Subscribe to Breaking NewsDaigle: A Tale from the (almost) Road
I get accused sometimes of being a prude.
On the one hand, the moniker fits: I do have conservative notions about sexual appropriateness. I believe monogamy is possible. I think the fact we might biologically be hard-wired to drop anchor at every available harbor doesn’t mean we can’t contain that urge, or at the very least keep it from running unchecked and libidinous. (yeah yeah, I hear the dissent already, and that’s fine, I’m not judging, it just doesn’t work for me.)
And on the other hand, the notion of me as a prude is laughable. Because in the 15 years since I’ve come out, I done my fair share of anchor-dropping (and, truth be told, other people’s fair share of it, too), and I have, like most every gay man I know, been something of a…
Well, a slutbag.
And I’m not defending the behavior, I’m just saying that I did it. And look back on it fondly, as a learning experience, a time in my life when I experienced everything there was to experience, even if some of it is so horribly humiliating that I wouldn’t dare speak of it in public.
Because every gay man has that story. That one tragic tale to tell. Of a sexual moment so low and awful and pathetic that it should only be shared with your closest of friends because they at least love you enough to not hold it against you.
Or tell anyone else.
The STORY.
I once had sex with a deaf trucker in the parking lot of a tourist information center.
(You try blogging that on the Internet, see if you like it.)
I met him online. We “talked.” He invited me to his truck, which he basically lived in. I thought, “Eh, what the hell, right? I’ve never done THIS before. If anything, it’ll make for a funny story.”
Having sex with a deaf nomadic stranger is complicated enough. But the fun doesn’t stop there. Deaf Trucker, as I like to call him (because what does he care, he can’t hear me) was also into role play – he was into dominant and submissive roles and such – and I can tell you, you have not lived until you’ve heard someone say, “Call me Daddy. Call me Daddy!” sounding like Marlee Matlin in “Children of a Lesser God.” (sorry, Ms. Matlin.)
We didn’t really “do” very much. I was so over it from the second he said “Daddy.” And it remains the only sexual experience most notable to me for the number of times I rolled my eyes.
But one detail sticks out. He wanted to hold my hand.
Isn’t that weird? He insisted he hold my hand. In the way you hold the hand of someone you love while you’re on the couch watching a movie.
It was so oddly… intimate. For strangers.
In a truck. At a tourist information center.
I let him. Because as much as he was craving something like love, so was I. And even if it was only an illusion for a few brief minutes in the darkness while cars zoomed by on the highway, even if it was completely fake, I wanted it.
Why? Because at the time, my imagination didn’t include the possibility of love and marriage and fidelity — things I wanted — being compatible with being gay. It took years of struggle (including a six-year relationship that failed because I was a very poor partner) to figure out I could be both gay and a believer in monogamy.
For me, promiscuity had a price. Deaf Trucker is a funny story, sure, but the underbelly of it — the sad approximation of intimacy, the salaciousness of having sex in a public place, the fact that he requires a nickname because I can’t remember his actual name — those things leave marks.
And I think we have, as a community, sometimes confused the essentialness of our difference for the essentialness of who we are. Yes, I am a homosexual because I sleep with men. That’s is how I am different. But sleeping with men doesn’t make me gay.
I’m gay because I fall in love with men. I want to build a life with a man. I want a guy to be across my breakfast table when I’m 60. That’s where my gayness lives. And it’s the point of view I work from every day of my life, it’s the identity that colors my personal fight for equality.
And I hope, as our community moves forward in its fight for marriage and family and other battles that further include us into the mainstream life of this country, we find a place in our midst for the gay identity that includes monogamy and fidelity and all of those things we sometimes rail against. Some of us believe in those things, deeply.
That kid, that hypothetical kid in his suburban bedroom struggling with the dawning realization that he’s gay, needs to know he’s got multiple paths in life. He can be whatever kind of gay man he wants to be.
He doesn’t have to hold the hand of a stranger in the dark if he doesn’t want to.
I am one of those people that stays firmly with monogamy. The agreement between my husband and I, from the 2nd date on, was monogamy. No second chances, no do-overs, no ‘oops’, only each other. 16 years later, still not a problem. The agreement holds, without change.
Yes it is possible to have monogamy. Is this trying to mirror the hetero community? Actually, no. I don’t share, neither does my husband. We are both very ‘jealous’ types and have no desire to infringe on our relationship with flippant outside sex. We don’t need, require or want it. We certainly don’t play well with others. We are contented home-bodies. We don’t go to bars, clubs or other ‘community’ events, except Pride (which I work at for my County job). We aren’t really in positions of temptation, come to think on it. And we are completely happy.
It is well and good for others to need extra stimulation in their lives from outside sources. We find we don’t need or want it. Is this saying we are hetero-wannabes? No. Does this mean we aren’t gay? I certainly suck dick with the best of us. We honestly don’t care what anyone else is doing and we sure as hell don’t want anyone in our business. Just make sure all applicable rights and responsibilities are equal for all.
Live your life as you must and we will do the same. And if my husband (or I, for that matter) decides to venture outside of the relationship, it is because he (I) feel(s) it is over between us and time to move on. So, regardless of amount of time, it shall be. No matter what someone else might think of throwing away all those years. That is for us to decide, not some outside party. The time isn’t wasted. It WILL be wasted if we continue together when we finally shouldn’t, just for the sake of years already gone.
As a gay woman my story seems to be the exact reverse of your’s. I had love a wife who trajicly died way to soon.Without rights she was taken somewere & barried.Leaving me these past 20 years with meaningless affairs.
Unable & unwilling to dare love again!
Here’s the thing with marriage if it were not for the over 1000 rights that come with it, I wouldn’t want it. If it wasn’t for DOMA telling us we can’t recieve Federal benefits I would be happy with a Civil Union that gave every benefit that a “marriage” gets. If you find someone who you are happy with for the rest of your life fine, but if you’re just as happy with three friends that’s also fine. Mr. Daigle and anyone else reading this, be careful of defining what a genuine gay experience is, because there is no such thing. So yes Mr. Daigle the queer kids in the suburbs and anywhere should know they have options, and that no one in our community will look down on them for it.
And please someone read/listen to footwork61 if both or multiple partners don’t understand, the relationship it has a greater chance of fail, along of course with everything else that goes into a relationship, but that is besides the point.
“[I]f we are going to ask to be included in it, we have to walk the walk.”
Even if we cut off our feet to do so?
“[Y]our stance smacks of intolerance for the
genuine experience of other gay men and
women who are in your community”
Sorry, Cody, but when I see people sabotaging themselves by unthinkingly adopting expectations that aren’t appropriate for them, I’m going to call them on it, “solidarity” be damned.
I’ve just watched a wonderful relationship that had gone on for over ten years break up because of this silly fetish for monotony—I mean, monogamy. Despite have gone through a big civil union ceremony and, when the law changed, a marriage, they broke up because they couldn’t deal with some unimportant dalliances they had (first one, then the other). Stupid, stupid, stupid. If you feel insecure because your partner may occasionally want to get it on with someone else, that’s an issue for therapy, not the divorce court.
If I prevent even one person from locking himself or his partner (I won’t speak for women) into an arrangement that ultimately will blow up in his face, I’ve achieved my purpose here. But the people who want to win acceptance by aping straights I can’t help.
501, here’s the problem. the institution of marriage (if we are going to be honest about it) is more than a legal institution. It’s a cultural one, and if we are going to ask to be included in it, we have to walk the walk. if we’re going to win this fight correctly, we need to acknowledge what marriage means culturally — not just what it affords us. We can take it or leave it, yes. But to say that you can just ignore it is fundamentally flawed.
And again, your stance smacks of intolerance for the genuine experience of other gay men and women who are in your community. Mocking the values of those you stand with is every bit as problematic as those who oppose us mocking our relationships.
> it is possible to duplicate what I had as > a heterosexual for many years as a
> homosexual
That’s the nub of the problem. We’re not heterosexuals. And what works for them won’t necessarily work for us. (These days it’s not working too well for them either, but that’s another debate.)
So long as marriage exists as a legally privileged state, we have every right to demand inclusion in the institution. BUT, we should make sure to redefine the expectations to suit ourselves, and do so unapologetically. Too many people are making the mistake of setting themselves up for failure by unthinkingly adopting the values heterosexuals have traditionally held. Then, when things don’t work out, they blame themselves or (more likely) their partners, instead of the straitjacket of expectations they locked themselves into.
Monogamy and (gag me!) “fidelity” are irrelevant to a good gay relationship—and I say that as someone who’s been in one for almost 34 years. What matters is what you do for each other: the love, the companionship, the empathy, the feeling of going through life together. Don’t throw that away because a partner may need to play the field from time to time (or because you do). It’s so trivial it isn’t worth thinking about, much less throwing a huge hissy fit and abandoning an otherwise perfectly satisfying relationship. If you’re stupid enough to do that, don’t come crying to me!
Direct, frank and humorous everything I like in a writer. Thanks for sharing this article. I completely relate. Sometimes I think I am the only one in our community who believes that it is possible to duplicate what I had as a heterosexual for many years as a homosexual. I know it’s possible no matter what people say and who knows I may get old trying but it’s wired into me and part of what makes me whole and happy. Thanks for being so real about it!
@501s
Wow, such harsh judgment for someone I presume you don’t even know. It sounds like you’re saying that a person has no right to determine what kind of a relationship he or she has with his or her partner(s).
It’s up to the people in a relationship to negotiate the terms of it. For some, that may mean a huge degree of openness and wide latitude in outside activities. For others it may mean complete and committed monogamy. For most in my circle of acquaintances it is somewhere in between. The most important thing is that both/all people have the same expectation of what their relationship should look like.
The problem comes when one partner believes and behaves as if he is in one type of relationship, and the other believes and/or behaves as if he is in a different kind of relationship. That’s why communication is so important. If one person wants to change the terms of the deal, he can’t do it unilaterally. It must be a mutual decision. If the two can’t seem to find common ground on the monogamy/polygamy scale, then perhaps the relationship should come to an end.
If you’re saying instead that a person should not be too quick to trash an otherwise good relationship over an indiscretion, then I agree with you completely.
501, you sort of prove my point. I deserve to be alone because I expect something different than you from a partner?
If we are a powerful diverse community — as we claim we are — we should be able to respect and support all the ways one can be in a gay relationship.
There’s a huge difference between commitment to a partner and never having sex to anyone else. If you blow off a relationship because the other guy might just want to have it off with somebody else once in a while, even though he’s always there when you need him, frankly you deserve to be alone.
I to laughed when i read the article so so true and when I look back with the stories that I have hade through the years I to can look back and laugh and now Im 60 and Im with my partner for 27 years and working on our lives till the end with more stories to come .
I laughed so hard when I heard this story. Saying “Call me Daddy!” in the deaf “accent” makes is ten times funnier. You’re right of course that what makes you gay is the fact that you fall in love with men. I can’t tell you how many “straight” guys I know (without telling a few embarrassing stories of my own) who have sex with men. One of the things I hear most about the National Equality March from people who attended is how surprised they were at the age of those attending, the majority apparently not being over 30. I’d say that the slutbag phase is a phase that a vast majority of guys go through (some never leave it) at one point in their lives or another, even (real) straight guys. Some are just more successful in that phase than others. I think that the NEM was a great measure of how much things have changed for young gays. That while we might not be ready for marriage in this point in our lives on a personal level, we demand to know that when the time and the person comes along, we’ll be able to take that step.
Cody, I travel the same road and have no regrets. You will find “him!” I did 31 years ago.
Great article!