THE HOMEOWNER

Thursday, April 03, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

The Homeowner: Credit in the straight world

By Mike Prevatt

A couple of weeks ago, I had a trip to the San Francisco area planned. I was pretty excited about it, as I really dig the city. My friend Tommy, who currently lives in New York City, was going to also be there for the weekend. And, most important, my best friend, Kari, who now lives near S.F., had just given birth to her first child. I couldn't be present for the birth, so I told her I'd be there the day after she and the baby got home from the hospital.

And then the rain came--torrential downpour, gusty winds and all. When I woke up that morning and read the weather report, full of advisories and hazardous driving warnings, I knew I was staying home. Hopefully I was more bummed out about it than my friend was. Sharing that big event with her was important to me, and instead I had to settle for spending quality time with my DVD collection.

Friendship is the only thing I hold closer to my heart than music, and that's saying something. After a childhood full of lousy, selfish and sometimes abusive chums, I made a bunch of good friends before graduating from high school, and to this day almost all of them play a big role in my life--along with all the other ones I made along the way. In fact, I feel closer now to each person in my nationally scattered and welcomely diverse brood than I did when we were in school. And that is partially because of their unconditional support during my coming out.

It elates me to say so because, I have to admit, I wasn't sure how many of them would take The Big News. I wasn't necessarily worried I'd lose their friendship or love--that would discredit them--but I wondered whether anyone would get a little weirded out by it. During that time, almost all of them were straight, and despite being a fairly open-minded bunch, most of them did not have gay friends, or much exposure to anything remotely gay except what they saw on TV. I really didn't know what to expect. That uncertainty eroded as I came out to them, one by one.

A few of them told me they suspected something was up. I rarely dated girls, was always honest about my virginhood, made the sort of homophobic remarks that raised doubts and passed up a few hook-up opportunities. Conversely, a few of them were pretty stunned when they heard my announcement. I guess since I don't sashay when I walk, know much about skin care products or talk like a black woman getting her hair done, my sexuality isn't what you'd call obvious. I'm as much an atypical homo as I was an atypical hetero, and the gang probably saw that right away.

After the news had settled in, almost all of my pals had the type of questions you knew they had been waiting some time to ask, but had never been close enough to a homeowner to get the answers. A majority of the questions had to do with how I finally came to this realization. Some wondered how much easier it was to meet potential dates and partners, seeing as how I was strictly dealing with the hornier of the two genders. Others asked what I did on the sly while moonlighting as a straight boy.

I could never predict who would ask what. Ironically, one of my more socially conservative and easily embarrassed friends interrogated me about anal sex. Funny, I can't so much as say the words "vagina" or "masturbate" without her calling me out as a sex offender, but no one in my life encourages ass conquest more gleefully and perversely than her. On the flipside, when I confirmed to another buddy--the class clown of my high school--that I played for the other team, his first concerns were how this might affect my relationship with my family, and other consequential aspects of being gay we still discuss today. I'm almost let down that he's withheld the bawdy one-liners the topic of man-sex encourages, but his earnest interest in my well-being matters far more to me.

Any way you looked at it, we were all maturing in some way. I never ceased to be surprised at their fascination with me being gay. Without saying as much, they used my de-closeting as an excuse to learn some things about homosexuality, or at least who I was in relation to it. And I was destroying the last barrier between them and me, while absolving myself of the disingenuousness that hiding in the closet encourages.

True, I learned more from my newer gay friends, who dispensed with valuable advice and relatable stories at the click of a button on Instant Messenger. But I better understood and appreciated friendship once I came clean with my breeder buds. So, kids, the lesson learned today is, if you're a homo and afraid to disclose it to your straight pals, take the chance and spill your guts. You'll likely surprise yourself more than you will them.

The Homeowner appears biweekly. Send your comments, questions and nude pics (especially if you look like Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) to oughtabeinporn@yahoo.com.