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I think I first realised I was gay. Um, probably when when I was in my sort of late, single figure years, I would guess probably 89 and into 10, I realised that the feelings that I had for for for love and romance and and my first sort of sexual awakening were not for people of the opposite sex. They were for people of the same sex. And, um, thanks for having a fantastic family upbringing. Uh, from what some people would call a broken home. My parents were separated when I was very young. I was very close to my mother [00:00:30] and her new male partner, and I didn't have any problems with that in myself at all. That's not to say that I came out to my my parents at that age. I didn't actually come out to my mum till I was 18, 19 years old, which is what, some 10 years later. But just knowing that the the support was there, and I think in reality your parents always really know whether their child or you know, son or daughter is gay or not. I think that it's a it's it's a lie to say I didn't My mum never knew or [00:01:00] my dad never knew, because I think deep down they do. It's the same as the the husband who's having an affair, or the or the wife who's messing around on a lunch break with a Diet Coke break. They you just know you know something's wrong. But when it came to coming out to my mother, which was kind of enforced on me at the time, because it was I was in my first gay relationship at 18, 19 years old, and I lived in London, which is the capital of England, and my my mom and her partner lived in Cornwall, which is a region, uh, some sort of 250 miles away, very [00:01:30] rugged and and windswept. Um, it was a It was a long way to go, and it was a long journey to take being forced into it by a boyfriend who was determined that I should come out to my parents and family before he could truly love me. And when it's your first same sex relationship, it's the You don't know what the rules are because the whole of your upbringing is based around, uh, the heterosexual ideals and stereotypes of what the good relationships are and how they work. So when you're suddenly thrown into something that you really want very much, you don't know the rules and how how the game is played. So I accepted [00:02:00] that as the norm and travelled down to Cornwall to do the do the deeds and to come out and be honest with my my family. And it was over Christmas, and I remember the precise moment vividly. We were watching JFK, the Oliver Stone movie on television. And ever since I was a very young kid, I think it was to do with the separation of my my mum and dad. Er, Late at night, I would join my mother on her bed, not in her bed, under the covers. She would be under the covers, and I would just sit on the side of the bed and we'd watch telly together for a little while and have a chat. And then I'd go to bed and you know, we'd all go to sleep, and I just remember [00:02:30] sitting there, and I think there's a moment when er, Kevin Costner and Sissy Spacer have a row er, because the family's falling apart in the movie. And I just said, Ohh, God, I'd love to have kids And my I remember my mum saying, But you will have kids, won't you? And I said, Well, I don't know And it was that sort of Then you get that fundamental moment where you don't quite know what to say. And there's a pause that fills er build a gap as as long as a lifetime. But in reality, it's probably a nanosecond. And my mum just said, Is there something you want to tell me? And I said, and it was vivid, as opposed to the first person [00:03:00] I said in the third person your son is gay, to which she said, Fantastic news. That's fantastic news. I'm so glad you've told me. As long as you're as happy as you can be and you're as safe as you can be, it really doesn't matter. And that was it. There was no throwing plant pots across the wall and soil falling everywhere. There was no red wine glasses being smashed. There was no Your father never wants to speak to you again. It was that simple and the feeling of coming out and and having that final boundary of honesty confirmed and brought brought [00:03:30] together was more uplifting than I think anything I've ever done since. Or anyone ever told since, because when you're truly honest with the people that love you, it's when you can truly be honest with yourself. I suppose my first real sexual experience was with somebody in my secondary school, which is a school you go to from the age of 11 to 15 in the UK. And it was AAA chap, a lad called Matthew, and we were the same age, and we had to go on a camping trip. And in this country, that means intense er, [00:04:00] not intense, but actually under canvas. But it was pretty intense, and we ended up travelling to this site in the middle of a mall in Cornwall again, very remote, very windy, very wet, and it was single sex tent and Matthew and I had always played together and hung out and done stuff and gone into town together in the lunch hour and just had a good time. And there was that spark that you probably can't explain or understand. But you know, it's that. Is that that that it's that intense, mind numbing sort [00:04:30] of electric spark between you, that excitement and you can't quite define it because he's never experienced it. You don't know what's going to come. And so we were at this campsite camping, doing the things that teachers make you do when you're a kid, like rescuing barrels out of ropes of, you know, ropes that are supposed to be lakes and all that sort of malarkey. And night time came and Matthew said to me, just as we were all getting in there, thinking, Why don't you come and lay next to me? And I thought, Yeah, why not? I normally I lay next to my best friend, Ben. But no, I went to lay with Matthew, not lay with him in the biblical sense, but lay [00:05:00] next to him. And, um, I was. We went to sleep, and there was the usual sort of laddish laughter that you get and playing around. And in the middle of the night I felt his hand on my sleeping bag, and I was sort of filled with an sort of a a again an an anticipation and an excitement and I reciprocated. It was the old tag game, that I. I think I've read that a lot of first time sexual relationships are based on is that you touch me here. I'll touch you there and and it continued and hands went [00:05:30] under sleeping bags and I'm in. One particularly emotive and and exciting point was that we were writing words on each other's stomach because we couldn't talk because we had to be absolutely silent. You have to remember that Cornwall was not a place that was greatly respectful of of things that weren't the norm, IE sleeping with relatives and driving tractors. So we had to be very, very quiet about it. So we were spelling out words on each other's bodies, which was intensely erotic, Um, not intentionally, but through necessity. But sometimes [00:06:00] things that you do through necessity are that in nature erotic. And it was sort of Are you enjoying that? Yes, I am. Obviously it took a very long period of time, But the one thing I suppose, the one thing we we never completed that sexual act as as you would probably reading science books and maybe that was a little part of my insecurity, not wanting to give everything away at once. So I just pretended to fall asleep and and the next morning we woke up, and it was as if nothing ever happened until a couple of weeks later, when it became a relationship that lasted [00:06:30] for some years. I suppose if I had a message to anybody who was coming out or deciding their sexuality or or realising that they weren't who they thought they were, and they are now something else, it would be to ring me because I'm always available for weekends, bar mitzvahs and barbecues. No, it would be to be confident in yourself and to be sure that that you're the person that you think you should be and you're not anybody for anyone else. You can only be yourself, and there's no right and wrong In the human body, there's there's no there's no [00:07:00] lies for yourself. You can only be true, and you will lose friends and you will gain friends, and you may have difficult times with family, but you'll get through it and you'll be a stronger, wiser, better person for it. And that sounds incredibly patronising. And very arrogant and very blase. Unfortunately, it's really true. You've just got to go for it. Be the person you know in your heart. You've got to be and enjoy it because it is the best life you'll ever have because it's the only one you'll ever have.
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