in.
“That doesn’t exist. You aren’t gay. You are just afraid of men.” He said it ruthlessly, loud but with a smile. Gloating. Responding was useless. It was making it worse. He just kept going. People were telling him to stop, but he didn’t, and they gave up.
I stood up and crossed to the other side of the terrace, trying to remove myself from the situation. He followed, sitting next to me again, his body close.
“You’re just afraid of men. Men are predators and you’re just afraid of them.”
He spoke to me as if no opinion mattered but his own. A stroke of wisdom to bestow upon me. Wasted slurs of words vomited out of his body as my body compacted, elbows on alert.
I told him to stop harassing me, to fuck off, that he was being extremely offensive. I got up again and went inside. He pursued behind. I sat down on a small sofa, and he did, too. People danced to the Spring Breakers soundtrack, breaking it down to “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.”
Look at this
I’m a coward, too
You don’t need to hide, my friend
For I’m just like you
“I’m going to fuck you to make you realize you aren’t gay. I’m going to lick your asshole. It is going to taste like lime. You’re not gay,” he slurred. He kept describing how he was going to fuck me, touch me, lick me. How he liked to pity fuck women.
I don’t know why I didn’t demand he leave, ask for people to do more than “Yo, leave her alone.” Some of my closest friends were there, witnessing it. Power works in funny ways. He was, and still is, one of the most famous actors in the world.
I got up and walked to the bathroom. Nervous he was following me, I closed the door and locked it. I sat down on the toilet and looked out the window at the trees, the light from the terrace just barely reaching them. I wondered if anyone could see in, which reinforced a certain aloneness. I stayed on the toilet longer than I needed to, washed my hands, and then left the party.
The incident went on for so long and so many people saw and heard that the following day a friend of mine who wasn’t at the party got a text from another friend who wasn’t at the party saying, “I heard [he] was horrible to Ellen last night.”
A few days later, I was upstairs at the gym, on the treadmill. I was watching the news as I ran by myself when I heard his voice. I’m not sure how he knew I was upstairs but he came bounding up.
“People are saying I need to apologize to you, but I don’t remember anything. I’m not like that at all, I’m not prejudiced. I don’t know why that happened. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I don’t remember anything.”
I didn’t stop running. Or slow down.
“You clearly have a problem with gay people, you were saying horrific things to me. And not that I care about the consequences you would face, but you’re just lucky no one filmed that,” I responded.
“I really don’t have a problem with gay people, I swear.”
My feet pounded.
“I think you might.”
He stood there, stunned. He said sorry again and again. I’ve seen him a couple times since. He barely says hi and neither do I.
I sensed spite from some people in the industry, a hostility even. That flash of aggression, hidden in “jokes,” blamed on alcohol, the sexual harassment dismissed.
I remember sitting in a former agent’s office, thrilled that VICE wanted to make Gaycation. We’d be in Japan in just a couple months to film the first episode. When one of the major players of the agency walked in, I shared the news.
“We get it, you’re gay!” he responded instantly.
It’s as if there is a need to trivialize such endeavors, unwilling to acknowledge experiences that are not their own, unwilling to listen. Throwing around power but refusing to admit they have any. I wasn’t able to stand up for myself then. I’d fold in, taking it, letting it rest inside.
I was persuaded to reject a character not long before I came out as gay because it “wouldn’t be helpful.” Subtext: people think you’re a homo and this will make them think you are definitely a homo and you can’t exist as who you are if you want to have a career. The same ongoing conversation, just a new situation for it. I got off that phone call with my agent and started to cry. The bucket full, on the verge of rushing out. I called my manager. I told her I couldn’t do it anymore, that I couldn’t hide, lie, it was eating me from the inside out.
I said onstage in Vegas:
Beyond putting yourself in one box or another, you worry about the future. About college or work or even your physical safety. Trying to create that mental picture of your life—of what on earth is going to happen to you—can crush you a little bit every day. It is toxic and painful and deeply unfair.
If we took just five minutes to recognize each other’s beauty, instead of attacking each other for our differences. That’s not hard. It’s really an easier and better way to live. And ultimately, it saves lives. Then again, it’s not easy at all. It can be the hardest thing, because loving other people starts with loving ourselves and accepting ourselves.
Coming out in 2014 was more a necessity than a decision, but yes, it was one of the most crucial things I have ever done for myself. No matter what came after, a different kind of exposure, vulnerability, it was all worth it. All a step. I’d rather feel pain while living than hiding. My shoulders opened, my heart was bare, I could be in the world in ways that felt impossible before—holding hands. But deep down an emptiness lurked. That undertone. Its whisper still ripe and in my ear.
9
PINK DOT
It’s 2022, springtime. I had just had dinner with a friend and was headed back to my hotel in West Hollywood. Walking back, heading east along Sunset Boulevard, I texted Madisyn. A mutual friend had set us up about a month before. She was, is, smart, compassionate, fun, and our sex was unbridled yet safe. Perhaps the most uninhibited sex I’ve had, this new body offering a grounding, a presence. Enjoying things I never thought I would. Feeling queerer than ever. How deeply freeing to have someone love fucking my dick and my pussy and permitting myself to enjoy it. No longer frozen, that undercurrent, the wanting to flee.
When Madisyn arrived we immediately started to kiss, a physical chemistry that takes control, magnets sucking. I moved down her body to my knees, her hand resting on my head, ever so slightly pulling my hair. We had sex for hours and then slept deeply. I almost always wake up around six, and I snuck out of the room, trying not to wake her. I drank coffee and sat at my computer to write. I love the early morning, the quiet, a certain kind of healthy loneliness. A reminder?