A recent celebrity hot-topic is gay-bullying. It’s all of a sudden become a part of the “coming-out” lore with such notables as Lance Bass, Tim Gunn, and Zachary Quinto including stories about merciless teasing from other boys while they grew up with an attraction to the same-sex. The most recent admission came from fitness advocate Richard Simmons: “When I was in high school and I’d go to the bathroom, they would put lighter fluid under the stall and then light a match to it to burn my legs.” At 65, those memories are still emotionally raw for him to even recall. Similarly, fashion designer John Galliano traces his alcoholism to those early incidents: “And due to that, it can trigger a self-defense mechanism. Now, having had quite a tough time at school and being subjected, persecuted, bullied, called all sorts of names as children do, and living a lie because I was gay and couldn't admit to that at home... honestly there was no... I couldn't escape.” Lastly, singer Ricky Martin admitted to bullying others as a way to deal with his own sexual confusion: “I was very angry, very rebellious. I used to look at gay men and think, 'I'm not like that, I don't want to be like that, that's not me.' I was ashamed.”
After the fact, as grown men, survivors of this very insidious form of child abuse, most often become heavily influenced by the gay-group-mind-think movement and tend to see all of their boyhood experiences in terms of discrimination, societal prejudice, and “minority stress.” What they fail to realize is that at some point on their life journey: they were just a scared little kid - who had no idea about the modern conception of what entails sexual awareness. They didn’t understand all the nuances of orientation, they just felt different. Now, was the bullying a result of that outward manifestation within their interior manner of awkwardness, or was it simply an example of the continuing violence and viciousness that has increasingly pervaded all sectors of our society? Regardless, as a result, the teasing causes a psychological longing for that which seems unattainable; i.e. masculine friendship and camaraderie. In puberty, this desire becomes sexualized and then swerves towards homosexuality.
As an anecdote, I saw this deep-seated woundedness in the gay community when I was making porn films. Early on, I agreed to do a series of short movies: all with exploitation, hazing, and initiation themes. It was sort of a bizarre reenactment of what so many of us experienced as boys. But, like much in the gay world - it had become fetishized. For myself, taking part, involved a returning to what had happened to me. As with the guys who would later watch it, there was a weird comfort in the role-playing: with other gay actors portraying the parts of our abusers. Yet, as a twist in this old scenario, the bullies would not only taunt us, but also have sex with us. It created a false sense of resolution. At the time, I was mystified; because this sub-genre of gay porn was, and still is, a mainstay in the entire industry. Probably one of the biggest porn stars of my era, the late Jon Vincent, made a career out of name-calling and intimidating his on-screen lovers. Years later, when I got out of porn, I realized what I had done. Only after working through all my own personal obsessions and hang-ups from my adolescence, could I comprehend how I, and countless others, had desperately tried to self-medicate themselves by seeking out healing through a ritualized practice of sex-therapy; whether that was looking for daddy in male companions, seeking out the big masculine type of man that never befriended you as a kid, or trying to prove your own masculinity, which I did a bit of, by beating down those who were weaker. This wandering only creates an environment of desperation; with other lost souls feeding upon each other. It’s a breeding ground for loneliness and disease. After it’s all over: no one gets want they truly need.