I was thirteen when mum found gay porn on the family computer. She wasn’t concerned by the genre but more by the fact that she didn’t like ‘filmed fucking’, stating that porn was degrading to all engaged regardless of the gender or species or positions involved. Despite her inability to watch Ritchie kiss another man on ‘The Secret Life of Us’, her nonchalance towards homosexuality was apparent throughout much of my life. During a Christmas time car ride at the age seven, my then eleven year-old brother questioned mum as to how men could be raped after hearing a news bulletin over the radio. Mum responded concisely and unperturbed “Up the bum.” My brother seemed content with the answer, but confusion set in for me after I mistook the word ‘rape’ for ‘rake’. My father also seemed unconcerned by my gay tendencies, happy for me to pursue both my ‘ABBA’ and baking fascinations, while still making me the ‘go to’ son when his ‘manly’ jobs required assistance due to my brother’s self-diagnosed allergy to the sun, and his non-existent upper body strength and matchstick legs. Both my parents were greatly relieved when they discovered that he wasn’t gay and had in fact been in a stable yet secretive year-long relationship with a girl.
I spent my adolescent years in Dandenong North. Emphasis on the ‘North’. We had a private hospital and a park that held twilight jazz sessions in the summer. That’s not to say that it didn’t house a homeless flasher or play host to a rape, just that the wary citizens were more adept at keeping these things out of the local papers than their Dandenong Central neighbours. The only thing keeping the perennials and seasonal veggie patches found in The Valley separate from the car dumps and unintentional bonfires scattered throughout the neighbouring ‘burb was a road, Brady Road. It was a necessary Berlin Wall that allowed us to live in our self-appointed middle-class idyll, without the steeping mortgages found in the authentically bourgeois suburbs of Melbourne. Each day I would bravely have to make the journey through Checkpoint Charlie to attend my school which was situated in the heart of this cultural backwater.
Dandenong, often mistaken by those who have never visited with the much fernier, picturesque and in contrast crime-free Mount Dandenong, is not a safe-haven for gays. Nor is it a safe-haven for women, Somali’s, Muslims, the elderly, dogs, children, whites, cars or letterboxes. Coming out during my teens was not an option. Being gay was not an option. Especially in a school where knife fights and compression sessions were part of the curriculum and banging chicks with big tits was the norm. On the contrary our school was the poster-child for multiculturalism. Name a race and we had it. Name a racial slur and you’d hear it. The students had somehow used this to form divisions: everyone had their place and rank during the lunch time war games. I’m half German, a fact that was not well advertised or discussed during my schooling years. Stealthily the Serbs somehow caught on to this and cutely titled me ‘Nazi’. It soon became a fondly used nickname. I didn’t contest it; I went along with the joke hoping it was the worst I’d get. Thankfully, it was. I managed to get through three school musicals, two talent shows, the debating team, being elected school captain and making constant assertions that religion is more of a hindrance to society than a guiding light, without so much as a slap, let alone a group beating. I had been spat on and there were the occasional gay taunts, ‘Gaymo Damo’ springs to mind, but compared to being locked in a school locker for an entire day, being hit continuously with a soccer ball covered in human excrement, forced to eat an apple out of the bottom of a bin or have my uniform urinated on in the gymnasium showers, I got off scot free. The teachers did their best to nurture the ‘hopeful’ students, advising them to knuckle down and run for the hills as soon as they could, but there was nothing that could save the rest. The lower spectrum, that is the bottom feeders, who wanted to make high school a dystopia reminiscent of ‘Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome’ minus Tina Turner’s inspiring power ballad. By the time my final Year Twelve exam came, I was more than ready to flee.
The night that I came out to my parents I was drunk and they were on holiday in Mooloolaba. I’d sent them a text message that had read ‘The time has come. I’m gay, hooray!’ I felt the need to take the next day off work and my parents felt the need to catch a plane home three days before the date on their original tickets. I knew I wouldn’t get a fight out of them but, deep down, I wanted one. After eighteen years of droning politely through a cushy, fortunate life, this was my cause. Perhaps they’d kick me out. Perhaps I’d leave home and change my last name to reflect a favourite character off a TV show or a favourite pet and begin hustling to further my plight. I’d be homeless and would have to find a slightly furry middle-aged homo who understood my quandary and would happily take advantage of my situation and take me under his dominating but cashed-up wing. I’d kick the corner work and secure a job in a bar where men tweak your nipples as they order a Screaming Orgasm. I’d be shirtless with my perky cheeks poking out the bottom of a pair of too small bike shorts, hoping that some day I’d hit the big time and find gainful employment in a call centre or at Chadstone Shopping Centre and live for the weekends like the rest of the gay community. In hindsight I’m indebted to my parents for not allowing this to happen.
They returned home luggage in tow. I questioned their return. Mum muttered something about a certain text message that dad had received and then went outside to light a smoke. My relationship with my mother was always tighter than that with my dad. I had always told her things regarding my life and just assumed it would eventually reach dad from her lips or completely bypass him altogether. My brother had the same system. I’d sent the message to dad though. It seemed the right thing to do. It would either tighten the male bond, or fuck it up completely. I felt he deserved to feel included. Mum was more concerned that I’d taken the day off work and had not honoured my responsibility to my employer. Dad gave a prolonged speech about how they had an ‘inkling’ and that any friend of mine is a friend of theirs.
A week after I’d declared my sexuality, a socially-created rite of passage no heterosexual ever has to experience, I was washing dishes at my mother’s fifty-second birthday soiree. She stood next to me, champagne in hand. “Remember to use protection” she chimed. Assuming she was referring to my washing up, I responded, “I’ve got gloves on.” She was referring to my being gay. “It’s not the cleanliest of places up there; you’re more susceptible to catch something”, she said and left it at that. Until a week later, when she checked my arms for track marks and probed me about drug use to make sure that “I was just on the party drugs and not on the hard stuff.” She has her own untraditional way of showing support.
I always knew that I was gay. I had always accepted it. I knew others would accept it but it was still a problem. For some reason a person’s sexuality is of more concern to others than it is to them. Nowadays it has seemingly become a novelty. I don’t know why. “Oh my God, you’re gay? I have a gay friend. I love gays. I think being gay is great. Can we, like? Be friends?” Twilight loving girls will ask with a pink pre-mixed Flirtini in hand. “You may like gays and have a gay friend but I don’t like fuckwits and won’t have a fuckwit as a friend, so how does ‘no’ sound?”
Sometimes I wish that perhaps things had turned out differently. Sarcasm and self-deprecating wit can only cover up so much. If I was straight I probably wouldn’t have to fake awkward conversation with men regarding the ‘game’ on the weekend or defend my masculinity when I told them I was studying performing arts. Grandmas probing into the reasons why I don’t have a girlfriend would also be easier to deflect. I also doubt that I would have the Divine Miss M on my iPod and therefore wouldn’t have to skip it while I was on the train to hide her bold and expressive voice from the judgemental ears of fellow passengers. It’s easy to harbour a complex and try to shun the stereotype as fiercely as you can, but when Cabaret comes on, Liza comes out. Perhaps I sometimes over-analyse a little too much. It may be a box I tick but I’m still just another face in the crowd. I’m an Atheist, I think there should be tougher laws for pet ownership, I want to raise a Panda instead of a child, and I don’t support gay marriage. In fact I don’t support marriage at all yet I’d love nothing more than to plan for my own wedding, I vote Labor not for Rudd but for Gillard and I just happen to be gay. I’d much rather people deride and challenge me for all of the former not for the latter, not for that which I didn’t choose. After all I come from Dandenong, but it doesn’t define me.
