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The first recollection that I have of of being attracted to men, which probably sounds a bit considering that I know plenty of stra identifying men now who've had, like, mutual masturbation experiences with other men, and that's all it was. But for me, it always stuck in my head. It's been more significant than that. But when I was eight and I had been put in for six months at A a hospital, it was called the Xavier Home for Crippled Children, which sounds [00:00:30] more imposing than it really was. But I was being treated for asthma, but some of the other Children there were kids with real problems like thalidomide, babies and such. But the asthmatics tended to be a bit privileged, and you were a bit more mobile than the other kids you didn't have a wheelchair to worry about. For example, I remember, um, one of the other as many kids. John and I, and we had an arrangement where, um, [00:01:00] she used to loose at night. One would get up because we had a dormitory that was quite secure, like the nurses would only sort of tuck him into bed and then you'd see them in the morning. But get up, go to the loo. And if you wanted the other boy to come in, he'd cough. Which I've since found out, is, uh, not far off what happens in bee culture, but and we just feel each other's dicks and balls. And I just remember it feeling really [00:01:30] special and very enjoyable. That happened several times when I was in the Xavier home, and I don't think I had, like, physical contact again then with another man until I was probably, like, 16, 17. What was really useful for me being born in 1955 and then when I had an emerging interest in [00:02:00] socialising and music and life in general Outside of school, you had rock stars like David Bowie and Mick Jacket making bisexuality like a really acceptable, if not fashionable thing to be. So it was quite safe to say that it was great to be bisexual, and it was good to explore the sides of your sexuality. And I had friends of mine. Like my best friend from school was a man who came out to me once as having had sex with a mutual friend. [00:02:30] And when David told me that one night he'd showed me a record. And inside was a a note from the mutual friend Michael. And it said to David, Thanks for the wonderful time we had together last night all my love, Michael. And like, because they would just show me the album and he didn't say anything. But when I looked at it, I knew everything that was entailed in this. And I just remember shaking feeling, um, [00:03:00] a huge reaction because all of a sudden it wasn't just a topic anymore. It wasn't something that we all agreed was acceptable, but it was actually happening. And years later, um, when David and another girlfriend had had a big dinner party at their place. Uh, David said, because I was the last guest to leave, he said, We'd really like you to stay. You know, you should stay overnight. And I said, I know you know, I've got work tomorrow or such, but I'll be fine. And he said, No. [00:03:30] Linda and I would particularly like you to stay with us, and I had that same shaking feeling because it was, um, obvious that David had actually felt an attraction for me. like I'd always felt for him. But I'd never been able to actually put into words or into action. And it was a great night of fun, and it helped confirm to me that even though, like Linda being there, that was good fun. But for me, what made the whole [00:04:00] night was the fact that I was actually able to enjoy physically being in bed with and having sex with a man who was my best friend throughout high school and, ah, who is still a good friend of mine. Even though he's like the other side of the world away, a good part recently was through the Internet. I wonder if the Internet catching up with David and broaching the subject for the first time in like, 20 years, and that was just great to learn that for him, it had been something significant. It it had been wank fodder [00:04:30] for him over the last 20 odd years, even though he hadn't had sex with another man since that time. Coming out to my family was another matter. I think I'd been out to myself satisfactorily than from my early twenties, and I had, like my friend Michael who I bumped into occasionally through friends who was always a happy, confident homosexual man. And I think he was a good pillar to have a good reference point to know that no [00:05:00] matter how much life seems to change or where other people went in other directions, as in moving away from the bisexuality thing or becoming married and having kids. Michael was always there as a rock solid person who was happy to be gay, was never going to be anything else, but that he was a political activist and such. Ah, my friends could deal with the fact that I said that I had an attraction to men even though I didn't really live them out. I [00:05:30] know virtually no sex life, which is probably the only reason why I'm HIV Negative now. No sex life, really in my later to twenties, early thirties, but at home, I remember one time about seven more years ago, seven years ago, maybe now, well, I was standing to think that I was gonna have to start, including how I felt about other people sexually in my life. It was important for that to become an honest and active part of my life, and I was working for [00:06:00] the kitchen at home here one day, and I just have my father at the kitchen table with my brother and my mother. And he said, And we had one of them at work and he was OK and I just turned around and I said one. What? And he said, a queer and before I could stop myself, I said, Well, Dad, you've got one for a son. Oh, that's OK and walked out the front yard. And as I got out the front yard, I just felt my [00:06:30] heart to a bit louder and louder and louder, and I thought it was gonna collapse. But that was it. Like my father's been totally supportive ever since. My mother had always been supportive, but it meant then that I could start dealing with the issue with all the rest of my family and have had nothing but support nothing but good results from interactions with people. So since that time, when I contacted Michael again and [00:07:00] Michael was doing a radio show called Queer Radio I was up to. Then go and visit Michael, go to the radio show and start to talk to other men and realise that that being gay or being homosexual is a huge theory of things, and you don't have to be a particular person behave in a certain way. And even though I thought it was relatively informed, I don't think you can be informed enough about the nature [00:07:30] of the differences between people. So what I've got out of working now for the last six years on queer radio and by talking with literally hundreds of different men and women is an appreciation that it's more OK for me to be me. And I try to encourage other people, no matter how early they are in the coming out process, to just accept themselves and to not expect too much of themselves except that they are OK. My first [00:08:00] proper sexual experience, as in a deliberate sexual experience with another man alone, would have been with my friend Michael, and it was like a deliberate act I. I had gone to visit my friend Peter as it was. Peter and Michael were brothers. Peter was my good friend through high school, one of my very best friends, and I knew it was Peter's birthday I went to visit him, but Michael was visiting as well. [00:08:30] Wish Peter a happy birthday and offered Michael a lift home with the distinct idea in my head that Michael could be interested in doing sex. And as I dropped Michael off, not too far away from that house where he was living at the time. Oh, Michael gave me a kiss. Good night. And then he just leaned over and he put his hand on my leg. Let it slide down to my groyne. Stopped me going hard. And he said, [00:09:00] I think you'd better come inside. So even though we were a bit pissed at the time, uh, I remember it being enjoyable. Mark Such a a comfortable, friendly person. And he wasn't at all demanding. He was very patient, and it was good fun. I stayed the night, um, we had breakfast, fell out to his flat mates. It was a totally positive, enjoyable experience, [00:09:30] and there certainly wasn't even the expectation that more has to come of this. It was a case of This is a good thing for us to do. We'll do it and you know we'll see each other again because we're in the same social circles. But I thought that was a really positive way to start and to, uh, to go from there in terms of knowing that, like trust and friendship and enjoyment can go to sex. The advice that I would give to anyone who's thinking about coming out, [00:10:00] as in them coming out as being gay, lesbian, bisexual, whatever is to come from an informed position. And the best way to do that is to get books that are supportive. Right in Brisbane, we've got a couple of like, specifically supportive bookshops where you'll get gay and lesbian literature. I read books is one of them. And if you get books like I'm looking at books on relationships like Together Forever by Andrew Marshall that [00:10:30] I have in front of me at the moment, there are books on like gay and lesbian film like The Bent Lens. It's a wonderful book loving someone gay by Don Clark and by even reading books of short fiction and reading. How other people have either felt about the same sex or have fantasised about feeling is all useful, but to then realise that there is a huge range of things that can be [00:11:00] true or that can happen. And looking after your health is gonna be a consequence of knowing that you're worth looking after. I think one of the best books that I've read, The Homo Handbook by Judy Carter, is so valuable, I think, because it's so amusing as well, and I could see that that would be a good thing to get informed then to get active. Getting politically active is a useful thing to do. It doesn't mean that you have to be involved [00:11:30] in, say, the private collective forever. I know lots of people who've used the private collective as a a really important social tool, so I'll spend two or three years getting involved with the group, feeling confident about identifying as a gay man or lesbian, and the fact that the festivals attract several 100 people here like several 1000 even up to for the like the Fair Day events. It puts you in a good position to start, I think dealing with life better, [00:12:00] but that would be my recommendation, basically get informed so you know what to expect of yourself and the other people around you, and then take the step of actually going out and meeting other people who identify as gay.
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