Everybody is horny. Sarah Palin, Justin Beiber, Chaz, Mormons, your mama. The cute waiter that spilled coffee on me this morning, the kookie lady who walks my roommates’ dog, the crazy man on the subway who was muttering, “I don’t care what he did to those kids, I love Michael Jackson.” Everybody. Horny. Some more than others, but all, yes. Even (gulp!) my parents, both my brothers, their wives, my sister, her husband...And me! I’m horny, too.
In Phoenix, where I grew up, I start noticing this in sixth grade. People are starting to ‘go together’ and get all hand holdy and stuff. Becky Landers and David Disspain. Kim Spucces and Jared Peterson. Heather Easton and just about everybody. And boys start to notice girls’ bodies, use the word pussy with a little lip smack and a leer, and elbow each other knowingly when the pretty college-age student teacher walks in. But not me. I don’t appreciate girls like that. Not that I leer at boys, either. I’m into my music and singing and choir and God. I’m just a boy that’s growing. The chemicals in my body are swirling around. Then, all of a sudden, without any help from me, I start to get a tingle in my pingle. Then it’s a stiffie. Oh, my god. It is so weird and embarrassing and omygod.
The first things that get me sexually excited are not catalog underwear pictures or impure thoughts about basketball players or Shawn Cassidy in tight pants on television. It’s recess.
They make us line up boys in one line and girls in the other, which ticks me off because I’d rather be with my friends Leigh Anne and Kelly and Kim, but instead I’m behind Rick Lemons. Rick must have been playing soccer with the other boys, because he’s sweating like an animal. And then I notice the sweat on the back of Rick Lemon’s neck, trickling down from his matted hair. And he smells really salty and musky. I look around, and see that all the boys are sweaty. And boys sweat a lot.
Then I start noticing that some of the boys are developing faster than me. Mark Bailey has really hairy legs, and it’s all bushy down on the calf and shin, and goes up the leg. Jay Davies has this little stripe of hair that goes up the back of his thigh. When we’re in class, Cory Wright sits relaxed with his legs open, and I’m fascinated at the little area between his top of his leg and the bottom of his Op shorts, that dark space. And some boys are starting to shave, just barely on the top lip and right under the chin. Could I feel that for you?
Girls are developing, too. I know all about it because Kim and Leigh Ann and Sharon and Yvonne and Aimee and all tell me about it, training bras and panty liners and all. I even suffer through the tragic day when my friend Kelly got her period and learned that white shorts are a bad idea. Ew. But my long sleeved shirt around her waist saved that day.
The girls are sweaty too, but it’s not the same. And I don’t think about Laura or Leigh Ann or Kelly in the same way that I think about Russ and Joel and Randy. The boys all talk about boobies and wanting to grab one, and I don’t know what the big deal is. Not that I have anyone to talk to about all this. In my family, the birds and the bees are just names for some of the animals on Noah’s ark.
And my penis is an ever present issue. My boner. Something has to be done. I don’t know what, but geez, I mean, it’s out there and it’s urgent and something has to be done!
We have a pool in the back yard. The pool has these little jets to keep the water circulating. One day, when no one’s home, I get an idea. I double check that both my parents, both my brothers and my sister are out. I check over the fence on both next door neighbors to make sure that no one is watching. I step down into the shallow end of the pool, and slowly approach a jet. I lower my orange swim trunks, steady myself with my hands on the cool deck, and just barely touch my johnson to the jet. And then I do it again. And then I leave it there. And it feels so...sooo...OHHHHHhhhhhhh.
Afterward, I put some extra chlorine in the pool.
My new relationship with the pool jet doesn’t make my boners disappear. I remain a short, chubby 12-year-old Mexican choirboy with a hard-on walking around Cactus Wren Elementary. And I work on my poetry project for Mrs. Carroll’s class and make fun of Mr. Anderson picking his nose and putting his boogers in his mustache and try not to worry. And I try really hard not to look at boy’s butts.
Oh, fuck. Gym class. I hate gym. I’m always the dodge ball target, even if we’re not playing dodge ball. And now I have this boner problem and this thing about boys’ hair and sweat and now I’m attracted and embarrassed and all I want to do in the locker room is hide my tummy and stare at the other boys taking their clothes off.
Especially Rick Lemons. Such a crush on Rick Lemons. Soft,curly, blonde hair, green eyes, lithe body. He’s also one of the guys who always threatens to beat the shit out of me, so there’s an air of danger about him.
Oh, how I wish I could just stare at Rick pulling off his jeans and stepping into his little blue polyester shorts. To be able to just watch him slip his beautiful slim torso into his light blue gym tee with his name, Lemons, written in magic marker on the back. But I don’t. I don’t dare. I keep my eyes on the locker room floor and hope to God that today no one will notice me glancing and call me “faggot!”
Because I shouldn’t feel this way. All my life, I’ve heard about gay people. About how awful they are. There’s that orange juice lady, Anita Bryant. She’s on TV all the time talking about sin and gay people.
“If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards! I will lead such a crusade as this country has not seen before!” she said on national television.
Anita Bryant scares the shit out of me. Because that’s me. Homosexual is me.
Gay is also the crazy serial killer on Charlie’s Angels who’s in a wig and wearing a dress. Gay is the weirdo who’s trying to kiss Archie Bunker. My dad calls Bobby and Cissy on Lawrence Welk ‘Sissy and Sissy,’ and I know I’m kinda like both of those sissies. And Uncle Arthur on “Bewitched”? Well, his magic powers always have a bit more flair, and I totally love him. But I’m not supposed to be like him! Or Liberace.
I go to church and I pray:
“Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”
I go on a Catholic pre-teen retreat, and our sweet retreat leader, Mrs. Bush, guides us in a meditation.
“Children, God created sex to be a beautiful and enjoyable part of life, between a man and his wife. You can’t poison the sanctity of sex with premarital activities, bestiality, and the abomination of homosexual relations. Even masturbation is evil in the eyes of the Lord, because it wastes the seed. I know it feels so good to touch yourself, but it is an insult to the Lord, and a sin. Pray on this, children.”
I don’t think my private pool party counts as masturbation because I don’t use my hands.
I’m so afraid. I’m afraid I’ll go to hell. I’m afraid that if my parents find out, that they’ll disown me. I’m afraid I’ll be all alone.
So I pray about it. Alone in my room, I pray to God to please make me normal. Make me like girls. Or just take away all these feelings. God, I don’t want to be horny! Take this away. Take it all away, please. I don’t need sexual feelings, so go ahead, God, and just do away with them. Please.
But the next morning, I have a boner.
In the middle of all this fear and shame and hurting, my dear sister has a talk with me. My sister Rayetta and I are very close. She’s become a born-again Christian, and she shares a lot of bible quotes and prayers and Amy Grant songs.
So one day she takes me in her room and asks me if I think it’s okay for people to be gay. My heart races. I wonder if she knows. I try to act cucumber cool as I answer:
“Um, I dunno. I guess as long as it isn’t hurting anybody...”
Then she pulls out her young adult bible called “The Way,” which is earmarked and tabbed and highlighted and underlined with notes scribbled in, and opens it.
“Charles, it says in the bible, in Leviticus, chapter 18 verse 22, ‘Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is an abomination,’ and also in chapter 20, verse 13, that ‘If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is an abomination. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.’ So you see, Charles, it’s a sin in God’s eyes. And it’s wrong to choose sin, you see?”
I nod and we pray together.
And I go in my room and I put on an Amy Grant record and I cry. I’m so scared. I’ve heard all my life in church about miracles and faith moving mountains and God answering prayers. And so I pray again, I pray really hard for God to take away my horny feelings about boys. Please, please, please.
And God says no.