Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir (20 page)

My friend Tim stuck out like a sore thumb. Tim all but screamed heterosexual. His uncle had famously impregnated Tim’s aunt despite having a vasectomy, a condom, and arm restraints. Tim’s grandmother boasted relentlessly about such legendary feats of virility. This genetic inheritance suggested Tim’s semen contained not merely good swimmers, but spermatic Houdinis.

He showed up in a suit and silk tie, fresh from a meeting of Alabama bankers that involved discussions of Daisy Duke, queer-bashing, muscular foreign policy, personal relationships with Jesus Christ, and whatever men from the South bantered about when they got together.

My text for the evening was a short story, “Sucksluts Anonymous.” It went something like this:

I was born a suckslut. I sucked my thumb in the delivery room when there was nothing else. Teachers and babysitters used to remark on my perseverance. I wore my pacifier to a nubbin. As a child, I could suck the color off a lollipop. Everlasting gobstoppers lasted ten seconds. Popsicles didn’t have a chance to melt in my mouth. Chrome off a trailer hitch? You betcha. Every Boy Scout leader this side of the Mississippi wanted me in his den.

Tim signaled for a third martini.

The Tea Commandments of Reading Gay Porn

1.
Thou shalt be a stranger
. Strangers are hot — especially aggressive strangers who make you call them “sir.”

2.
Thou shalt not laugh
. Laughter is the anti-porn. Don’t crack a smile. It’s like giggling when God smites Job.

3.
Thou shaly get to the action in 150 words or less
. Pornography is not the time for endearing sweet talk over bottomless cups of tea.

4.
Thou shalt prepare and practice ahead of time
. Nothing spoils the heat of the moment like stumbling over “butt cheeks’* or substituting the word “caught” for “cock.”

5.
Thou shalt not use “firebrand” for the male member more than five times in a story
. This one goes without saying.

6.
Thou shalt not sweat reality
. In real life, there are fluids to clean up, and licking honey off your loved one’s inner thighs always proves to be a horrifically bad idea (especially if you live anywhere near a nest of fire ants), but these realities should not constrain the action.

7.
Thou shalt not get too descriptive
. The audience is going to hear what it wants to hear. “Hot” will conjure twink for the chicken-hawk, hairy Harley-rider for the bear, Michelin man for the chub chaser. Less is more. Remember, it’s like the Pentecost: everyone’s going to hear the message in his own tongue.

8.
Honor thine antecedents
. He-he, his-his, him-him. It all gets very confusing, and anatomical impossibilities frequently result.

9.
Thou shalt not indulge in
too
much “sexy poke.”
  You have a gay voice, sister. No amount of guttural come-hither will ever change that.

10.
Thou shalt not act out the action
. Don’t masturbate the microphone. Reading porn, like reading scripture, is not about you.

After the reading, we hustled a visibly shaken Tim to a restaurant in Chelsea. It was French in affect but Irish in provenance: the chalked menus for foie gras hung on thick wooden beams over the Guinness taps. My then-eight-months pregnant friend Erin sat on my right. Suffering from occasional contractions, she spoke about her pregnancy-induced passion for black porn. Across from me sat a fellow SEC attorney, a blond woman with thick calluses on her knuckles and crazy stories about her abusive dojo master.

Tim sat uncharacteristically silent. We assumed he was still in shock from the readings. He only interrupted when he learned that I had volunteered at the free legal clinic that Saint Anthony Shrine had just opened.

“Your perverse loyalty to the Catholic Church amazes me!” he snapped.

“It’s only weekends,” I said. “Well, Fridays.”

Scott interjected, “What about your GLBT Spirituality Group meetings? Those are Wednesdays!”

The whole table fell silent. Unbenownst to me, the dinner was a staged intervention. They had become worried about my Catholicism.

We love you, Scott. We want to help you and support you, but your

Catholicism is affecting all of us
.

“Maybe
a few
Wednesdays,” I acknowledged. “Just to blow off steam. It’s not like I missed work or it’s affecting my relationships.”

Scott scoffed. Tim demanded that I defend my Catholicism on the spot.

“Can’t we talk more about black porn and abusive dojo masters?” I pleaded.

“Seriously,” Tim said, “why are you Catholic?”

“I believe in magic.”

“What?”

“Religion fills a basic hunger. It’s one part community, one part thankfulness, and one part awe and wonder. You guys know what I mean?”

They did not. Universally nonreligious, they congratulated themselves on seeing clearly and walking without a spiritual crutch.

“Why specifically
Catholic?”
Tim pressed. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

I wondered whether I could strategically knock a candle onto the checkered French tablecloth, spackle their eyes shut with Guinness-flavored foie gras, and escape in the confusion. Coming out Catholic to a table of confirmed Manhattan liberals was like being boiled and drowned with Saints Crispin and Crispinian.

“There’s no financial connection between my church and the Archdiocese of Boston,” I said defensively. “My money is not going to Archbishop O’Malley.”

“You know the scripture you read is the same scripture that’s used to justify the repression of people just like you, don’t you?”

“I never once read aloud the passages so valued by the antigays — Leviticus, Corinthians, that stuff. The Catholic lectionary has suppressed the problematic passages.”

“You’re a cafeteria Catholic,” Tim said.

“How consistent with the Gospels and Pauline letters is the idea that submission to Church authority is the true mark of discipleship? Look at Joan of Arc. They burned her at the stake before they made her a saint”

“Scott, you’re no Joan of Arc,” Tim said.

With more confidence but less ambition, I cited statistics as if we might win the Most Valuable Religion award:

• The Archdiocese of Boston educates nearly 50,000 students each year in Catholic schools.
  

• Catholic hospitals in the Boston metropolitan area care for more than 1 million patients annually.
  

• 200,000 individuals receive social service outreach from the Church.
  

“Look at all the good Catholics do,” I pointed out. “I’m proud to be part of it.”

“So why are you writing that crap?” Tim snapped.

“Crap? Don’t tell me you didn’t learn something tonight.”

“If I never hear another word about a ‘softie’ for the rest of my life,” Tim said, “I will die a happy man.”

“Porn’s not so bad. I mean, ever since Augustine put the shame in sex, characterizing it as a disgusting but necessary act, the Church has put sexual sins at the forefront of its rulemaking — while claiming to follow a Gospel, focused on social justice, featuring a prostitute among Jesus’s followers. But there
is
a hierarchy of sins. Most people agree that writing porn is better than murder.”

“Not exactly a high bar,” Tim remarked.

“Porn writing may actually be beneficial,” I countered.

“How so?”

“It blunts Augustine’s shame and returns the focus of sin to acts that have actual victims.”

“I don’t see how you reconcile it with going to church.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Tim. The skills of reading porn are very much like reading the Good Book. Practice, preparation, enunciation, drama. Take it from me,” I said. “Tonight’s reading actually helped me to be a better lector. I’m no longer afraid of the icky parts.”

Improbable Friendship

At the end of a G-L Spirituality Group session, Mama Bear cornered me. “You,” he said. “You come here often. Want to join the group’s leadership team?”

“Do I have to quit writing porn?”

“No.”

“Sign me up.”

Meeting regularly, we hashed out what topics the group would address, and whether to invite Archbishop Sean to our meetings, and emergency procedures in the event of a visit from an armed right-wing nutjob, and whether Martina felt her womanhood had been sufficiently validated, and the efficacy of saint medallions, and the relative merits of liturgical dance. (On the latter, Mama Bear was pro. I was con. As a matter of public record, the Vatican has come out against liturgical hula.)

The meetings were an early glimpse of what hell must be like. We coddled feelings and gave them spa treatments. Microscopic minutiae received subatomic attention. Centering prayers preceded all discussion. Correctness reigned. And Mama Bear’s process-oriented feelgood remarks topped out at the terminal level:

• “Are people OK with that?”
  

• “We need to unpack this notion.”
  

• “Can we take that up later?—It’s a good question. Really.”
  

• “Where are people with this?”
  

• “We need to check in with people.”
  

In contrast to Mama Bear’s style, snap decisions followed by hard charging down whatever path the decision dictated best characterize my modus operandi. Until such time as the decision proves hopelessly wrong. At which point, I charge hard back to where I started, tail between my legs. Then I make a new snap decision, and go hard-charging down another path. And so on, until I drop from exhaustion. Then wiser minds prevail and lead me, head down, to the correct decision, which has been painfully obvious to everyone else for three millennia. These opposing styles produced the obvious result: I was continually and inadvertently hurting Mama Bear’s feelings.

Fortunately, Mama Bear didn’t like to suffer in silence. Not naturally assertive, he had obviously spent time — perhaps years — learning to stick up for himself. He always promptly informed me of my transgressions so 1 could feel guilty and apologize. And my apologies always entailed my bruising his feelings all over again. Mama Bear and I talked more about our feelings in a single week than Scott and I had over the entire length of our relationship.

From this precarious beginning, friendship grew. There was a slyness to Mama Bear that felt innately sexy. He seemed like he might want to introduce a little more raunch into the group, to make it more real and less ethereal. “It’s fine to talk about the virtues,” he pointed out, “but how are they to be acted out in the gay-lesbian context? Where is God when you are in the midst of an orgy?” He understood the attractions of Captain Handsome and communion booty.

Mama Bear was also shirt-off-his-back generous. One day, a Franciscan leather vendor (no kidding) was hawking his wares on the sidewalk outside the Shrine. I mentioned that I had been looking for a leather armband for my biceps. (The one Scott bought for me proved embarrassingly too big). Without hesitation, Mama Bear promised to supply me one from his personal stock.

Mama Bear also generously shared his colorful history. Because he was born just after the death of a female cousin, Mama Bear received the male version of the cousin’s name. At age four, his grandmother gave him a scarf and women’s shoes to play with. His mother, who worked as a housekeeper, allowed Mama Bear first choice of the cast-off clothes the rich people gave her. His basement became drag-queen heaven. Later, he got a job at a convent and “borrowed” the nuns’ garments on wash days, traced patterns on them, and made his own elaborate habits.

When he was thirteen, Mama Bear’s parents closed down the basement nunnery, because, they told him, it was time for him to start acting like a man — specifically, a priest. At the time, Mama Bear had an acutely developed religious life. He took communion daily. He held long conversations with God in which he tried to make sense of the differences between him and other boys. He recognized God in flora, fauna, and heat lightning and regularly discussed the merits of the various religious orders he considered joining.

From fourteen, Mama Bear also had an acutely developed sex life. In his rural town in the mid-1960s, he found the few other sexually active men in a public toilet outside the town hall. At his first breakup with an older man, he came home to his mother in tears. He explained that he was gay, and why he was sad. He found himself comforting her as she wept and berated him. And then she said, “I know who the man is. I’m going to call the police.” Mama Bear swore up and down that he would deny everything. They didn’t speak about the topic for another fifteen years.

One afternoon thereafter, Mama Bear wandered into confession. The old ladies in the pews rattled their rosaries with joy at the sight of a teenager coming to confession unattended. Their excitement turned to horror when they heard the priest shout from the confessional, “You did
what’s”
As Father Hypertension ranted and raved, Mama Bear took note of the vocabulary. He said, “I don’t know what exactly ‘abomination’ and ‘perversion’ mean, Father Hypertension, but I’m going to look those words up. I
do
know I don’t believe you because you are too angry about it.” He never confessed to a priest again, preferring to keep his sins between him and God. (Gram would be so proud.)