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PERSONAL PRESS |
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Story One |
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Marcus 1984 |
Marcus is 42 and lives in Melbourne, Australia.
I
have no photographs of myself before the age of 17. My father used to
beat up my mother and I used to get caught in the middle. I was sent
packing to boarding school at age 12 and there I began to have bouts
of depression because I was ostracised at school when the other boys
found out I was a poofter (I got an erection 'mucking around' with other
boys). I didn't even know what the word poofter meant.
I swept all that sexuality thing under the carpet until I was 17. I
left home after my parents divorced and was attending music college
in London when I 'came out'. I remember the first time that I ever went
to a gay club was in Luton, Bedfordshire, in England. It was called
The Pan Club. We walked up to this heavy, thick black metal door with
a grill placed high in it. The grill slid back and a pair of mascara-encrusted
eyes inspected our group before allowing us inside. There I encountered
my first exposure to the phenomenon of
"the look" that gay men know so well - the scanning eyes weighing you
in the balance: fresh meat!
I had a nervous breakdown because of college, family and sexuality when I was 18. I spent six months in bed just lying there. A year later my father found out that I was gay and we had this meeting in a lay-by at dusk. He drove up in his car and I drove up in mine. It was like a scene out of Casablanca. He said that I could come and see him if I didn't bring any poofter friends of mine. I haven't seen him from that day to this. It took me a long time to get over the rejection but I did.
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My car the last time I saw my father
I think that when I started to feel more comfortable with my sexuality this helped me accept who I was as an individual and that I was going to lead my life the way I wanted too. When I was 21 I left college and gave up what I had been studying. When I was 21 I was raped by this guy continuing to fuck me after I had asked him too stop. He said that I should "take it like a man."
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December 1988 |
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January 1990 |
I used to suffer from terrible bouts of depression. My self-esteem was low. I was always so thin, so scrawny and could never put on any weight. I always thought of myself as unattractive when I looked in the mirror. It got me very depressed when I looked at other men's bodies, all buffed and polished, in the gay press and the porno videos, out at the parties and the clubs. I wanted to be like them! I wanted to be big and powerful. But it was physically impossible. I went to the gym and put on some weight which improved my self-esteem and my fitness a bit but I could never really be who I would have liked to have been, in relation to my body image. I even took a course of steroids at the gym to try and get bigger.
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March 1991 |
I rejected the feminine side of myself as many gay men do, thinking it not 'manly' enough. I'd always been into the working-class look, that gay 'fantasy' of a straight 'lad', and adopted the gay skin 'look' as a tuff image. I started to get tattoos all based on the alchemy of the 5 elements.
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John Kernaghan. |
Eventually I realised how I was running after my own 'ideal' but even now I still like this fantasy image as an 'ideal', one among many. I don't think there's anything wrong with that now because I recognise the underlying reasons behind my desire for this image. The need for security, love, intimacy and masculinity among others. Of course I lusted after those muscular bodies but I never had anal sex without a condom with someone who had that kind of body. It just was just something I didn't think about doing, probably because a lot of my friends at the time had contracted the HIV/AIDS virus.
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c.1993 |
Gradually the 'ideal' became less important to me. I learnt to value myself as different, individual and desirable because of it. I learnt to appreciate this in others. The muscular bodies, the thin bodies, the Asian bodies, the broken noses, the bow-legs, the intelligence, the humour and the love. I accepted their good energies as well as my own. I started to rediscover my feminine side and found that it helped lift my spirits. I became creative again. I studied Zen and reiki and had some amazing out of body experiences. I had some tribal scarification (body modification) performed on me. Feeling no pain by putting my mind onto a different level of consciousness separate from my body, I experienced a metaphysical and spiritual journey when having the scarification done.
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January 1993 |
Now I wear my techno clothes one day, my punk clothes another, a suit or a skinhead look and feel comfortable in all. Talking to people and reading a lot of books about life really helped me sort things out. I still have the same body but depression over a host of things - family, not having a sense of what I'm supposed to be doing on this planet, body image, sex, self-esteem - now seems to be on a more even keel.
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February 1994 |
I've found there are no quick solutions. I believe that actually doing things that you like, things that make you happy, are really important in improving your self-esteem. It's not just in the outcome, its also in the process of enjoying yourself when you do something, whether it be cooking, working, or making love! Being 'happy' is a state that lasts only a few seconds but being in a state of 'happiness' can last a much longer time. I also began to understand how gay men can become trapped by stereotypes and 'lifestyles'. I wondered how other gay men interacted with the stereotype of the white, hairless, muscular body, the epitome of what a gay man should look like, and how this image affected their self-esteem and safe sex practices.
What would gay men do to have sex with their body image 'ideal'?
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