Homosexuality

Homosexuality is having a rough time right now with acquiring certain legal rights and so called privileges. I want to take time to discuss this subject of homosexuality since it has become a part of my study into times past as well as times present.

When I was a child, I did not know what the term queer means slangwise...I had a boy approach me at my house when I was sitting on a step out in front with a woman who was caring for me and my brother while my mother was hospitalized in Lima, Ohio, for a back operation. This kid came up to me and yelled "queer" at me...Later this became immortalized in the stage play Carousel about Julie Jordan. The song "you're a queer one, Julie Jordan." This woman whose name was Grace said to me, "Don't ever let anyone call you that." I did not know why then. I did not know what the word Queer meant...

Later, as I grew into a teenager, as I had been very young then, not yet into high school, I began to learn more and more about sex through listening to kids talk. I had had knowledge of sex between boys and girls when in elementary school as kids do explore each other, and talk about sex that they learn from their parents. Some of these kids are classmates of mine, so I won't be specific now.

I had always had affection and crushes on boys, so there was little chance anyone could ever say I was "queer" when I finally learned what it meant...

However, I soon learned of the concept of "turkey town" which Van Wert came to be called. That was followed up with the joke of "there is a gobbler on every corner", and so I began to learn of boy with boy sex, and the concept of what a gobbler is in sexual slang. I won't explain that now.

I still did not explicitly know what it was until my senior year, when my classmate, neighbor, and work cohort finally admitted to me that he is gay, that he likes boys.

I was stunned, did not know what to think, except to pray for him. I listened to him tell me but he would not describe what he did. He just said that he liked boys. It did give me a tolerance and understanding about gay men and gay boys that stayed with me for many years as I attracted gays to me for some reason during my youth in both AZ and CA.

But because he had been suicidal I had prayed for him. He often tried to kill himself using his car as a weapon. His father had wanted me to marry him, but then his father was hot after me then, and I think that he thought that he could probably satisfy me sexually if his son didn't but my friend would have nothing to do with marriage, and I certainly did not want to marry him either.

But we remained good friends all our lives until late in life...He has passed away by now and I do know that he had had students, (he became a business teacher) who he said were on the make for him. Kids are always on the make for teachers, whether male or female, and whether homosexual or heterosexual...so I suppose he had his temptations of the flesh many times.

After that, during my first year in AZ, I met a man who was living with a man in our apartment building. This man is known as ac/dc, and I learned then of the gay transvestite world. This man who rented the apartment had been a fighter pilot in WWII, had been married, but changed to the gay way in his midlife. He was a cross dresser, and Ray, the guy who I came to know, lived with him at his apartment but also began to see me...I nearly married Ray but called it off after a trip to Flagstaff where I met up with George Stevens, movie producer of Giant...this guy was supposed to have been a son of a rich man in New Jersey...he could have been for all I know.. I never knew what to believe about him as he also claimed his roommates distinguished flying cross as his own too...devils lurk everywhere in AZ, home of the sundevils. I always thought of Ray as a bit of a devil, as he had wanted me to renounce the Bible when we were in Flagstaff. I slapped his face on that, and the man who had accompanied us on our flight opened the door into the room...this became a part of a movie starring Paul Newman later...I remember that movie well too. The movie producer George Stevens had picked us up at the airport and took us to the motel where we stayed finally. Stevens had an Ingrid Bergman type woman with him in the front seat of the car, and Ray and I were in the back...It was quite an event..It became the beginning of the end for my relationship to Ray...mostly because of the Bible and few other things as we (another couple with us) drove back to Phoenix from Flagstaff. An aside here (was I the Liz Taylor in that day as I was told in Tampa when I was taking court reporting..Liz is important in this story of mine...the answer is that I was seen more as Juliet Prowse then since I had had red hair at the time, and often compared to Natalie Wood as well...no comparison...Doris Day is always the only star that is really close to my appearance in that time...)

I then moved to California after buddying up with another Hollywood type and another failed attempt at marriage...moral is don't get involved with Hollywood types...this guy had lived with John Cassavetes before I met him. He is who taught me to always be on stage...one of my favorite all time actresses is Marjorie Main. So sometimes when I play the role, I play it a lot differently than the glamour girl...but on with the story.

My hairdresser in CA the first year I was there was obviously gay and always tried to make me look like a hooker...He was a great hairstylist, and that was in my early 20's...I liked him...he was one of the fun gay men who liked women and knew how to treat them and dress them to look good. I had had many gay friends in Phoenix who also had worked as a hairstylist, and others in other capacities...and we partied and had fun...I was "in" with that gay crowd as were all my friends and we were notorious for being semi playgirls in that day...I actually had a playboy bunny insignia on my car from the airforce base where we played and partied.

My good friend in teaching drama in Azusa was also gay and obvious to all that he was, but he made a serious mistake of getting caught in a local department store trying to pick someone up in a restroom or something and thus, lost his job...It became a part of the folklore of the school about his lifestyle...he was and is a handsome man, and a good friend to me, also being from Ohio. He lived in downtown Hollywood but would never let anyone know where...smart man!

So I have had real connections to gay men, but the lesbian women who became known at GHS were women who we avoided and discussed but did not ever come to know well. I did room with a woman who I later learned may have been gay all along but her relationship with me was strictly friend and business, and nothing at all sexual or even close to it. We lived together without ever interfering with one another, barely seeing one another, only sharing rental expenses...

So I never came to know lesbians but I always knew that they existed...some of my students called me that, but others knew better. A good friend of mine once said to me, "Do you think that anyone would ever believe it?" She was as man crazy as I had been, and we both shared our love interests at the time. She was and is as prim and proper as they come...I agreed that anyone who knew us would never believe it of either of us.

So on that note, I met a man in Phoenix once who asked me if I had ever had a gay affair and I said, No, and he was disappointed that I had not...I am too old for that kind of thing anyway, but my friendships romantically have always been with men.


I do believe that the gay world should be acknowledged and accepted for who they are, and why they are...I am not going to try to psychoanalyze them...my friend's father had told me that a good woman would change his opinion as his reasoning is that he could not get aroused by women, but he did get aroused by men...he dreamt and thought about nothing but male genitalia.

I will admit that pornography has the effect of either arousal or creating frigidity. People thought and do think that I am frigid in sexual behaviour...I believe in love, romance, and security, and friendship as well as hot, hot, hot sex.

I don't like what I call hit and run sex, one night stands, and other try them and leave them attitudes about something so personal as sex.

But to each his own...this is just my attitude about it...everyone can do his own thing, but please do it privately, and personally...Keep it sane and healthy...be kind to yourself and love yourself as a human being, so that you can do the same to other human beings...God is within! Self respect is very important to me... I never like to be thought of as an easy mark...Love and goodness all the days of my life...