From: amz@cis.ohio-state.edu (Arnold M Zwicky)
Subject: the course of a life
Followup-To: soc.motss
Summary: sexuality and relationships
Originator: amz@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu
Organization: stanford, outil, lsa, osu,...
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 15:15:08 GMT

what follows is a piece of a letter originally sent to jns, but edited
a bit for a wider audience.  this is the capsule version of my life
history as regards sexuality and my relationships with ann and
jacques.  many of you have heard most of this before, in both its
real-life version and a transformed version from my novel-in-progress;
if so, you might want to 'n' on.  (if you're hoping for a lot of hot
throbbing body parts, you might want to do the same.)

  arnold

---------

you ask about ann and jacques and me and the way in which these
relationships fit with my being straight, then bi, then gay.  it's not
an impertinent question, as you feared, but it *does* take a lot of
answering.

when ann and i met - i was 18 and she was 21 - i was straight (though
with odd quirks that i didn't realize other guys didn't have, like
having male buddies in my sexual fantasies about women).  having a
rich and pleasurable sex life with her - she was the first woman i
fucked, though i'd done pretty much everything else men and women can
do with one another, a whole lot, for years - in a sense brought out
my erotic desire for men, because it brought out a whole rich set of
erotic feelings, and it turned out that there were lots of guys in
there.

six years after we'd met, and three years after we'd married, the
importance of these feelings became clear to me and i identified
myself to myself as bisexual (this i articulated to myself as being a
sick faggot; what i knew about homosexuality and homosexuals at the
time was not much, but all ugly - on the other hand, i can now use the
residue of these humiliating feelings to drive pleasurable scenes with
me as bottom).  this is when i first acted on my desires for men, the
while-being-fucked "oh god, i *am* a faggot" moment i posted about on
soc.motss a while back.  the pleasure of the experience was
overwhelming, and absolutely horrifying.

four years, and a hell of a lot of t-rooms, later, i came out to ann,
because i saw that i had to incorporate my homosexuality (not, at the
time, gayness) into some kind of coherent life or i would go crazy
(i had a lot of suicidal moments).  it was a selfish act, and hurt
her terribly, but then i don't think there's a good way to play this
particular scene (leave a copy of "when your husband is gay" on the
coffee table?  oh, we didn't *have* a coffee table).

two years after that came my first male lover, and a failed attempt at
a communal household with me as the "hinge" lover.  larry was one of
the young queers who were politicized just after stonewall.  his love
(i mean his regard and affection, not his loving, though the sex was
faab) and his quietly defiant stance as a public queer transformed my
feelings about myself (it should be no surprise that i was doing the
same thing for him; behind defiance there is great anxiety).  i saw
myself still as bisexual, but the motss part was now called "gay", and
it was starting to feel nice as well as *hot*.  the relationship with
larry was carried out more or less in full view of everyone i knew, so
that this was also my no-turning-back coming out.  scary, but good for
me, and apparently without any ill effects on my friendships, career,
or anything else.  (i am still astonished.  i am a very lucky man.)

by this time, jacques and harriet had finished their grad school days
and were off in toledo.  five years later, his marriage in crisis
(because he hadn't finished his dissertation; harriet had once said to
ann and me that she couldn't respect, and therefore wouldn't stay
married to, a man who couldn't finish his dissertation, and it turns
out that she meant it exactly, though we had thought it was bizarre
hyperbole), jacques sought refuge with his best friends, namely us.

in a few weeks, he and i were lovers (at his instigation; i had no
idea he had a gay bone in his body, but he was *gorgeous* and i already
loved him nonsexually, so i responded all a-quiver; he of course
knew all about me and larry and who knows what else), and the
next night he became ann's lover as well (again, at his instigation).
soon we were a married triple, all in one big bed.

this relationship had a blossoming effect similar to the one i
experienced with ann.  this time, having a secure male lover opened me
up to women (one side opening up the other, or so i thought of it as
the time), and i began a conference relationship with ellen (after
she struck me dumb with this *fabulous* paper - intellectual work
can be *so* sexy) that lasted for five years.  (well, ellen is
just sexy, period.)

over these years i came to see that i was erotically attracted to a
few women but to almost any man i knew or believed to be gay, and
i saw that though the sex i had with women was satisfying, my response
to men was often an order of magnitude greater.  i began to see
myself as a gay man who loved some women.

so that when ann died and our married triple instantly became a gay
couple, i was comfortable with "gay" (no provisos) as a description
of my sexuality.  this was seven years ago.  these days, the content
of my fantasies, the people i notice with a little cock-twinge,
etc. all say i am a solidly gay (but with some quirks involving women,
so that my 18-year-old self and my 51-year-old self are sexuality
duals of one another), and i have practiced homosexuality so well
that i am pleased to call myself a faggot.

the thing is, at any given moment you know (something of) what you are
then and where you've been, but you don't know where it's going.  i
turn out to have been one of those men in transition from straight
(never, i am pleased to say, strayt; always queer) to faggot.
presumably things unfold very differently for other people.  

i really like where i am now, but then i liked the middle part too.
the earlier stuff (except of course, my partnership with ann, who is
still the person who's influenced me most) was just *awful*, but i
guess you have to start somewhere.

Newsgroups: soc.motss