1: Catholic boy

I’m 31 years old and have lived in Melbourne all my life. I come from a sheltered background with Catholic parents and an education in Catholic schools. My family background meant that I was very much part of the Catholic Church and grew up with many of the values that the Catholic Church espouses.   

 

I was attracted to guys for years before I realised I was actually gay. I can remember first feeling attracted to men when I would have been 11 or 12, but I didn’t really think about it.  It just seemed natural.  I didn’t necessarily think I was gay because I thought I was attracted to women as well. It wasn’t until I was 16 that I started seriously considering identifying as gay.

 

The Catholic boys’ school I went to was very homophobic and people who were different in any way weren’t accepted by their peers. In such an environment it was very hard coming to terms with being gay. For this reason, I kept it to myself for some time. (Homophobia)

 

While I was still at school I started listening to Joy FM. I remember on Saturday mornings they’d have a coming out segment, with a different personal story each week. For me, hearing people’s coming out stories was deeply empowering. Every time I listened I felt more secure in the belief that I’d be able to do it too, when I chose to, and that the world wasn’t going to fall apart when I did.

2: Actually I’m Gay

For most of my time at high school I went about trying to convince the larger student population that I was straight. This involved a couple of girlfriends and occasionally kissing girls at weekend parties. By year 12, I had most people pretty well convinced. And, ironically, that’s when I finally came out. But I didn’t go public about being gay, choosing only to share it with a small, more open-minded circle of friends. (Coming Out)

 

I was fortunate that I had some really supportive friends at school and, because I kept a low profile, I didn’t experience much direct homophobia. I would only get it from a few people who were probably gay themselves and were just in denial. I admire young people who are openly gay at school because they’re pioneers; they’re raising awareness and setting an example. But back then I wasn’t prepared to do that. Despite the fact that my family are open-minded relative to the Catholic Church doctrine, I couldn’t get over the feeling that being gay was something wrong, inferior and immoral. (Religion and Sexuality)

 

Being in a completely Catholic environment constantly reinforced that sense of shame around my sexual orientation. Fortunately, my parents could see beyond that. They didn’t see it as immoral and had made that fairly clear to me as I was growing up. Not because they thought I was gay, but because they didn’t want me to feel it’s wrong if I happened to be gay, or to judge other people for it. This made an enormous difference. If I’d had parents who really toed the Catholic line, it would have been much harder.

 

But it was still difficult, because the Catholic institution is so big and so influential that, despite my family’s views, those conservative values still bore down on me. While there are many Catholic values I admire, there are also too many that I find oppressive and contradictory. In the end, it was really a matter of me having to grapple with that, right up until I chose to let go of the Church and Catholic religion after leaving school.

 

3: Seeking gay community

The year after I finished school I started doing a Commerce/Arts combined degree at Melbourne Uni, but I soon realised that Commerce was not really my thing. So I embraced the Arts side and got into the humanities and cultural studies. It was very mind-opening because my education up until then was religious and therefore narrower, whereas at university it was much more open. It allowed a big leap in knowledge and awareness, something that I really welcomed.

 

At uni I was keen to expand my social network because it had been so limited to people at high school, which meant that I had very few gay friends. The queer community on campus was something I immediately gravitated towards. It was a broad community with a radically political edge. At first I found this overwhelming, because I’d come from a conservative background and many of my views were being challenged. But then I began to transform, to let go of some of the conditioning and start thinking for myself more. Some of the things I was studying helped me with this too.

 

I had my first taste of the gay scene in my first year of uni when I wasn’t yet 18 years old. The most symbolic of these first experiences was going to the Xchange and seeing my first drag show. It was one of the most confronting examples of a drag show I could have seen and I was quite disturbed by it. Not because it was drag ; I like the idea of drag. It was just so dark and vulgar that I couldn’t relate to it. I guess I was still a bit conservative. But I also really didn’t feel safe in that environment. It certainly wasn’t an empowering experience. (Getting out there)

 

I realised that this wasn’t a side of the gay community that I wanted to have much to do with. I was aware, because of the queer community on campus, that the gay scene isn’t all there is to the gay community. I think a lot of people get on the scene and they think that’s all there is. That’s why they latch onto it, not because it actually empowers them. After that and a couple of other experiences, I was more inclined to the alternative queer scene, which was better represented on campus and also at queer nights like Q&A. That became my social network.

4: Coming out

It was the end of my first year of uni and I was 18. I’d had a year in a more open environment, meeting more gay people and gaining a level of support from them and other people around me. It was what I needed to feel ready to tell my parents I’m gay. When I eventually came out to them they were very supportive. They only wished I’d told them sooner, especially because I’d told so many other people. I tried to explain that it’s harder to tell your parents than anyone else, which is why it took me so long, but they found this hard to understand. I guess I have to see it positively that they wanted to know earlier, because it’s a sign that they really care and support me with it.

 

Without actually mentioning HIV, they also asked me to be careful with my health. I didn’t take their concerns very seriously, believing that they stemmed from a persistent stereotype that all gay men end up with HIV. I didn’t think that it could happen to me. (Safe sex)

 

Around this time a gay friend I used to work with introduced me to an older friend of his. I was 18 at the time and this man was 51. He had me in his sights from day one and within a few weeks we were sexually involved. I was still very sexually naïve and therefore thirsty for new sexual experiences. I’d become more open to older men because guys my age were equally inexperienced and it always felt clumsy. At the start I was happy to keep it casual but he immediately wanted more than just a friendship with benefits. So he got quite emotionally involved and, being young and impressionable, I couldn’t help but get emotionally involved too. Especially because this was the first person I’d had an ongoing sexual relationship with.

 

Our relationship continued for a few months and, under increasing stress, there came a point where I felt it was too much for me. I wasn’t comfortable being with someone so much older. It just didn’t feel balanced. I tried to end it but he begged me not to. I was and still am a sensitive person who doesn’t like to hurt people so I relented and we continued.

 

An important fact about that relationship is that it was the first time I ever had anal sex and with minimal negotiation we began and continued to have unprotected sex from the beginning. It was during this relationship that I did the Young & Gay group at the VAC and got my first proper education about safe sex. It was the first time I became aware of the importance of negotiation. By that point though, unprotected sex was already the norm in our relationship and continued to be so, even though there came a point where we were both sexually active outside the relationship. I was practising safe sex, and I assumed and trusted that he was too. It was so much about trust. I trusted him from the beginning when he first stuck it in me without even asking. The whole time we were together I trusted that he was HIV negative. (Anal sex) (Sex outside the relationship)

 

5: India

Towards the end of that year another friend of mine invited me to go with him on a trip to India over the summer. My lover didn’t want me to go, probably because he knew that it would be a coming-of-age experience for me and that I wouldn’t want to be with him anymore. But I was determined and I went. It was a coming-of-age experience going to India at that age. I was 19 and it gave me the first opportunity to experience a totally different culture and to really step outside my own bubble. It was a chance to see the way most of the rest of the world lives, and to realise what an extremely privileged life I’ve had here in Australia.

 

I spent the first month travelling with my friend before we went our separate ways. I went on my own to Kolkata to do volunteer work. It was really confronting and quite lonely as well, especially as it was my first time alone in a foreign country. So I was really open to meeting anyone on any level. I met an American guy and we were instantly attracted to each other. He moved into my room the night we met and stayed on. (Isolation)

 

We had a fleeting but intense relationship. My intention was to use condoms and practise safe sex but there were a couple of instances of unsafe sex. Generally we were having protected anal sex, except the first time, and that was un-negotiated. It basically happened before I even knew it was going to happen. I didn’t have an opportunity to say, “I want to use a condom.” On another occasion I let him come in my mouth. I was still unsure about the risks involved in that. I didn’t realise that there could be significant risks with oral sex and ejaculation so I wasn’t aware of how unsafe what I was doing was.

 

After a few weeks the relationship fizzled out. At that time I got really sick. I felt sicker and weaker than I ever had in my life. I ended up spending more than a week feverish and bed-ridden with no appetite and unable to do anything. I didn’t have a clue what was wrong with me and I felt very isolated without the support of my American friend. (Seroconversion Illness)

 

6: Diagnosis

I was very sick for a while and, although I recovered somewhat, I still had some health issues when I went back to Australia. That was clear to my parents straight away. So they sent me off to our GP who thought that I had a post-viral, neuropathic syndrome that’s very rare, and these days in younger people is generally associated with HIV. That was when I started thinking that maybe I had HIV. I was referred to a neurologist who was the first person to directly question me about the possibility of HIV. I’d had HIV tests before and they turned out fine. I assumed that because I was fine then I’ll be fine now, even though there were so many indications that something was seriously wrong. (HIV Testing)

 

I don’t think my neurologist had ever tested anyone for HIV before. But he believed it was a strong possibility and insisted that I immediately get tested. I’d been planning to get tested but preferred to go back to the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre where I’d been tested before. I gave in to him though because, being a specialist, he had a strong sense of authority and I was easily intimidated. So I ended up getting tested without any pre-test counselling. A week later I went back not expecting to get the test result yet. He came in late. He was clearly stressed out and his face was very pale. Before I knew it he’d sat me down and said, “You’re HIV positive.”

 

Even though I’d considered the possibility of HIV nothing had really prepared me for this. It was a huge shock. What made it harder was that he really didn’t have the skills to provide proper post-test counselling. Even worse, he gave me a prognosis of 10 to 15 years. This was in the year 2000 when people weren’t actually sure how long life expectancy with HIV might be. But I didn’t know any better, so it was just as much of a shock as the diagnosis. The neurologist then put me in a taxi and sent me off to the Alfred Hospital.

 

I was living at home with my family at the time. I hadn’t told them I was getting an HIV test but they knew I was getting a whole lot of tests done. The HIV specialist at the Alfred immediately wanted to confirm the diagnosis with another test. So I had to go home and say that I didn't know all the results yet.

 

Later that day the specialist called me back and told me that yes, I definitely did have it. It was a Friday afternoon and the working week was over. So when I finally got the confirmation of the diagnosis over the phone, I had no one around me who could support me apart from my family. It was a very messy process.

7: The aftermath

I told my brother that day and the rest of my family the day after. I think my mum had already guessed. My dad was more shocked and reacted with the outburst “But we told you to be careful!” Although he quickly retracted it and they were both very supportive, I still felt ashamed, like I’d failed them.

 

After my return from India I’d reconnected with my previous lover on a friendship basis. I think he would’ve been very open to resuming a sexual relationship and wouldn’t have hesitated to have unprotected sex. I don’t think he believed I could actually have HIV. And I was pretty certain that he didn’t have HIV and still believe so to this day. It made much more sense that I would’ve got it from my American lover in India. So I had to be really firm and say “No I don’t want to have sex”, in an effort to protect him. Even when I’d go and stay with him for the weekend I’d have to lay down the boundaries. Fortunately he respected that. I guess he had to. But then when I got tested and I got the result he was angry. He said to me bitterly, “If this had happened to me, I’d be worried about who I can’t support, but you’re just worrying about who’s gonna support you,” as if to suggest that I was selfish for wanting his support.

 

I was empowered enough to see that he was being irrational, especially because he then half apologised for it. I’d seen his true colours and I realised I probably deserved better. But I also started to question, “Is there some truth in what he’s said? Is it fair for me to seek out support? Have I done something selfish here?” It was that whole idea of blame around HIV. It ingrained that more. And that’s something I think everyone who has HIV has to struggle with continually. Nonetheless I chose never to speak to him again. I haven’t regretted that. His words were the straw that broke the camel’s back. I felt really betrayed and that ended it for me. (Relationships)

 

I had turned 20 by the time I got the diagnosis and my naïve response was to move forward and just get on with it. But I was really struggling emotionally. I started using recreational drugs more than I ever had. I’d only had minimal experience with drugs but the trauma of the diagnosis pushed me into a self-destructive binge phase because it was the only way I could cope. The partying and drug-taking only lasted about a couple of months but my health suffered considerably. I felt so ashamed. And as much as I knew my family could support me, I had to get space from them because the shame blocked me from really accepting their support.(Drugs and Alcohol)

 

None of my peers were going through the same thing. No one else I knew had HIV. People tried to support me but they really didn’t understand what I was going through. They were young too; how could they know? It was painfully isolating at that stage. Coincidentally, in the year I was diagnosed, a youth group for people with HIV was launched. I was trying to make vague efforts to get in touch with the HIV community so I went along to the launch. But I found it so confronting that I didn’t go back to it for years.  

 

During that first year I sought counselling at VAC/GMHC, but by the end of the year I decided it was too much to deal with. It was all just too confronting. I expected to go to counselling and leave feeling happier and better. I tended to leave feeling overwhelmed. But I realised later down the track that those feelings are actually part of the process when you’re facing major stuff. It’s not easy. (Counselling)

 

8: Activism and escapism

Ignoring many of my issues, I put my head down and went back to uni. I started getting really involved in student politics and decided to run for a position in the student union as Queer Officer. This was an essential outlet for me, as I had a lot of anger and I was channelling it all into the activism. Despite my involvement in theatre earlier on at uni, the politics pretty much subsumed any other creative paths; especially once we won the elections and I became an office bearer.

 

Even more so than drugs, political activism was the ultimate distraction from what I was facing. But it started to eat away at me. I developed such a negative view of the world, choosing to focus on all the injustice, ugliness, violence, oppression and inequality above other things. I was feeling negative about myself, which I guess is why I was becoming so negative about life. I felt a sense of deep injustice that my invincibility had been taken away from me at such a young age. It seemed so unfair that my world had been turned upside down, that my future wasn’t certain and that I had to do this alone. 

 

By the end of 2001 I had burnt out. After a year I couldn’t wait to walk out of that office bearer position and leave it forever. Once I did I was forced to reflect, “Well, where am I at? I’m 21 and I already feel burnt out. And what do I really want in my life?” This was me realising that the lifestyle I had was unsustainable.

 

It took a lot of soul searching to recognise that not only did I need to change my priorities but that I’d lost my sense of spirituality. I began to realise how important spirituality is to me. I’d already decided the Catholic Church wasn’t for me. In fact, I was quite against it on a political level. But I was also aware that the religious upbringing I’d had wasn’t all negative; that it was actually what helped me establish a solid spiritual foundation. I think, at the beginning, it’s also what helped me to cope with the reality that I had HIV.

 

When I was diagnosed, the friend I went to India with said to me, “Well, everything happens for a reason.” It made me angry at the time because it felt like a shallow platitude. But it was true and deep down I knew it. I had the spiritual awareness to know that nothing is really an accident. Many will beg to differ, but that’s my experience and the way I choose to look at it. It’s a view that has helped me enormously in dealing with HIV.

 

9: Another extreme

Despite the fact that I was better coming to terms with my condition, I was still young and naïve. I wasn’t yet 22 when I decided to drop out of uni and quit my job. Feeling I needed to be free to explore, I let go of all my commitments. This was mainly to focus on my health, which had never really been a priority, as it isn’t for most people in their early twenties. I had to grow up much more quickly than I would have otherwise.

 

For a lot of people around me, my decisions were quite controversial. It was hard to stand my ground because I felt so much pressure to be active in the world, to be working, to be studying, to be “doing something”. But what seemed more important for me was to focus on my health. I became interested in natural and holistic therapies and also wanted to explore different forms of spirituality. (Complimentry Therapies)

 

So I went up north and spent about four months in the Byron Bay region. It was a mixed experience. At the time I was disappointed. I’d hoped to go there and find my niche, but it didn’t turn out that way. I felt like I was just drifting around. But I did get to meet some amazing people and, in retrospect, that made it truly worthwhile.

 

I travelled a bit more in Australia and then eventually went overseas. I left Australia not really knowing if or when I would come back because I didn’t really feel like I had a place here anymore. I went to South East Asia for four months and then back to India.

 

Going to India again felt like going home, yet at the same time I felt I was running away. I wasn’t happy. In fact, I was quite depressed a lot of the time, and my physical health wasn’t good either. Before the trip I’d made the decision not to have my blood monitored anymore. I wanted to put off taking medications for as long as possible and ideally I didn’t want to have to take them at all. I felt that the stress and anxiety I experienced every time I had my blood tested was compromising my health. (Anxiety)

 

But after more than a year in exile, I realised that there was no longer any point in running away. I was never going to escape what was within me - this fear and inability to feel secure in the world. I’d also formed a habit of idealising other cultures. At first a place always seemed so dazzling and beautiful and wonderful, and then I’d start to see the dark side. I was in the Himalayas, which is one of the most beautiful parts of the world. But even there I began to see that nothing’s perfect. I realised that my deepest connection is to my family and to the place I was born, and with a desire to honour those connections I decided to go home.

10: Home time

Although I continued to believe that I could make it on my own without HIV medication, I decided I wanted to integrate into society a bit more. I tried going back to work. I was attempting to be “normal”, and it didn’t work out because I wasn’t physically strong enough.

 

So I let it go and started dreaming about travelling again, which is how I ended up studying Spanish and beginning the dream of travelling to South America. That was good for a while, but my body was really struggling. I tried other, stronger forms of natural healing, like detoxification through a therapeutic diet. Then I travelled again, this time to Japan to visit my sister who was living there. I went to Korea as well, and got through it all despite my poor health. I was always able to bounce back enough not to feel like I was going to slip into the abyss.

 

It was 2006 before the wheels really started to fall off. I’d been going through a deep process of questioning the whole theory of HIV. I questioned if it even really existed, because I felt like I had no proof that that’s what I was really living with. It was a form of denial. By then my immune system was deteriorating to the extent that I was getting a lot of skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis. I’d never had them before. Something wasn’t right and I had to face the reality. It took a friend of mine with HIV to be hospitalised because he was also avoiding medication to realise that this could happen to me too. Finally, I decided to get my blood tested.

 

It had been at least four years since I’d last had my blood tested. I had 35 T-cells, which means my immune system was nose diving. I’d also been having counselling for more than a year at that stage, which really helped me start to look at things more realistically. I started to change my perspective of my own life and not see HIV as a death sentence. Because I’d had such a dire prognosis from the person who diagnosed me, I’d never really believed that I could live a full and satisfying life with HIV. It took a lot of counselling and a long process of soul-searching to believe differently. It was about embracing life and finding my passions. That was what motivated me to try going on medication and start believing in my own future. (T-Cells and Viral Load) (Counselling)

 

In late 2006 I started taking medication. I was still only 26 and I nonetheless had to face the fact that I might be taking them for the rest of my life. It was really tough at first. Some of the fears I’d had were founded because the side effects were so strong. I was also a bit unrealistic when I first began them, going from seeing them as a curse to be feared to seeing them as a quick fix. I expected that within a few months I’d feel like I did before I got HIV.

 

It’s not that easy though. Because my immune system had deteriorated so much, it was going to take a while for me to build it back up again. Also, it often takes people with HIV some time to find a combination that is sustainable and manageable. For me this was definitely the case, because I‘m fairly sensitive. The first combination I was on I could only manage for about four months. It had side effects on the central nervous system, which affected my mental health. It was at a time, in the beginning of 2007, that I’d decided to go back to uni to finish my Arts degree. But that first combination made it hard for me to study, so I had to change it. I’ve had to change my meds again three times since then, but every time it becomes a little easier and I’ve managed to become more active in life.

 

11: Finding vocation and creativity

I managed to finish my degree by the end of that year, which was a big milestone for me. I did it not only for the sake of learning but also to achieve a symbolic sense of completion. It helped build my confidence and give me a better sense of what I was capable of. I’d never have thought it would be so difficult for me to finish a degree. Life had proved to be a lot more complicated than I’d ever anticipated as a 17 year old starting out at uni.

 

In 2008 I started studying social work. I wanted to work in the community and, more specifically, I wanted to do counselling and work directly with people. This is how I started working in the mental health sector. Going out and working again felt like a risk for me, but it was a healthy risk because it allowed me to prove to myself that my skills could benefit the community.

 

Looking for a more distinctly therapeutic vocation, at the end of that year I decided to stop studying social work. In the following year I instead took a new risk and did a diploma in transpersonal counselling, which is a holistic form of counselling. Being experiential, it was a completely different style of learning. In order to learn, I needed to explore my own story and background to get a sense of how to work therapeutically with other people.

 

I got many insights through that experience, including an understanding of my own journey with HIV. I also learnt about the importance of having a creative life. This was something I’d neglected for a long time, even though when I was at school I was into music and theatre. I realised it’s a key to better health, encouraging my sense of vitality and passion for life. Strengthening and deepening my creative paths is an ongoing process. It was one of the rewards of doing the counselling diploma, as was the dream trip to South America that followed it.

 

12: Sex and relationships

Relationships have always been a challenge for me. I’ve had a few intimate relationships since I was diagnosed, but none have been long term. Most of them were with HIV negative guys. Fortunately, serodiscordancy has never been that big an issue. Most of the guys I’ve met said they were cool with me having HIV, so the challenges have come more from my own lack of self worth and an inability to communicate my needs. (Pos-Neg Relationships)

 

Still, there have been a couple of instances where guys have been scared off when I’ve told them I’ve got HIV. It’s most often the case that they do have an issue, but want to appear to be cool with it, so they pretend they don’t. It’s an irrational fear that can’t easily be gotten rid of. I understand that, because I might have been in the same boat if I wasn’t positive myself. I also think sometimes their fear is a reflection of the insecurities that I have over being HIV positive. (Disclosure dillemas)

 

As much as I’ve wanted to believe over the years that I’m empowered enough not to feel a sense of inadequacy because of HIV, I still think it’s there. And there’s nowhere it gets tested more than in an intimate relationship. The feeling that I’ve had to just take what I can get means I haven’t always been overly selective about who I get involved with. Although many gay guys don’t have much of an issue with HIV, the longer I live with it the more I realise there are many guys out there who are indeed uncomfortable with it or prejudiced about it.

 

It seems that the online community is where these prejudices are most openly expressed. I’m not as sensitive as I once was, but it still affects me as it does a lot of positive guys. If we’re mutually responsible and practising safe sex, then unless I’m actually trying to get to know him in a more intimate way, I don’t see the need to tell a sexual partner that I have HIV. I may feel more relaxed if I disclose, but if he’s not comfortable with it things can become very awkward. For this reason, disclosing is always a risk. And it doesn’t matter how well I know someone because it can still feel like a risk. Of course, it’s always my intention to practise safe sex because I know what it’s like to contract HIV and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. I also want to protect myself against other sexually transmitted infections. I think that is an important message to get out there; that safe sex isn’t just about HIV, it’s also about other STIs. (Safe sex)

 

There are plenty of people with HIV who have more of an issue with it than people who don’t have it. It really depends on the person. I feel that I would be limiting myself if I were only to seek relationships with positive men. For me being gay can be limiting enough, as we have less of a pool to draw from. This issue has come up for me recently when I decided to be open about my HIV status online. I have face pics on my profile, so I’m choosing to be totally up-front. I wonder if it means that many people who might have been interested in me won’t be. My hope is that it’ll attract people who can face their fears, see beyond HIV status and acknowledge the kind of courage it takes to be that open, recognising it as a sign of strong character. It’s an experiment based on my belief that the more authentic we are with ourselves, the more likely we are to attract an authentic person.

13: Telling my story

Since 2009 I’ve been telling my story of living with HIV as a public speaker for the Positive Speakers Bureau of People Living with HIV/AIDS Victoria. I think it’s important for all communities, including the gay community, to read and hear stories from people with HIV.  We need to debunk the persistent myths surrounding it. Despite the level of awareness that now exists, there’s also a lot of ignorance, often leading to stigmatisation and discrimination. I therefore want to tell an honest story of how HIV can happen and demonstrate that it can happen to anyone.

 

I believe that everything happens for a reason. In my case, I feel that my lack of self-worth combined with my naïve sense of invincibility led me to contract HIV and that through living with HIV I’ve had to confront those aspects of myself. This has been a positive process because it’s allowed for a lot of growth. But I hope that people could begin this process without actually needing to contract HIV. As I said before, I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. But for myself, I don't see it as a bad thing to have HIV, as it’s helped me to evolve into the person I am now.

 

I‘d like to encourage people to be more reflective. We’ve all seen the health promotion campaigns around safe sex. We see so much of it that perhaps we become immune to it. But it’s more a matter of questioning yourself: “Why would I do that? Why is that important for me?” And it’s a matter of being honest with yourself about why you mightn’t be practising safe sex. Having the courage to admit this and question it doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s not a question of morality. It’s about your self worth. I encourage people to seek the courage to look at it as honestly as they can without judging themselves, so that they can enjoy sex responsibly and genuinely protect themselves.

 

1: Growing up

I’m a 35-year-old gay male who identifies 100% as being homosexual. I grew up in the eastern suburbs in Melbourne. I was the oldest of three: one younger brother, one younger sister. I grew up in a very middle-class family that strived to send their kids through private schools. So we never had a huge amount of money but we were given the option - we could either have holidays or we could go to a private school. All three of us wanted to go to private school so we forewent the holidays and things like that. But I had a very loving home environment, particularly on my mum’s side of the family; we were a very close-knit family unit.

 

I probably had my first boyfriend at the age of 12. I was in Grade 6 at primary school. He was in Grade 5 'cause I was in a composite class. Yeah, we used to hug and stuff. It wasn’t sexual but, at that age, that really wouldn’t have worked. When I was in Grade 6 I left and went to an all boys private school, so that pretty much ended things. He and his family moved to a rural place because his father’s job changed.

 

I’d always preferred the company of adults rather than kids. I didn’t like kids much. All the way through school I always got on much more effectively with the teachers than I did with the students who I was studying with. That may have something to do with my sexual identity: going to an all boys private school it was very sports-oriented and I was never a sports person. I didn’t enjoy sports because I had chest hair and quite hairy legs, whereas a lot of the other kids who were more sporty didn’t. I went through puberty very young at the age of 12. I was shaving every day by the age of 13 or 14. It was actually closer to 14 because my parents used to get me to put peroxide on my face just to make it look like I didn’t have facial hair. They didn’t want me shaving from such a young age. But I suppose that comes from having good Irish stock and being a hairy ape bastard. So being quite hairy and quite masculine, going through high school was somewhat difficult. High school wasn’t necessarily the most enjoyable time for me. I retracted into myself a lot, particularly when I started to go through my own personal coming out process. I shut a lot of the rest of the world out. (Isolation) (Body Image)        

 

2: Coming out

I didn’t feel as though there was the support network there to be gay at the school that I went to. My friends used to somewhat tease me in regard to being gay. My best mate used to call me ‘pusti’ which I found out later on means fruit in Greek. He and I would have very different conversations now in regards to that. It was just name-calling. But for someone who’s 15 or 16, that can still be quite full-on. The mental abuse that is attached to that is probably even more damaging than the physical abuse that could have occurred but didn’t. (Bullying) (Homophobia)

 

So I came out in Year 12 and it was actually a lot easier after I came out. A lot of the taunting and the teasing stopped. I started telling people who I thought were safe. Probably in actual fact they were boys that I wanted to sleep with. So I told them that I was gay to judge reactions and things like that. All the people that I told had no issue with it. The people that did have issue didn’t have anything to say 'cause they were scared shitless then. What they’d thought was true, and all of a sudden they couldn’t tease and taunt me about it. I wish I had come out earlier because it could have made a bit of a difference. And it could have made a difference to the people that I went to school with, that now I know are gay and who went through the same shit that I went through.  (Coming out)

 

About half-way through Year 12 I came out to my family. It was an absolutely shit year to choose. And they agreed with that. They were like, “If that’s the case, we don’t care. Just try to focus on your school.” At the time, I took that as ‘You don’t give a rat’s arse, this is important to me and therefore it needs to be done’.

 

I think everyone, when they first come out, knows the horror stories - that they’re going to be kicked out of home and the family’s going to disown them and all that sort of stuff. I assumed that would be the case with me which, of course, it wasn’t in any way whatsoever. So the way that I came out was by dropping a note onto the kitchen table at Saturday lunch and running out of the house, and going for a walk for four hours. My parents were worried sick about where I was and were more concerned in regards to my safety than what the letter actually contained.

 

So when I got back they said “Don’t worry about it. You’ve got Year 12. Focus on your studies. Studies are more important right now. You’ve got the rest of your life to live after Year 12”. I think I probably went through that conversation twice with my parents and then the third time that we had that conversation they basically said, “It’s all good. We don’t have a problem with you being gay.” I know for a fact that mum has absolutely no issue with my homosexuality. My dad I think accepts it but he doesn’t respect it.

 

3: Uni Punk

After I came out I started attending a group called ‘Boyant’ that used to be held at VAC/GMHC. That was a really good way for me to actually break out and meet other gay people. Living in the middle eastern suburbs through the private school zone you don’t necessarily see many gay people. Or at that time you didn’t because visibility was different and my consciousness in regards to noticing gay people was different. So Boyant was a really good coming out experience for me because it meant that I could come and meet people who were my age. There were kids there who were from 14 to 26. Just having those social outings and being able to sit and talk to people was really, really beneficial. (Peer Education)

 

I went straight to uni after high school and studied geological engineering at RMIT in the city. And I found my political stance at that time, and went all out to shock. So I used to have a Mohawk and stretch piercings. I dyed my hair a different colour every couple of weeks. I’d wear big army jackets and skirts and stuff, walking around the streets of Kew. Probably about 70% of people in that course were from rural areas so they didn’t know what the fuck I was on about. That was good in some ways but I think in other ways it was really bad because I had my own little political stance and believed that everyone was a homophobe. I wrote for the uni newspaper and was very active in queer politics. I had to make a difference because the world sucked. The reality was that the world wasn’t fucked and the people weren’t homophobes but, at that time, I thought they were.

 

So I studied geology for about a year-and-a-half but my focus was always on being queer and political, which I think was a continuation of my coming out process and finding myself. While I studied I worked in restaurants where they wanted people who did have Mohawks and did have piercings, and things like that. Places where I could be self-expressive.

4: Bad Boys

I had my first real boyfriend when I was 18. He was an interesting boy. I’ve always tended to have a thing for bad boys and he was slightly evil from a legal standpoint. He wasn’t the nicest of people. Not from a criminal perspective but I had experiences where I could have possibly had him gaoled. That was an experience for me because that type of person was not someone that I’d ever met  growing up. (Relationships)

 

I always have liked bad boys. It’s meant that I’ve had a lot of relationships that have gone for very short periods of time because there was no way that they were ever going to work. From  eighteen through until about my mid-twenties the majority of people that I would date, would have followed that sort of suit. Bad boys that my parents would never have agreed with. I think it gave my mum a lot of grey hair. Once I had a short relationship with someone who was trying to start up their own brothel and things like that. He was perfect gaol bait; hot as hell, the sex was great, but from a mind connection point of view it was just never there.

 

From a sexually adventurous point of view, it was all very vanilla. But it’s what I thought was racy at the time. Like when I say ‘vanilla’ I mean just intercourse, head jobs, stuff like that. So it was never racy from a fetish point of view or a non-monogamous point of view, or anything like that. It was all just very straight-laced and probably the best way of putting it is just ‘normal sex’.

 

After a while I met a guy that I dated for a number of years. I actually moved in with his parents and him for a little while in Broadmeadows, which was interesting. He came from an Italian background. His parents were very rural Italian. It was a great experience because I tried amazing food and experienced amazing culture and he was a lovely, lovely boy. But it got to a stage where I wasn’t ready to settle down with one person at the age of 27. He was about 10 years older. We had some great times, but it wasn’t necessarily right for both of us. He wanted to settle down and move out to the suburbs and have a house, and that’s never necessarily suited me.

 

5: Finding myself

I probably didn’t find myself until my late twenties. That’s when I probably became more comfortable with my body, my sexuality, and my own personal identity. I worked for a year then switched to an arts degree at La Trobe. I did that for a little while to try and work out where I fitted with the world. Then I worked as a waiter for a little while. Then I entered a relationship with someone who was based interstate..

 

We managed the relationship for a year between here and there, and then he moved down here. We were together for six years, but we broke up last year. In some ways, I regret that relationship because it went too long. It didn’t need to be as long as it was. After about two years; we didn’t need to continue it. We did because it was comfortable. He was coping with life dramas, and it became destructive because we didn’t communicate. It wasn’t comfortable for us to communicate with each other. We were two polar opposites, one that was in control and the other that was out of control. It was a relationship that was built around a lot of lies. (Relationships)

 

Anyway, we sat down one night and he said, “This isn’t working.” And I agreed. We tried to be friends afterwards but there were so many past issues that there was no way that a friendship could continue. He has moved out of Melbourne. He started going out with someone the week after we broke up.

 

When he moved to Melbourne, I’d been working in hospitality in bar management. But he worked Monday to Friday, 9-5, I worked Tuesday to Sunday from four ‘til 11, 12 at night. We would never see each other. So I decided to make a change and got out of the hospitality world, and moved into the corporate world. I worked my way up in contact centres up to the stage where I was up to recently managing the customer service and admin department of a company. I think that focusing on work and focusing my career progression was based around the ineffectiveness of my relationship. So I moved my energies away from the home into work.

 

6: Sex and condoms

 

My first sexual experience with a guy was when I was 15 and I went to a public toilet, and there was another guy there who came onto me. I was 15, he was 32. (First time)

 

He was really good at giving head. He was vacuous. I held the cards. It continued for a little while. You know, when you’re 15, a head job’s a head job. It doesn’t really matter how old they are. This all happened when I was in my school uniform. It was great! You know, it was a bit of fun. Because being at school there was no-one else that I could experiment or experience with. (Oral sex)

 

I actually don’t remember the first time putting on a condom. I don't know whether that was because it was instinctive or it’s forgettable. But I don't remember. Thankfully I was always a fairly in-touch kind of person so I’d grown up with the Grim Reaper and things like that around HIV and AIDS. So I was aware of condoms in Grade 6. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think the Grim Reaper was positive. I think it was negative. It scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. What forced me to know to put a condom on was my parents and the sexual education at school. It had nothing to do with that Grim Reaper ad because that gave me nightmares as a child. I’m thankful that I had parents who educated me and were very open about safe sex. So if I was doing anything that involved more than head jobs then I knew that I needed a condom. It’s funny: I remember my first head job but I don’t necessarily remember the first time that I had anal sex or the first time that a condom was used. (Condoms) (Sex education) (Anal sex)

 

One of the most memorable sexual experiences that I had was being stuck in traffic coming back from the bush. The traffic was so thick that it was taking like an hour-and-a-half to get through Woodend. That just turned into my boyfriend’s dick being out of his pants and me taking care of it while stuck in traffic. One-lane traffic though, of course.

 

There have been times I haven’t used a condom but that’s my conscious decision not to put the condom on. It’s my choice. Generally, when I’ve been in a monogamous long-term relationship, I haven’t used condoms. That’s still safe sex because it’s with a trusted partner. However, my last relationship wasn’t necessarily with a trusted partner, which I found out through the relationship and at the end. So I was putting myself at risk during that period. Thankfully, that risk didn’t eventuate to anything but it was putting me at risk because that person, from all accounts was not monogamous. I don't know what risks they were taking but it still was placing me at risk. I didn’t know. They may not have taken any risks. (Negotiated safety) (Trust)

 

7: Being a bear

If I have to identify as anything within the gay scene, I identify as a bear/cub. I always relate with that area of the gay scene better. Mainly to do with my physical attributes. However, as much as I may presently fit in with the bear archetype, I don’t fit in with a lot of other bear stuff as well. I don’t fit in with the community all that well. But that’s my own fitting and I don’t want to fit with that community. I’m not rampantly into having open relationships where you go out with your partner and it’s all about both of you trying to pick up someone else. A lot of them, if you don’t want to sleep with them, they stop talking to you. I’m also a little bit well-dressed for the bears. I might like my designer labels and things like that and a lot of the other bears will, for example, overtly not wear designer labels 'cause it’s not the bear way, apparently. But then there are some bears who believe that you shouldn’t wear underarm deodorant or after shave because you should embrace the correct smell of yourself. I’d rather smell Gucci than I would my own BO. (Monogamous or open)

 

So from that perspective there’s a mismatch there between me and them, which I don’t mind. It’s not a bad thing. I don't necessarily need to fit-in with that side of the community. I can feel comfortable wherever I want to go and it’s taken me years to realise I don’t have to fit with someone, I don’t have to fit somewhere. I don’t have to fit with going out to The Greyhound every Saturday night, wax my body, and to be thin, and ‘gorgeous’. I can be myself and that’s what pleases me more than anything else. And it generally pleases other people because they see me being happy.

8: Family

My dad’s side of the family and my mum’s side of the family are very, very different. I’m extremely close to my mum and we’ve travelled overseas a couple of times. She’s one of the first people to meet new boyfriends. I speak to my dad once every few months. And even then it’s fractured and short. That’s how I like to keep it because he’s the sort of person that doesn’t have a huge amount of space for other peoples' emotions or requirements. My father has gone through years of battling alcohol. Emotionally, he’s not a strong person. So the way his family would deal with things generally is by ignoring it and hoping it goes away. Whereas my mum’s side of the family is more like if you face it head on, it’s gone, you’ve dealt with it, you don’t need to deal with it in the future, which is where my feelings on this come from. You don’t have that little ghost waiting in the closet to come out.

 

My dad can get quite caught-up with himself. I always interpreted that as a lack of respect for me and a lack of respect or understanding of my sexuality. He’s accepted it, so there isn’t a problem there, but he doesn’t go out of his way to say, “Oh, so are you seeing someone now?” Or, “How is such-and-such?” So we don’t converse in regards to my sexuality a huge amount. My parents have divorced now and he lives up in Queensland. My current partner and I stayed in his house whilst he was there and he gave us his bed. That’s probably the closest ever that he’s got to respecting my sexuality and actually making me feel comfortable about talking to him about my sexuality, and about my partner’s and things like that.

 

9: Me now

I told my story because if it can make a difference to someone else who feels similar about themselves then that makes a difference for me. So if someone has body identity issues or doesn’t feel as though they fit in any part of the gay community and they feel the need to seek out a place where they fit, I encourage them to realise that they don’t have to fit anywhere. There’s nothing wrong with being yourself. Even if society sits there and tells you that you have to conform to some sort of ideology or some sort of identity.

 

I was so obsessed with having to identify with certain areas, and whether that was what I wanted to be, which was a bad boy. I wanted to be that bad boy because it was hot and wrong, and all those drivers that went with it. However the reality was I’m just me and I could have accepted that a lot earlier. Instead it took me a number of years to come to that realisation. Don’t think I don’t still have that bad boy in me. But I don’t have to outwardly show it. It doesn’t necessarily play a part in my average, everyday life. I used to think that bad boy was the Torana-driving, gaol-bait, hot-walk boy and that’s what I wanted to be with, and that’s what I wanted to have sex with. That’s what I wanted to represent. The reality is that I can be myself but what I am in the bedroom can still be quite different to that.

 

The bad boy thing was all based around sexual attraction. It was completely and utterly about I like the fact of having sex with a hot wog boy who’s just dirty and wrong, and goes home to live with their mother. I’ve come to the understanding that I can still be bad but where do I want to be bad? How do I want to be bad? So I kind of went from this really straight-laced school upbringing to this wild side and now I’ve kind of come to somewhere in the middle where I choose where I want to express whatever elements I want to express. I’ve always been a little edgy about who I am and still to this day will occasionally have body issues. But I think everyone has those; it’s a matter of how well you hide it. I don’t tend to hide anything anymore. Generally my view is if you’ve got a problem with something about me well it’s your problem; it’s not mine. But it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy.

 

I met my current partner through the internet and we went out for coffee at a time when I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I’d dated a couple of people. None of it was successful and they were very short-term things. I’d come to the conclusion I was quite happy just being single for a little while. But I met this guy on the internet. We had a couple of really good conversations and we decided to meet-up for, for breakfast. When I found my current partner, my focus moved away from my work onto a relationship and work became less important. Money became less important to me. The rest is history. It’s been ten months of joy. (Online dating)

 

1: Small town secret

I was born in Sydney but I grew up on the Mid North Coast of NSW. Firstly it was a tiny little town called Wauchope. Then I moved into the larger nearby town of Port Macquarie, which is about half-way between Sydney and Brisbane. Wauchope was a little town of a few thousand people about 15 minutes drive out of Port Macquarie. Port Macquarie is your usual coastal tourist retreat, the kind of place families go to for holidays year after year.

My parents were both and still are practising Catholics and I have one sister, who’s two years younger than me. So we had a religious upbringing and I went through Catholic school both primary and high school. It was a very conservative town, as most small towns tend to be, but I wouldn’t say that it was any more or less religious than anywhere else, really. Growing up in a country town, I didn’t know one openly gay person at all. Even in high school there were no openly gay people that I knew of whatsoever. It was a typical small country town, very, very conservative.

I’ve always known I was gay and I pretty much knew from primary school that I didn’t want people to know. I heard all the derogatory terms, you know, ‘fag’ etc. even in primary school so I knew that was something that I didn’t want to openly be. I’m sure that there were plenty of gay people around but everybody was hiding it. So combine that with my parents’ views and the Church’s view it was something that I definitely didn’t want to come out as. It
was something that I very much had to keep hidden. (Homophobia)

I think I was lucky in the sense that I didn’t actually see it as a bad thing. I’ve had friends that are gay that have grown up in those circumstances and have a lot of guilt or shame around being gay. I didn’t have that. I just thought people didn’t understand it. I just saw it as love and I couldn’t see that there was anything wrong with that. So whilst I was brought
up  Catholic, I was never  Catholic, I didn’t believe it for a minute so I didn’t have any of that religious guilt or any of that stuff. I just went through the motions to keep my parents happy. I suppose that was just from this confidence that I just had in myself to some degree about sexuality. I didn’t see it as a big deal. I was terrified that everybody else saw it as a big deal but I thought it was something rather matter of fact and simple.

So thankfully I didn’t take any baggage on board about being gay but I definitely didn’t want to come out. I knew that it would just make my school life hell, but more importantly I was terrified that by coming out I would lose my parents and possibly my close friends. (Bullying)

 

2: HIV and Beats

I think it was about ’82 when the (AIDS) epidemic hit. I was in Year 10 then. Not only did it hit but it was everywhere. There was a massive campaign about it on the television - the iconic bowling ball ad with the Grim Reaper. There was also the unfortunate backlash that, “It’s a gay disease and gays deserve it.” All that ignorance and blame was around in the media at the time. That just terrified me even more. It terrified me in regards to sex for a
long time. I was terrified every time I had sex. I literally thought ‘If I have sex I could die.’ However, in my late teens I did find a beat in Port Macquarie by accident. So I’d hang out at the beat and meet guys that way. I did that right up until just before I moved to Sydney. So although I was having sex with guys, I certainly wasn’t having anal sex. I would never do oral either. I would let them go down on me but I just wouldn’t do it. Not because I didn’t want to but because I was absolutely terrified. I was convinced at the time that I was
going to get AIDS if I engaged in such activity. (HIV/AIDS and Safe Sex)

It took quite a while for me to realise, and for the AIDS message and the understanding to come through, that certain things are safer; that I was able to do more than what I’d been doing before. I always tried to stay ahead of the loop and see what they were saying in the safe sex messages. It physically affected my sex life but it also very much affected my emotional state as well.

 

3: Suicide and addiction

When I was twenty one I attempted suicide by overdosing on pills and washing it down with scotch. I think partly it was about the unhappiness and me not being able to be myself; having this huge secret that I couldn’t share with anyone, and the terrible feelings of isolation and loneliness that come from that. I felt that I was the only one. (Suicide)

That was the beginning of my decent into addiction. I don’t believe for a minute that being gay made me an alcoholic or an addict but certainly the way that I dealt with those feelings, unfortunately was through addiction. So I think it was all of those things. It was the burgeoning addiction and the feelings of being trapped and being alone that led me to that suicide attempt.

It was sort of a perfect opportunity to actually explain why. The first thing everybody asked me was: Why? Why? Why? I just sort of said I was depressed. I mentioned anything but the truth because I was still absolutely terrified that if the truth got out there that things would be so much worse. I was quite surprised at the reaction I got and the compassion and
care. You find out how many people really do care when you think you're alone. So I was a bit surprised at that reaction but I didn’t feel as though I could tell them because I thought well that would just be social suicide! The next year or so was probably the worst time of my addiction, which lasted for about 10 years. (Depression)

 

4: Alcoholism

I had a number of friends try to get me to see that I had a problem and try to get me to stop but with the arrogance and the denial of addiction I couldn’t see that.  I thought that booze was the solution. I didn’t see it as the problem. I have one very clear memory of a friend coming to see me early one morning and I was sitting there on a bottle of scotch for breakfast. I could see the concern in his face, and I started to get annoyed at it because I almost knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth. Sure enough he looked at me and said “Don’t you think you might have a drinking problem?” I can remember almost shouting at him, screaming at him. I got so angry. He stayed quite calm and said, “Anyone who sits here at seven o’clock in the morning, shouldn’t be having a bottle of scotch.” I remember going off at him saying “You’re meaning to tell me if I was sitting here at seven o’clock at night it’s fine but, if I’m sitting here at seven o’clock in the morning it’s a problem? So if I want to have a drink it’s fine!” And he looked at me and with a very serious tone, he said to me, “Yes, but when have you ever had a drink?” I remember that because I didn’t have an answer for it. I just refused to do anything about it because it was the only option that I saw. It was the only thing that would dull my feelings and dull my emotions. It’s kind of interesting because I was drinking because I felt so socially isolated but it had made me even more socially isolated. It was a social isolation with an anaesthetic. (Drugs and Alcohol) (Isolation)

I suppose recovery people talk about the physical, mental and spiritual. It was all of those things for me. On the physical side of things I had everything that you could think of that was deemed with excessive alcohol use. I had shakes, I had sweats, I had diarrhoea, I had vomiting and I had malnutrition because I wasn’t eating. I got peripheral neuritis. I’ve
subsequently had pancreatitis as a result of it, the whole kit and caboodle really. Mentally, well pretty much any negative mental state that you could think of was me. I was depressed, I was fearful, I was angry and I was resentful. Spiritually I was dead. I didn’t care about or believe in anything. I didn’t even care about me let alone anything else. I was literally in the gutter at times. But for me the worst of it was not the physical and the spiritual. The worst for me was probably the mental and that’s a vicious cycle because the worse I felt the
more I drank to cope with it. I really did feel invisible. I really did feel alone. So I sort of took those feelings that I was already feeling because of my sexuality and pushed them to the further extremes that they could go. I just felt completely separate to everybody and everything, really. It wasn’t a nice place to be.

 

5: Solving some problems

The way I really got out of the black abyss was through my
ex-wife, who I’m still very good friends with. I’d known her for quite a number
of years. She was one of the few people that stayed in contact with me during
that worst year of my drinking. She called me every now and then but mostly she
was sending me letters. I was being quite honest and open with her. I wasn’t
telling her about my sexuality but I was quite open about the problems and my
addiction during that time. Eventually she made the suggestion, “Look, why
don’t you come to Sydney and live with me? It might solve some problems.” And I
thought, ‘Yeah why not?’ It was more a case of, ‘Oh I’m getting out of this
town and getting away from this environment because that’s the root of all my
problems’ which, of course, it wasn’t.

It was also partly ‘Well at least there’ll be someone else that I can talk to, I won’t be completely alone.’ So I packed up everything and came down to Sydney. I initially shocked the living hell out of her when she saw how much I was drinking. No-one had seen my drinking because I’d kept it hidden and I drank alone. Now, all of a sudden, I was living with someone and they saw what I was like. The thing that I liked about her is that she didn’t put any strong stipulations on me. She suggested things, she suggested that maybe I
might want to do something about it and that I might want to try and get a job.
To my own surprise I agreed that maybe I should do something about my drinking,
I should do something about looking for work. The real reason I just finally
decided to do something about it was an opportunity to prove to all ‘the
bastards’ that they were wrong about me. Because everybody in my life at that
stage pretty much had written me off. So it was this sort of arrogance I had
that thought, ‘Well I’m gonna show ‘em that I’m not a drunken loser. That I can
do something.’ I certainly didn’t stop drinking but I definitely controlled it.
Well, for a while I did. In those last few years of my drinking, any sense of
control I thought I had went completely out the window. It was one of the
reasons I eventually sought help.

Part of my recovery from addiction was a 12-step program
which placed a lot of emphasis on spirituality, although not necessarily
religion. I hadn’t been religious at all in my youth or in my early recovery.
But then I suppose the recovery sparked an interest in it. I wanted to start
meditating because that’s part of the program so I went to the meditation
classes. That then spurred a general interest in Buddhism and I started to read
about it. Over a number of years, the more I read about it the more sense it
made to me. It seemed more common sense than dogmatic to me. That resonated
quite strongly in me. So eventually I reached a point where I thought, ‘Yep,
that’s it: I’m definitely a Buddhist.’ For a while I didn’t particularly do
anything about it, but then, after a little while I started to go to Buddhist
groups and classes, and became more involved in it. (Religion and Sexuality)

Meanwhile our relationship went from just a friendship to
something more. In fact that happened quite quickly. I think I was more in love
with the sense of having somebody than the person that I was meant to be in
love with. She was a beacon of kindness at a very painful time for me and came
along at the right time. In a sense I had love for her and I still have love
for her: I’m just not in love with her. At the time I confused those two. I
also thought, well, marriage and kids that’s what people do so I thought, ‘Oh
well I’ll give that a go’. I honestly thought at the time that I could make it
work. I suppose for a little while it did work, but only for a while.

 

6: Internet Porn

I had my daughter with her. She was born in 1990 so she’s 21
now. I got sober when I was 26, so that was only a year after my daughter was
born. I think it was when I got sober that I started to suddenly realise I
didn’t want to be in that relationship. I realised that it was a mistake. It
was never going to work. That I was very much gay. In a way I also felt
trapped. I cared for my family and didn’t want to hurt them. I felt, ‘If I come
out and say this, it’s going to destroy my wife and I’m going to lose my
daughter.’  I suppose, in a way, that got me through for a while.

But eventually, quite some years down the track it soon got
to the point where I couldn’t… I’d always been faithful. But in those last few
years I just couldn’t do it anymore because I just wanted to explore being with
guys again and explore my sexuality again. So I went out and sought that behind
her back, which I feel terrible about but that’s what happened. (Sex outside the relationship)

Eventually she found out about the internet porn that I was
checking out. Our computer had gotten really slow and she thought I must have
had viruses or something. She took it to a friend of hers who was a computer
expert to clear it out and he discovered all these viruses were mainly from gay
porn sites that I’d been accessing. She basically saw the history because he
told her and she realised this had been going on for ages and ages. It’s not as
if I just tried to access a couple of sites once and that was it. She actually
said to me that she thought for some time that something was going on. She sort
of had her own suspicions for a while and then this happened. That just
reinforced everything that she’d been thinking. It answered all the questions
that she couldn’t quite put her finger on up to that point.

So that’s how she actually found out about me and basically put
it to me. I realised then that I just couldn’t lie anymore. So I told her the
truth and the marriage ended after 12 years. Which, at the time was extremely
painful; it was very painful for her but it was also very painful for me. Obviously,
she was emotionally very upset, but I think she was fundamentally alright. She
suspected anyway, so I mean in that sense she was alright with it. She
certainly didn’t have any problem with anyone being gay or with me being gay.
However, obviously emotionally it was difficult for us both.

Looking back on it now I can also see that it was the best
thing that could have happened. Because really what happened is that she set me
free and I set her free. I’ve gone on to subsequently find love and she’s gone
on to find love elsewhere as well. She’s since remarried and is happy. So
although it was painful it was very necessary. I think it was very necessary
for both of us. I think in many ways now we probably have a better relationship
than we’ve ever had. We can just be completely honest.

 

7: Gay Life

The end of my marriage could have been another perfect
opportunity to come out, obviously she knew that I was gay. Her sister who
lived with us at the time knew that I was gay. And there was a couple of close
friends who I decided to tell. So you would think it would have been the
perfect opportunity to come out. But it was that same old fear. It was that
same old, ‘If I come out, I’m gonna lose people, I’m gonna lose friends’. Having
built up friendships again over a long period of time, it was a lot to lose. I
knew what it was like to be alone and to be lonely. I didn’t want that. So once
again that whole fear of people finding out and rejecting me kept me from
telling people. So my marriage ended in 2000, but I didn’t fully come out
openly as a gay man until 2003.

I suppose for all intents and purposes I started to lead a
gay life straight away. I’d started going to gay bars and clubs, I actually
could go out on the gay scene because I didn’t have to hide that from my wife
anymore. I was living more of a gay life than I’d ever lived, but it was
secret: I wasn’t telling anybody. Then it got to the point where I thought, ‘This
is just ridiculous, I have to tell people.’ So I slowly told my closest friends
first and they were fine with it. I eventually told my daughter. I sat her
down, she was 13 at the time and she was fine with it. The more people I told
the easier it got because all I was getting back was just love and acceptance. People
were okay with it. Some people were shocked. Some people thought, “Yeah, well,
it’s about time.” But everybody was really wonderful. I thought all those fears
I had telling people is all a lie. It meant breaking down those old feelings
that I had; shattering the delusion that people wouldn’t accept me just because
I was gay. (Coming Out)

 

8: Parents

The last people that I told were my parents. At first I
wasn’t going to tell them. I knew that they would react very badly to it and I
knew that they wouldn’t be happy about it. So I didn’t tell them for quite a
while. I thought, ‘I want to spare them the hurt’. Eventually however, I got to
a point where I’d told everybody else and I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore,
I have to tell them. It’s not about them: it’s about me. I’ve lived a lie for
nearly 40 years, I’m not going to live that way any more.’ So I decided to tell
them. I decided that it would probably be best if I wrote a letter because if I
called them, I’d have to call one and then call the other one and basically come
out twice which wouldn’t be fun. I also knew that they’d probably get really
upset. They’d probably say things and I’d probably say things, and it’d probably
just descend into a mess. So I thought, ‘I’ll sit down and I’ll really think
about what I want to say’, and the best way to do that is to write a letter.

 

I wrote a letter to them both saying “I want you to open
this up and read it together”. I really thought about what I wanted to say. I
sent it off to them and I waited a couple of weeks to see if they would return
my calls. They didn’t. But that didn’t necessarily surprise me because I knew
it really would have been a bombshell. So I gave them a call, eventually, a
couple of weeks later. Their reaction was as I thought their reaction would be:
they were shocked. They were disgusted. They wanted nothing to do with me
anymore. They didn’t want to see me again. They didn’t want me visiting them. It
was the whole ‘we renounce you, we never want to see you again’ thing. Which
was upsetting but expected. So I didn’t take it too much to heart because I genuinely
believed then and for quite some time afterwards that they would eventually
come around. That eventually after the news had sunk in and they really thought
about it, they’d realise that I haven’t changed. I was the same son I always was:
it just so happened I was gay. (Coming out)

I kept on contacting them from time to time and I kept on
getting the cold shoulder. Eventually it got to a point where I realised that
they weren’t actually going to change and they weren’t actually going to accept
me. This was in about 2006, about three years after I’d told them. I went into
major depression because it was a massive loss. It almost felt like they’d died
because all of a sudden I realised that they weren’t going to be in my life.  They weren't going to accept me. In a way it was the sum of my nightmares as a child. The crazy thing is that one of my best friends is a 60-year-old  Catholic nun, she
accepted it but my parents couldn’t. And they still can’t but I can’t really do
anything about that. I just have to get on with my life and hopefully they’ll
get on with theirs. Eventually maybe they might realise the error of their ways
but I’m not holding my breath for that any longer.

 

9: Why don’t you crash?

My first boyfriend was someone that I’d known for quite some
years in recovery and we were very good friends. I always thought ‘He’s definitely
straight.’ He was one of the very first friends that I told when I came out. I
knew he’d be fine with it. So I told him that I was gay and he was suitably
cool. That didn’t change anything and our life went on. Then about a month or
so later he completely floored me when he came back to me and said, “Look, I
think I might be gay too.” We actually had a big discussion about it and it
turns out that he wasn’t gay, but he was definitely bi. He felt like me, like
he couldn’t tell anybody. He had a whole heap of religious baggage and he felt
guilt and shame around it. So I was the one person that he could talk to. That
made us even closer and eventually a number of months later the predictable
thing happened.

He was over one weekend. I think we were watching videos and
I said, “Look, it’s really late. Why don’t you crash?” He agreed so I gave him a
pillow and a blanket, and said, “See you in the morning.” I walked into my
bedroom to go to bed, and he followed me in. It started from there. It was
extremely intense because for the first time I was actually making love - he
was the only guy, the first guy, whom I’d loved that I had sex with. It was
also the first time I ever had anal sex. In fact it was also the first time
that he’d had it as well. It was really profound and really amazing. I’ve only
ever had anal sex since with my boyfriends; I’ve never done that with anybody
else. I see it as so much more intimate than anything else. So that was part of
where I drew that line and it’s definitely always been safe sex. (First time) (Safe sex)

Eventually I helped him get over the whole shame thing, I
remember he rolled over one morning and said, “That’s it. I don’t have that
guilt anymore.” I kind of looked at him and said, “Why not?” he sort of smiled
and said “Because anything that awesome can’t be wrong” which was the sweetest
thing that he could possibly say. Unfortunately I don’t think he could ever
completely accept the fact that he was bi. He couldn’t come out. Around me he
could be open and honest but with everybody else he was just the same old guy. Eventually
the inevitable happened when he found a girl that he liked, and decided that he
was going to be with her rather than me.  Ultimately wanting to remain closeted, he
could live openly with a girlfriend in a way that he never could as my boyfriend. (Homophobia)

So that ended our relationship, despite that we kept on being friends for a while after that. I’m sure I’m as equally to blame, but eventually he did quite a number of things that were quite hurtful. Eventually I reached that point where I realised that I had to be completely rid of him. Even though I still loved him, I knew that I just couldn’t have him in my life anymore. That realisation came at pretty much exactly the same time as the realisation with
my parents. So there were two huge losses – the great love of my life and my
parents which sent me into a deep depression for quite some time. I was
hospitalised twice because I was suicidal. Thankfully I’d had enough years of
recovery under my belt that I was never really tempted to go back to drinking
or taking drugs. I’m really grateful for that because there were certainly
many, many dark days. I had really severe depression just as a result of those
really big losses in my life. (Relationships)

 

10: A flash in the pan

My next relationship was short but spectacular. It probably only lasted about six months. I met a guy a couple of times out at The Imperial, the local gay bar here. I’d seen him a couple of times and we’d kept on knocking into one another so much so that we chatted to one another a few times and were laughing about who was stalking who. Eventually, he come around one time and said that he’d just gotten out of a relationship. We’d never really
talked about relationships before. Then, of course, it ended up once again in bed and another relationship started. He’d been in a long-term relationship I think for about 10 years. But, eventually, about six months later, the guy wanted him back. So he too let me down and went back to that relationship.

Then about four years ago I met my current boyfriend. I actually met him in a back room. I met and hooked-up with him a couple of times in there and one time I said, “Look, do you want to come home with me for a while and hang out?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” It was a Friday night - and he left Monday morning! Unlike the others this was his first gay relationship with
someone.  We’ve pretty much lived together for most of those four years. I told him I didn’t really want to live with someone that wasn’t out to everybody. Which he wasn’t when we first
started going out and he said, “No problem” and he went and came out to everybody.

I always use a condom even with my boyfriend now; we’re in
an open relationship so it makes more sense to use it. I think the open
relationship probably came about more because of my depression. ‘Cause one of
the side-effects of the very strong anti-depressants is that it greatly reduces
your sex drive. I was starting to feel a little bit guilty about that because
suddenly we didn’t have the same sex life that we’d had before. So I think I
just literally went to him one day and said, “Look, I know I’m not the same
person in the bed that I was before. I know I don’t have the same sex drive
anymore. If you want sex and if you want to look for sex elsewhere, I’m fine if
you want to do that.” He was okay and for quite a while he didn’t. But then he
did which was fine. I didn’t have a problem with that. And likewise if I want
to see other people, I can too. Not that I’ve really done that much but, the
opportunity’s there for both of us. I think pretty much we are exclusive but we
have that understanding and we have clear boundaries. I think if anything it’s
worked well for us. (Open relationships) (Condoms)