How I Met My Boyfriend

I met my partner; that’s what we have to call each other these days, once upon it time it was boyfriend but then that somehow didn’t define enough of the depth of the relationship that we had, so we had to change it to “partner” to please the political activists. I met my partner at a beat. He still refuses to acknowledge that he was doing a beat; he says he was just desperate to go to the toilet. For three hours he was desperate… please.

It was summer and for some reason I was out near Brighton-les-Sands. I think I had been taken to see Bernard King’s show at his theatre restaurant the night before; anyway, I got so drunk that I had to stay the night at the ex boyfriends. I think Judy Connelli was in the show but that’s by the by.

I woke up the next morning like Vera Charles, hung darling and not in a good way. (Once upon a time I never knew who Vera Charles was or Mame Dennis). I’m sure I was still drunk and I thought a swim would bring me back to life.

Brighton-les-Sands in summer, on a hot day and with a hangover is not a pleasant place to be. However there is a little amenities block down near the beach that had always been popular with some of the more “ethnic” queens. And god knows I do love a wog boy. So just after lunch, Devon, cheese and pickle on white flushed down with a can of Tab, I found myself in need of a little relief.

I had seen this one number, a rather rough looking piece of trade with a plumbers crack, scoping out the toilets and I thought to myself, “now that’s right up my boulevard”. I headed into the darkness and the smell of men. That’s a nice turn of phrase… the smell of men… men smell; even as I sit here I can still feel it wash over me, the aroma of men, a mixture of sweat, adrenalin, cum and with a hint of Old Spice. Where was I, oh yes … the darkness, the smell etc. Okay so there I am standing at the urinal pretending to pee and in he comes. His head nervously flicking from side to side, checking out the cubicles, scared his mother is hiding in there waiting to jump out and accuse him of crimes against her soul. Remember he’s a wog boy and they’re always so scared of what their Mummy will think. He sidles up to me and I can see that this one is a hairy number, black curls of coarse hair plastered to his stomach. A five o’clock shadow permanently darkening his chin. His breath is hot and hard in that close room. His trembling hand reaches out and snakes into my pants, he grabs me and I swear I can feel that sigh that rushes from his mouth, my body tensed with expectation. This is what I needed and desired, a real man someone who knew what they wanted and how to take it. No bullshit. Just a primeval grunt and I would be his.

So there we were just about to get really heavy when some queen rushes in screaming “run girls it’s the bashers”. We all button up and run for the door and this creates rather a log jam at the exit. I’m stuck, until I feel one hand on my shoulder push me through and I tumble out into the sun just in time to see ten big burly shire boys barrelling down on us.

I’m grabbed from behind and pushed to the car park, thrown into the front seat of a car and then as the wheels squeal (assonance in case you missed it), I’m driven off into the afternoon.

Like a real bloke I start to scream “let me out… Let me OUT... “I know people… whatever you do NOT the face”.

“Oh shoosh” he said. Shoosh is not something a basher usually says. “I’m not going to bash you, you big girl… I’m saving you”.

Sitting next to me, his face fixed firmly on the road ahead as we career along General Holmes Drive, is the little queen who had run or more correctly, swished into the toilets, hands flailing, screaming with a slight lisp, (not an easy thing to do) and warned us all of the impending attack of the barbarians. This little number, no bigger than an elf, a refugee from the Myers window dressing department, a hairdresser in search of a blow-dryer is the person we all owed our lives to. Can you believe it? Now I’m no ocker butch queen, I am what they now call a “straight acting gay”, a term I really dislike but that’s another thousand words. However sitting next to this little fem bot made me look like John Wayne or maybe even a Russel Crowe.

“Saving me … you… look at you… how could you save me?” I screamed, in my deepest butchest voice.

“I can always drop you back there if that’s what you want” he simpered.

He had me there. The last place I wanted to be was back at that beat. Maybe that’s why they call them beats – because eventually you will get beaten up.
“So just shoosh and say thank you. My names Leon, what’s yours?” My heart sunk. Of course his name would be Leon. He had Leon written all over his face.
“Tony” I mumbled. Oh the humiliation. Not ten minutes ago I had been about to do the “good deed” with the future Mr. Right and now here I am trapped in a mauve Toyota with a tiny mirror ball hanging from the rear vision mirror and some animal print fabric covering the seats.

I had gone from Old Spice to Opium in five fast minutes. From plumbers crack to… really there are no words to describe where I was now.

“Hello Tony. Well that was a close shave. Lucky I just happened to be passing by and saw those brutes. I thought that trouble was brewing.

Who says “trouble was brewing”, and what does he mean just passing by - I had seen him in the dunes about an hour before. Passing by, yeah right.

I found that I was getting more and more irritated by this little number as she prattled on about gossipy titbits and trivia from Broadway shows and then from out the blue she hit me with, “would you like to go out for a cheap eat with me? Not tonight but later in the week”.

“Sure” I said. WHAT. How did that happen, why did I say yes, I can’t still be drunk… no one can be that drunk. Before I have a chance to change my mind my phone number tumbled from my mouth. Maybe I was just rattled. I mean it’s not everyday that you are chased out of a public toilet block by a group of thirty, (its growing isn’t it), cricket bat wielding Neanderthals with the sent of blood in their nostrils.
“Drop me here” I blurted out, “there’s my car”.

I got out of the car confused by what was happening, not so much the riots, (thousands of them now), more the acceptance of a dinner date with this jockey. I leaned into the window to say thanks and as quick as a flash he leaned over gave me a peck on the cheek, flashed a smile, “toodles” he said and drove off.
Toodles! Oh god. Toodles.

I was left staring at the rear of his Toyota as he drove off into the sunset back to where ever he had come from.

Sure enough three days later I got the call. “Hello Tony it’s me, Leon… from the other day, I thought it might be nice to have dinner tomorrow night. I know this little place in Paddington behind the Unicorn we could get a bite to eat there and then see Kandy Johnson’s new show”.

“Okay Leon… hi… yeah about that…” I stammered, “You kind of got me unprepared the other day and I wasn’t really thinking straight. But I don’t think…”
“Oh shoosh you, you silly thing”, there was the shoosh again, “a dates a date. Now what’s your address and I can pick you up”.
“My address. Look what I am trying to say is… I don’t really think that we…”
“Darls let’s say about 7.30 for dinner, then you can have a beer after the meal while we wait for the show… now what was the address again?”
“Flat 5/78 Brougham St.” Jesus wept, what am I doing? It’s all that Opium he uses it’s seeping through the phone lines, drugging me.
“Lovely, see you later. Toodles” and then he was gone.

So we had dinner and then I had a beer, a few beers actually and then we watched Candy’s show. We were the odd couple, him with a scarf and me with a scowl. But you know what after thirty years I don’t notice the scarf so much anymore or the indecent amount of perfume that he insists on spraying before he leaves the house and I guess he has learned to put up with certain irritating habits of mine that some people say I have.

Every now and then as we drive down to Berry to our weekender we pass that little amenities block at Brighton-les-Sands and without fail every time we pass it by he says, “I was NOT doing the beat darls”. Yes dear and that’s still your natural hair colour.

I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had taken up with the “plumbers crack” that day. I suspect that I wouldn’t be driving to Berry for the weekend.

Toodles.

Ps. this is Leon now.

Tony tends to exaggerate, god love him; allow me to correct some factual errors.

I did meet him at Brighton-les-Sands but I have never done a beat in my life, I mean they’re just so dirty… and that smell. There was no riot, there may have been a cricket bat and yes there was a small group of about three boofheads who wanted to cause some trouble. And yes I did run into the toilet block and shout out a warning.

Yes I gave Tony a lift… no I did not ask him out, he asked me out… to thank me, he said. Well I thought that was a nice thing to do and being polite, I agreed. He kissed me. I gave him my number, he phoned me, (three times), he suggested we have dinner and then he wanted to see a drag show. Drag is not really my cup of espresso but I thought why not.

So we had dinner, I paid; we saw a drag show and then spent the next thirty years together.

I am five foot nine inches tall and I do NOT dye my hair.

Blogging is Just Another Way of Avoiding Writing

It's easy and it's fun. It can be done anywhere and often is. It can be pithy and wise. It can cut to the heart of "the matter", but... Blogging is just another way of avoiding writing.

I can sit in a smart Cafe' drinking or at my desk in my room and pound out a thousand words on anything that grabs my interest that day, like "Why does the dishwasher never finish the cycle, I mean there's always a pond of water left sitting in the bottom of the tub and it's what they call pottable water ie. not fit for drinking. Why is it there? Can I just blame the summer cockroaches that have decided that the dishwasher is the perfect place for them to try out their new resort wear? Or is there something more sinister; is this some kind of leftest, greenie, new agey plan to make me hand wash and dry all the dinner dishes." See I could spend an hour or two on that, easily. Meanwhile I'm really supposed to be working on the script.

The script - it's up to third draft stage now (which really means that it's been rewritten at least fifty times but we say third draft so it sounds fresh) and I'm beginning to hate it. Every time I reread it, it becomes more and more banal and trite. I'm over the characters, I'm over the setting, I'm over the artificiality of the hole dang thing. That's one of the reasons I'm blogging.

Another reason - all these articles that I've written and sent off to various "gay" papers are just sitting gathering dust on an editors desk until "the right time" pops up. "will you use them?" I always ask. "Oh you bet, we love them. They're a really interesting take on life. Keep them coming", they say. Man does not live on the promise of publication alone. That's another reason I blog, it's instant, warts and all, bad grammar and spelling mistakes included.

And then there's the short story that's floating around out there in the ethos. It's going to be published but they won't give me a date. I have to say though if I really knew they would publish it I would have written something much better - but it's too late now.

Three days ago I wrote a letter to the editor of a Sydney paper - that was published! (an exclamation mark is lazy writing by the way). Today in the same paper someone has written a reply basically telling me to shut up. If I respond will I get my own column?

Anyway, Act 2 is calling, it needs tweaking. That's just code for I'm going to spend three hours searching YouTube for interesting Vlogs.

My Man Crush

I’ve got a “man crush”, well it’s really more of a “man/boy crush” but I’m proud of it. The only real problem I can see is the man/boy I have the crush on lives in New York, oh and one other small detail, he’s a little younger than me. I’m guessing he was born on or around the year 1988 – in that year Australia was celebrating its 200th birthday and I was celebrating my 31st. You see my dilemma – geographical distance and that other kind of distance.

Let me tell you how it all began.

About a year ago I became a huge fan of [title of show], the little show that could and did make it to Broadway. The way they did it was to set up a web site dedicated to raising awareness and creating a buzz for the show. They filmed “webisodes” for YouTube and used their friends who just happened to be Broadway celebs to help promote their push to get the show on to The Great White Way. All the usual suspects where there, “Broadway” Cheyenne Jackson, Bebe Neuwirth, Michael Arden, Nathan Lane – are you getting the idea. One of the NYC celebs they used was a fresh faced young chap by the name of Jeffery Self, cute as a button and funny to boot.

A couple of months later another friend in London, who was appearing in The Sound of Music, sent me a YouTube link for the “VGL (very good looking) Gay Boys”, starring the very same Jeffery Self and his perky but cheeky offsider Cole Escola. These boys have about twenty or so clips listed and between the two of them they manage to send up Broadway, the recession, flies, post coital chat and Bernadette Peters to name just a few. Their humour is gentle and not nasty and they have the good sense to send themselves up at the same time. There is nothing malicious or mean in their performance. They’re just funny.

I was trapped, I couldn’t stop watching and I became an addict demanding more and more from each clip that I saw. Never once have they let me down.

But getting back to my “man/boy crush” – those who know me would be forgiven for assuming that Jeffery would be the object of my rather scary cyber stalkering, (there you go a new word), but au contraire, it’s the delightful, discerning and I think slightly demented Cole Escola. The boy is a genius. There’s nothing he will not do for a laugh, not a wig or an accent that he will not wear out, no piece of scenery he will not chew to get that gag.

So yes I have unrequited “man/boy crush” on a performance artist who lives over 30 hours away by Qantas Airbus380.

And you thought you spent too much time in front of the laptop.

Sexual Racism Suxs

“No rice, abos, fats or fems“, read the legend of an on line profile.
When does sexual preference become sexual prejudice? Is it the terminology? If it said “No Asians, no Aborigines, slim masculine guys preferred” would that make it better? WOG, ABO, GAM, FAT, and FEM are all commonly used terms within our community. All of them in one way or another seek to dehumanise us. It makes it easier for us to dismiss those amongst us who are different. Do we think it empowers us? We, a group that has been discriminated against, can feel that at least we’re not the lowest of the low.
Sexual racism and stereotyping is a problem within the gay community. I’m as guilty of it as anyone. Whenever I see an older gay man with a younger Asian gay male I immediately make an assumption; “Chopsticks and walking sticks”. That phrase vividly illustrates the ingrained level of racism in white, gay Australians. It carries with it a presumption that both parties are settling for something less than they might otherwise expect.
I don’t think of myself as a racist but the very fact that these thoughts jump into my mind worries me. Of course I’m discriminatory; we all are by our very nature. We make choices and judgements based on appearance and perception every day. Some of these decisions are helpful others are destructive. But do I make judgements based on someone’s race? Yes. It’s not overt, I don’t burn crosses but I make assumptions. How did I get to be this way? When did I start to judge people based on their ethnicity?
It seems at its most blatant on line. Does the anonymity of the LCD screen and the use of a nickname or adding “LOL” and a “smiley face”, somehow give us the right to attack and vilify with impunity? Does it make it any the less cruel? Would we say, face to face, most of the things that we type? When confronted the perpetrator often replies “it’s just the internet, no one takes it seriously” or better “if you don’t like it, leave”. Words have power. Just because we can’t see the effect doesn’t mean that there are no consequences.
Is the term “No GAMS” offensive? Yes. If we saw an advert proclaiming “NO GAYS” would we all quietly move on? No, we would picket and protest. We’ve been fighting for decades now for acceptance and yet within our own sub groups we discriminate.
I don’t have any answers but I do know that we have to deal with the issue. If one person is offended then we, as a community, should look at changing or modifying our behaviour. This isn’t political correctness this is common decency.
I started this piece with what I thought was a simple question, “when does preference become prejudice”? It may be a simple question but there are no simple solutions. I thought this would be about how we treat others but now at the end I think it’s more about our own self esteem. It’s a theme that keeps recurring for me, “respect of self”; when we think so little of ourselves how can we ever expect to think positively of others.

So You Think You're Ready To Bareback

So you think you’re ready to bareback? You’ve selected your partner and had an informed, in-depth discussion. You’ve known each other for a while, you both look good, gym three times a week, proper food and only do drugs on special occasions. You trust each other. You commit; NO casual sex. You have blood tests so there are no doubts.
Sitting at home watching re-runs of Will and Grace, you wait, counting the days until the results are in.
Finally! You’re a little nervous, who wouldn’t be. In the waiting room you sit next to a gaunt man with shaking hands, sallow cheeks and strawberry blotches on the side of his neck and you wonder. You’re called by your Doctor; you follow him down the corridor. You’re both negative. The much planned and longed for event can go ahead.
You set the day, Saturday. Dinner first, drinks at the Pub, a line of coke, maybe an E, and then the foam party at Arq. So many sexy guys, sweating, bodies all moving as one to the music. You see yourself reflected in the eyes of the other dancers. You’ve never looked better. Tonight’s the night.
At your apartment you fall into bed and pretty soon you’re more intimate with this man than you’ve ever been with anyone.
So now you’re really ready to bareback.
Twenty minutes later it’s worth it. All that discipline, being so careful. It’s never felt like this before. Is it the booze, the E, the coke or the cock. Doesn’t matter, it’s awesome.
A couple of weeks later he’s moved on. You’re feeling run down. You’ve been hitting it pretty hard for a few weeks. Time for a vitamin shot and, while you’re there, might as well get the bloods done.
A week later and you’re feeling much better; you almost forget that Doctors appointment.
The results are back. Unexpectedly, surprisingly, you’re positive. How could it happen? You only had unsafe sex with “him”.
While you were watching Karen and Jack he was at a “private party” and met a guy. They only screwed for a minute and it was such a small cut on the head of his cock that unless he looked really close he would never have noticed it. They took turns, versatility was the key. Neither of them came in the other, well not much anyway. It was over fast. It was “safe”.
So you’re ready to bareback. Good for you and good luck to you. Go for it. But if it goes wrong YOU take responsibility. Don’t blame your partner, you made the decision. It was your choice and you need to own it.
Ask yourself this “Is it worth it?” Is it worth a lifetime, no matter how long or short, of taking pills, every night, of worrying about every sneeze, every sweat and every ache? Are you ready for a trip to the doctors every three months, worrying about T-cells and viral load? What about treatment failure? Is it worth worrying every time you lose weight? Is it worth it?
So you still think you want to bareback?
Across Australia the rate of new HIV/Aids infection is increasing. The time when a man is most infectious is when he sero converts.

Why We Need Another Plague

Well this is going to offend; at least I certainly hope it will. I want to hear arms being crossed and every dudgeon being set to high.

Okay what I mean is, our community needs another challenge, focus, raison d’etre. Something that will bring us back together, a common goal or purpose.

In the 50’s and early 60’s we had the one common purpose of “keeping our closet safe”. We formed groups of like minded men and women, met in secret places and kept our secrets safe. Everything was word of mouth as clubs began to open and then flourish. In the late 60’s and 70’s we found a new voice. Out of the Anti – War, counter culture protest movement and moratoriums we decided that we had something to say and we had a right to be heard. The more radical amongst us learned how to network, form cells, alliances, collectives and societies. Slowly out of those disparate groupings, we put together a cohesive force that burst onto the streets of Sydney and marched. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it! It was wonderful and exciting. It was the start of our brave new pink world. But somewhere along that road to full liberation we settled. Not everyone, but lets be honest most of us, settled for “our once a year day”. Mardi Gras. Until finally even that day is now becoming an irrelevancy. We settled for an existence rather than a life.

Then along came that big disease with the little name and suddenly we were focused again, united against a common enemy. All of that energy got us back out of the Bars and onto the streets. This time we marched under a rainbow banner and demanded that “attention must be paid”. We were dying, slowly, painfully and in alarmingly increasing numbers. Not the pretty death we had hoped for after watching “Now Voyager”. Who was going to look after us if we didn’t start looking after each other?

As the pages of this paper began to fill with the death notices of young men in their 20’s and 30’s we decided that silence really did equal death, it was time to Act Up. Each victory was hard fought and sometimes the battles took unexpected tolls on those fighting. Despair overwhelmed some and they found it impossible to go on. So we formed more groups, groups of caring, unpaid, volunteers like ANKALI and CSN. to support not just the sick but the carers as well. Then new drugs began to appear, then combinations, then a 10 year life expectancy became 15 then 20 then……what was once a death sentence has become a manageable chronic illness.

So we gave up, not everyone but most. The death notices were replaced with Real estate adverts. The quilt was wrapped up and put away and now only occasionally bought out as a relic, an example of how things were. HIV AIDS became the disease of “that generation”. Once a year the names of our martyrs are read to ever decreasing numbers of people.

We lost our focus. Our bright but brief rainbow community dissolved into fractious internecine fighting. Our crusade became a vehicle for people to hitch their wagons to, to promote their own careers and agendas. God save us all from pragmatists.

We are settling. And what is it that we are settling for? A life of self congratulatory self gratification, of selfishness rather than selflessness. We are still at war but now it’s with each other. The discriminated have become the discriminating. The one thing that the Festival of Light could never do we have done to ourselves. We’ve gone from fabulous to fatuous. We’ve become a theme park for out of “towners” to come to each weekend or on that one night in March, Mardi Gras, and point and stare and snigger at the “gays”. We’re becoming an irrelevancy, a footnote in the last part of a millennium gone by; being sucked slowly and inexorably into the mundane. We live small lives and because of that we are becoming smaller people, focused totally on ourselves.

So yes we need another plague because maybe then we will come together truly as one community and stand up for something more important than our right to drink, drug and “rut” ourselves into oblivion 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The need is out there it’s the willingness that’s lacking. All it will take to get us back on track is the desire to do something for someone else without once thinking “what’s in it for me”. Will we do it?

Maybe violence is the new plague. Maybe the “Reclaim the Street Vigil” is the start of the new Community.

Cancer and all that jazz

Let me preface this entire piece by saying that this is not a finished "bit" and may never be.


Cancer is a funny thing, not funny ha ha but funny peculiar. When you’re diagnosed you have four options of treatment, operate, radiate, kill it with chemo or a combination of all three. There is one other option, do nothing, sit back, wait and see. Now this fifth option is a risky alternative. You’re basically saying, “I am going to take a chance that this cancer will just disappear and I’m going to be just fine again”. You take the chance that the cancer, your cancer, will not invade and destroy the rest of your body.

Cancer is an efficient, uncaring and determined foe. It knows when, where and how to attack. It wages a well planned, well provisioned war on your body. Its supply lines are protected, its intelligence is exact and its retreats, if any, are only ever strategic. Cancer can be a very patient adversary. It’s willing to lie dormant, seemingly defeated for years only to - when you finally allow yourself to begin to believe that possibly, this time; it’s gone for good - reappear, refreshed and ready to rumble.

Cancer perverts. It perverts your healthy cells and turns them against you. One diseased cell becomes two becomes four becomes eight etc etc. Doubling and redoubling, recruiting seemingly eager participants through out your body. Cancer is the al-Qaeda of diseases.

If you’re a cancer patient, you often feel marginalised and paralysed by the competing jargon and treatments recommended by dispassionate doctors who can not allow themselves to become personally involved because the weight of each attachment would, for them, become unbearable. An array of men and women in smart white coats and nifty ties, oftentimes stand over your bed and argue back and forth about differing treatment options. Words that you have only ever heard before on episodes of “House” and then only after you have had at least two, okay, three glasses of wine.

Who do you trust, who do you believe?

Doing nothing is not an option. Ultimately you must become involved. You have to on some level take charge and become the driver of this journey and not the back seat passenger. It’s not acceptable to sit back and be passive about this.

Own your disease, own your journey. Everything you do must be proactive.

Cancer it seems to me is a perfect metaphor for the environment and for our relationship to it. Anything that is left alone and allowed to become infected will destroy its host.

If we take the Holistic view, we are all linked. On a cellular level we all come from the same chemicals and minerals that create our world, our planet. Like a cancer patient our world, our Earth, is struggling to find a path through the various diagnosis to achieve one common goal, healing. We continue to look at this planet, this earth, as something that is outside of us, an external force that we are not part of. Something we can control. When we begin to see that we are as one with it, then we are making that first small but important step towards the solution. We would never leave our own wounds open and uncared for, why then should we even consider the possibility of not cleansing and caring for our environment.

Our planet needs healing, we need healing. We are the cancer cell spreading through this world raping, pillaging and plundering to satisfy our ever changing, ever selfish, desires.

While our planet, our Earth, heaves and gasps for breath, the Doctors and Scientists stand over us giving different and divergent diagnosis. “It’s cyclical”, “We only have a few years left”, “Leave it, it ain’t broke”, and “We stand on the abyss”. Each one of these pundits has a professional PowerPoint production filled with statistics and reports and more statistics and more reports to prove that their point of view is the correct one. Each one confuses and discounts the other. It’s hard to know who or what to believe. Gore versus Lomborg.

Kubler Ross talks about the seven stages of grief in her book, “On Death and Dying”, if we apply that paradigm to where we stand now, we are bouncing around between denial, anger and bargaining. Each of these steps is promoting passivity, not action. When we get passed all of this to acceptance then we begin to find a way forward.

No matter which side of the argument you agree with, it’s obvious that we are not doing all that we can to treat our planet, our Earth, with respect. Forget Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, surely our most basic philosophy should be, do no harm. From that simple statement we then take the next step and start to “do good”. We can begin to create our own, new, reality.

I know that none of this is jaw dropping, earth shattering news to any of you. And it’s a bit like shouting fire after the fire brigade has been phoned. For me the world is too big and if I look at the Amazon, the Arctic, Indonesia, the Sudan, it all becomes so overwhelming that I really think it is easier to do nothing, to take that fifth option. Is Kyoto the answer, god knows, I sure as heck don’t.

Who do you trust, who do you believe?

What I believe is simply that our life force and the planets life force is linked in such an intimate embrace that we dare not close our heart to the suffering of each other. If we turn our backs, shut our eyes and ears, we do nothing but harm ourselves. When we are long gone, like the Dinosaur or the Dodo bird, then our time here will be measured in cosmic seconds not centuries. What legacy did we leave in those few brief seconds?

Define Me a Relationship

Yes I’m having a long term, long distance cyber affair and I have to say it is the most satisfying relationship I have had in a long time. We message each other daily on msn or Gaydar, we send txts and sometimes we eat dinner together, him in his room and me in mine. We’ve never met and really not ever likely to but it did get me thinking – “how do you define a relationship in these modern times”?

Apparently everyone wants one, at least that’s what they say and yet so few seem to admit to having one. Lesbians of course are the natural exception to this rule. I have never yet met an unattached Lesbian.

If relationships are so important to us why do we continue to define them by the paradigms of the past? The traditional Anglo monogamous role play version we see on TV. Do any of us need to have our union sanctified by George, (Pell) or Peter (Jensen)? We spend hectares of old growth forest proclaiming our individuality and yet the one thing we want it seems, is to conform to society’s snapshot of a happily coupled couple. We march for miles, in all weather, in tight fitting, chafing, sequinned thongs with chiffon capes and for what? To be like George and Mildred! The wind created by the rush to be married could power a large Reception Centre. And what’s so great about being like everyone else anyway it seems a little grey and mundane. A very wise individualist said, “we are all unique - just like everyone else).

Most of my friends are in committed relationships, just not the type of relationship that we’ve been told by Leo Burnett or Val Morgan that they should be. One couple I know, much older, so naturally much wiser, had been partnered for over 30 years, (one now sadly deceased), both had younger boyfriends and the boyfriends had boyfriends as well. That’s one hell of a table come Valentines. It worked perfectly, for them.

We’re all in relationships, just look around. It may not look like the Doris Day / Rock Hudson version or the Tom Cruise; Mimi, Nicole, Katie variety. So its not what you imagined it to be when you were in high school secretly fingering your dog eared copy of “The Front Runner” or proudly proclaiming your “outedness” reading “Tales of the City” on the 380 bus.

For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, (mostly poorer at the moment) I seem to have fallen into a relationship, (this is different to the cyber one), with a man 10 years older than me. If you knew how old I am then that would frighten you. Let me stress this though, right here and right now, we never have and never ever will have sex – I think we would both rather set our hair on fire. But we go away on holidays together; we eat dinner in together 5 nights out of 7. We watch House together and we are furious, together, that “So You Think You Can Dance” has finished. We get invited out too most things together, I’m still “Anne Guest” ,(yes I mean Anne), at the STC. We have shared a house together now for over 15 years. He has sat by my bed, in hospital – twice. Although the second time he did demand my Qantas FF number before he would let the Doctors put the tube down my throat. I woke up, a week later, 25 kilos and a 100,000 points lighter. However you cut that flan, that’s a relationship, it may not be healthy, but it’s mine.

Our best friends have been partnered for over 20 years. True they don’t sleep together or in fact live in the same house. They live next door with connecting passageways and five bathrooms. But it works and works very well, for them. They are the happiest couple I’ve ever seen. Two other gay men I know are foster parents to 2, count them 2, children. Another couple flew off to Canada for a commitment ceremony then a honeymoon in Tasmania.

As far as I can tell we are swimming in relationships. Whatever works and does no harm should be encouraged, celebrated and respected. Just because your relationship doesn’t look like Lucy and Malcolm’s, or George and Laura’s, doesn’t make it any less real. Ultimately it shouldn’t matter what the boys in the back room are whispering it’s your life and you are the one living it. So what if it’s not like the fairy tales, who wants to live with 3 bears or 7 small miners or a cow and a beanstalk anyway. Then again maybe you do and maybe you are, that’s fine as well.

Oh and allow it to happen for heavens sake. There is no set time or age when you should buy that summer share in Port Douglas or get those matching Celtic tattoo. It isn’t instant coffee after all. It happens when it happens; in the big scheme of things it’s all perfect.

Go stand in the middle of Taylor Sq. or where ever you like to stand, take off that beret, throw it in the air and you’ll see that love is all around and you’re gonna make it after all.

From Diesel and Dolce to Pj’s and Puzzles

Last Monday we went to a friends place for dinner. Now normally this isn’t news worthy but, over a year ago Matt and Peter fostered two boys “T” and “J”, brothers, who had need of love and stability. When they were going through the process we all said, “isn’t that wonderful, what a great thing to do… are they mad!” None of us actually thought through the implications and responsibilities that were involved. To be honest, I don’t think even Matt and Peter did.
We turned up for dinner at their beautifully restored New York style high ceiling, old timber, two bedroom, groovy inner city apartment. What once was a room of clear surfaces and clean lines is now an obstacle course of puzzles, games, Bob the Builder, toys and plastic children’s chairs. Flannelette pyjamas versus Abercrombie and Fitch. It’s gone from “Sex and the City” to “Malcolm in the Middle”. It feels and smells like a family home now. Dinner is in the oven, two tables are set, one for the boys and one for the “old” boys.
What these guys have done is take two brothers, both under ten, who’ve had a tough time of it, (that’s the understatement of the century), and they’ve provided them with a secure and safe environment where they have a chance of experiencing nurturing and love for possibly the first time in their short lives. To me this is an act of total selflessness.
After the boys had been fed and bathed, “Grandpa” Michael read them a bed time story and then when they were both safely tucked up in their beds, the adults sat down to dinner. I asked Peter and Matt how they were coping.
Their lives have changed dramatically. Things that were once important are now irrelevant. No more smart restaurants and opening nights, now its soccer practice and parent teacher meetings. Lazy Sunday mornings reading the paper in bed are a thing of fond memory when you have two “energiser bunnies” waking up at dawn and wanting to rumble. The boys don’t know the meaning of downtime.
None of it’s easy. Not for a minute. Its constant twenty four hour seven day a week focus. It’s made Matt and Peter a much stronger couple who talk and more importantly, listen to each other. They have a common purpose outside of themselves, something that is so much bigger than their own needs.
I can not imagine where they have found the resources to achieve what they have. There’s been no nine month pregnancy preparation. The boys landed fully formed and damaged in their laps. There have been hard times when it has seemed overwhelming. Peter travels, a lot, for work and “T” and “J” have not been easy. As Matt said one night “Mommy Dearest only tells one side of the story”. He was joking but I think at that stage he was lost in the enormity of this force that has taken over his life. And yet both of them have maintained and grown their own careers.
And the boys’ lives have changed so dramatically as well, from abuse and anger to love and compassion. They had been shunted from one home to another, now at last they have stability. There is a photo of “J” pinned to a once pristine beam of hard wood in the lounge room; it shows a clear eyed, open faced soulful child staring straight into the lens of the camera. There is no artifice, no agenda and no lie in his eyes as he stares back at you. The photo was taken on one of the first days when “J” felt safe enough to again look anyone directly in the face. He was so used to seeing anger, judgement and threat, now he saw love and security. It’s one of the most moving pictures that I’ve ever seen.
The change in all four of these “boys” is enormous.
Matt and Peter don’t expect or seek approval for what they are doing, in fact I know how embarrassed they will be when they read this. They don’t think of reward or recognition. They do it because they can’t not do it. They all have grown in so many ways not only as individuals but as a couple and as a family. They are still Peter and Matt but…more.
Now that’s a Christmas.