I Was a Homophobe in High School

A gay homophobe

I was 14 — a pale, skinny kid in corduroy pants and a red-striped tee-shirt — tiptoeing through the stacks of the library at my new high school.

Maybe this time I could figure something out. I knew the words. Homosexual. Deviant. Gay.

Faggot.

I knew those words applied to me. I had known for a long time. I didn’t know much more than that. I had to find a book. Books. Something. I had to know what this meant. It’s not like I could ask anyone.

This girl sat behind me in math class. Deedee. She was pretty and sweet. Gorgeous little button nose and heart-shaped face framed by perfectly styled blond hair. She wore tight jeans and showed cleavage.

Deedee used to push her toe up into the small of my back as she sat there in class. She’d let it drift down a little too far. Flirtatiously. She probably just wanted to cheat off my homework but it made the other boys jealous that she paid attention to me.

At night in bed, I’d think about how her toe felt. I’d let it arouse me. I’d start in, desperate to want her, to climax to her.

I’d end up crying myself to sleep a bit later, having failed again, having thought about him at the end. Again. About him and his baseball cleats and his strong, masculine scent.

So I searched those library shelves. I wanted answers. I wanted to know what was this sickness I suffered from. But I didn’t dare let anyone see what I was reading. I didn’t dare let the librarian catch me.

Fast forward a couple years.

By this time I know the school librarian is gay, that all the kids say he’s a big perv. He directs all the school plays, in fact. I act in all of them. I’m quite the budding little thespian. I don’t search the library shelves anymore.

Rusty is talking to me backstage. He’s tall and good looking. He’s not handsome, he’s pretty. He swishes when he walks and when people call him gay, he just laughs and drawls, “Yeah, so? You want some a this, honey?”

He makes me nervous, and he scares me, but he fascinates me. He’s not my baseball player, far from it, but he’s a boy.

He grabs my shoulders and pulls me behind a curtain. “Oh, my god,” he breathes into my ear. “I can’t take it anymore. That round butt is driving me crazy.”

His hands are roaming all over my back as he pulls me in tighter. Heat explodes. He grabs my ass and squeezes. My head is in his chest. His shampoo is boy and sweet wildflowers.

I freeze. I can’t move. But part of me responds and thrusts into Rusty’s thigh.

He moans.

I jump back. “No! What are you doing? Stop it!”

What I mean is, what I’m thinking is, not here. Anybody could see us. Anybody could walk back here.

Except I call Rusty a faggot. It just comes out of my mouth. Just like that. “Faggot!”

I remember that I pointed my finger at him and that my voice shook. I remember him begging me to not tell anyone what he did, that he was just kidding, that everyone knew he was just kidding.

He ran off and we never spoke again.

A year later, I walked into a gay bar, kissed a guy my age and lived for three months. Three months of being in my late teens, gay, and free to fall in love.

Then I joined the military and stuffed myself back into a closet for a while.

My life got better, much better. I can’t complain. I’ve known love. I learned to accept myself.

I look at young gay people today, though, and I envy some of them. No sneaking around library stacks. No struggling to understand what it means to be gay. Way less forced time in closets.

The Internet!

I’m not going to make excuses for my behavior. To this day I feel sick to my stomach about having called Rusty a faggot. I called him that because I thought that’s what I was. I was calling myself a faggot.

I don’t think gay people growing up today have to do that nearly so much. I don’t think nearly so many of us have to look back and forgive the hurting child that we used to be.