[Vol. 24] Let Gay Boys Have Cute First Times
I want for my younger self what straight people take for granted.
Welcome back to That’s Gay, a candidly queer newsletter for a candidly queer world (cheers to that 😉 🥂), written by me, Till Kaeslin.
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*This article was originally published in Prism & Pen, an LGBTQ+ focused publication on Medium.
It was late on a Thursday night, and my roommate and I were a bottle of wine in, having one of those deep conversations that always seems to start light and fun and then abruptly turn into a therapy session.
Anyways, there I was sitting on my roommate’s bedroom floor, the empty bottle of wine by my side, when the conversation started to drift towards “boys, sex, and relationships” territory.
My roommate, a straight girl, went first, recounting her history with past boyfriends, what she had liked and disliked about each, and, of course, how the sex was.
Then the metaphorical (and very empty) bottle spun my way to share.
Since I had never had a full-blown, long-term, capital ‘R’ relationship, I opted to talk about my first experiences with boys instead (something that surprised even myself, since I never seem to think that far back when it comes to my love life).
That’s when I realized my first times played out a lot differently than hers had.
I had no “natural” progression of relationships, or of expressing my sexuality like she’d had (AKA building through the stages of having a crush, holding hands, making out, having sex, etc.).
Unlike my straight roomie, I didn’t have the privilege of having my sexuality be deemed “normal”. I really couldn’t even tell my story without first admitting the context of my own sexual repression — the girls I thought I had to like, the ones I dated in middle school but couldn’t fully connect with, and all the boys I had no idea I saw as way more than friends.
At the time, the only place the LGBTQ+ community existed for me was online.
This will not be true for all gay men out there – I want to make it clear that this is just one story of many – but growing up in largely homogenous, straight, cis-gender communities meant I didn’t have a lot of LGBTQ+ representation to guide me. As far as I knew, I was the only gay kid in my grade of 100+ students when I finally felt comfortable enough in my sexuality to come out of the closet in my Junior year of High School. Or, should I say, I finally felt uncomfortable enough to force myself out of the closet.
*I laugh now because there’s no way in hell that I was the only queer kid in my class, but that was my reality at the time.
My first times with boys reflected that reality. They were … different.
It wasn’t on a date with my future boyfriend, or at a house party with my crush, it was with a guy that had reached out to me when he heard I was gay. He was still closeted.
We met up in his car in the dark of the night at a local park. We made out over the dashboard, and then I ended up crawling through his window and into his bed. The front door wasn’t an option—his dad was watching TV in the living room, and from what I gathered he wouldn’t exactly be thrilled to catch him making out with another boy in his bed.
My second “date” was with a guy I had been texting over Grindr — all the gays reading are holding their breath right now, I’m sure. I put quotes around the word date because I’m sure most of you wouldn’t consider meeting up with a stranger in his car and hooking up in the backseat a real date.
It wasn’t very memorable and I didn’t respond to his messages the next day, or the next, or the day after that; I was just glad to have had another experience with a guy.
It’s funny, I had never really given too much thought as to the significance of these experiences until I saw my friend’s face when I told her.
“Wait, so you just got into a strangers car to hook up?”
I nodded. Then, I shook my head, “nope”, it wasn’t the only time I’d done this.
To her it was a scandalous, massively reckless alternate reality; to me, it was just my life story — plain and simple.
I wouldn’t say that I’m any more scandalous than the next guy over (maybe a little more reckless at times, but not by much). It wasn’t until I brought all of this up to fellow gay friends that I realized I wasn’t alone in my experience.
When you come out as a gay boy into an almost 99% straight (passing) environment, you either …
Live like a nun and rein in your sexuality until later days.
Settle for less and shack up with whoever else has come out (or someone who’s only gay when they have their apps open).
Get online, enter center-stage in the gay hookup scene, and, by default, start meeting strangers.
*There is also a fourth option where you meet someone who’s in that sweet 1% range of out-of-the-closet gay boys that you actually do have a connection with, but in my experience, that’s a lotto ticket you don’t draw easily in the early days — let alone later in life.
Knowing my reality as a queer-identifying person, then and now, I don’t pass judgment on my past self — but I do wish that our reality could be different.
Personally, the hookup scene doesn’t bother me too much at the moment — I’m enjoying dating around while I can.
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes wish I’d had a different experience growing up; that my first times weren’t secret, late-night meetups and hookups in strangers’ cars.
There’s a “cute first times” gap between the straight and gay communities, and it’s wide.
I see it this way: If straight men and women get to hold hands with their middle school sweethearts, go on awkward first dates in early high school, and hook up freely with their crushes at house parties and after-proms, then so should we, the queer community.
If straight men and women get to experience all this and then also the privilege of seeing it all play out before them in every rom-com, drama, and even horror movie to date, then so should we.
Gay love shouldn’t be forced through the window in fear of what might happen if it embraced the grand entrance of knocking on the front door.
It shouldn’t be subjugated to parked cars in the night, strangers sending unsolicited nudes to minors over sketchy apps, and young, gay boys deciding to bare it all just to feel the romantic and sexual attention they’ve always craved but were never allowed.
Normalize gay love. Let gay boys have cute first times.
Today’s discussion Q:
What’s your vision for a world where queer kids can date openly?
I know my answer. Let me know yours in the comments below. As always, I’ll be reading/responding to all.
And that was That’s Gay, Volume 24. See you in Volume 25, folks!
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My vision for a world in which gay kids can date openly is one where queer kids don't feel they have to date in the dark – one where they can get together at house parties, hold hands in the school hallways, and make out by their lockers in peace. Not the biggest fan of PDA, but if straight people are doing it, so should the gays.