On coming out.

Well, it's a bit after National Coming Out Day but better latent than never. (HA! I crack myself up.)
(resists the urge to go tweet that)
Ok..I thought I was heterosexual for many years. I will state for the record that I was sexually abused by a friend of the family at a young age (perhaps around 7, 8 or 9) and therefore (according to my therapists) sexually curious a bit younger than some were back then. Once I got to junior high, I was boy crazy. But I was very un-girlish and tended to drive the boys in the other direction, towards the girly girls. My mom for whatever reason did not teach me anything about how to be a girl, so I became a boi.
I didn't wear a bra until late in junior high when someone came up to me with the intention of snapping it and made a huge fuss that I didn't wear one at all. I didn't realize that I was supposed to.
In P.E. I was made fun of for not shaving. And when I did shave I was made fun of not shaving my toes. I had not ever heard the world LESBO until two chicks chased me around the school calling me LESBO and DYKE and MAN DRESSER. I admit I wore boy's clothing, it's what felt comfortable, and my mom had tried to get me to dress less mannish but she didn't teach me the accompanying ablutions.
What good would it have done to wear a shirt with darts in it if I didn't shave, wear makeup or comb my hair?
At any rate, I kept on chasing boys and finally caught one in the tenth grade. My best friend Valerie and I decided to lose our virginity on the same afternoon. We invited our current crushes over to her mom's where there were no adults for the week-end and that is what happened. My first sexual intercourse, and it was very boring for me. I just laid there, sort of like being at a movie. Something unusual was happening but I was just watching it happen. I faked an orgasm then, and did so with every guy after that.
And there were a few more guys. I'd go home with a good looking guy, but I never enjoyed it and half the time they were great big fags anyway. IF they were gay we'd become friends, if they were straight they usually ended up calling me dyke. I didn't know what dyke meant until I lived in Pasadena for a summer.
My mom packed me off to live with a gay friend of hers in California for the summer of '78. He worked at the Pasadena Antique Mart with a whole bunch of wonderful characters. Two of which were a lesbian couple who (and I shudder to look back on this)liked to have me get things out of the loft because they got to watch me going up the ladder a lot. (ew)
I was crushed out on my mom's gay friend, and his gay boyfriends, but I knew they were gay so I kept it to myself. I stayed as high as his pot supply would allow, to dull the whole stupid scenario.
My mom's gay friend needed a break from me two months into my visit so he sent me to stay with his good friend and her two teenage daughters. I was so vastly different from them: I had jeans, overalls... they had girls' clothes. I remember it clearly: I was watching one of them get dressed and was suddenly so turned on that I thought I would melt. I'd never felt that with the guys: with them it was some kind of just longing for something, but when I got in bed with a guy I was bored.
This was pure lust and I watched her take off a pair of pants and put them on and wore them all day. It was my first girl crush. I never told her or anyone about that. And I forgot about it for a while, until I met someone at a bar that was having a 'gay night' and she asked me to dinner. I went, and she asked me to stay. I was drunk, she was drunk. It would have been great except that her breath stank so bad I wanted to vomit. It was so horrid that I could not go through with the sex. Bad experience. Plus her legs were very hairy, and I had been taught that that was gross. So I was repulsed and regretted it and felt it must be the wrong thing for me.
But I told my mom I was bisexual that year. I told her in her bedroom and she started to cry and ask what she had done wrong, wringing her hands and calling upon God to give her strength and she went on and on about how she had failed again. I didn't know it then but my brother David had come out to her not too long before I did. And I'm assuming she had the same reaction with him.
I hadn't even done more than kiss a girl at that point but by then I was into punk rock and hanging with the 'bisexual punk rock girls' at school in the hall. We were tying each other up and pretending to be in an S & M dungeon so people at school gave us a wide berth. It was a very confusing time.
My mom at some point said that if I was going to be a homosexual I should abstain from sex so that I could get into Heaven. I guses she thinks she's going to Heaven. More power to her. We don't talk much about my sexuality since then: she does say from time to time "Well you know I think it's wrong" or "You know you're not going to be able to see me in Heaven, right?"
Which to tell you the truth suits me fine. Mom is the only one in my family that has ever been uncomfortable with my sexuality. No one else gives a rat's ass and that's something I'm very grateful for.