By Jeff Walsh
Justin Clouse was never beat up because he's gay. He wasn't threatened, harassed or even suicidal. He began telling people he was gay in the tenth grade, and no one freaked out or called him names.
"I realize that doesn't make for interesting copy," Justin says apologetically. "I think that's a lot of people's misperception -- If I'm going to come out, a lot of people are going to beat me up and harass me."
By Jeff Walsh
The thought of having sex with a guy turns Sara Webb's stomach.
"The first serious boyfriend I had wanted to have intercourse," the 17-year-old Atlanta resident recalls. "I threw up on him. I was repulsed by it."
Webb doesn't have a problem with guys, though, just sex with guys. "To this day, guys, I find, are my best friends," she says. "I love them to death as friends and I'm emotionally attracted to guys, but if anything physical ever happens, I'm just repulsed."
By Jeff Walsh
Matt Marco was everything a student should be.
In his Edwardsville, Ill., high school, he was a chairperson on the student council and a member of the National Honor Society, drama club, chess club and French club.
"I had the basic overachiever resume," Marco says. "I was very well-known, very well-liked and I was going to be a foreign exchange student to France my senior year."
What a funky dream, and its 5 am! Its somthing about me introducing my sister a homocidal asshole who started mutilate my family. I was trapped, but excaped, nobody cared to listen, but I would call 911 nobody listened there as well. I was left in the gutter to rot. I woke up trempling and scared. I took a gusty walk around the house and came back, turned on my computer and thought DANG BOY THIS IS NOT A REAL DREAM BUT HOMOCIDAL DREAM? OMG! WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! I am still trembling from this dream, sweating and stuff.
Dan called earlier. Could I go camping, like we planned? I dashed upstairs to ask, and, making sure my voice was loud enough to carry to the phone receiver downstairs, asked mom if I could go (while avidly shaking my head.) She asked if there were chaperones. I replied in the negative. Her answer?
sometimes I wonder...wat if I had spent the summer with my friends...would I have turned out the same way?...most of the summer consisted of me watchin the telly-vision when I was supposed to be out partyin' with friends. Why I never went out with them I dunno, it must have been fate. One night while flippin' channels I saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer on, so I was watchin for a lil while and then I saw Willow givin Tara a lil lip lovin, I put that scene in the back of my mind and changed the channels, but then there was a lingering question, could I possibly be gay? I had never really thought about it since I wasn't really around anything like it.
I love it when random people IM me. I just got IMed by someone whose screen name looks like a reference to Joseph Stalin.
I talked a little with this (guy/girl). He (she) wouldn't tell me where they got my AIM name. It always freaks me out when this happens. I was scared that Joe might be a wicked insane stalker, but at the same time, I was kind of excited. OOoohh, talking to somebody new! The anonymity of the internet is so great.
This has possibly been the most important weekend since arriving here at the beginning of the school year, in terms of personal growth. The retreat I went on for GLB students was absolutely wonderful. I got sooooooo much out of it...the theme of the retreat was "bridging the gap between two worlds", pointing mostly to the gap between our place in the gay culture, and then our place in the overly heterosexual culture as a homosexual. So many of the things we talked about were issues I've personally been dealing with over these past few weeks.
i'm not really sure if i'm gay or just bisexual. i really hate labels, i feel like i don't fit into any of them.