The Truth About Fantasy

Time: 21:58
Location: The Sticks

When I was still in high school (aka when I was still WAY behind enemy lines), I would indulge my sexual appetite by playing out certain scenarios in my head. The boys of my high school would be repulsed, no doubt, to discover that they ALL a part of my twisted world where every boy was gay and indulged in sexual activites of varying degrees of homosexuality for my sheer amusement and pleasure. When I say all, I mean all: two grades above me and two grades below me. Keep in mind that there were less than a 100 people in my high school; that's the entire high school. The football jocks received their just desserts for any indiscretion towards me by playing out my tiniest fantasy. At the time, it wasn't about a sense of revenge. It was about survival.

Why are so many gay men creative? Is it some genetic, inherent trait, or do we, as a community, share this bond because of a share experience. Most, if not all, spend some portion of their life in the closet. I know of no one who popped out of the uterus belting out verses from Cher, but correct me if I'm wrong. Spending that time as a spy in the RoH taught me a valuable thing about my imagination: I needed it. There was no one sympathetic to Queeria's causes. No other gay boy to experiment with. Experimentation didn't come until college. To this day, I've only been out on two dates. I've never had a boyfriend. Why is this litany of woe important? It explains why I needed my imagination, my fantasies. It was the only way to express myself, even if it was only to myself. It was survival.

You read or hear stories about war veterans who were prisonsers of war, how they did what they had to in order to survive. They usually don't like to talk about it and are quick to change the subject unless pressed by a reporter or the blank page of a manuscript. You do what you have to do. I feel, in some small part, the same. And while I did what I had to do, I still retain a certain sense of embarassment and shame that I used the boys I knew the way I did. They may not realize it, but they led double lives. The life they lived in school and on the field and with friends and family, and the life that went on inside my head. Was I doing that on purpose? Bringing them to my "level", as it were? I don't think so...that sounds a little too Freudian to me, and if Ashley has taught me anything, it's that no psychologist takes much credit with Freud anymore.

I wonder, though. Did my exercises in imagination prove fruitful? Did I ever really hurt anyone? And, most importantly, didn't I deserve a little catharsis? The citizens of the Republic, especially those of the Male Party, may find no justice in my actions. But I think my fellows in Queeria would. I think, just maybe, it's a bond we share...maybe not the in depth sexual fantasies, but the use of our imaginations to survive for as long as we did amidst the enemy with no one to comfot us but ourselves.