Another Fashion Rebel!

[SexyGaySenior]

Here, and in a few other Gay/Queer-based groups, a poster posted a commentary about fashion. I was reading the commentary with interest as I can identify with everything the poster said.

If I may post my own commentary, I take pleasure in referring to myself as a fashion rebel!

I have never been, am not now, nor will I ever be a fashionista. I have never caved to 'the latest fashions', despite someone who basically controlled my life through my youth and until I finally left home after school (college) trying to force this garbage onto me. The word for the person was 'mother'. You might call my resistance to the latest fashion my personal rebellion. Since college, and in fact right when I first started at college, I fought and finally won the power to dress the way I wanted to. At first, I went the tee shirt route with jeans. As fall set in, on went a sweatshirt, and when winter hit, on went a heavy coat. It was Canada after all, and winters are brutal, to say the least. Then came the end of first year in April of 1973, and the good weather of spring finally took over. What that meant was shorts weather.

I can remember this incident like it happened yesterday! It was in reality mid-May, 1973, and approaching our Victoria Day Weekend. The temperature was in the upper 70s (Canada hadn't adopted the metric system, and wouldn't for another couple of years). Seeing as the weather was warm, I decided to put on a pair of shorts. It was more than warm enough. There was only one problem, mother had confiscated all my shorts, and did so right after the Labour Day weekend, the previous September. She had been doing that since I was a preteen! The first day back at school for the fall/winter/spring, mother would go into my bedroom and take all my shorts, and put them away in HER bedroom closet. Shorts weren't allowed to be worn after Labour Day. Why that was, I never knew. We still got some very warm weather in September and October, and even into November. I remember this one time between Christmas and New Year's, we had a storm that pushed the temperature past eighty-degrees for two days! As for this idea that shorts must never be worn after Labour Day weekend, it was my mother's grossly outdated thinking. It was also her control issue with me. As it was, I was only eighteen-years-old, but still living at home. Therefore, I had to live by her rules.

Up until that May weekend in 1973!

The argument started with, "It's still only May! Nobody wears shorts before he middle of June!" So, what id I do? At my own peril, I might add? I went to a local department store and bought not one, but three pairs of shorts. Once out of the store, I went some place and changed. When I got home, my saintly mother reacted exactly as I knew she would. Mother had a violent temper and a very short fuse to go with her violent temper, so it didn't take much to set her off into a violent rage. And I mean 'V-I-O-L-E-N-T"! That day, she exploded into one of the most violent rages ever. And when she 'let go', she also let her fists fly! Unfortunately, that day, when she exploded, she started to strike me hard, and when she hit me so hard I fell, she began kicking me mercilessly. All over how I was attired! That was when my father stepped in. He didn't do it often, but that day, he did. And, what was way more important, he defended me. All that did though, was to turn mother on to hitting him. That was when the "battle' turned around. Mother lost that fight big time, but it put the final strains on any relationship we had. At the time of this confrontation, I was still four months away from finally embracing my sexuality. Plus, mother wouldn't find out I was Gay for another thirteen years! Unfortunately, along with her short fuse and violent temper, mother was a very hate-filled Homophobic bigot. The day she found out I was Gay that ended any relationship I had with her and any relationship I had with the rest of the family. It was also the last time she spoke to me or even saw me. In fact, my brother, who was ten years older than I was, and sister, who was five years older, sided with her and they too stopped any contact with me. My father was a different story. After I came out about my sexuality, and my 'excommunication' from the rest of the family, my father was constantly reaching out to me. he knew where I lived and he made it a point to drop in to visit at least once every week or two. As for mother, she took her hatred for me to her grave in 2001. For the next six years, I re-established a relationship with my father. This caused significant friction with my brother and sister, who still refused to reach out to me. That was, until dad passed away in 2007. Dad split his estate three ways, which angered my siblings. Not wanting anything to do with these two 'saintly christians', I signed off and relinquished my share of dad's estate to them. Then I told them to "go away". We haven't spoken a word since.

That weekend in May, 1973 was the beginning of me finally being able to be myself, though, the biggest event was still four months away when I would come to terms with, and embrace being Gay. Except for work, I worked as a mechanic Saturdays when in school, and all summer when out of school, it was tee shirts and shorts. A mechanic was what I started out to be. I wore a tee shirt and shorts right up until I started my second year at college, which was actually the first year of the new direction I was taking. The previous year wasn't exactly a waste, as it did give me a couple of credits that I used to have extra time for studying. And as I've previously written, was when the biggest life-altering event occurred, my meeting and falling in love with my first boyfriend. Still, school time was in tee shirts and jeans, as well as work on weekends. Other than that, it was tee shirts and shorts. Oh, I forgot to mention, those shorts I bought wear pre-cut jean shorts. Those were THE style a lot of guys wore. Mine were a little bit shorter than normal, which was common among Gay guys. That fall, 1973, I wore those shorts right up until Christmas! Yes, my mother burned all the time! Too bad mom!

As it was, I began to define myself. The young Gay guy in tee shirts and shorts for the most part for nine months of the year. Now, was I the only one? I can honestly say, I wasn't. Naturally, my absolutely wonderful boyfriend also wore tee shirts and shorts almost all year. So did several of my friends! It was only a coincidence that all of my friends who were tee shirt and shorts wearers were also Gay. There was one point about Ashley, my boyfriend. First of all, after graduation, I got a job in the engineering field, mechanical engineering to be exact. The engineering profession, especially the mechanical engineering profession, at least back then, and well into the new millennium, was extremely homophobic. For the most part, it still is. And the field tends to be very 'staid', one does not wear shorts to work, even though one changes clothes at work. One is also expected to keep their hair short. I think I mentioned we had this one guy who had appointed himself a 'hair cop', and he would remind me as to when he thought I needed a hair cut. Well, up until the day I finally told him to mind his own business, that is.

This is where I was so envious of Ashley. Ashley went into journalism. Being openly Gay was well accepted within the organization he was employed at, even back in the 1970s. Admittedly, some journalistic outlets were not so accepting, and still aren't. In Canada, a group called Metroland Media will openly accept anyone who is Gay. PostMedia will not! They are extremely Homophobic (and Islamophobic too!). This media outlet has run commentaries calling for Homosexuality to be outlawed, and for it to be legal to murder a Gay person. Too, Ashley could, and often did, go to work in a tee shirt, shorts, and running shoes, from early March, right until Christmas anyway. And he had to commute to another city on the public bus/train system. (Ashley never owned a car, nor did he ever learn to drive.) Obviously, in late fall to early spring, he would 'layer-up' with long-sleeved tee shirts and sweatshirts. And he didn't have to change at work! He could work in his tee shirt, shorts, and running shoes! Then there was the matter of his hair. when I met Ashley that day in the book store, he already had hair down to his shoulders. He did trim it once in a while, but mostly, he wore it long. After graduation, and after he started his career, Ashley went a year before he trimmed his hair. He had a pony tail! It was about half-way down his back! it wasn't greasy, like you see a lot of guys with today. Ashley's hair was dry, so he had a bushy, and very sexy, pony tail! All that pony tail really did was add to his already beautiful physical appearance. Again, because of the organization he was employed by, having a pony tail was more than acceptable. There was only one drawback, and it really wasn't all that much of a drawback, and that was Ashley was often mistaken for a member of the opposite sex, right up into his mid-30s when he lost his life while investigating a story he was working on. Yes, he was THAT beautiful!

Oh, remember my 'beloved' mother? She hated most of my friends, but especially, she hated Ashley and at first, she literally ordered me to stop having him as a friend. Imagine being in your mid-20s, and having your mother telling you who you can have as friends! At the time too, I hadn't come out yet, and she didn't know about the extent of Ashley's and my "friendship". Mother's demand didn't get very far. I told her outright, "I will choose my friends, not you". And yes, she flew into yet another violent rage!

I had posted a commentary about when I began shaving my legs. I first shaved my legs at the end of September, 1973, just after I met and began dating Ashley, my boyfriend. I didn't shave them a lot in college, it was 'off-and-on', and in fact, I really didn't keep them smooth until about six months after I graduated in August of 1976, and started my permanent job the same month (which I'm still at, but am preparing to retire from after forty-three years), and got my own apartment, in March of 1977, shared with Ashley, of course. Did anyone ever clue into the fact that two young guys shared a one-bedroom apartment, and that we only had a single, albeit queen-sized, bed? We were very descrete, as the "story" was that Ashley just needed a place to crash for a night or two (or three, or four). If anyone asked, Ashley was sleeping on my couch. In a way, it worked out. Often, Ashley was out of town on assignment. He would be gone for three or four weeks at a time. So when he was 'home', he found it more convenient to stay at my place and sleep on my couch. That was our story!

Once I bought a house in 1981, since it was a three bedroom house, and I only needed one bedroom, our "story" became that since Ashley was often away for three or four weeks at a time on a journalistic assignment, it was more convenient for him to "rent" one of my extra bedrooms when he was back home. Yes, we had two separate bedrooms set up, though, one bedroom was more or less set up for "show". The room was well finished and kept neat. The other room was, well, it only had a bed in it, a king-sized one. To tell it truthfully, we had acquired some two-by-twelves and plywood and made a special custom frame. Back then, the "double-mars" symbol was just coming into being the symbol for Gay males, and I had acquired a router and cut the symbol into the headboard. All we had was the frame with the mattress on it, a cover sheet for the mattress, and a comforter. That bed was our sex bed! And we only used it when Ashley was home. We kept all our clothes in the other room. Too, if we were having "certain company" over (as in, my parents, more specifically, my mother, we made sure the door to the room was locked. Our story was that it was Ashley's room, and he kept it locked, at my request, for his privacy, which was a concept lost on my mother. When I was growing up, and especially during my college years, I was not allowed to close my bedroom door. Mother wanted to know everything I was doing and would always go into my bedroom when I wasn't home and go through all my belongings. No secrets were allowed!

But, on that first Friday of March, 1977, when I had just settled into my new apartment, that evening, I took a razor to my legs, and I have never gone more than three days without shaving my legs since that evening!

That particular Friday evening, Ashley, some friends and I were going out. Before we left, I shaved my legs. Yes, I wore shorts that evening. Despite being early March, shorts were more than appropriate for the weather. remember too, it was the late 70s. We wore shorts that were "well above" half-way between our knees and thighs. We, well, I did anyway, had this certain "uniform" we would wear when we went to Gay clubs back then, most of which were underground, as Homosexuality, though removed from the Canadian criminal code eight years before in 1969, was still looked down upon and often, Gay men were seriously harassed by police. Our uniform? Well, mine anyway? I wore white, short, tennis shorts, which, back then, tended to be very short and very tight. I also wore white "ankle-cut" running shoes, thus exposing my freshly shaved legs from just below my thighs right down to my exposed ankles. Up top, a (usually) black (and sometimes purple) tee shirt.

We also wore these chains around our necks. The chains were called "snake chains", as they resembled snake skin, and were about three-sixteenths-of-an-inch thick, and we bought them at one of the earliest Artisan Fairs we had around in July of 1975. The chains weren't gold or even silver. They were actually stainless steel! The person selling the chains made them to order, so we all had decided to have them basically sized to our necks. I had a size 14-1/2 neck then, which meant my neck was 14-1/2-inches around, as in, my neck had a 14-1/2-inch circumference. I had mine sized "slightly smaller" than my neck size by a quarter of an inch so it fit "snug". Why? It's difficult to explain why, but, let me just say it was because of an interest I had back then. The chain encircles my neck so it crossed my throat just below my Adam's apple. That day, I was the first to have the chain made up. Once Ashley, my boyfriend, saw how I looked, he had his sized slightly smaller too. By the time we were done, not only was mine and Ashley's sized to be 'snug', the other four guys with us did the same. By the way, Ashley, and the four friends who were with us that day, all had that same interest I had. You might say that, back then, we, well especially me, were the first guys to wear chokers. While I wore this fairly thick snake chain, as did my boyfriend, and four other friends, when it became fashionable for Gay men, I wore a "Lambda" pendant on the chain and positioned the pendant at the very centre of my throat directly under my Adam's apple. Ah, the times of my youth!

There was this "code" about wearing the Lambda pendent around the neck. Snug (choker) chains became quite fashionable for Gay men back in the early eighties, as did wearing Lambda pendants. Though, most guys wore ones that were significantly thinner, a thirty-second-of-an-inch thick, and I believe the correct description is 'herringbone", and usually made of gold. I wasn't, and still am not into wearing precious metal jewelry. Come to think of it, I don't wear jewelry at all, and haven't for years. The "code" had to do with the position of the pendant. As I said, a lot of Gay guys began wearing snug chains around their necks, and the Lambda pendant was positioned on one side of the throat, or the other. The side it was positioned on was supposed to have sent the message as to whether or not you were available. If you wore it to the one side, you were taken, the other side, you was available. I never figured it out correctly, and neither did my friends, so we all positioned it right at the centre, at the base of our Adam's apples. Since I was there with my boyfriend, obviously we were there to socialize, not get picked up, though it did happen. It happened more to Ashley, my boyfriend, than the rest of us combined. Ashley was constantly being hit on because he was very attractive physically.


Today, I wear shorts and tee shirts almost exclusively, and I wear shorts, usually right up until Christmas. I say 'almost exclusively', as I am required to wear long pants, mainly I wear jeans, at work. Thankfully, those days are numbered! There have been times too where, in January, February, and early March, we get 'spells' where the weather gets to a point that it's more than appropriate to put on shorts. Too, I also still shave my legs.

Just a note here, about when I finally take the shorts off in fall, or is it winter. There has to be five straight days where the temperature dips below five-degrees Celsius before I will take the shorts off. However, when the end of winter nears and spring is almost here, I only need four straight days of temperatures above that magical five-degree mark, then back on they go!


Getting back to wearing shorts, yes, as the seasons progress into late fall and winter, I get rude comments about still wearing my shorts that late into the year or too early in spring. I find the rudest people to be older males who identify as Christian and conservative (Christian conservatives are THE most horrible people on the planet, male AND female), and often enough they drive pickup trucks. They are typically the rudest people on the face of the earth. I blame their rudeness one-hundred-percent on their religious and political leanings. It also has to do with the fact that the city I live in is well known for being the rudest city in Canada, if not THE rudest city in the world. It also has the dubious honour of being the hate-crime capital of Canada. More than half the hate crimes committed in the city are against Gay people. In addition, Canada itself is morphing to the far-right politically. The provinces of Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta are governed by dangerous homophobic Christian conservative bigots, and if polls are to be believed, we are about to elect the most dangerous homophobic bigot and repulsive Christian (catholic) conservative as Prime Minister. He is also backed by several Christian groups well known for their anti-LGBTQ stances. The man hates Gays with a passion and wants us exterminated, and has said so more than a few times. He went as far as comparing Gays to dogs. How inclusive is that!

As for tee shirts, being openly Gay, I do wear tee shirts that subtly proclaim my sexual orientation. You really have to look twice to see the 'hint'. I have five that have the name "CANADA" printed with the "C" in red, the first "A" in orange, the "N" in yellow, the second "A" in green, the "D" in blue, and the last "A" is in purple. The maple leaf itself is coloured in the six rainbow colours. I have two more with the name of my city printed in the six rainbow colours. But, as temperatures drop, the tee shirt gets covered with a sweatshirt. The 'layered look' (a long-sleeved tee shirt under a short-sleeved one) goes on before the sweatshirt.

I have noticed, particularly over the last few years anyway, a lot of guys wear shorts throughout winter. And I especially noticed at four of the cafés of one of the coffee chains I patronize, the male staff members are usually wearing shorts all winter. Apparently, that is the one draw of the job that really attracted them to work where they do! They can, and are usually encouraged to do, wear shorts and tee shirts all year. They do wear long sleeve tee shirts in the winter. I don't know if this is just a coincidence, but, it does seem that most, if not all, the young guys working there are Gay, and they're not the least bit hesitant to admit it either! And why are they all so cute?

This brings me to a book discussed by the person who posted his commentary and which I obtained lately that really explained things. The book is called, "This Book Is Gay" By Juno Dawson. It's about the Gay lifestyle, and it really is for anyone who is even slightly interested in the Gay life. In this book, Ms. Dawson does an excellent job of explaining the good side of our wonderful lifestyle. She also emphasises that you should be yourself. Well, we are all individuals in this world. No two people are alike. So, in essence, we are ourselves. The problem lies with individuals like the ignoramus I met the other day who feel that they are the ones who should decide who people present themselves. This is so wrong! What anyone does, or how anyone decides to attire themselves, is their business and only their business. This is why I don't let anyone influence me. And I'm not the only one like that.

While this could be a controversial statement, I'll make it anyway. I fully agree with what the person said in his earlier commentary about his experiences and opinion about fashion. This book should be at least made available for all males, and females too, when they reach 16-years of age, maybe even before that when they're 14! Certainly, they shouldn't be stopped from reading it. Young people mature a lot faster these days that we did. I went to a catholic school from September, 1960 until June 1968. I can't recall anyone being sexually active in the so-called senior years, grades six, seven, and eight, when I was there. There might have been one or two, but I didn't know any. Too, in those grades, we were ten-, eleven-, twelve-, and thirteen-years-old. High school was another story. I think I was the only virgin who graduated my high school that year (June, 1972). I wouldn't lose my virginity for another fifteen months after high school graduation. Today, the young people mature faster, and, from what I have learned, are becoming sexually active when they are barely even a teenager, even just before they become a teenager. They are also very open minded to experimentation.

I fought to hide my sexual orientation when I was in high school. Ashley was the same, and would openly admit that hiding his sexuality lead to serious issues that nearly cost him his life twice. Also, as he put it in a very unique and quirky, but very much an Ashley way, had anyone at the high school he went to ever found out his sexuality, in his own unique and quirky (but, again, very much Ashley) words, they probably would have cut off his head and paraded through the school showing off his head on a pole! To be open, Ashley and I each attended high schools that had the roughest and most brutal reputations in the city. And Ashley attended a high school in a very affluent area! So much for affluence being a sign of good upbringing. And the term "affluenza" (Well-off Christian conservative people and their families who feel that their financial status gives them the "privilege" that laws do not apply to them) hadn't been invented yet! While we both fought to hide our sexuality in high school, as did all of our Gay friends we met in college and beyond, boys and girls today don't. Boys are very open to trying sex with other boys and girls with other girls. Oh, the beauty of youthful curiosity! This must anger Christian conservatives to the max, since they are the biggest two-faced hypocrites and Homophobic bigots on earth.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about an "incident" I (happily) witnessed at a local, and arguably my favorite, Starbucks early one Sunday morning. I got to watch, albeit as nonchalantly as possible, but you could not help but see, two twenty-something (if that), and exceptionally attractive I might add, guys actually embracing and kissing, RIGHT THERE IN THE CAFE, IN PUBLIC, AT SEVEN-O'CLOCK ON A SUNDAY MORNING! It was extremely amazing, and heart-warming, seeing these two young men do that, especially when you take into account that I live in the city that, as I mentioned earlier, now has the dubious distinction of being the hate and Homophobic capital of Canada. There was a major incident where several Christian conservative groups attacked people who attended our local Pride festival. Since then, there has been an anti-LGBTQ protest every Saturday at our local city hall. Add to that, more than half the hate crimes in the city are committed against Gay people. I have seen that beautiful couple three times at that Same Starbucks since.

Most Saturdays and Sundays, I am served by this one particularly attractive (Attractive? That is an understatement! He is down right gorgeous) young Barista. He is always in a black tee shirt, black shorts, and white running shoes. His shorts are a couple of inches above his knees! He's the one I described that he wears his Starbucks baseball cap backwards, a look that I said makes most guys look dorky, but he makes the look work and actually looks very attractive. (As a side note, those two young lovers wear their baseball caps backward, and as with the Barista, they too look beautiful. It must be a young Gay guy thing!) A couple of weeks ago, I (finally) noticed that he does indeed shave his legs, doing justice to his lovely "gams". And they are S*M*O*O*T*H! And S*E*X*Y! And S*E*N*S*U*O*U*S! It only stands to reason, as he himself is the epitome of the "typical" (in my opinion) young Gay male: physically beautiful! (I actually see quite a number of these quintessential young gay males around lately! Pure eye candy!) Another point about him is that, although he does wear an apron, you can still see anything he has printed on his tee shirt. Three weeks ago, his Saturday tee shirt said "GAY AND PROUD", while his Sunday tee shirt had "QUEER" printed on it in the rainbow colours. . Two weeks ago, he wore one with the rainbow flag on it, and one with "GAY PRIDE". Last week, his tee shirt had the "double Mars" symbol on it in rainbow colours on Saturday, and on Sunday, his tee shirt said "QUEER PRIDE". This morning, his tee shirt said, "OUT AND PROUD" printed in rainbow colours. Wow! He sure doesn't hide his sexuality!

Then again, why should he! He's so perfect! He's young! He's beautiful! AND!!! He's Gay!

I have had several short chats with this young beauty, and no, I'm not trying to pick him up, although, if he ever said, "take me!", I would give it serious thought! A few weeks ago, he told me right out that he had been best friends with this one boy since he was six-years-old, and back in the summer of 2011, when he was twelve, he and his "best friend" spent the entire summer "exploring themselves". That was exactly how he worded it! Then he openly translated, or is the right word 'admitted', that was when he embraced his sexuality and began having sex with his best friend. He was twelve and went as far as to admit he and his boyfriend had sex together for the very first time on his twelfth birthday! His boyfriend was only a week older! he said that, on his boyfriend's twelfth birthday, they actually held hands and kissed. Then, one week later, on his twelfth birthday, they "went for it"! His boyfriend did him first, then he did his boyfriend. They are still together, as they both go to the same university and are even taking the same program together. They are even studying courses in "Queer Theology", which I studied myself a few years ago. (Curious though, that these "Queer Theology" classes were, and are, presented by our local University, and in the four (of the ten offered) that I took, the class size was eighteen to twenty people, and only one or two people taking the classes were NOT Gay!) He and his boyfriend are more in love with each other today than ever! He also told me that he and his boyfriend weren't the only Gay boys in middle school. He knew two other boys who were Gay, and he also knew for a fact those two boys were having sex together before either of them celebrated their twelfth birthdays! He said there were several boys and girls actively engaging in sexual intercourse in middle school, he did say he and his boyfriend, as well as the other two boys, were the only Gay boys, at least, that he knew of. Remember, these are eleven-, twelve-, and thirteen-year-olds!

Then he told me about his high school. He said he personally knew at least twenty other boys including the two he knew in middle school, and ten girls who were Gay, and he estimated that at probably a fifth of the students at his high school were Gay, or at least Bi-Sexual. He knew two Trans girls too! And while none flaunted their sexuality, they didn't hide it either. It wasn't uncommon seeing two boys or two girls walking down the hallway holding hands and kissing each other. He did encounter several students who came from "strong, Christian-principled families" who constantly confronted him and other Gay students. There was even a club at his school called "Christian students against the evil of Homosexuality". The school did try to shut the group down, but the parents of the students who started the group threatened to sue the school and school board, as their children had the right to form that group under the guise of freedom of speech/freedom of expression. (Isn't it so amazing that the biggest defenders of free speech are hate-filled right-winged, Christian conservative Homophobic bigots!) For the most part, everyone else was more than accepting. He said there were no issues with him and his boyfriend waling down the hall holding hands! You would think the students who formed that hate group would have clued in about acceptance and tolerance: they were alienated from almost the entire school.


As far as the book is concerned, I wouldn't be the least bit surprized if twelve-year-old's haven't got their hands on "This Book Is Gay" and are reading it!

Then again, they're just being themselves!

My name is Kenny, and I'm proud to say "I'm Gay!"