THEGAYUK

Category: Column

  • COLUMN | The Church of the poisoned mind

    As a teenager I dallied with the idea of religion. That was until I realised that I was actually what religion often calls an inveterate sinner and decided to give it up.

    My dad was agnostic, tending more towards atheism and my mum had been raised a Roman Catholic. My brother and I were christened and all that business and my mum took us to church regularly as small children. I remember it as being a crushing bore. My mum would intermittently pass us dusty boiled sweets or Polo Mints from the recesses of her handbag, to placate us as we stood up and down repeatedly, listening to the strange and spooky incantations in the local Catholic Church. I hated it and would often try to smuggle a book in to pass the time and distract me from the anxiety it invoked.

    For a small child a Catholic church can be a sinister place. The masses of blankly staring statues, the smoky incense, dim light, candles and the mumbling, all combined to give me the jitters and to be honest still does. The huge crucifix with the depiction of a man with a collection of oozing wounds gave me nightmares. I shudder now on the rare occasions I have to enter a church. I still recall that strange mix of boredom, cold and terror instilled into me and I break out into a sweat. I can also understand that scene in “The Omen” where Damien goes off on one. I feel his pain. I also get funny urges to shout absurd made up swear words in very quiet places. No one wants to hear me shout “F**k-bumble” or “W**k-toffee” whilst they’re praying so I avoid that risk.

    Luckily my mum became tired of the ritual of church attendance and the joy of accompanying two bored children to church soon palled and she gave it up for many years. I got to age 12 and decided I’d rethink the whole church issue. My maternal Grandfather was an amusing spiv of a man who was all Brill Cream, bandy gait and cheeky charm. He entertained me and I liked his carefree manner and his love of fruit machines and Embassy Number Ones. I decided to try going to church a few times with him. Oddly, I enjoyed it. The service was a bore and the bobbing up and down was hard on the knees but I got to spend time with my funny Granddad who would be wearing his best suit and we always went in the bar at the Catholic Social Club after and let me have a Shandy. It seemed a fair pay off for having to go in the spooky place.

    I quickly become quite entranced by it all and found I quite liked the ritual and the pomp. There was gold, perfumes and shiny things and a man in a dress standing at the front; ideal fodder for a teenage gay boy’s imagination. I decided to have my first communion and get confirmed, all in one go.

    To become a good Catholic you have to go to classes. I went once a week to the presbytery and sat in the priest’s office for an hour of instruction after school. No, before you ask, he didn’t try a thing. He was in his eighties, a funny little walnut of a man who smelt of old age and fusty cassocks. I was given a little red book called the Catechism that felt like it was a manual to tell me how bad I was. That’s where it all went a bit wrong.

    I was 13 and there I was with a little book telling me how full of dirty nasty sin I was and the voice of the wizened little priest to back this up. The book had such delightful entries as the one telling you that homosexuality was a sin crying out to heaven for vengeance. That didn’t make me feel very warm inside. My teenage love for Nick Hayward from Haircut 100 was the beginning of the road to becoming as evil as Myra Hindley, according to the priest. It wasn’t just a sin to do the bum thing. It was also a sin to think about sex and to masturbate. I was 13. Masturbation is the prerogative of the teenage boy. I could no more stop myself thinking about sex as I could give up food or air. I made a few valiant attempts to give up “the sin of self abuse” but it made me crabby and deranged and never lasted. As Woody Allen once said, “Don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone you love.”

    Apparently I also had to obey and respect my parents. That one was even harder. I sat through the classes getting more and more anxious and mixed up. It was an odd feeling to be told you’re fundamentally wrong and bad. I wouldn’t recommend it.

    I went for my first (and last) confession. It was a bit of a farce. Anonymity wasn’t achieved, as I was the only one in the church. It was also a wet autumn evening and the flickering candles did little to dispel my nerves as I sat behind the grotty little grill. The priest asked me what sins I’d committed and I made up a few minor things, omitting to mention the time I got caught shoplifting in W.H. Smiths and the bouts of long and steamy dirty thoughts about Peter Duncan off Blue Peter with my hand down my trousers.

    The confirmation service was the biggest bore ever, worse than any maths lesson at school. The church was packed with proud parents and was hot and uncomfortable. The Bishop led the lengthy service and did a sermon about how evil Boy George was. He’s badly dressed at times and he can be a bit irritating but I’m not sure about evil. He also added in a topical element by telling us what a sinner Mick Jagger was too. This raised a few puzzled looks from an audience of teenagers in the early 80s who weren’t quite sure who he was.

    My granddad seemed proud, which was a consolation. In retrospect, it’s not really worth months of sitting in a little room being told you’re evil, just to try and make someone proud. The head f**king isn’t a great thing and I feel very angry when I look back and think of myself as a vulnerable child being given such psychologically damaging misinformation. My granddad died not long after that and the appeal of the church going faded and I gave it up.

    My dad converted to Catholicism when he was dying and in an odd twist, at the time, I was dating a man who was a devout Catholic and had once entered a seminary and almost completed his training to be a priest: strange times indeed. My dad’s funeral was an excruciating experience and if you’re a non-Catholic you maybe won’t know that there’s no speed or economy to a Catholic Church service. The funeral lasted over two hours, including the reception into church and the cremation. It wasn’t good to prolong it and required medical sedation, thanks to my understanding G.P. and a sedative prescription that barely contained my grief.

    I don’t intend to ever enter a church again or sit through a service as long as I live unless it’s to marvel at the architecture or the church is now a pub. I won’t attend church weddings or christenings and if I need to go to a funeral then the little bit at the crematorium is fine. I don’t think that’s disrespectful at all, just respecting myself.

    Although my experience of the church isn’t good, other people’s can be fantastic and I don’t disrespect anyone who has a strong religious faith if that’s what gets them through the night. I also acknowledge that religion isn’t all about condemnation and disapproval and I applaud certain aspects of religious faith and works of the church. This is just my experience.

    Maybe my views will change as I get older and I’m self knowing enough to realise that maybe the threat of terminal illness or old age might send me running back in a search for comfort and meaning. I hope not. If there’s one thing the Catholic Church never gave me, it’s comfort or meaning.

  • EDITOR’S LETTER | December 2013

    This month tis all about the sticky situation of homosexuality and religion and where we as homos, bi’s, trans and everything in between fit into gods’ plans – or don’t – as is often highlighted.

    Nothing gets the knickers twisted quicker than a mention of bum sex when it comes to religious men of the cloth– as Stephen Fry found out during his documentary Out There, when talk of anal completely engrossed Pastor Solomon Male in Uganda.

    Having been raised a Roman Catholic (and no I wasn’t abused sexually) and my formative years spent being educated in a RC Primary, I quickly came to realise that I, my actual person, was thoroughly frowned upon. Bible passages quickly assured me that I was to end up in hell, burning with the likes of unrepentant mass murderers and rapists, because of my love of Neighbours’ star Toby Schmitz.

    How was my 7-year-old self to know that those things are completely comparable in the eyes of God?

    Are they? If God does exist, why would s/he care who I love? I mean seriously, there’s so much more to be interested in…

    It strikes me as a bit strange at how what we get up to in bed, or don’t, as is most often the case, totally consumes the minds of those who use the ‘good’ book to justify their hate for homosexuals. I’m looking at you Pat Robertson et al. And I’m not buying that BS ‘Love the Sinner, Hate The Sin’ crap. Either love me and everything I do / or don’t and nob off.

    At the age of 14, I made the conscious decision, not to be Confirmed by a church that puts my life state lower that those who wish to procreate and live in perpetual sin and if that’s your bag, I’m happy for you, even if you can’t be!

    So this month, as it’s Christmas coming up and all, we thought we’d be a bit controversial and take a look at Religion Vs. Sexuality and ask the questions that matter to the gay community like: Does someone’s belief take priority over someone’s inherent being?

    If you’ve got something to say on the matter, why not write us an article or get involved with the comments section.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • COLUMN | Frightful

    I tend to have a slightly over-active imagination. Maybe the diet of Hitchcock films and cheap thrillers that I devoured during my youth are to blame. I encountered three situations this week that sent my pulse racing and made me feel like Tippi Hedron in an aviary:

    1) Walking through the deserted park on my way home from work on a dark November evening, I heard a man running at me. As he approached I heard him wheezing and breathing heavily. Anticipating a knife in my back or at least a huge hairy hand round my throat, I braced myself. Of course, it was one of the ubiquitous joggers that pound the streets, getting sore nipples and suffering for a few pounds of weight loss. It was all quite harmless.

    2) Walking towards me was a man who was shouting loudly into the air. He was angry and babbling, face contorted with rage. Clearly this man was deranged and about to kick off, throwing punches and pulling out a huge sword as he moved to disembowel me. Of course, it was a man using his mobile. It’s so hard to tell nowadays who is and isn’t having a psychotic episode, as the world seems full of people shouting into mid air. It was all quite harmless.

    3) Sitting on the bus I hear the words “F**king gay boy” shouted out loud. I wince and am instantly back to my 14-year-old self, suffering homophobic abuse on a daily basis. I expect that an attack on myself is forthcoming and prepare to vacate the bus. Of course it was just teenagers, causally bantering with each other, using the words ‘gay’ and ‘gay-boy’ to mean ‘sh**e’. It was all quite harmless.

    Actually, no: the f**k number 3 was harmless. It was offensive, divisive and damaging. It might have been meant as a fun bit of cajoling but actually it’s really bloody offensive and really dangerous. Would they have used racist terms as insults to each other and thought that was O.K.? Is it O.K. to use a term describing a massive section of society to mean something is lame and useless? Is it harmless to allow this to happen when we’ve fought so hard for so many years for respect?

    Joggers are annoying and get under you feet. Mobile phone shouters are rude and ill mannered. People using the word gay to mean anything other than ‘happy’ (if they’re over 80) or homosexual are beyond despicable and in my opinion, are as dangerous and dumb as racists or people who use derogatory words for disabled people. I’m fully in support of the Stonewall Campaign against the casual use of homophobic language. I know it’s hard to change cultural practices but it’s not impossible.

  • COLUMN | Testing Times

    It’s National HIV testing week: a campaign that I strongly believe in. As a naïve 17 year, I met, and quite quickly moved in with, a much older man. It was the late 1980s and AIDS. was grabbing the headlines. Ineffectual government TV adverts and sensationalist headlines didn’t penetrate my psyche and I ignored the whole safer sex message. As far as I was concerned it wasn’t a worry for me. Condoms were readily available in the gay bars I frequented and for various reasons they stayed gathering dust in my bedside drawer.

    Five years down the line I started to have concerns. People around me in the sleepy Midlands town where I lived were starting to get diagnosed with HIV and a contemporary of mine died of AIDS. in his mid twenties. Famous people starting dying, people who were remote yet whom I could relate to. I’d not been especially promiscuous (yet) and had only had a handful of sexual partners. Of course, this didn’t mean a thing, as the sexual partners that I’d had unsafe sex with had all had a fair share of sexual encounters. I’d effectively opened myself up to the transmission route of every partner they’d had too. The thought that I might have HIVbegan to niggle away at me.

    I did the worst thing possible and ignored it. I flicked past articles about the subject, avoided novels and films with an AIDS theme and tried to supress the thoughts whenever they arose. Trying to keep your eyes, ears and mind closed to something is incredibly counterproductive. Pushing down thoughts can be like trying to hold down a beach ball in a swimming pool: the harder you push it down, the more velocity it attains when it bounces back.

    My hypochondria worsened. Every blemish, ache or swollen gland was a sure fire confirmation of my fears. I actually convinced myself that I definitely had the illness and made changes to my thinking accordingly. I stayed put in a bad relationship for much longer than I should (falsely) believing that no one else would want me if I was positive for HIV I tried not to plan ahead or think about the future, as I was convinced that I didn’t have one. I worried and fretted and tried to keep busy to avoid thinking. Treatments were only just coming out to slow the progress of the virus and during this time, several more acquaintances became ill and died. When one of my partner’s exes was diagnosed with the virus, I was certain that my days were very limited.

    It took several years before I finally plucked up the courage to have a test. There was no flash of light or defining moment. I was just so sick of worrying and doing nothing that I eventually came to the conclusion, that whatever the answer I was better knowing rather than living like I was. The test was negative. A week of anxious waiting proved just how wrong my thinking was. I was so convinced that I had the virus that I had a repeat test a month later. My mind-set took some readjusting.

    Knowing what I know now: I look back and see that had I been positive, I would have somehow coped with the diagnosis. Delaying the testing lead me to not take steps to address the issues and left me stuck in a process of denial and grief. Of course, treatments are better now too and the testing process is much easier and faster with a range of testing options. It’s so important to know your status.

  • COLUMN | B Stands For Bullying

    This month is mostly brought to you by the letter B, for bullying…

    No, this is not the section of a game show where we shout out “lines you’d never hear in a…”. After reading some of the recent articles on bullying and people’s experiences it stirred up some memories inside me. I started to reflect on my experience of bullying and, while the memories were still fresh I thought I’d share with you some of my thoughts and, to be perfectly frank, pains of my bullying experience.

    Contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t always this funny (ha), intelligent (bigger ha) and well dressed (ha-ha) man you see before you. During my early school days, around the age of 13-15 I was very much the school loner. I had about 3 friends, one of whom was my beloved cat (so you can see what I mean by loner). I was angry all of the time and very quickly became what is known as an “easy target” for jibes and derogatory remarks.

    I saying “bullying” because bullies aren’t just people that you can spot in a crowd. They aren’t one group of people over another, you can’t say “ah yes, I can tell be the way that man walks that he’s a bully”. Especially at school ‘bullies’ are anyone and everyone; you could be sat next to one right now on the bus…

    At school, once you became known as the school geek or “harry potter” look-alike then that’s it, you were stuck with that label with everyone that was aware of it (which was pretty much everyone). It wasn’t helped by my avid determination to stick with the ‘Harry Potter’ look that I had adopted and the haircut that was described by my tormentors as a “mullet” (although it wasn’t – Google a mullet and it did not look that that).

    The jibes would range in nature and tone. Some would be from girls having their usual catty digs or some would come from the year idiot. Often it would be a case where that day he’d picked you as the target to mutter the only long word he could manage in a day without tiring out his one brain cell. All you’d get from him is “mullet” and then he’d laugh and walk away. Any come back you gave was met with a blank face like you’d shouted a foreign language at him and shrugged off. I don’t like to be unkind but the facts seem to speak for themselves…

    This went on all during the lower years of high school and into the 1st year of my GCSEs; never violent, only consistent tormenting from any and all angles. At the time, and even to this day, who do you turn to in that sort of situation? Teachers? Parents? The bullies themselves? In my mind none of these would have been of any real help. Teachers wouldn’t tell then entire year off for picking on 1 child. And besides, back in those days ‘bullying does not take place at our school’.

    My Parents then? But how do you tell your parents you are being bullied by the entire year? Most parents wouldn’t know what to do any more than you would. The rest would either tell you to stop being so ridiculous, not care or march you down to the school to complain to the teachers that won’t tell off an entire year anyway and fob you off with a “bullying does not take place at our school”. Have you tried telling your entire year that you want them to stop calling you names? If you have, and succeeded, not only do I take my hat off to you but I also think you should be working for an anti-bullying charity and be an inspiration to us all.

    This constant torment and digs meant that for many years I suffered with intense bouts of anger and frustration, often lashing out at those around me. Looking back now, I believe that I suffered all during those years from a very deep depression. My tormented mind took me places that I never wish to see again, nor wish on any living soul. The mind can be just as cruel as any bully.

    So I suffered in silence for many years. I quickly took to anticipating the blows that would come my way, and I thought that if I called myself such things that it would take the wind out of their sails and they would get bored of it. It didn’t really work; they just found other ways of slipping it in or getting at you. However that view is something that still stays with me today and I’m always the first one to crack a joke at my own expense.

    In my final year of GCSEs and going into a-levels I started to notice something in my behaviour, that, up until that point I hadn’t really noticed. Of my 3 friends (including the cat), the one who was the very opposite of who I was (not the cat) suddenly found themselves on the receiving end of my anger and frustration. Over a period of about 3 years I had repeatedly made jabs and comments about him, his views and his personality. I had become the very thing that I was so angry at. I think it came to a head when I noticed that my other friend had started to do it as well. I sat and watched as he made the exact same jibes that I had made and it hit me. I had become the very thing that I despised and I was utterly horrified. To this day it is my biggest shame and I only share it because such shames should be frowned upon. Bullying will only stop when society decides it is completely unacceptable just as it once did of Homosexuality. Isn’t it amazing how that can be stopped in public places and yet bullying of any kind can’t?

    For those that have read a previous article of mine about gay bullying you’ll note that this is around the time that I ‘verbally attacked’ the resident school “gay boy” after he verbally attacked a friend. It was that event that helped me open my eyes to what I had become and the behaviour I was breeding in others.

    It’s almost as if something changed within me. Not consciously or through any overnight miraculous transformation, slowly but surely things began to change. I cut and restyled my hair, learnt to control my temper and anger, became the “funny man” and someone less social awkward to be around. Now my problems didn’t change overnight but funnily enough the M word soon disappeared. As did the constant casual mocking. You could even say that I had a place other than rock bottom in the social ladder. The real relaxed me was starting to appear, not the bitter and twisted person that seemed to be taking hold. I was even invited to parties, invited out to the pub I had friends and people to talk to. All because I had made a change in my life to change what made me so different.

    Now this is very unique to my experiences and life and isn’t typical of all bullying scenarios. Some could even say that I succumbed to peer pressure by changing who I was. But to those people I say this; surely the person I have become is better than the angry mess I was becoming? You can either be bullied, and spend the rest of your life being a victim of bullying or you can engage and challenge it. Work out what the bullying is about and actively challenge it. Either through changes and confidence in yourself or through seeking help and guidance from others, including your family.

    Humans fear what they do not understand and this is especially true of children and those with troubled backgrounds. You’ll often find, as I did, that a bully is someone with a pain or secret of their own. Someone who is looking to deflect attention away from themselves, or to lash out the pain that they feel or have suffered. However there are those that just do it because social protocol allows them to. And these are the dangerous ones. These are the ones you don’t see coming and the ones that in all honesty, hurt the most. And it is these ones that we must challenge as a society so that eventually bullying truly is seen as socially unacceptable regardless of the social crowd it’s happening with. Why can’t we make bullying behaviour as unacceptable in public as 2 men kissing once was?

    My years of bullying have left their scars. I don’t let them define me or dictate my life, but they have given me my sense of humour and outlook on life. Bullying is a part of my background and to ignore it is, in my mind, foolish. I owe both my good points and my bad points to my bullying experience. And while I wouldn’t call myself a ‘victim’ of bullying, I would call myself someone who has experienced it, knows it, and has come out the other side.

    That is my demon, and I carry it gladly as a reminder to me and to others that throw away words leave lasting scars. I believe it was Oscar Wilde that once said that the ‘pen is mightier than the sword’… How true.

    For those that are interested, my cat was called Tilly and she remained a true and loyal friend in the good times and the bad for 14 years of my life. She was, at one point, my best friend in all the world.

  • COLUMN | It’s okay to be different, isn’t it?

    My school days are such a long time ago now that I barely remember them, or is it that I just blotted them out?

    They seem to belong to a different person who has absolutely nothing to do with the person I am now. I had no idea I would turn out to be gay, though anyone with half a brain could probably have figured it out. I was dancing (in my pram) before I could walk, singing perfectly in tune before I had the slightest idea what I was singing about (all lyrics reduced to lalala), and my favourite films were those involving plenty of song and dance, Fred and Ginger in particular. From an early age, all I wanted to do was dance.

    This always singled me out as being a little different, but my earliest days at primary school were surprisingly happy. It was a mixed school and the other boys didn’t seem to mind that I preferred hanging out with the girls and not playing football with them. Well, they probably reasoned, at least they were spared having to pick me to be in their team. My school was in the middle of a highly middle class part of my home town, and the other pupils all came from the same area. Our parents all knew each other. It was a safe and cosy environment. Even so, though I don’t ever remember feeling physically threatened at my primary school, I had to learn to toss off the occasional jibes about being a sissy and a big girl. However in my last year or two, when I was sitting my eleven plus and preparing to go either to an all-boys Grammar School if I passed, or an all-boys Public School if I didn’t, I started to be picked on that bit more. School was not the fun place it had been when I was younger.

    I had been taking tap dancing lessons since I was five and would constantly sail through my various exams. Dancing was not a boy’s pursuit though. The penny dropped when I looked around at one of the annual dance school displays and realised I was the only boy on stage. That was probably behind my decision to give up dancing lessons. l My dancing teacher, a friend of the family whom I knew as Auntie Joy, was pressing my mother and father to get me to start ballet. She had been a professional ballet dancer herself and an Honours Associate of the Royal Academy of Dance. She thought that, physically, I had the perfect proportions to be a ballet dancer. However, no amount of cajoling on the part of my parents was to make me change my mind. I had decided that there was no way I was going to be going to ballet class when I got to my next school, and, it has to be admitted, my parents didn’t try that hard to persuade me otherwise. It had been bad enough been singled out for going to tap dancing lessons. I was hardly going to make things worse for myself by doing ballet.

    Secondary school (the local grammar) was to prove a terrible culture shock. It was my first exposure to boys from the other side of town, boys who were bright enough to pass their eleven plus, some of whom lived on council estates, and who had built up their own set of tools to deal with the harsher environment they came from. Grammar School was pretty egalitarian in that respect. Boys attending came from all over the town, not one single catchment area. No doubt to many of them, it appeared I had a privileged existence, and in some ways I had. We holidayed in Greece (staying with my grandparents there) when air travel was only for the rich; my father ran his own business and drove a Jaguar. This was enough to single me out, but it probably didn’t help that, though I no longer went to dance classes, I maintained a keen interest in theatre and dance, and would often participate in local operatic society productions, for which my father was musical director. No doubt, all this would have been forgotten if I’d been a keen football player or rugby player, but I had absolutely no interest in sport.

    At primary school I had made friends with all the girls. Here there were no girls. I found it hard to make friends and I became an easy target. Nobody actually called me gay (well the word didn’t exist back then), but I was called a sissy and a poof, without any of us really understanding what that meant. You have to remember homosexuality was illegal in those days. There was no way I was going to admit to myself, let alone anyone else, that I was gay, and I still assumed that I would meet a girl, get married and have children. I knew virtually nothing about sex. Children were much more innocent in those days. Still the other boys sensed I was different, and this is what separated me from them.

    I wasn’t the only boy to be bullied and ostracised though. There were others, who found it harder to get on than me, and I briefly befriended some of them, though ignominiously dumped them when I realised that being friends with them was doing me no good whatsoever. I remember one boy committed suicide while I was there. He was an odd, skinny, intellectual boy, with National Health glasses held together with Elastoplast, evidently from a poor family. Nobody would have anything to do with him, and even the teachers teased him. When he died, there was an announcement in assembly, but the whole sorry business was glossed over. There was never any attempt to tackle bullying in the school, and, truth to tell, the teachers often colluded in it, the idea being that a certain amount of bullying was good for the softer kids, that it was character building.

    My elder brother had gone to the same school 4 years before me, and, though we fought like cat and dog at home, he was to prove to be my protector in my early years at Grammar school. He couldn’t be there all the time of course, but at least I had his protection on the walk home from school, and more than once he turned on boys who were calling me names. I don’t know how I’d have coped without him. I wouldn’t have known how to fight back and, other than my brother, my only defence was speed. I could outrun most of the boys in my year, a fact that was first brought home to me on the day we had some athletics tests. To the amazement of all the other boys, who had assumed all sissy boys were useless at sport, I came first in my year in the 100 and 220 (yards, not metres in those days) and also tested well in the long jump. My games master encouraged me to join the athletics team, but I flatly refused, not because I didn’t enjoy running and jumping, but because I didn’t want to spend any more time than I had to with boys who bullied and threatened me. So, for the second time, I didn’t do something I was good at out of fear, out of fear for what the other boys would do to me. I had earned a somewhat grudging respect because I could run, so the physical bullying stopped, but the verbal jibes continued. I was a sensitive child and it hurt. It’s taken me a long time to learn to ignore people who seek to hurt with words. Indeed the scars can take a lifetime to heal.

    The only place I felt safe was in music classes, and my viola teacher, who knew how horrific games lessons were for me, ended up programming my viola lessons at the same time as the games periods, telling the headmaster there were no other slots available. I was eternally grateful to him. A kind, gentle, quietly spoken man, with weirdly wax like hands and fingers, I have no doubt that, though married, he was gay, not that I knew or guessed that at the time, but looking back, it seems plausible enough. I’m sure he recognised a kindred spirit. Still, in a more accepting environment, maybe I would not have accepted his offer of programming my viola classes so I could skip games. I admit I rather regret not participating in sport at school now. To this day, I feel a mild sense of panic when someone throws a ball at me, or puts a bat in my hand. I feel I’ve missed out.

    When my brother went to university, I had to find a way to survive without him. I did so by if not actually mixing with the bad boys in school, by allying myself with them.I started smoking, let it be believed that I had a string of girlfriends. I’d buy girlie magazines like Mayfair, and make sure the other boys got to see them, though, in all honesty, nothing in their pages really did much for me. Still, they had the desired effect. I started bunking off school too. Suddenly I was cool and the bullying stopped.

    But of course I wasn’t cool. My schoolwork started to suffer. Much to the mortification of my parents, I was hauled up in front of the headmaster on more than one occasion. Though I managed to pass 6 out of 7 of my ‘O’ levels (we took a maximum of 7 in those days), I didn’t get the grades I should have done. I went from being one of the top three boys in my class to one of the bottom few. My ‘A’ level results were even worse, and I ended up having to go to a college to re-study and re-sit my English and French, in an attempt to improve my grades.

    I suppose I was luckier than many. I never actually got beaten up (because I could runs so fast), and most of what I had to deal with was just words. Just words? I remember shouting back at my tormentors, “Sticks and stones can hurt my bones, but words can never hurt me.” But it wasn’t true. Words can and do hurt. They hurt me; both emotionally at the time and also in stopping me doing things I was good at and should have enjoyed. I don’t know if I’d ever have been a great ballet dancer or a great sprinter, but the point is I never got to find out, nor did I find my true academic potential. Hell-bent on survival, education was all but forgotten. How many other young people are not doing well at school because of bullying and peer pressure? I have no doubt it is thousands. We hear of the tragic cases, of those , like that young boy at my school, who are driven to take their own lives, and that one young person should feel death is the only way out is reason enough to ensure we, as adults, do everything in our power to stop another child taking their own life. We should also be considering the wider implications of children not reaching their full potential because of the way they are treated by their peers at school. Children feel that they need to fit in, and respond easily to peer pressure. What we need to do is celebrate diversity. We still live in a culture where the boy who is good at football is going to be feted and revered, whilst the boy who is good at ballet is more likely to be ridiculed and called names. We need to tell children that you can be different and still fit in, but until we can celebrate diversity in the adult world, how can we hope to make things better for children?

    Today is Stand Up day. Make sure you stand up against bullying.

  • COLUMN | Bully Boy

    Secondary school was a pretty grim time for me.

    In spite of being bright, having lots of friends and attending a pretty good school, it was a hideous time in my life and one that I shudder to recall. Markedly effeminate and obviously gay, I was a sure fire target for the homophobic bullies and there’s nothing like a touch of bullying to make life a living hell. I still recall evenings at home sitting and crying in my room, the lurching nausea of a Sunday night with the prospect of school the next day and the soul-destroying erosion of my confidence.

    30 years later, I wondered what advice I might give my 12-year-old self, should I discover that elusive time machine. Here are my top five tips to mini Chris. I’m sure that they won’t apply to everyone and I know that facing up to a bully is a complex issue but here’s what I’d tell myself. Hopefully it might have some advice transferable to others too.

    1) Tell people about it

    The worst bullying of all came from a sport’s teacher (clichéd, I know but people often do behave in a way so tediously true to the expected norm). The belittling comments and name calling during sports lessons set a precedent. If it was acceptable for a teacher to call me ‘the poofter’ in front of the class then it was acceptable for everyone, surely? The resolution came when he blacked my eye (accidentally) by throwing an icy cold football at my face with velocity whilst shouting some retro homophobic name at me. Cue a minor inquiry and a partial resolution of his nasty behaviour (it was the ‘80s, people could get away with more bad stuff than now). It’s easy to see, in retrospect, that I could have made it end a lot quicker had I spoken out sooner to maybe my parents or a sympathetic teacher. At the time this felt terrifying and impossible but I realise now that I didn’t deserve this and that whatever I did to speak out then the moron couldn’t hurt me any more than he already was doing.

    2) There’s safety in numbers

    Take comfort in your allies and if possible, befriend the like minded. I’d tell 12-year-old Chris that he has a great bunch of friends who actually seem to like him and will stand up for him. I made friends with two other gay teenagers and that was an incredibly lucky thing for me. I was lucky that they existed and we got on. We’d hang out together and to our surprise, it was harder to bully three people than one. My loyal female friends were a support too. There was a memorable incident when a boy tripped me over on the way home and my female friend punched him squarely on the jaw. He didn’t cross me again for fear of her firm left-hook. Naturally, I wouldn’t ever advocate violence but I really wish I’d known before that my group of friends were so willing to take no nonsense whilst I was prepared to take so much.

    3) What they’re saying is rubbish

    Just because you have a crush on the singer from Duran Duran and like a good show tune doesn’t make you inferior. Whatever names they might call you are utterly irrelevant. The opinion of someone who terrorises someone due to his or her sexuality really doesn’t count at all. It’s worth less than zero. In fact it’s worth less than that even. It needs a whole scale of its own; it’s so beneath contempt.

    4) Look for positive role models

    Not so easy in the 1980s but this is a bit easier now, hopefully. Even back in the bad old days of leg warmers and The Kids from Fame, there were strong positive people to look up to. It was a revelation to me, at the age of 14, to discover gay literature. I devoured books by Edmund White and Felice Picano and took a keen interest in historical figures like Harvey Milk who had fought so strongly for the cause. Pop music gave me idols too and Andy Bell and Jimmy Somerville were strong and unashamedly gay figures. These people taught me more about humanity and strength than any meathead sports teacher or vile acting teenager with an axe to grind.

    I also found comfort from a local gay youth group and the local gay switchboard. I was amazed that other people understood what the strife I was going through and that I wasn’t alone.

    5) Remember: You really are a lot more fierce and fabulous then they’ll ever be

    Nothing to say about this on except: fact!

    This is just my advice to myself and doesn’t apply to everyone. Bullying is a hard thing to stand up to and to get through alone. If you are being bullied because of your sexuality or any other reason, whatever age you are, then please get some professional help and advice.

    Here’s some useful links:

    http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Bullying/Pages/Homophobicbullying.aspx

    http://www.standupfoundation.com/

    http://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/advice/children-young-people.aspx

    http://www.eachaction.org.uk/about-each/

    And for more contacts visit: http://www.thegayuk.com/Bullying

  • OPINION | The Hairy Grey Gay

    So, here’s the deal…..you’re ageing, bits aren’t working the way they used to and then nature plays the cruellest of jokes on you – you go bald on top only to have hair grow “elsewhere”!

    As your thatch thins, your ears suddenly become playgrounds for what can only be described as industrial strength pubic hair! As if that wasn’t bad enough, you start to notice the odd (very odd) hair on your shoulder, sprouting on your neck well below your beard line, even on your ear lobe! Ok, that last one may be just me but you get the picture. I can’t be the only one with feet like an ageing Hobbit?

    So why is it we grow bald in some places and still grow hair in others? And how much does it affect our confidence as we age – already a dodgy area even if you’re not gay!

    The whole area of us growing hair is a strange subject – we’re born with some, it can change colour as we grow, it appears in places during puberty that we never had it before, it then disappears from some areas as we age and also changes colour again! Talk about keeping us entertained!

    I did a quick straw poll amongst my twitter lovelies and it appears that the majority of us “folic-ally challenged” individuals are FINE with being somewhat thin on top. Luckily fashions change and we are no longer seen as thugs or skinheads if we shave our heads.

    One of my favourite signs in Manchester of recent times offered scalp pigmentation as an option to losing your hair. This reminds me of the old “hair in a can” stuff that used to be available – and maybe still is?

    It sounds like someone comes along with a can of whatever colour your remaining hair is and either sprays your head or slaps some paint on it! It smacks of desperation, but that’s my own opinion, maybe I’d feel differently if I wasn’t happy with the bald look!

    Recent fashions have encouraged beards, moustaches, shaved heads, the most severe partings possible (even shaving them in) so it seems anything goes and for all ages too. No need to feel left out of the fashion loop if you’re 39 and 12 months…..however, maybe ask Santa for one of those lovely nasal hair trimmers – they work wonders and can take care of those tricky little buggers growing in your ears, nose or elsewhere…

     

     

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  • COLUMN | Tis The Season

    It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, not all that Christmas nonsense that’s looming, but autumn. I totally love autumn. It’s arrived with a bang in London, heralded by high winds and radical temperature drops but oh, is it beautiful. The leaves are magnificent, the smell of wood smoke is in the air and the weather today is crisp and sunny.

    Finally the weather suits my clothes (isn’t that a line from a song?). I’ve unearthed my wool suits, my tweed jackets and my original 1950s Tootal scarves and I’m ready to rock and stroll. Autumn is my favourite season to go walking: all those leaves to kick, cheeky squirrels to feed nuts to and bright vistas full of warm colours. No more having to expose my flesh in summer clothes that fail to hide the bulges in the wrong places and the puny bits. No more sweating so much that I look like I’ve melted and having to sport unseemly damp patches on the Tube.

    The food is good too. I’ve begun on an odyssey of soup consumption and stodgy cakes, wholesome stews and custard have re-appeared on the menu. The festivals are better too. Give me Halloween any day over your puny Christmas and Easter stuff. I don’t want a chocolate egg or sickly carol singing. I want blood, ghouls and the un-dead. I want rotting flesh, dismembered limbs and evocations of mean. They appeal to me so much more. Cruella de Vil is so much more me than a giant rabbit with a basket or a man in a red fur trimmed suit that entices children onto his lap.

    Snuggling up with the heating on high, a good book and the curtains drawn against the outside world is my idea of heaven. The cold weather keeps people in their houses more so the streets are quieter and there’s less noise and bustle. On the down side: given the energy price hikes, I’ll be destitute come March but I’ve got two kidneys and the market must be good for selling one of those, right?

    With every Yin comes a Yang though. I have started the season of viral illnesses with a heavy cold. I’m drowning in my own mucous and living on a diet of Paracetamol and bad TV. Maybe I’ll give the leaf kicking a miss today and snuggling up will be more sweating and shivering. Oh autumn, how I loved you but like any lover you have some annoying habits and bringing with you these tiresome viruses has to be a deal breaker. I’m all about the spring now. Autumn: We’re through.

  • COLUMN | Some people are gay

    I’m never normally speechless but the other day a work colleague rendered me thus. She happened to mention the Stonewall “Some People Are Gay Get Over It” bus campaign that has re-launched. She wondered why it was necessary at all and considered it a bit of an insult…

    I remained silent, to my shame. There was a lot that I could have said.

    I could have pointed out that homophobic hate crimes still ride high in the crime figures’ hit parade.

    I could have discussed the recent reports about the volume of calls to The Samaritans from men with issues surrounding their sexuality.

    I could have pointed out that although we’re both white and middle class, we work in an area with a high black and ethnic minority population with high social deprivation where homophobia is rife.

    I could have pointed out the high levels of bullying in schools, prevalence of drug and alcohol problems in LGBT people and the high rates of mental illness and suicide that, unsurprisingly, go hand in hand with this.

    Maybe, I could have quoted some of the extremist religious groups and the hatred and bile that they spout about us, to anyone who will listen.

    I could have discussed the long wait for marriage equality and the vitriol that was merrily aired during this debate.

    I could have mentioned the school children on the bus, merrily calling each other ‘gay’ as an insult, the word, naturally, meaning totally crap.

    I didn’t mention any of this. I grunted and carried on typing, followed a few minutes later by a funny little aside about a colleague. I was fulfilling my role, you see: comedic and waspish gay colleague/friend/relative/neighbour. We’re unthreatening and fun to be around. We’re much like the inflatable ‘gay best friend’ recently on sale by a major supermarket. We make hen nights jolly but can be put back in the drawer if we get over blown.

    I think that tomorrow, I may take something unusual to work with me: my soapbox. We’ve got things to discuss.

  • COLUMN | Some Days

    There are days when I really hate those people who shout into mid air whilst sitting on the train.

    In my youth you knew where you were with people who talked to themselves. They were experiencing psychotic episodes and best avoided in case they mistook you for a demon. Nowadays you have to look discretely for the mobile phone and earpiece. Whatever happened to decorum? To the young woman on the train yesterday: I’m terribly sorry about your cousin’s gynaecological problems but actually I think that you’re wrong. The manager in the pizza takeaway where you answer the phone was right to tell you that taking the day off to see a relative in hospital who has a faintly dodgy fanny is a sackable offence. I hope he gives you your marching orders.

    There are days when I hate the scrum at the tube station. I want to shout at people that I’m actually a solid and can’t be passed through like a vapour, however hard you push. They’ve yet to invent a human who can be walked into and won’t make a resounding thudding noise. I want to proclaim the virtues of personal hygiene and cologne and that train seats are for people, not your tacky fringed handbags.

    There are days when I want to the stand up in the cinema and shout at all the people who are discretely whispering asides to their companions. I want to ask them all to go home and watch television in the comfort of their own sitting rooms where they can make inane comments to their hearts’ content and not be irritating the hell out of the rest of the paying public with their hissing babble and verbal nonsense.

    There are days when I want to scream at the people blaring music from their cars as they drive along. I can almost cope with the Gangsta Rap. If there’s music to be blared out of a car window then that’s your tune of choice. Elton John, though? I seriously heard someone belting Elton John out of a car stereo the other day. As much as I like the odd vibration, I don’t want my spleen being wobbled about to “Nikita”, thank you very much.

    There are days when I consider a move to a remote island. Then I remember how much I hate not having a mobile phone signal. I’d get annoyed by the cows and sheep and how they just kind of stand there, the way they look at you and not to mention all that public defecation. The birds would fly the wrong way, the grass would be too tall/too short or too green.

    You know what though? Other days not one bit of this annoys me. Life can be odd like that.