This is a guest article written by Peter Merrick, a Falmouth Student in Cornwall. This is Peter’s second article, and, again, I really appreciate his contribution. Are you struggling with your sexuality in school or are you given a hard time by your peers? Send me your story.
Being gay is never easy. You may always have a feeling of attraction to the same sex from an early age, in my case, primary school. I well remember when I was at primary school, I saw two boys who were in the same year, kissing. They were kissing on the cheek, because one of them was happy to see his friend. I can still remember walking back from seeing that, wanting to walk back and see it again. That strong feeling that I had about wanting to walk back and see them kissing again.
Another time I knew that I enjoyed being with other men was when I was in toilet, I must have been about ten or eleven, I was peeing next to someone in my school and I saw his foreskin, I had some sort of vague feelings that I could not really identify.
When I was about thirteen, my feelings became more urgent and I started to have dreams about the guy I sat next to. My feelings seemed to change and become more urgent, I dreamt about lying in bed next to Nathan and kissing him. I used to wake up in the morning, scared and ashamed. I didn’t want to have these feelings; they were so scary, so new - so different from the other feelings. I knew inside myself that I could never tell Nathan who I really wanted to be with, and I never did. He never knew and still does not know, unless he uses this site.
My feelings changed and got more confusing when I started going to Chess Club and I met this guy called Ollie. We used to walk back from the Chess Club together, and we’d just hang out and chill - all sorts of stuff. We used to spend a lot of time just talking. Most of the guys never really gave me much attention. I began to fall for him. I wanted to touch him and feel his body. He was black, which coming from a very majority white area was a surprise to me, to actually have a black person in my school. (Well, he was half caste, but that was a novelty for me.) One day, after showers and PE, I told him I loved him. He smiled as if he had always known. He then ran off, I went home, unsure as to what I had done.
The next day, I went into register with the class, someone immediately asked me “are you gay?” I looked at him, with such shock and just said “yes” he was like “oh really” and smiled and said nothing else. All day long, people came up to me and asked me “are you gay”. The reaction was generally positive. When I got back home, I opened my diary and divided a page into three columns: people who were positive, people who said nothing and negative. I am pleased to state, after all these years, I can say that, at the most three, maybe four boys expressed openly negative reactions.
Now the next step was telling my parents. I had come back from being out, and mum was having a few drinks in the sitting room. She was very drunk and ‘knew that something was wrong’. She sat me down and then I finally said:
“I think I’m gay.”
She asked me loads of questions. She wanted to know, did I think of boys sexually, did I want to touch their private parts? I just said yes all the time. In some way, it felt a relief. I don’t remember much about that night, but I do know that I was pleased or in some way realised that I had crossed some sort of boundary. I have never really been able to broach the homosexuality subject again and have not discussed it to a great extent with either my mother or my father (who also knows, but says little). In some ways, I prefer this. The knowledge that both my parents know is enough.
I encountered little discrimination when I was at school; it was more joking around with ‘the boys’ than anything else. It is best to be open with people. The teachers at the school were great.
I am aware that my school year was pretty unique. What I found particularly hard to deal with, and still do, is the fact that the younger brothers of the people in my school year who were in lower-year groups were more nasty. They asked me again and again whether I fancied them.
One night walking back home, some of the guys who were younger than me cornered me and started pushing me around, calling me names and I struggled to break free and ran. When my dad found out from someone else, he said later to me, that I had opened myself up to being a target, but he did not elaborate on what that meant. I have never asked him to elaborate on what that means.
On my current course, everyone knows I am a homosexual. It can be especially difficult with the guys. When I went to a training exercise, we all shared the same bunk rooms. One of the guys said that I and only I should leave the room when I was getting changed. I was so shocked, I could not believe it. In all my years of school showers I was naked with guys the same age; we had a shower and then took my clothes off. I tried so hard not to get an erection, a lot of people, both guys and girls commented on it. But I was never told to leave the room whilst someone was getting changed. Eventually, I left the room and let him change in peace.
The most important advice I would give is to be you. Answer every question honestly, even if it is about sexual stuff. They will get bored eventually. And come out as early as possible. That will give people at school time to ‘adjust’, (although why they need to adjust is debatable). People may respect you for it.
And you can always email me for any help.
Kounou_2000 (at) yahoo.co.uk
