Tell me you were a gayling without telling me you were a gayling

I posted this before: I was 13 when the film Paper Moon it came out and I asked for the soundtrack for my birthday (I still have it,,,). How could my parents have NOT known I was a little faggot? And Ryan O'Neal made me tingle down there. And Madeline Kahn was priceless. And P.J. Johnson as Imogene was FAB.

I loved playing with Barbies. I never liked Ken, though. Until puberty, that is.

I read Jet, and I was white! I read Penthouse and Hustler, for the men!

I was the only little boy in school who could do the “Bernadette arm thing” from Zoom.

I would regularly listen to my parents' LP recording of the Massenet opera "Thaïs" with Beverly Sills, and stare at the album cover wishing I could someday be as glamorous.

I got caught looking at Penthouse at the mall bookstore as a 14 year old. I just wanted to see some dong. The bitch working at the store asked me in a harsh tone what my mother would think if she knew I was looking at such filth (2 drinks in, she would have probably said "atta girl"). In hindsight, I should have told that cunt to mind her fucking business as she clearly never had a dong.

R4 Winchester! I lived right over the town line in Arlington.

Bette Midler poster, circa 1973, hanging on the wall in my bedroom. I was 13. My parents had no idea who she was

I was obsessed with Judy, Golden Girls and Little house on the prairie....i had zero in common with the 21 other boys in my class And the teacher who often made football references. In all seriousness, i dont know how i stuck it out...i was slowly going insane. I feel sad for that kid. How did no responsible adult get it? I hung out with girls and often moms wud be cruel and ask me why i played with girls, and that it was odd. Once i was playing with a girl: i was about 10 she was about 8, and she fell. Her mom attacked me publicly shouting at me for playing with girls and that i was weird. Luckily i grew up to be a nice guy, handsome and very successful...and they all know it.

A dialing a phone with a pencil thread? GROUNDBREAKING

In high school I decorated my locker with pictures of Linda Evangelista.

R11 I forgot to say no bull dykes. Yikes! No disrespect, the thread might just get derailed from both sides.

[quote] Once i was playing with a girl: i was about 10 she was about 8, and she fell. Her mom attacked me publicly shouting at me for playing with girls and that i was weird. Luckily i grew up to be a nice guy, handsome and very successful...and they all know it.

Don't forget modest and unassuming.

R13 Does he own a motel? Just asking questions 🤷‍♂️

My mom said when I was in first grade I begged to watch Knot's Landing.

R15, And at 16 you knew where to find the boys and the booze.

r12 I'm a gay male. I guess you don't understand how GAY it was for a teenage boy in the early 90s to decorate his locker with pictures of a supermodel.

R17 Oh I stand corrected, you were diva idol worshipping her. My mistake. I may have jerked off to her.

When I was 9 I had a poem called “Happiness” published in the Catholic Weekly newspaper where I live (gayling tick # 1).

I was so proud (gayling tick # 2).

The final line of the poem was:

“I’m so glad that I’m a boy!” Gayling tick # 3 squared.

I watched beauty pageants religiously with my mom and grandma and my favorite category was evening gowns. I would oooh and ahhhh and critique to my little gay hearts content . I may have only been six but I knew cheap material when I saw it !

In high school I could recite the entire list of Miss America winners (name and state) in chronological order from the first tv winner in 1955, Lee Meriwether, to 1980, Cheryl Prewitt.

My mother painted my nails with her nail polish 💅 and I liked it plus ( my father sold little girls dresses to department stores) my parents paid me to wear a dress 👗 and model the dress for them.

R7- Winchester

Charles Emerson Winchester?

R12, you can call me a bull dyke when I can call you a swishy mfing faggot.

Which you know you are.

I was maybe 14 when I perfected my impersonation of Judy Garland singing Swanee! on the Judy Garland Show. People used to put everything on YouTube back then.

Perhaps coincidentally, this was probably less than a year before I started [initiating, consenting to, and collecting $0 for] sucking off 50 year old dudes in public rest/locker rooms.

No R23

When I was 12 I would get old blankets and cut a hole in the middle to fit my head through and then go out in the living room and sing along to 70s disco songs on the radio while swishing the blanket around like a caftan.

I was very upset when Diana Ross left the Supremes. I thought it may not be good for her future. I was wrong. But I did feel sorry for Mary and Cindy. I was also very upset when Sonny & Cher separated, and hoped they'd get back together - which I foolishly thought had happened when they did indeed reunite for a second TV show. But that was only for TV. I had a subscription not only to GQ Magazine, but also Women's Wear Daily (I didn't realize it came every day when I subscribed to it. It got a little absurd), and Bon Appétit. I stayed home from school for two days to prepare for a seated meal for sixteen I was hosting for my friends at my house. I had to get all of the silver polished and arrange the flowers. And cook the food. It was the first time I cooked Chateaubriand. And my parents let us have Cabernet Sauvignon with dinner and Port with dessert. It was a big hit.

^^^ I forgot to say that I was a sophomore in high school when I held that elegant dinner.

I never got what was so great about Zoom. What a boring show.

I bought one of Betty White's memoirs. My mother still gives me shit about that.

I started going to the gay porn theaters on Hollywood Boulevard ( Century, Vista ) when I was 15 years old.

Is that gayling enough?

I wouldn't know where to begin, r32.

When I was about 15 and had various friends come over to our house, some male, some female, my mother told me that she didn't want me "entertaining" females in my bedroom.

Confused about many things, including my sexuality, at that point, I had no idea when my mother really was saying. I just thought to myself, "OK no wearing a top hat and tuxedo and tap dancing for female friends."

Not that I owned a top hat or tuxedo. Or knew how to tap dance. But that was the only form of "entertaining" that I could conceptualize.

I would twirl until I was dizzy inspired by Wonder Woman’s transformation or Diana Ross in that rainbow dress from Mahogany. But then one day, I became more interested in watching Steve Trevor.

At 4 years of age I would put on my mother's heels and perform Madonna's "Like a Virgin" on the living room coffee table. And before you bitches start, the legs of the table DID NOT buckle!!

During high school I had a stash of GQ magazines (back when they had models on the cover) under my bed.

When I was 13 I purchased the cast album of Skyscraper.

I would watch Nina Blanchard on Merv, then do modelling poses in the mirror. I was sure I could run away to Hollywood and make a living modelling because I was at least 5'8"

When I was about five or six, leaving my aunts' house and my grandma trying to get my coat on, I slapped it away from her and went into my best Judy Garland, putting Toto into Miss Gultches' basket. "Oh, you wicked old witch! You go away, or I'll bite you myself!" My aunt spanked me with a pizza paddle for that one.

Sneaking down to the basement to look through my mom's one Playgirl magazine. The Best of Playgirl 1984.

It was similar to R27 jumping on my mom's bed with a blanket wrapped around my waist and shouting, "I'm a king, I'm a queen, I'm a king, I'm a QUEENNN!" Creative crafts with my mother's maxi pads. And much, much more.

I only had brothers, but I had several older girl cousins who all had that long, straight 1970s hair. I’d beg to brush their hair and would do it for as long as they would let me. I’m in my 50s now and they all still love to remind me of this.

I was called "bucked tooth fairy" in elementary school. So it was identified. But I was the best little boy in the world and got the teeth fixed and grew tall and handsome, captained varsity soccer, dated pretty girls, and then went to an Ivy school. I've told this before. I was fortunately mentored by a straight total stud gym teacher who by chance followed me through school - jr. high then hs and he made sure I became the jock I wanted to be. I wanted to be on those teams, with those boys, on those busses and in those showers. He made it all happen. Buck toothed fairy no more. I consider this all extremely gay.

I would always wait with unabated excitement the latest issue of the mail order catalogue to check out the men’s underwear section.

[quote]I never liked Ken, though. Until puberty, that is.

After puberty, you were attracted to men without genitals?

R32 so did I.

I had an imaginary pop group and we were going to call our first album The Sound Of Boney M.'s music, which would consist only of cover versions of Boney M. and hits from The Sound Of Music.

Sadly the world never go to hear my juxtaposition of Rasputin and The Lonely Goatherd.

I made a plasticine penis for a Ken doll.

I sat like a girl.

My favorite movie star when I was 16 was Greer Garson. (This was in 1986)

When Natalie Cole's "This Will Be" was popular I knew all the vamp at the end of the song & would hit the ground running every time it was on the radio. I matched Natalie's frenetic glee every single time while other kids looked at me like I was insane. I was 7.

I played with disney figures and loved coloring and sticker books.

UK here. I used to stay up very late on school nights in case Dalida was on the Monte Carlo Show.

[quote]When I was about 15 and had various friends come over to our house, some male, some female, my mother told me that she didn't want me "entertaining" females in my bedroom.

Same here! No girls in my bedroom, mom and dad? Ok, fine. As long as Keith and Eric are allowed in my bedroom, that's all I care about!

I wanted to wear my grandmother's fox fur to go out and play in the snow.

My television interests were equally divided between "The Loretta Young Show" and "Spin and Marty."

At 6 or 7 I was staring at a picture of Batman and Robin (the West and Ward version!) and while examining their groins asked my mom who had the bigger "bathtub." Poor woman almost drove off the road.

So many of these recollections resonate strongly with me and leave me feeling wistful. I wonder how different our lives may have been then and today if those of us with more creative and sensitive nature hadn't been singled out and stigmatized. I also sense the strength among us with every response. Good for us.

While the other boys were playing King of the Hill during wintertime, I was playing " get off me, you old boozer" from Annie with my friend Angie. As often as I played Rooster, I was also Miss Hannigan.

We got cable when I was 7, in 1981. My mother worked nights and my father was supposed to be watching us, but was doing…whatever he was doing.

I saw 9 to 5, Mommie Dearest, Singing in the Rain, Foul Play, Airplane, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, the Ellyn Burstyn film Resurrection…as a 7 year old on HBO and Showtime.

My mother didn’t know what to think when I performed the “WHY DID YOU ADOPT ME” scene from Mommie Dearest….as a 7 year old.

Was that R44's best impression of an autistic person?

r59 you and I are very close in age and I also watched all the camp shit on cable tv as a child.

I think the parents know but they go into a little bit of denial.

My mom told one of her two BFF's about me. The friend said "Oh, I knew that."

My mom: "HOW?"

Friend: "Well, that headshot photo you have framed on the mantel."

(I tried acting in LA)

I guess it had some major or minor gay face going on.

Sometimes, the moms are the last to know. But also the first in some ways.

I wanted to be an invalid when I grew up, and I could get down the staircase without using my legs like Blanch Hudson.

I’d belt out “hey big spender, spend a little time with me” as a five year old boy.

Easy-Bake Oven

Sneaking off the to magazine rack at the bookstore to look for artsy peen in "After Dark."

R22 = Dylan Mulvaney

By 14 I had already memorized Piper Laurie’s “I should have killed myself the first time he put it in me” monologue from Carrie.

At seven, skating on the concrete sidewalk waving ostrich plumes from the touring Holiday on Ice.

Also watching softcore on Cinemax I hated and couldn’t understand why they never showed the guys dick.

At age 13, I spent an evening ironing, while watching a Shirley Bassey concert on the BBC. After that, I had a nice bubble bath while drinking cola out of a wine glass, just like Alexis Carrington did.

As I've posted before, as an angelic Catholic boy of seven I put together vestments from my mother's, grandmother's and household wardrobes, made an altar (with reredos) from stacked tables and a toy chest, and so on. I forced my siblings and cousins to attend Mass, with cut-out rounds of smashed white sandwich bread and wine of Cutty Sark cut with water. I couldn't get to my grandmother's Mogen David. Confessions were brutal - I knew their sins ahead of time - but once in a while I would do Extreme Unction and they loved to be the dying communicant. I had an official Priest's Home Visit kit, but my mother would insist on lighting the candles.

It didn't last long. At eight I had my first boyfriend. Boyfriends.

I had a shiny, ice-blue long sleeve shirt that was very soft. Probably rayon or something, but I told the kids at school it was silk.

I mended mother’s hosiery with nail polish while she told me I was her best boy.

At age 11 I helped my mom remodel the kitchen. I picked out the formica for the cabinets the color of the countertops and the appliances this was 1972. My mom now had a Frigidaire flair range that I insisted she purchase, a Frigidaire refrigerator side by side with an ice maker , Amana Radarrange that weighed 6,000 lb and a Maytag dishwasher you could hear running in any room of the house.

I knew the entire script of High School Musical by heart and the choreographed dance for the Pussycat Dolls “Don’t cha”.

I like to imagine this was the poster hanging on R8's bedroom wall...

I had Lisa Frank school supplies in elementary school.

I tried on my mom’s long-fall auburn wig A LOT whenever nobody else was in the house. Then I’d desperately ensure it was refitted onto its styrofoam-head home as perfectly as possible in the exact position that it was when she’d last taken off and flung it back on there after a long night.

I was enamoured with my female relatives handbags as a child. I wanted one. I keep up with the current ones, luxury and contemporary brands. Don't own one but admire them.

I thought the kisslocks were the coolest feature. They've come back on some current bags but they're just not the same, don't have the same click.

June 1969: hearing my mom tell the grocery checkout clerk that I was sad that Judy Garland had died a few days before. I was 8. A few later, in 8th grade, I wrote a short biography about Jean Harlow for an English class, illustrated with pictures I cut out of a book at the city library. I still have that biography!

I began reading the Village Voice in junior high, initially due to my music geekiness, which was gay adoration on steroids. I told my mildly racist paternal grandmother that when I grew up, I wanted to marry Diana Ross. I was seven at the time. By that time I had had already had my Nancy, Dusty, & Cass phases too. The way other kids cared about sports stuff, I cared about Nielsen ratings and Billboard chart positions. My Junior Year Locker, Debbie Harry, my senior year locker, Annie Lennox. No straight kid has ever consumed as much female vocal material, solo or in group with the same ferocity and deep devotion as I have. Anyhoo, the VV led to the personals which led to the gay ones and then I found After Dark, and by then by 15 it was tight jeans, polo shirts, and cowboy boots and a trying to seduce my friends student teacher. Cigarettes, too much cologne, Binaca - and gay from space.

Before I turned 15, I'd seen, "Funny Girl", at least five times. There are also a few pics of me as a youngster, that showed a prominent limp wrist.

The Clairol box clearly said light ash blond and I thought it would look so cute on me. I have no idea why my hair color came out looking so brassy. Yet again...

[quote]The way other kids cared about sports stuff, I cared about Nielsen ratings and Billboard chart positions

Completely adorable! What a great kid you must have been.

R71, a 13 year old watching a Shirley Bassey concert was pretty gay! But ironing and a bubble bath, too? Adorable.

I remember my mother dying of embarrassment as I discussed the hairstyles on the most recent episode of Charlie’s Angels with her friends who had come over for lunch. I was 8.

R71, at any point during the bubble bath and drinking cola from a wine glass, did you pretend Mark Jennings or Dex Dexter entered the bathroom while you demurely slid down deeper in the soap bubbles as to not be too exposed???

I hope you will be live on the Met Gala thread, R20.

I read both Hardy Boys AND Nancy Drew

[quote]I had no idea when my mother really was saying. I just thought to myself, "OK no wearing a top hat and tuxedo and tap dancing for female friends."

If you had said that out loud, R34, your mother probably would have said, "OK, you can entertain female friends in your room but not males."

A college friend who was exuberantly out from early childhood once described a family country drive when he was about 12. His father and brother did not accept his flamboyance easily.

He saw a cow and said, There's a cow! Moooo!" He saw hogs and said, "There's a pig. Oink oink oink!"

His father said, "And there's a corn field. What noise does goddamned corn make?"

And little Davey threw himself back, put his knees up, thrust his hand like he was inserting a corncob and said, "Whuck whuck whuck!!!"

I saw Carol Channing in Hello Dolly at 13 by myself. Evening performance, too. Not a matinee.

When I was 9 or 10 years old we went to Provincetown while staying on the Cape. I still remember when my mother saw lots of young men in small black bathing suits at the beach and said she thought they must all be seminarians. My father and I both had whatever the “Oh Mary” reaction was back then at the same time: Even I knew better. Then again, maybe she could see into the future and they were all there training to be Catholic priests. You never know.

Potentially gay but I was too young to remember, but when I was around 3 or 4 I wanted to dig in the garden. Did I take a spade from the tool shed or a stainless steel spoon from out of the drawer in the kitchen? No, I took a monogrammed sterling silver serving spoon from the silver chest in the dining room. Sterling is pretty soft and it got twisted out of shape and served, for years, as a reminder of my elevated tastes even as a young kid. Maybe even gayer, but for my Mom’s 50th birthday I had the jeweler get an identical spoon in the same pattern and had it monogrammed exactly like the rest of the silver set. She loved it.

R93 I love when a little gayling serves cunt to a frustrated, overworked and underpaid dad.

When my mom’s date brought me a sewing machine and I made a swastika pillow sham.

I had a scrap book of all of my vacations, with photos and flyers from the places visited in the clear plastic pages.