QColumn: A Gay In The Life: Just Beat It

Just Beat It
By Steve Prince
Okay, so if you haven’t figured it out by now… I watch a lot of Oprah. Surprise. I love her no matter how big her hips or hair gets.
I remember as a kid that The Oprah Winfrey Show was the first time I ever saw a gay person I related to in my young adult life. I was in middle school and the show was about a guy who had come out to his family, only to be disowned. I sat there in awe looking at this man, who didn’t look that much older than me, tell his story—shocked to see audience members actually comforting him and condemning what his family had done—a truly powerful moment.
Today, I watched an Oprah show on mothers talking to their daughters about sex. The show’s sex expert (or “sexpert”) was fairly detailed and very liberal; she even suggested that sixteen-year-old girls be taught about vibrators.
The sexpert talked about how not discussing sex can create sexual shame and guilt. She explains how kids can create a unhealthy sexual self-image when we teach them that masturbation is filthy. She noted that instead of pleasing ourselves we often have to search for others to do it for us—something I completely related to and which really clicked for me. It reminded me of the first time I jerked-off consciously thinking of something homosexual. I was thirteen-years-old…
When I was twelve-years-old and my best friend Eric was thirteen, our favorite thing to do was go “walking,” what we called searching the neighborhood for trouble. We never did anything too bad. We’d toilet paper a house, ring a doorbell and then run away before anyone saw us, or peep through windows to watch girls changing clothes.
I opened my front door.
“You ready?” Eric asked with a grin.

“Yep,” I said, slowly closing the front door behind me. “Be back in an hour or so Mom!” I called over my shoulder.
As I shut the door behind me, I heard my mother’s muffled sing-song voice, “Steven, don’t get into trouble.”
I trotted to catch up to Eric who’d already crossed halfway across the lawn. The curly hair on my forehead tickled my forehead as it shuffled against the dusk breeze.
We both walked along the gravel road, our shadows silhouetted against the lilac hues of the Oklahoma sunset.
As soon as we had walked a ways from the house, Eric pulled something out of his shirt.
“Look what I found,” he said, presenting a Playboy magazine in front of me, its edges looking wet and torn. On the cover was Anna Nicole Smith sitting on a throne. I remember thinking she looked pretty, like a pageant queen.
“Where did you find it?” I asked.
“It was on the side of the road,” Eric whispered hopping around.
“Did you look inside?” I asked.
“Well, hell yeah,” Eric said. “Go ahead.”
I opened the magazine. I couldn’t make out much; the sun had almost set now, only an orange glow sizzled above the black horizon.
In the shadows I could make out some tits but that was about it.
“What are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m not keeping it,” Eric snapped.
He didn’t have to say why, I knew. Eric’s mother was fairly strict and very religious; if she found that magazine, she’d lose her shit.
I on the other hand had an older brother—I would just blame it on him.
We walked around for an hour trying to look at the pictures and then made our way home.
The next day after school, Eric called me.
“Have you looked at it in the daylight?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said, “I hid it in the back my bathroom cabinet. No one will find it there.”
“Is your Mom home?” Eric asked.
“Nope,” I said, “she’s at work.”
Ten minutes later, Eric was at the house and we both were going through the Playboy.
“Do you think tits really look like that in real life?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” asked Eric incredulously.
“Well,” I said, “they look so round and… perfect.”
“No, they’re real,” Eric said. “I don’t think they let girls with fake tits in Playboy. Just Hustler.”
The magazine looked different than I had imagined. I always thought Playboy would be full of nothing but pictures. All the articles surprised me.
Suddenly, I heard the garage door open. Eric and I were so caught up in the magazine; we failed to notice that my Mom arriving home.
We looked at one another, white with fear. There wasn’t time to hide the magazine in the bathroom.
“What should I do with it?” I asked.
“I don’t know!” Eric screeched while looking around my bedroom frantically. “Hide it under the bed,” he gasped.
“Okay, okay.” I said my head bobbing like a crazed puppet.
I glanced out my window into the driveway. As my mother opened her car door, the afternoon sun reflected off the metal like a warning shot. I leaped across the room to my bed. In a flurry of blue plaid, I tossed back the sheets of my bed and slid the Playboy into the farthest reaches below my mattress. I heard my mom open the front door. Once I felt I couldn’t stretch anymore, I fixed the sheets back perfectly and then turned to face my best friend. Eric and I both nodded in secret solidarity.
Later that night, I lay in bed thinking of the Playboy lying under my mattress; only a foot of springs, foam, cotton, and thread separating me from something so exciting. I couldn’t stand it. I got out of my bed, grabbed the flashlight from my closet, and retrieved the magazine. Ten minutes later—all right, let’s be honest, I was a thirteen-year-old boy—five minutes later, I began masturbating to the magazine.
I didn’t tell Eric, but I had looked at the Playboy earlier that day. In fact I was looking at it when he called to come over, but I wasn’t looking at the pictures. Instead a letter to the editor had transfixed me. In the letter, the male writer described his experience of being in a gym shower. As he lathered up, he began to get an erection. He found his work-out buddy and good friend in the shower next to him with an erection as well—they both watched one another jack off.
Ironically enough, the man was writing in to ask if he was gay. So there I was, in the dark, taking in every word of this letter and living every moment while imagining myself in the story. There were no pictures, just words. Still my imagination created an image of a man who looked a lot like Tom Selleck as Magnum P.I. and David Hasselhoff from Knight Rider. I could see them so vividly together, showering naked, watching one another stroke… I came. It was the first orgasm I had ever had not trying to think about girls. I let myself completely fall into the fantasy of men. I mean, after all it was in Playboy—so that made it okay, right?
After I had an orgasm, I remember going to bed that night not feeling relieved but, rather, guilty for what lay inside of me.
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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
Shock & Awe
Blame It On Britney
The Unending Journey
Makin’ Copies
Bullets and Bracelets… and Lube
To Tell The Truth…
Stars Aren’t Blind
The Dark Knight
Come As You Are
A Date?
A Happy Ending
Better Than Nothing
A Man With A Slow Hand
Taking The Long Way
Everybody Knows
Wake Me Up, Before Ya Go-Go
Definition
The Best
The Upper Hand
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
2000-Date
Dick The Halls
The Queer Dear
A Night At The Museum
A Conversation
I’m Just A Girl Who Can’t Say No
Change The Way You Feel
Kissing A Fool
Leo The Lamb
The Elephant In The Room
Zuckerman’s Famous Pig
A Birthday Surprise
The Sleepover-er
SP Phone Home
Out of the Frying Pan and into the Closet
What If…