QColumn: A Gay In The Life: Shock and Awe

Shock & Awe
By Steven Prince
“Stevie, that’s enough with the chips for now.” Troy moved the basket out of my grasp.
“Oh, OK”, I said with half a chip hanging out of my mouth.
What? I was just waiting for my enchiladas to come. Troy and I had been having a pleasant conversation about him rimming a twenty-one year old and he just interrupted my eating. Sure I wasn’t as skinny as Troy, but he was a dancer. He had to be obsessive about his body. I was doing just fine, thank you. Maybe I was a bit bigger than I was a year ago. Maybe I had been lacking on my tennis game. Maybe my waiter just brought me the most amazing, huge plate of three enchiladas covered with cheese, refried beans, guacamole, and extra sour cream plus rice and tortillas AND I washed it all down with a two glasses of Dr. Pepper.
Maybe I was a fat girl.
I’m six feet tall. I’ve never really been athletic. I was the choir and drama kid in high school; I was kind of a nerd. I was popular…with the teachers. They loved me and I even got Student of the Year in high school. All right I was a bit of a dork, but I did have a lot of friends. Honest! The last time I had broken a sweat from sports was in the fifth grade when I played basketball. I quit before sixth grade because: a. I knew the uniform would be too tight for my pre-puberty baby fat and b. sixth grade boys showered after the game and I knew I wasn’t prepared for that. In high school I grew a lot, hence I was tall and slim, but still flabby. My upper body had very little muscle. This was okay though. I was simply funny Steve; It went with my personality. I didn’t have any girls chasing after me and that was fine with me. I thought life was good and then something happened when I was nineteen that changed everything.
I came out.

Being a little chubby and straight is one thing; however, being gay and chubby is totally different. Now that I wasn’t pretending to be attracted to women I could be open about my quest to look at desirable men. However, what I was finding desirable did not look like me. I was attracted to broad shoulders, smooth pecks, and six-packed stomachs. Fury chest, love handles, and a little tummy were nowhere in sight. Yet all and all, I was okay with myself. I did live in Texas at the time and like the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas. Southern food offers some of the best food in the world, and everyone around me seemed to be eating it. So yeah, I was chubby for gay standards, but compared to other Southern gays–I looked good. But alas, again something happened that changed everything.
I moved to Los Angeles.
Being gay, chubby, and living in Texas is one thing; however, being gay, chubby, and living in Los Angeles is un-fucking-heard of. Never before was I inundated by such beautiful men. On billboards, in magazines, walking the streets of West Hollywood–there wasn’t an ounce of body fat anywhere on these people. And what’s worse is that in the summer none of them wear any clothes. It was expected you show off these ripped bodies! I never admitted to myself that I was unhappy with my own appearance. I also just assumed that any guys that looked like that were just self-obsessed gym bunnies who were complete idiots. They were simple imbeciles who haven’t read a book in their adult life.
Then I became good friends with Troy, Cody, Alex, & Omar; they’re all beautiful and their total body fat index is probably about -5%. Why in God’s name I became friends with them, I can’t tell ya. I wasn’t prepared for them to be funny, intelligent, and 3-Dementional, but they were. As I became friends with them I noticed that they actually accepted me for who I was without any judgment. Interestingly enough, Troy, Cody, Alex, & Omar have become some of the most supportive friends I have. They were totally throwing my narrow generalization askew, however they were also showing me that being healthy and not feeling like Jabba the Hut could be a realistic goal for me. I never expected to have six packs abs. However, my 34 waist pants were giving me a muffin top, and I refused to go up a size. Never! I have been a 34 waist for ten years dammit.
Sadly, the battle of the bulge was over taking me. The last straw was when I had been out dancing with my roommate James. I got home, brushed my teeth, and then stumbled to bed. I went to unbuckle my jeans. The button was gone. Oh my god. I sat on my bed staring into the room terrified. The event ran through my mind like a Steven King novel. Somewhere in the night, within the thrashing of bodies, my mother fuckin’ button popped away like a pinball being shot into the game of the gay club. Some poor gay probably lost an eye or maybe was dancing with his mouth open and chocked. Either way it was terrifying. The next day I did what most gays in LA do, I went to a gym.
As I walked in, I was greeted by a skinny gay boy at the counter. He had gay-lights, you know real queeny highlights, but they did look good on him.
“Hi” he said sweetly, “how can I help you?”
I looked at him dryly. I was not excited about this and I wanted to turn around and walk away from the gym while yelling, “Fuck you skinny bitches!” Instead I swallowed calmly.
“I’m a fat girl”, I sighed. “I feel like a cow and I haven’t had sex in about six months. Let’s fix this.” I glared at him defiantly. I wanted a donut.
You know what, I gotta give that girl credit; she didn’t bat an eye. In fact, in 15 minutes not only did I have a gym membership and a personal trainer, but I signed up for boot camp as well. Boot camp is all the rage in LA right now. It’s basically an hour of intense cardio where someone yells at you in camouflage until you die. All of this and it burns 800 calories! And lucky for me I got to start boot camp the next day. At 6:30 am. Running. At 6:30 am. Being awake. At 6:30 am. Holy mother of God, what have I done? At 6:30 am.
The next day I woke up at 5:45. I didn’t want to get up, but thankfully I hung a picture of Zac Efron beside my bed. I looked at his abs, his youth, his cum gutters–you know the lines of his obliques that head down the pubic bone–I hated her, but it made me get out of bed. Twenty-five minutes later I was sitting in a workout room waiting for our instructor. The crowd looked average. Half girls, half gay guys and everyone had different body types. I was not the fattest person there–thank God.
“Hello everyone. Are you ready?” A voice with an Argentinean lilt came from behind me. I turned.
Holy mother friggin’ crap on my head who the frick is this man, I think I have a chubby. He was gorgeous and I don’t mean pretty. He was an Adonis. Oh, his tanned olive skin and dark brown eyes. His pouty lips. He was the perfect combination of feminine and masculine. He made my man-pussy wet. He walked by and instinctively I looked at his ass. My dick actually moved. I’m not lying. I’m not trying to be funny. He actually made my penis jump like a cheerleader doing a toe touch.
“Hello, I’m Ricardo,” he said firmly. “Get ready to hate me.” And before I could calm my semi-erection, we were off. Ricardo separated the class into two groups. The first group would stay in the studio and do strength training, which involved pushups, crunches and exercises with weights. The second group ran on the treadmills for thirty minutes. Then we would switch. I decided to do the first part because I felt running was easier and I knew I wasn’t strong; I would get the weight part over with first.
I’m not going to lie. It was not fun. People that say they enjoy working out are people that I want to hit in the face and call their parents and say, “What’s wrong with you? How could you raise a child that enjoys this?” However that might be extreme so I just give them dirty looks. The first part wasn’t as bad as I thought actually, but it was still hard. By the time Ricardo sent my group to the treadmills, I felt worn out. But at least I would just be running.
I’m a dumbass. Of course I wouldn’t be just running. Nope not with Ricardo. He walked by me and smirked. Then he pressed the incline button on my treadmill to 15. 15? I didn’t even know the incline could go that far! Within ten minutes I was gripping the sides of the machine like a passenger of the Titanic waiting to go down. I was horrified I was going to fall off in front of everyone. I had to walk.
“Keep running or you do 30 pushups”, Ricardo yelled. That bitch. That crone. I would rim him like a taco. Oh God, now I want a taco. No fat girl! No! I decided to buckle down and dig deep. I could do this. As long as I just kept thinking about Zac Efron. As long as I just kept thinking of that one episode of Saved By the Bell, where Zack Morris takes his shirt off to play volleyball and hits on that actress that was on King of Queens-I loved that show. There’s a reason I would beat off to that–not King of Queens, Zack Morris. I can do this. I can make it. I can… I can…
I can throw up on the treadmill in front of the whole God-damn gym.
It was not pretty. I’ll save you the details. However, I will say it was loud, gross, and messy. Yes much like Bette Midler’s latest appearance on American Idol. Later as I came out of the bathroom, I walked back into the room where the class was having a wrap up. I was shamed. I couldn’t do this. I was a failure.
As people left the class Ricardo came up to me.
“Are you okay?” He said with a concerned look.
I shook my head yes. I was too exhausted to utter a word, and I didn’t want to puke on him. Is this what it feels like to look skinny?
“Good job”, he said, “I’m proud of you.” And then he patted my ass like I had seen those strange athletic men do with wooden bats and pinstriped uniforms. Pain melted away in my body and I giggled. Then the pain came back again, but for a moment it was gone.
So I went back the next day and I threw up again. Then the next day I almost puked but I didn’t. For the next six weeks I went back day by day, five days a week. I lost 20 lbs. and my 34 waist jeans were a bit big.
So why did I do all this? Was it to be healthier? Was it to look better? Yeah, not really. Honestly, I wanted to get laid more. There I said it. As adult and educated as I am, a part of me still believed that by looking better more men would find me more attractive. It’s hard to admit this because it makes me feel like I’m this horrible shallow person but I think that this is just linked to my own inner homophobia.
Maybe that’s why I hated those ripped men, because maybe they didn’t hate a part of themselves that I did? I think that was a huge reason why I avoided the gym; a part of me didn’t want to be so gay. I think it could be assumed that we all know the connotations that the gym evokes for our gay male culture. It’s called church, or people find others to date, or even have sex with. As out as I am, a part of me–way in the back of my head–thought that being in gym was conforming to a stereotype of gay men. I hate being put into a box. Why was I afraid of being that gay?
As I spent my months at the gym I began to see others and myself differently. Soon going to the gym wasn’t just for working out, but also for seeing some of my gay friends. Like Troy, Alex, Omar, and Cody, my gym friends became more dimensional. I realized that in judging them before, I really was judging a part of myself. I was scared. Growing up I was an effeminate boy in the South with a lisp who was teased relentlessly when playing sports. Going to a gym was like putting myself into a sport again waiting to be picked last.
So, did I get laid more? Yes and no. In losing weight I did have more confidence about accepting a part of myself and loving that part. By expanding my own gayness I found myself attracted to men I had once ruled out and found some of them were attracted to me. I was critical before so no one could be critical to me first. No wonder men didn’t ask me out a lot; who wants to date that? I know if I was at a bar and saw some critical Nelly glancing around with a bitter look, I would feel sorry for him and turn the other cheek.
This whole experience has been a bit life changing for me; I now look at gay diversity differently. Instead of being fearful of gay men not like myself, I’m embracing them. And honestly, just being nice for nice sake. Now when I go out, the way I relate to other gay men has changed. For me, it’s important when talking and meeting other people not to have an agenda. So if I see one of you out in a bar and I want to talk, I really just want to have a conversation. If it leads to something else–a friendship, a relationship, a hookup–that’s great, but it can also be just a moment of connection that is only meant to be a moment. In putting myself out there as honestly as I can, I find that’s what I want from others…honesty. And that’s sexy to me no matter.
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Years after moving from Oklahoma, Steve Prince is still acclimating to the gay scene in Los Angeles-he’s a slow learner. By trial and error and a lot of sex, his mission is to make the uncomfortable, comfortable. Also it should be known that he is gayer than butt sex.
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Previously, on A Gay In The Life:
The Birds and The Birds
Lyin’, & Twinks, & Bears— Oh My!
Going Public
Christmas in July
Luck Be A Lady Tonight
I Left My Heart In Oklahoma
As Luck Would Have It