If you don't like Gay marriage, Don't have one

The Friendly Atheist just wrote a brilliant post on Gay Marriage, Religion and the U.S.A.
Well worth a quick look.

Homophobic Abuse In My Own Home

Tonight my partner and I suffered homophobic abuse in our own home. And I handled the whole thing so badly.

We live in an apartment block, renting a ground floor apartment in a block shared with 17 others. Recently the teenagers in our area have decided that hanging round in our carpark isn't cool enough, and through the use of slender wrists through the buildings letterbox manage to break in every evening and hold a gang meeting in our Hallway. They're kids mostly, kid's with nothing better to do than Invade our property to get out of the rain. And as it turns out, nothing better to do than shout abuse at my partner and I whenever we try to enter and exit our home.

It's not even like they're particularly creative. We've been called Batty boys, faggots, and been told that we 'like it up the shitter.' But it's abuse, pure and simple. I try to ignore it, but it annoys me, and it upsets Dan. These kids ve no right to be in my home and no right to make me or my partner afraid to walk out our own front door.

Tonight I exploded at them. I told them to get the fuck out of my house.

"If you're not gone in ten minutes I'll be reporting you for trespassing.
"It's not your house. And my mate lives here, he invited me in."
"Then go to your mates flat!" Dan said, to them. Surprisingly he seemed calmer than me. I was so angry. All I could think of was how much they'd annoyed me.
"Fine," I'm yelling at them now, "then I'll report you for Homophobic Abuse. Take your pick."
"Report us for what?" One of them said. He can't have been more than about 13.
I ignored them and turned to walk back to the flat. The kid started to follow me, panicking.
"What do you mean. What did we say?"
I walked into the flat, held the door open and turned to face them. They knew where I lived now. What the hell had I done? But then, the kid who followed me looked genuinely concerned. Maybe I'd scared them. I'd threatened to report him, he was trying to talk his way out of trouble. For a moment though, I wondered if he truly even understand what him and his friends had done to upset me.
"You were there!" I snap at him, "You know what you said." And I closed the door, fumbling to lock it in case they tried to get in.

10 minutes later I went to look again, and all of them had gone.

But here's the thing. I did it all wrong. They're Kids. Just Kids. Kids with nothing better to do than sit in places they have no right to be and hurl meaningless abuse. They can't possibly understand the hurt and the pain they caused or how much they scared Dan. Why couldn't I have told them that? Why couldn't I have tried to stay calm, reasonable, maybe even educate them a little. Why couldn't I at least have just ignored them, maybe that way they still wouldn't know where I live now...

I got it all wrong. I saw red and just shouted and yelled and gave them a reason to hate me. Now I don't know what I'll do next time I have to walk past them. Because they will be there again, at the very least they'll still be in the carpark next to my house. They're not just going to go away and now I've given them a reason to single me out and make things worse for me and Dan. Especially Dan. I'm so worried I've made things worse for him.

How can I fix this? Any advice would be welcome.

The Final Countdown to Love

It's literally the final countdown to the wedding now. I don't want to say this, because it sounds like an old Aunt or Uncle, pinching the cheek of their favourite Nephew and remarking 'My haven't you grown fast?' but it's come around so quickly.

It's been over a year since we got engaged, over a year since we first start looking at venues, and everything seemed like it was a such a long way away, they was so much time.

Now time's pretty much run out. In a few weeks it'll be all over, all the hard work, all the fights, all the months of planning and the continual colour scheme changes, and all the dieting and binge eating, and saving and worries will be over and done with, and we'll be sat in the Jacuzzi comitting it to memory and to a finacial debt that will last until we retire at the age of 90.

Love. Thank God I'll be over and done with it soon.

Sex on the Blog

I think about sex a lot.

As a homosexual, homophobic, red blooded mammal of the male variety, it comes naturally.

For example, if I converse with a man about, say, the weather, it's essential to put up a front, allowing them to see me either as a perfectly harmless straight bloke, or as gay as an Enid Blyton picnic, depending on what they find acceptable. (Generally, I choose the former; acting excessively camp makes me want to take myself outside and beat myself up as an example to others.) Woman, however, are less fussy about that kind of thing, and I can discuss the current meteorological situation with them without first having to check my belt buckle is facing the right way, or whatever daft system homosexuals are using to 'identify themselves' these days.

So it helps to be aware of sex. That way, I can avoid going up to the wrong one and mentioning Madonna.

As to the other kind of sex, I try not to think about it. It's said that men think about it all the time, but that's not true. We think about it at set times, once or maybe twice a day at the most. The rest of the time we're too busy deciding what channel to flip too during the ad breaks.

And I certainly don't write about it on this blog. This is probably to my downfall; sex sells, and he's a much better salesman than I am. Just having the word sex on this blog will increase my Google score tenfold, and if I include the words 'slut' and 'porn' (or 'Pr0n' or whatever the devil the kids call it these days) I'd have the top ranking site for months. But sex is taboo here. You see, my family read this blog and talking about sex in front my family would be like chatting about Chinese box kites to a Pro-Wrestler. It's just not the kind of thing that comes up in conversation.

In fact, the entirety of my sexual communication with my parents came, quite appropriately, during one of our traditional weekly bible studies, a tradition, which if my memory serves me, lasted for about 6 weeks. (Of course my memory has never served me once, not even so much as got me a beer from the fridge. But I digress...) We were reading one of those family friendly passages that mentions harlots and sodomy and other such wholesome things when, an ignorant child, I asked what a prostitute was.
My dad sighed.
"A prostitute,' he said, 'is someone who has sex for money.'
I nodded wisely. To my immature self, sex simply something enjoyable and extremely naughty, I couldn't think of a better job. It was fun, exciting and profitable. So naturally it was easy to see why God hated it.

My sister pushed a bit further.
'He doesn't know what sex is, does he?'

Now of course I knew what sex is. We had books in school which described the reproductive rituals of Daddy and Mummy robot in great detail. Sex, as far as I was aware, was a kind of horny metallic struggle.
Under pressure, and seeing a chance to embarrass my parents, I shook my head.
My dad turned peach. 'Surely you know what sex is?' I shook again causing him to increase several notches to Virgin red. My mum, realising that if this went much further my father would clash with the curtains, stepped in.
'Sex,' she said, 'is when mummy and daddy get together to make a baby,’
And with that, my dad turned back and carried on reading.

And that was that, the entirety of my sexual education. In a way now, I'm glad they didn’t teach me the ins and outs of reproductive sex. It would have been quite a waste of their time. And so I don't talk about sex on this blog. I wouldn't want to force my family into admitting I actually know about it....

But there's another reason sex is Taboo for the Freelance Cynic, one that I'll serve up for your lustful pleasure next week. It will take me at least that long to gain enough courage to talk about the filthy topic again anyway.

After all... I'm British.

Previous Posts

• Si-Kick - My Predictions for 2008
• Eeek-mail - Or how the internet almost got me fired
• Taking note - Or my Static Obsession

P.O.G

Generally speaking there are two types of POG (parents of gays) in the world.

Firstly, there are those who are wonderfully happy with their alternative offspring, tell all their friends about their child’s lover and hold pink parties twice a month. Secondly, there are those who cast their wayward children onto the street, write them out of their will, and burn effigies of them at their weekly Klu-Kluk-Klan meetings.

My parents however are disappointing. Being born again Christians they struggle to balance their godly tolerance with their own feelings, hopes and disappointments. As a result their responses taste like watered-down water.

In short, for a writer, they’re an infuriating lack of inspiration.

I told them about the engagement the other day. In fact, I actually made the effort to ring them up so they must have known something was wrong. And after talking about their Home Improvements and their Grandkids took a deep breath, stopped my knees from shaking and said, “Dan and I got Engaged.’

My mum went quiet for a moment, then said ‘congratulations.’ She no doubt wanted to start talking about the grandkids again, but I felt awkward and asked her to make dad ring me back when he could so I could tell him then hung up as fast as possible.

My dad said, 'oh right?' asked the details, then responded, 'well at least I know you’re with one guy rather than running around after all of them.'

For a moment I imagined myself in a Benny Hill video, chasing in fast motion after same hunky men who were, in turn, running away from me, over the hills into the distance.

Then he changed the subject and told me a joke about a plane crashing in an Irish cemetery.

Maybe they’re happy for me. I can’t really tell. I’m pretty sure they never thought the first kid to marry a man would be their youngest son, and it must be a shock to them to know that after 3 years I still haven’t grown out of this ‘gay phase.’

But like it or not, I do feel a little let down. It would have been so much more dramatic and sympathy inducing if they’d slammed the phone down on me, phoned their solicitor, and started sewing an effigy.

Previous Posts

• The interview
• Pre-marital Blitz
• Love-Drunk

Love Drunk

As with most of our relationship it was largely to do with alcohol.

I first met My Boyfriend in a gay club. I’d always assumed I’d never meet a partner in that kind of place, imagining instead I would meet them at a Philosophy Club, Writers Circle, Amateur Drama Company or some other thing that I have never actually been to. Instead, I met him in the club toilets, where, in impetuous, imprudent inebriation, he refused to let me use the Water Fountain unless I kissed him.

Then he gave me his e-mail address, got more wasted, and ended up going home with someone else. He doesn’t remember that night.

The next time was at a party. He was the designated driver, completely sober, quiet, shy, boring. He remembers that night, I’m not entirely sure I do.

A few weeks later I was upstairs in a straight club dancing with some friends when they said, “Hey, there’s this guy downstairs who’s so camp! You’d hate it!” Of course, it was him! He got me drunk, and we ended up at the corner of the dance floor making out, causing a girl to scream as she walked past us. I’m not sure either of us really remembers that night.

And on Saturday night, we were back in the Gay Club, not the same one where we first met, but they are all replicas of each other in someway. As our friend was chatted up by the one straight man in the club, we sat on the couch, drank and talked about marriage. We’ve discussed it many times before, what we would do, how we would do it. And amongst sips we confessed our love for the millionth time. He brought me a rose. We hugged, we kissed, we danced badly to pop music, And we promised each other we would be together forever.

And both of us remembered.

Sunday morning we lay in bed recovering, holding each other, talking, being together, the two of us caught in the glow of the night before.

He kissed me, then got out of bed and knelt down beside it, next to where I was lying. His eyes, which were still half asleep, looked down into mine. His hair had suffered from a drunken slumber, last night’s style caught in a tangle of weakening gel. The floor was covered in smoky clothes, the stale smell of alcohol on our breaths. And it was the most beautiful moment of my life.


Regular readers may have noticed two quirks with this blog. Firstly I have avoided posting anything like a picture of myself or My Boyfriend. Secondly I have always referred to My Boyfriend simply as My Boyfriend, preferring to hide him behind a witty pseudo name (note the Capital Letters) than share him with you.
Well today I’d like to share.

So on the left is me, Simon, The Freelance Cynic, in the flesh.

And on the right is Dan. My Fiancée.Lingering Love

• Gays at the Hotel
• Love's true nature
  

Moi 'otel

The Hotel my boyfriend and I stayed at last weekend was in Southwark (pronounced Suthfok rather than South-Wark as it obviously should be.)

Its website proudly declares that the staff speak “11 different languages,” which I imagined would add a touch of class.

However, It wasn’t till we went down for dinner that I discovered none of the languages were English.

“Table for two please.”
She looked at me, questioningly, counting in her head.
“But you are one no?”
I turned around to discover my boyfriend had wondered off to the reception desk, leaving me alone and stupid looking.
“No, I’m with him,” pointing vaguely in his direction.
“Ah, Your room Nuhmber?”
“318”
“And your Name?”
“Simon Hembra,’
“Simon ‘ampsell?”
“Hembra,’
“'ippo?”
“Hembra”
“'Ombre?”
“h..e..m…”
“a..o..n...”
“No! No, Hotel…Echo…Mike…”
“No-no ‘otel Novotel Southwark…”

Finally my boyfriend walked up to join us.

“And ‘is room nuhmber?’
“Oh it’s the same.’
“The same?”
“318”
“319?”
“3-1-8”
"You are in the same room?"

She eyed us suspiciously, memorising our faces so she could ignore us later.

“Follohw me please.”

And with a French two step she led us to a table suspiciously far away from the other ‘otel guests…

Funny really. I had no idea my last name was that offensive.

Recent Feature Length Rants
Conspiracy Theories
Spam E-mails
It's life -Gym

Shear Paradise

I have a Britney Spears relationship with my barber.

I experience culture shock every time I go; being raised to believe £10 was the right price for a haircut, paying £7 makes me feel wonderfully white trash. The walls are covered in cut-throat razors, newspaper clippings and family portraits; the barbers speak to each other in Arabic (or something), whilst making fun of the customers; and the main clientele have just stepped off the boat.

I seldom go there, partly because I hate spending money and partly because I’m desperately scared of the place. Each time I do however, I ask to have my hair cut short. And for some reason my barber always seems reluctant to do so.

I thought it was communication issues. Being beautifully Asian, with an accent stronger than the average Bristolian’s blood alcohol level, he no doubt considers my Thanet accent (imagine the Queen’s English as spoken by cockneys) as impenetrable as his own, and so neither of us are particularly sure what each other is saying, the same way that you may not be particularly sure of the meaning of this rambling sentence and have to read the whole thing again to get the point.

But he had other reasons for avoiding my shearing desires.

This time I carefully explained the concept of “an inch” to him to make sure he understood and reluctantly, after much questioning, he acquiesced.

I noticed his hands running through my hair, his cold, smooth palms pressing against my scalp. It was exotic. His reflection seemed more handsome than normal; I found myself enamoured to him. Then I realised. He was unintentionally giving me a head massage, his hands sending a heated thrill down my body.

I’m gay. I may lose some of my slower readers for being so blunt, but frankly I can do without them. I’m pretty straight acting (finding camp acting an outmoded theatrical style) but some things, like wearing Pinky and the Brain T-Shirts, may give away my natural tendencies, especially to straight men who, I assume, are on the look out for such things.

And having my head massaged by a tall, dark straight man – well - it felt good.

And that’s why my young masculine barber, whose straight as a Muslim and can spot gay from 50 paces, makes me keep my hair long – so I can’t feel his hands pressing against my scalp, don’t get a strange rush from it, and he doesn’t have to deal with a homosexual’s unwanted and unexpected sudden attraction to him.

That’s why he was reluctant to cut my hair short. That’s why it was so hard to make him do it. And that’s why I’ll be going there more regularly from now on.

At £7 a go it’s the cheapest happy ending I’ve ever had.

---

I seem to write about the Barbers quite a lot possibly because it's the only contact I have with straight males. Here's an old article on the woes of haircuts from the now archived Freelance Cynic Site

Some Previous Feature Lengths

• The re-fitting of the Lord of The Rings
• The all new Agoraphobia
• A declaration of love
• Things that go Bump in the late Evening
• Don't. Imagine. Your handy

Overheard in the Cynic Household - Part 2

I was lying in bed with my Boyfriend the other day (which is much more interesting than telling the truth in bed) when he broke into this song:

'You like cheese 'cos you're a mouse rolling on your ear on the floor!'

They may have been a story leading up to it, but nothing could sensibly explain him lying in bed, bobbing his head back and forth, and singing that illogical, irrelevant masterpiece over and over again.

Unless, of course, it was the inevitable effect of dating me for over three years...

Five minutes till Curtain Up

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

It’s harder than I imagined.

My web clock is reading 1 hour and 20 minutes and that’s in the space of one day, not including time checking e-mails or chatting on MSN, which must have counted for at least an extra hour, as people want to talk to me all of a sudden.

The hardest part though was actually unplugging the internet.

‘But I won’t be able to see who’s reading my blog.’
‘You can always check tomorrow,’ my brain said.
‘But I won’t be able to get my e-mail to see if anyone comments.’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I won’t be able to surf for new funny things to post.’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘If I get horny I won’t be able to search for por…’
‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll love ya tomorrow! You’re only a day away!’

I paused for a moment.
‘Why you singing show tunes?’
‘Because you’re gay,’ my brain said.
‘Oh. Ok…’

I’m running out of things to do. I’ve already read Stephen King's Dolores Claiborne and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory including all the special features. I’ve even, God help me, watched My Boyfriend playing Fuzion Frenzy 2 on the x-box.

And I have at least 6 days of this left to go.

If I haven’t murdered my brain by the end of this week, it will only be because he’s a good singer.

Review of week 1 - Talk

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

Lessons learned this week.

• The only way to be confident is to be confident
• The only way to change is to be start making changes.
• And the only thing stopping me is a fear of making mistakes
  

Also

• My colleagues and I fear drunken louts.
• One way to change depressive thoughts is positive mental reinforcement and chocolate
• And a good way to hold a meaningful conversation is to talk to a gay man.
  

More importantly, I learnt the one person I can always talk to is my boyfriend, even if he doesn’t always understand what I’m saying. One hour of ranting and pouring my heart out to him and the world seems that little bit brighter again. It’s like Prozac, which is possibly what he takes after listening to me.

It’s been harder than I thought to face parts of me I don’t like, harder still to start changing them, and even harder than that to make it funny enough for this blog.

But, the first step has been a success. I made a new friend, I’m more comfortable talking to my work colleagues, I got a sale and I found refuge and a whole new kind of love and acceptance in the arms of my man.

And best of all, I found that challenging myself can be fun. Even if it does make for incredibly dull reading.

Part 1 - Talk

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
   
7. Spoil Myself

There are many confusing steps on the Becoming Me list, mostly because I invented it during a boring sales call. I imagine however, that none will confuse those who think they know me more than the first – Talk.

Talking has never been easy for me.
I have a stutter, a small lisp and talk faster than bad news. Generally I write
instead. Writing can be edited and it is easier to appear witty when you’ve rewritten your punch lines.

But in Reading, I was a loud annoying bastard. Overconfident in my importance, I forced my way into conversations, dominated discussions and generally pissed people off. It’s a gift I’ve always had, or did at least, hiding my verbal insecurities by talking loudly enough to sound important. It’s a common trick used by many, most notably George Bush.

All that changed when I met my boyfriend. It became less important to impress people, because hey, I was getting laid! I would spend evenings in a corner talking to him or eating his face. Love was overpowering. I didn’t need anyone, and they’d still be there if I did, possibly with a sharp stick to prod some sense into me.

Overtime I learnt to shut up. It was, although those with teenage children may not believe it, a remarkably easy lesson. I wasn’t special, just one of a couple, the Corbett to his Barker. And I moved to Bristol unable to lead a conversation, function as a single unit or repair the stubble rash on my chin.

In a social society, communication is important for survival and happiness, as well as a good way of getting arrested. If I want to be part of the world again I will have to start acting like it.

Hence my first weeks aim to start talking again –in four stages.

1. To myself
2. To my friends
3. To my Co-workers
4. To new people.

During the next 6 days the blog will be updated with (hopefully) short entries detailing how my various talking adventures are going.

I hope, if nothing else, they will make your laugh at me, although always politely.

And now for something Completely Different..

Before this blog goes any further, let me make something clear. I love my boyfriend.
I do not say it enough. When I do it sounds silly, babyish or just orgasmic. And I certainly don't write it enough, partly because I imagine most of my visitors would cease reading if each of my entries made them violently sick.

But I do love him, and I want to make you understand that. I would write an epic love poem exclaiming my love, but knowing him he would stare at it for a while then roll over and go back to sleep. And so instead I will just say it here one more time. I love him. I love him. I love him.
And a large proportion of the time I want him dead.

Now those of you already tied into long term relationships, like a submissive into a sling, you know this feeling already, but some of the single, care-free readers I jealously admire may find it harder to understand and get confused when, as is bound to happen, I rant about how much he annoys me and then run into the front room with him to watch the Saturday night takeaway.

At no point did I decide to spend my life with someone else. It is a remarkable choice, which invariably affects my life and this blog. And as bitter things are funnier to write about than sweet ones it may seem, most of the time, that I would rather live in a small beach hut on a clump of rock orbiting the moon, than live with my man.

This is the problem with themed blogs. If I could be bothered to write a diary like blog of my boring little life that would get maybe 2 visitors a year, they would see a much more balanced view. But I am selfish. And I want viewers. And I also want money, but that seems to be a little harder to get.

And so I say it again in pre-penitence. I love my boyfriend.
He is annoying, possessive, impulsive, obsessive, and I hate him.
And he is loving, funny, caring, giving, damn sexy and I love him, more than anything, ever, in the history of the world, the universe and everything- with the possible exception of this blog.

So next time I am knocking him down, slating him off or just bitching about his music taste, remember that after I click publish I still go and hug him whilst watching trash TV.

Because that, after all, is what lovers do.
Together, forever - or at least until the ad breaks.

Are We Gay?

If only every gay guy could discover their sexuality this way, the world would be a much more interesting place

"We're gay? Should we light some scented candles?"

If you can't see the Video, click here.

Cheers to B for this. I'll write something decent tomorrow!!!