I had a guy in North Carolina who wanted to fight me after the show, for “doing faggot shit” onstage. Luckily they didn’t let him back into the club, wisely. It happens, not often, it happens, but most people are really nice people. For the most part, I practice being able to talk about controversial things in an audience that does not automatically accept it. A suburban or conservative audience.
Basically I develop a rapport with people and I try to find out what we agree on, and hopefully by the time I’m coming out onstage in a given set, they already like me.
I played football, so I talk about being a closeted gay football player as a kid. They get an idea of where I’m coming from. It’s not like I’m an alien to them.
I have a unique ability to accomplish something that not everybody can do because certain kinds of people will listen. I can make them listen to me, I can make them like me, and I have the attention of people who may not normally give any attention to a gay person. I feel in some ways I’m an ambassador into hostile territory. I could have been in the closet, I could have gone a different direction and it probably has not helped my career on paper, but I think it’s worth it because we’re at a point where there’s a lot of homophobia that’s not really on any sturdy ground. That’s in the process of crumbling down.
CAMERON ESPOSITO—COMEDIAN, ACTOR
I dated men for a really long time. I dated the captain of the football team in high school. We were the class couple. I just thought nobody really cared about sex. I was a big athlete, and I was the mascot of the football team and I was on the student government. I was, like, super involved and really committed to school.
I was on top of shit! But I was a mess. I had no idea. I was in love with my best friend. I didn’t know. I just thought that’s how women felt. I think women also have that kind of more expansive view of the way they can be friends with each other. If dudes are really close, when you’re a little kid, somebody’s going to come up to you and they’re going to call you a name. They’re going to call you what they think you are, and maybe you’ll start to wonder if that’s what you are, but for women, that happens a lot less. I think you can just be a jock and you can just have really close friendships. You can have sleepovers, you can hug each other, and none of it means anything unless it does. I just thought that’s how everybody felt.
I would go to sleep at my best friend’s house. She had seven older brothers and sisters that no longer lived at home, and I would insist on sleeping in her bed. There were like nine other bedrooms! I just was really committed to sleeping in her bed, but I just thought that’s how best friends were.
I think I had sexual feelings, but I don’t think I knew what sexual feelings were. I think I was very confused. I would have dreams about women. A lot of gay women that I know had a similar experience to this.
I don’t know if you have ever heard what it’s like to be a teen girl, but you’re all about, like, his blow job. No one’s trying to figure out whether or not you’re, like, “Hey, what are you jerking off to?” Nobody gives a shit. You’re not supposed to be touching yourself. Women are not really taught to find what they like. Of course they’re not. It’s all about finding out what he likes so you can turn him on. “Oh, you made him cum, isn’t that great? You did a great job.”
TODD GLASS
I was afraid if people knew that, they’d be afraid like, to drink out of my cup, because they think gay people might have AIDS or something. I thought, “Should I understand that? Would I feel that way?” I wasn’t educated either.
I was hoping I married someone with cancer. A girl, and she’d die. I thought, “That’s what I’ll tell people. I never got married again, because I never got over my wife who had cancer.” I had a plan. Date a girl with cancer, then she would die. You might think, “Come on, Todd. How much are you serious here?” I’m totally serious. That went through my head. Even back then I got the ridiculousness of it, but I did think that would work.
CAMERON ESPOSITO
My boyfriend would go home after we’d be hanging out, making out in my parents’ basement or something. It felt nice, because kissing feels nice, but I also felt gross. I had weird rules, like he couldn’t touch my shoulders and stuff like that.
He would go home, and I just remember that I would need to stay up for like, a bunch of hours. If he left at ten or whatever, I would have to stay up ’til, like, four in the morning, and I would eat cereal, just do these really comforting things. Eat cereal, watch TV. Whatever had been happening, I just couldn’t deal with it. It was so uncomfortable.
But I liked him! I couldn’t understand why I would feel so uncomfortable hanging out.
I think probably it would have been misery if I had had any idea that I was supposed to feel differently than that. If you’ve never seen the sun, you’re going to be like, “Darkness is decent! It’s decent to good.”
TODD GLASS
Early in my life, I made pacts. I had a friend early on that knew. There was one point in my life where I knew one person like me, and we made a pact we would never tell anybody. I was probably twenty-one. I stopped being friends with him, because I got uncomfortable and nervous. It was a horrible feeling. Like he was too gay. Obviously I want to be very clear that it was a horrible thing to do. I was nervous and scared for myself, so that’s why I did a horrible thing, out of fear.
CAMERON ESPOSITO
I kissed this woman. I was dating two guys at the time, and I went to three parties that night. The night that I kissed her, I went to a party with one of the dudes that I was dating, a party with other dudes, just on-campus parties. I kissed those two dudes at the parties. Then I kissed her.
I kissed her, and it was life changing; I mean, completely. She had come with me to these parties, so we just went back to my room. We were hanging out there, finishing some wine, and then, I don’t remember what she said, probably something about poverty, but I kissed her. It was my first sexual experience, it really was. I knew immediately that something was very different, and it was like watching a movie that you never understood, with the director’s commentary. You never understood the movie, and then suddenly the director’s explaining it and you’re like, “Oh shit! That’s why I never wore a top to my bikini bottoms when I was a little child, because I had some gender stuff going on,” and “Oh, that’s why I wanted to sleep in my best friend’s bed when there were all those available beds.” It all happened at once. Like a Rubik’s Cube, just solved in one move.