Curious Treasures in a Kinky Closet
Cosmopolitan longings and a rural redneck upbringing produce tension
Content warning. Some of the secrets below are disturbing. They are confessional, funny, innocent, and dark. Things I’ve done, things I wish I didn’t do, things that have happened to me. What is missing in the details is filled in with a desire to know more. Each secret door is a closet being opened. Queer treasures await.
What arises from opening these pretty little doors is a lifelong tension felt between my cosmopolitan longings and my rural redneck upbringing. My desire to discover the treasures beyond the cornfields, in large cities in countries far away, was initiated by that ubiquitous LGBTQ+ theme of rejection.
However, failing to become an ex-pat in both Germany and South Korea, I’ve returned to the cornfields a third time. A gay man in the cornfields? I’m sure there are others like me here too. My state did pass gay marriage. However, many church congregations divide on the matter. Fortunately, there is a church here with rainbow doors. I don’t believe in God, but I do wish to belong, to something, anything!
In some ways I feel like a femboy in 1940s Idaho, but I’m too old, and the times have changed. Even with the positive changes afoot, I never wanted to be the gay man who returned home. I didn’t want to come back to a place that smells like cow shit. The ripe scent that once smelled like home, safety, and family comfort now reminds me of my failure to achieve. I’m stuck in the thick of it again. As I bike around, I realize I don’t know anybody in this town. More importantly, and to my advantage, here are some things the strangers in this humble conservative town don’t know about me.
- I’ve made a thousand bucks making amateur porn. Some of the porn I make is VERY kinky.
- I met a German Catholic Reverend in person at a posh hotel in Hamburg. We met on Xtube.com. The lesson? Not every person you meet online is a serial killer. Just some of them.
- My brother pointed a gun at my face, twice. I don’t like guns.
- My life stories usually cause psychologists to grab and rapidly squeeze stress balls. Sometimes they cry, sometimes they laugh, sometimes they tremble and say nothing at all.
- I’ve taught students, immigrants, and refugees from the following countries: China, Thailand, Eritrea, Mexico, Burma, and Somalia.
- Chainsaws terrify me. But I’ve operated them.
- I’ve lost track of how many hookups I’ve had. The good, the bad, the ugly.
- I killed a squirrel with a shotgun. I cried. I don’t like guns.
9. I’m half published in a serious academic journal. I wrote something about being a gay man in the back of a kitchen. Kudos if you find my real name and send it to me. Keywords: gay, masculinity, kitchen, Irving Goffman.
10. Lawless vigilantes have routinely tapped my internet browsing in order to harass me. They will not win. They like to masquerade on the websites and apps I use. They also think it is funny to make media based on the information they gather about me. I’m documenting everything. They will not win. I’m not crazy. You can Google Wi-Fi-pineapple. I now use a Virtual Private Network and take Edward Snowden’s story more seriously.
11. I almost became a Hamburger. I mean, I almost became an ex-pat in Hamburg, Germany. That would have been a wonderful life.
12. I’m learning how to run a snowblower. Unfortunately, it is harder than giving someone a blowjob. It also pays less.
13. I worked with a meth user in the back of a kitchen. He could get more work done, more efficiently, on meth. Without it, his ADHD was so severe he couldn’t focus. Co-workers positively reinforced his meth use because he worked harder on it. It was to everyone’s benefit until he started crashing. On another whim, he once drank raw cow blood to prove, through disgust, that he was a real working-class man.
14. I once read ninety books in one year. Then I had to get a series of shitty jobs. Most of them sucked, and now I read about ten to fifteen books a year.
15. I met a lawyer from Florida on Chaturbate. I wanted to sell my college twink vibe before it dried up at thirty. He usually had me shove a dildo in my ass. When he learned I read Marx he sent me an email and invited me to visit him in Florida. The lawyer bought me a plane ticket to the sunshine state. We went to the Salvador Dali museum. He taught me how to cook steel oats.
16. I’ve been to a nude beach a few times. Yes, I did get naked. No, it was not a sexual experience. I was alone. I’ve been alone most of my life and I like it. I think I will continue to live a life of relative solitude.
17. I’ve watched a dog eat a live squirrel. I could hear the bones popping under the pressure of the canines' jaws. Crunch, pop. Blood and guts dribbled out of his mouth. I’ve never seen a happier dog, possessed by his instinct. His name was Bandit. He was a German shepherd Labrador mixed. He loved eating live animals, including baby bunnies.
18. If there is a food shelf and I am in need, I use it. There are times I am hungry and too depressed to hold down a job. I will not be ashamed of mental illness. I will proudly use a food shelf.
19. I once spent three months living with a German doctor who wears kilts to Catholic mass. He goes to mass every Sunday. His home is filled with books. I like books. I do not like guns. This town likes guns.
20. Some keynote speakers I’ve learned from as live audience member: Jane Ward, Ed Diener, Andrea Jenkins, and Tim Wise.
21. I was baptized in a town with under one hundred inhabitants. In the winter, you could see your breath when the pastor was giving his sermon. We wore our winter clothes as we sat in the cold, hard, meaningless pews.
22. I was almost mauled by a bull with horns. My grandfather scared it off with a mean voice and a pitchfork. Do All Bulls Have Horns? — UntamedAnimals.com
23. I also helped my grandmother intimidate a calf. But really the calf intimidated me. I still have nightmares about being gored by a bull.
24. The first time I pronounced Chipotle, I said Chip Pot Ull, instead of chip — pote-LAy. So now, out of spite, I say Chipootleee.
25. I’ve quit more shitty jobs than I’ve had: I’ve been a cashier at Target, and Speedway. I’ve worked twice as dishwasher and twice as a custodian. I was an online English teacher. I worked at a non-profit. Yes, I did these things while discretely doing online sex work to make ends meet. Sex work is real work.
26. I’ve never been to a mainstream gay bar. I usually don’t drink alcohol. Loud crowded places with drunk people are annoying. Lesson, not all sex workers do drugs.
27. I have my gun permit, but I never wanted it. I don’t like guns. I like pianos, but I don’t like burning them. They should be played, not burned.
28. I slept outside in the middle of Hamburg, Germany. It was forty-degrees. I stole the doctor’s sleeping pills in order to sleep. I slept well even though I wasn’t dressed for it. “Eine abenteur en Deutchland, Ja? du bist eine frau? Nein? Ich glaube nicht!”
29. I wrote and self-published a book. I was reading a postmodern author, Jacques Derrida, while high off pot, drunk off wine, and over caffeinated. After night shifts as a dishwasher, I came home, smoked weed with my college roommates, drank coffee, and read till four in the morning. I turned my sporadic half-baked notes into a book. It sold over fifty copies because some French Derrida scholar liked it and wrote an article about it.
30. At thirty years old, I’d like to think I’ve lived an interesting life. Yet, everyone has secrets, memories, and existential moments that simple belief systems cannot make sense of. These queer moments make life complex, regardless of a person’s sexual identity. Maybe saying less can be more, or saying nothing at all would be best. And me? I’ve shared too much.
Purchasing the book the French Scholar wrote about also helps.
A Premature Ejaculation to Derrida’s Glas: Amador, Eden: 9781519191526: Amazon.com: Books
This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt: I’m LGBTQ, but You Don’t Know THIS About Me.
