Gay Boy’s Lament: You Don’t Own Me!
Josh and Dustin get busted
“You don’t own me! I mean, you’re a great dad, but… the way you and mom talked to Mr. Grant about me and Dustin? That was so wrong.”
Josh lay on his back on his bed, where he’d been sulking for about an hour, fixing his eyes on the dolphins he’d painted on his bedroom ceiling, focusing hard on them laughing and playing. He blinked back tears, but he didn’t regret finally telling his dad what he’d been thinking.
He was afraid, worried because spying on a private adult conversation made him feel like he like HAD to speak up. Why couldn’t he be more chill, like his boyfriend Dustin?
Josh’s dad didn’t say a word. He just took his hand and held on. When Josh finally dared look, his dad was doing that crooked smile thing he did when Josh brought home a test with an A on top or made a three-pointer in basketball.
“Of course I don’t own you, buddy. I’m sorry if Mom and I made it sound like we think that.”
Josh sighed. His dad was gonna make this way harder than it needed to be, probably because he was so much like Dustin. For half a second, he wondered if that was one of the reasons he loved Dustin so much. Then he remembered to stay mad.
He sat up and looked his dad right in the eye. “You can’t make this better just by agreeing with me. We need to talk about what happened last weekend.”
“Can I be dead honest?” said Josh’s mom, loud enough Josh had no trouble overhearing. “Can I ask a question and have nobody take offense?”
Josh swatted Dust’s hand away and put his finger over his lips. “Shhh!”
The boys had snuck into the tiny pool-supply shed five minutes before when the adults left the lanai to say goodbye. They just wanted a few minutes of privacy, except Josh’s parents came back with Mr. Grant and Ken, and the boys ended up trapped, squeezed between tall stacks of chlorine jugs and pallets of salt bags.
“Of course, Carolyn. That’s why we’re here … in a way.” Josh recognized Ken’s voice. His teacher’s husband. “I mean, of course you must have questions.”
“OK, so, how can Marsha be cool with her daughter— her 13-year-old daughter! — announcing she’s bisexual? Like being sexual is something to be proud of? I almost choked on my margarita when Olivia came out with that in the middle of dinner.”
Silence. All Josh could hear was Dust breathing into his ear.
It felt like forever before Mr. Grant’s voice finally filled the humid Florida air. “You know, words have different flavors for different people. When Olivia says bisexual, she probably isn’t thinking the same things you are. Maybe she’s thinking about that crush she had on Josh a few months ago, and how she gets crushes on girls too. She might be thinking about how crushes can feel really good and really painful at the same time.”
Josh’s dad spoke up. “Yeah, don’t kids just say bi most of the time? Like leave sexual right off it? I don’t know about you, Carolyn, but I doubt the kids think about sex all that much.”
Josh elbowed Dustin. “Stop sucking my earlobe!” he hissed. “I’m trying to listen!”
“Well, they’ll be in high school before you know it …” said Mr. Grant, trailing off before picking up again. “But yeah, I’m sure Ken is right about Olivia. She’s a great kid who loves everybody, especially the underdog. The way she championed the GSA last year? Made sure everybody was included? Marsha has every right to be proud, and I’ve told her so.”
“Like we’re proud of Josh, honey. I mean, it must be really hard …”
Josh’s ears twitched when his Dad said his name, and even Dust seemed to pay attention, or at least he held off trying to kiss Josh.
“… hard for him to be open at school about Dustin and him. I know there has to be at least some teasing going on.”
“He gets in such dark moods these days,” agreed Josh’s mom. “I’m worried coming out so young might not have been healthy for him.”
“Yeah, about that,” said Mr. Grant. “Look, I wasn’t going to bring this up tonight, but as long as we’re talking about sex and Josh’s moods, do you guys realize he’s feeling a little resentful toward you?”
Josh heard both his parents make surprised-sounding noises. “Resentful?” said his mom. “About? We’re totally supportive!”
His dad said, “We’re the COOL parents who host GSA pool parties and PFLAG meetings.”
“He hasn’t said anything to me directly,” said Mr. Grant, “but the kids forget I’m listening sometimes. I think Josh is mad at you for treating him and Dustin differently after you found out they were boyfriends. And if I could ask you to keep this in confidence, Carolyn, I think he’s especially upset with you.”
Josh’s whole body stiffened.
“Me!?” said his mom. “When Josh told me he was gay and going out with Dustin, I hugged them both and had Dustin’s family over for dinner. What could he possibly …”
“It’s the privacy thing, isn’t it?” said Josh’s dad. “Honey, you have to admit we …”
“Admit what? So we told them we don’t want them spending the night together anymore. They’re too young to be having sex. I wouldn’t be treating him any differently if he were straight and seeing Olivia. Is that so wrong?”
For a minute, all Josh heard were crickets tuning up for their nighttime chorus. Then his teacher’s voice sounded again, very soft.
“You know, growing up gay and growing up straight are very different experiences. Sometimes treating people the same doesn’t equal respecting their differences.”
“I hear you,” said Josh’s dad, “but I’m not sure I get you. Could you break it down?”
“I’m not sure how easy that’s going to be, but let’s start with this. You know one of my jobs is teaching sex ed, right? You’re involved parents, I assume you’ve seen the handouts?”
“I was pretty surprised last year,” said Josh’s mom. “It was a lot more detailed than I was comfortable with, but I understand it needs to be. We can’t have kids being ignorant.”
“No, we can’t. But would you care to guess how much of that material was directly relevant to Josh and Dustin?”
When nobody answered, Mr. Grant continued. “Maybe 20 percent. They learned how women get pregnant, how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. They learned about consent and respecting your partner. The consent part and some of the STI part was important for them, but beyond that …”
“SOME of the STI part?” said Josh’s dad.
“The curriculum leaves out details critical for gay guys. Like hepatitis. Important details about HIV. Transmission differences.”
“They’re only 13!” said his mom, sounding mad.
“And they’re already well equipped to understand how to prevent pregnancy and STIs common in straight people. But stuff that concerns them directly?”
“OK, so maybe that’s not fair,” said Josh’s dad, “but come on, there’s plenty of time for better sex ed when they’re older. We’ll make sure our son gets the information he needs.”
Josh squeezed his eyes shut and wished he could die of embarrassment.
“Well, to hear him tell it,” said Mr. Grant in the same soft voice as before, “he believes you don’t want him to get better information. I’m sure he’s misunderstanding, but he feels you’re telling him that by strictly monitoring his phone and tablet.”
Josh’s mom spoke up again. Mad sounding. “He’s a child! He’s not ready for all that! He’s a little kid who sulks about doing chores and cries when he gets upset. He’s not an adult who needs to know about sex! We’ll decide when he is!”
Josh felt so mad he forgot where he was. Eyes still closed, he backed up so he could leave and not hear anything else, bumping Dustin hard into a stack of jugs, which started to totter. Dustin put his arms out to steady them, and everything seemed fine. Then one jug clattered to the ground, then a bunch, then Dustin fell into Josh, and then they both fell right into the shed door, which burst opened and dumped them on the ground.
“Boys!” said Josh’s mom in the kind of voice she used when she was ready to ground Josh for months. “WHAT were you doing in there? As if I didn’t know!”
Josh jumped up, eyes flashing. “Well if you weren’t barging in on us all the time without even knocking maybe we wouldn’t be hiding in sheds! Stop acting like you own me!”
“No,” agreed Josh’s dad several days after the pool-shed disaster. “I can’t make this better just by agreeing with you. But we can make it better together by talking about it. If you want to.”
“I don’t want to! I really really really don’t want to talk to you and mom about me and Dustin and SEX. Jeez!”
“Well, you and your mom are sure on the same page about that, but …”
“So why can’t she leave us alone!?”
“Because she’s your mother and she loves you, and it’s her job to keep you safe, and that’s not the same thing as owning you. Even if she doesn’t always get it right.”
Josh sighed and made up his mind to talk about uncomfortable stuff. “What’s she worried about? I can’t get pregnant and neither can Dustin. And we’re not trying to have SEX, anyway. We just … you know, it’s embarrassing ...”
“What is?”
“We love each other, me and Dust. We wanna be together all the time. We wanna be close, like really close. And I think … I think you and mom think that’s gross, mom especially. This one time? She walked in the family room when we were watching TV and Dust was sitting in my lap kissing me, and you should have seen her face. It scared me!”
“Right, yeah. She told me about that! But I don’t think you understand what she was …”
“Dad! They made it illegal to talk about at school! It’s disgusting! Me and Dust are DISGUSTING to most people! You think I don’t know that?”
“No, Josh. Oh my God, no. That’s not how …”
Josh jerked away when his Dad tried to put an arm around him.
“OK, look. You and your mom need to talk about this one-on-one, but I can promise you we don’t think you’re disgusting because you like kissing your boyfriend. It’s just hard for us, especially for her, because you’re growing up. This is probably tough to understand, but we’re gonna miss you a lot, I mean the little kid you used to be, even as we love getting to know the wonderful person you’re growing into. Does that make sense?”
“I guess. Not really.”
“It’s true, though. We don’t have any problem with you being gay. Honest to God we don’t. You are NOT disgusting. Dustin is NOT disgusting. He’s a great kid and we both think you have excellent taste in boyfriends. Got it?”
“So why can’t you act like it more?”
“We thought we were. Really. So that thing Mr. Grant said? That treating people equally isn’t necessarily the same as respecting their differences?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think I understood that all the way until just now. If you even for one second believe your parents find you disgusting, then we have work to do. And I promise you we’re going to do it.”
“Does that mean Dustin can spend the night again?”
“Not so fast, buddy. Probably not just yet. But your mom and I already talked about privacy. We know we’re not giving you enough. We trust you, and we’re going to stop barging in on you and Dustin.”
“Wow, really? But how about my phone? I don’t want you guys reading my chats. I hate that!”
“Text messages? We haven’t looked at those in months.”
“What!?”
“Sorry, I guess we should have told you. We’re still worried about the Internet, though. Social media. We see stories about kids getting hurt out there, and we get scared for you. We need to be able to keep you safe just a little longer.”
“That’s not fair! Dad!”
“Try to have a little patience. Josh. Nobody ever said growing up was easy.”
Josh rolled over and stared at his dolphins again.
“Josh?”
“What?”
“It’s only seven o’clock. Why don’t you text your boyfriend and ask him to come over and help you with your homework?”
“Dad! It’s summer, we don’t have any homework.”
“Oh, really? I guess I forgot. Silly me. Why don’t you text him anyway? I promise you won’t have to hide in the shed again.”
A huge smile took over Josh’s face as he sat straight up and wrapped his dad in an even huger hug.
Want to read more about Josh, Dustin, Olivia and their friends? Check out these stories, which you don’t have to read in order:
James Finn is a columnist for the LA Blade, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, an alumnus of Queer Nation and Act Up NY, and an “agented” but unpublished novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].
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