These activists were standing up against vicious oppression, rhetoric, and ideas originally introduced and continuously perpetuated by the West. Concealed in “good deeds,” American missionaries created infrastructure for access to indoctrinate the populace, which fueled anti-LGBTQ+ violence and hate. These activists should not have to be doing this work, but the reality is that they have no other option, they can’t rest. They face extreme and brutal consequences, in large part because of the exportation of American evangelical anti-LGBTQ+ religious and social doctrine. It is true for those who are the most vulnerable in the States as well, it is simply disguised better. To some, people like me being on the cover of major magazines must mean things are all good. What could they possibly be complaining about? Pink washing works.
Ellen, look how much these people risk, how much they face. You’re a coward, I scolded myself. I felt I needed to call myself out for the selfish little shit I could be, especially when it is to maintain comfort and privilege. Perhaps I am being harsh on myself, because the road was extremely challenging, it did almost run me out, I was terrified and bloated with self-disgust. I can hold that and also understand just how good I have it, and knowing just how good should only enlighten the need for action, for care, to make the right choices, the uncomfortable choices. Stepping up is not just for the individual, and I am able to be out because of countless other people, ones who did not have access to what I have, who won’t end up on magazine covers.
You can handle simply telling people you are gay, I told myself.
Coming out was not easy, which is shocking to think now, but I suppose we (or I) forget the degree of change (and lack thereof) that has happened over the past decade. Going from a therapist’s office where I believed it impossible to be out as queer to feeling perplexed and furious that I had to deal with the bullshit for so long, that camouflaging my queerness was treated as the norm, my pain as a natural consequence. Pain that did not just live in my mind, but also loitered throughout my entire body, eating it out from the inside, forcing me to the ground.
I’ve made a habit of requiring a hefty push to the edge, almost over, in order to finally address “feelings,” and not just that, but also to simply acknowledge there are any. But even in my lowest moments, a piece of me, ever so small, becomes clearer and clearer. An opening, fragile and elusive. Instantly, it comes flooding in. It’s fleeting. Seize it. A whisper that sits waiting.
Close your eyes and step through.
After I came out, shockingly enough, the world did not end and my life improved, and now I had that as a reference in my chest pocket. If you can do that, you have nothing to be afraid of, I’d mutter to myself.
Once while driving north on the 101 to break up with someone, I listened to my coming-out speech, trying to not shit blood, a reminder—if you can do that, you have nothing to be afraid of. Embarrassing, but effective.
This time of firsts and newfound boldness was also, unsurprisingly perhaps, the most promiscuous period of my life.
I had never had a one-night stand. I had barely even slept with people casually. I had never had a blind date, or an out date. I wanted those things, those adventures, even if they were awkward and messy or ill-advised or out of my league. All of a sudden I could magically talk to women, I could flirt, a new self-assurance that I’d been aiming toward, hoping for. I was direct, not concerned with the potential rejection. If I felt timid or hesitant, I simply pushed myself to continue. Just keep talking. Half smile. A cute silence.
My first one-night stand has, to this day, been my only one-night stand. She was the first person I slept with after my relationship with Ryan ended. Heartbroken, but numb at this point, I had met up with my friend Shannon at a bar on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, where we typically converged in the compact outdoor area. Vines curled over the top of the tall walls, as did the rising fog from cigarettes. We sipped tequila with a touch of soda and lime. I hoped a tequila or two would enhance my numbness. My friend did not know how badly my heart was broken, I could not tell her. She did not know I had been in a relationship for close to two years.
I slid over to make space for a woman to sit. She had long brown hair and curious, playful eyes that were paired with a mischievous grin.
“Hi,” she said as she sat close.
She already seemed a touch tipsy, leaning in on purpose or not?
“Hi,” I replied, with the tiniest of side smiles.
We began chatting, in that uncontrolled, organic way, where halfway through you catch yourself, puzzled at such ease with a stranger. She was hot, she was flirting, and I was flirting back. Another friend arrived, and soon after, Shannon and she split off, allowing me to turn my full focus to the conversation with my new pal.
We didn’t have much in common, but that wasn’t really the point and I think we both knew it. We sat progressively closer. Time passed. It was not until I got up to go to the bathroom and to get us another drink when I finally asked her name and shared mine.
“Ryan,” she said.
“What?”
“Ryan,” she said again.
I thought I misheard, like a quick cutaway in a film—the character imagining. Nope. She had the same exact name. The exact fucking name.
I squeezed between the crowd of hipsters, making my way to the restroom. I stood in line, waiting behind a woman in a cowboy hat who stared down at her phone.
Should I call it? I wasn’t sure. We had been talking for a while. She was attractive. I wanted to follow through. I wanted to be spontaneous, I wanted to have what I could not have before … but the same name?!
“Of course,” I said to no one as I locked the bathroom door, “of course her name is Ryan.”
I pulled down my pants and sat. Ruminating as I urinated. Fuck it, I decided to shrug it off, roll with it, poetry in action! I flushed the toilet with intent. This was my night.
I returned with drinks, but we left before finishing them. Her place was not far west, a two-story condo in an old low building. Built presumably in the 1930s or 1940s, its architecture was distinct, not art deco, not quite Craftsman, definitely quaint. We sat in the living room briefly, she drank straight from a bottle of champagne. No longer amid the cozy buzz of the bar, her energy shifted, she was frenetic, zooming from one topic to the next, pacing about. Only later was I like … oooh cocaine! I always forget about cocaine.
We went upstairs so she could “show me her room,” and the moment we walked through the door, we fell into bed together. Her kissing was fierce, no warm-up, clanging teeth. Clothes started coming off. She was dominant. Her tits were almost immediately in my mouth. I grabbed them, they were perfectly round and soft. I sucked and swallowed and teased her nipples with my tongue. I felt them get hard in my mouth, she started to moan.
Pushing me back on the bed, she lifted the short skirt she had been wearing and climbed on top of me. Riding and grinding, her head was back, arms straight, propping herself up with her hands on my shins. She rose and caught my eyes. She stared down at me with that vacant glare, pupils dilated, looking right through me. Placing her hand on my throat, she squeezed and squeezed as she continued to rub and pound, her coked-up eyes squinted callously.
Now, I don’t mind a hand on the throat, some pressure, a squeeze, that’s fun. But full-throttle choke? First time?… Nah. I didn’t say no. I’ve almost never said no, and times when I have, it didn’t do a whole lot, or made things worse. I wanted to stop it but couldn’t make a sound—not just because of her hand. It was like a dream where you need to yell but your mouth produces silence, like a dream where you go to run, but your legs remain still, feet locked to the ground. Her hand tightened harder and harder, preventing my breath from flowing until she came on top of me. Loud and distant. Her body folded forward, her head landing on the pillow next to me as she rolled off.
I lay in her bed as she slept until light glowed around the perimeter of the curtains and the new sun guided my way out.
My first properly out date was more successful. We were set up by mutual friends and met at a bar in the Bowery. She looked like Jean Seberg. Her short, crisp blond hair and natural sense of style exuded an ease and elegance, it all felt like an afterthought. We sat inside, engaged in conversation. Life, art, books. As time passed, we crept closer. Such a simple action, a casual chat in a bar, just simply a date. But it was monumental for me—the anxiety, the over the shoulder, the can they tell?… evaporated.
We stayed until the bar closed. I suggested we get a room at a hotel because I was crashing with a friend. I know, a ridiculous splurge for one evening, but this was my first out date! As we walked north up Bowery, we put our arms around each other. Coming at us down the sidewalk, I heard the characteristic calls of some drunk bros calling out to us, to which I responded with a new defiance, “Fuck you!”