Holding the Man

by Timothy Conigrave

  ‘Have you done it?’ I asked him.

  Woody broke into a big grin. ‘Many times. I think it’s important. Men being intimate or being penetrated challenges the patriarchy.’ I pretended I knew what he meant.

  I lowered my voice. ‘John screwed me for the first time last night and I found it painful. It would hardly go in and it felt like I needed a shit.’

  ‘It takes practice, my friend. You’ve just got to try to relax. I get my lover to chew on my earlobe. It distracts me and before I know it, he’s in.’

  ‘Thanks. Oh, one other thing.’ I lowered my voice further. I was finding this one harder. ‘My bum wouldn’t close and the come kept dribbling out for about half an hour.’

  ‘Your sphincter was probably in shock. It’ll get used to it with practice. It’s worth it, because when it works it’s mind-blowing.’

  It saddened me to have John’s and my lovemaking reduced to dick-in-the-bum mechanics, to fucking. But the power of peer pressure meant that I wouldn’t use the old term for some time.

  The same six or eight people were turning up to Gaysoc meetings each week. I thought they were great, but they were older than me and I wanted to meet some people my own age. Where were they?

  ‘Think about it,’ I addressed the meeting. ‘There are eighteen thousand kids on campus, and if we believe the statistic of one in ten that means nearly two thousand gay guys and girls.’ I felt audacious and confident. ‘So where are they?’

  ‘Library toilets,’ Lee joked.

  Woody chipped in. ‘It’s too confronting for them to come to a group like this.’

  ‘Why don’t we set up a gayline where they can speak to one of us anonymously? I spoke to the woman in student counselling. She’s happy for us to use her phone for one hour three days a week if we attend some training sessions.’

  At that moment, two good-looking boys stuck their heads around the door, disappeared from view and then entered the room. They sat together across from me. It was hard not to stare. Imagining that these beautiful boys were gay gave me a pang like unrequited love. Before the meeting ended, they slipped out as quietly as they’d slipped in. They’re the kind of people I’m talking about.

  ‘Probably a couple of straight boys on a dare,’ Woody said as we sat over milkshakes in the caf.

  ‘We could at least have introduced ourselves. It was almost as if they weren’t there.’

  ‘Except for your jaw on the table and the dribble,’ Lee joked.

  ‘Would you care so much if they hadn’t been so good-looking?’ a woman called Rose challenged me, watching for my reaction. She’s probably right. ‘Or if they’d been lesbian?’

  I put on my best Queen Victoria voice. ‘Surely that’s not possible.’ There was a deathly hush over the group. Rose grabbed the table and tipped it and all the milkshakes over me. I was shocked. ‘What’s the matter!’

  ‘Work it out.’ Rose stormed off. The three of us sat dripping milk. I set the table back on its feet. ‘I don’t understand what I did wrong.’

  Woody put his hand on my arm. ‘Rose’s big beef is lesbian invisibility. Your comment only confirms it.’ How am I going to face her again?

  Next day I saw her in the open area of the union building. She was writing, her legs drawn up to her chest. I was nervous but there was no table to throw at me. I quietly said her name. She looked up at me.

  ‘I’m sorry I upset you yesterday.’

  ‘I’m sorry about making such a scene.’

  ‘Woody told me you’re angry about lesbians being invisible.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s much more than that. It’s all the men in the group, the language they use, the way they talk over women.’

  ‘Why don’t you do a session on it?’

  ‘Women are sick of being responsible for educating men. It’s your turn to educate yourselves. Go and read a book. Now, if you’ll excuse me I want to finish my letter.’

  I walked away feeling helpless. I don’t enjoy upsetting people. Later that day I ran into Woody in the community research centre, where he was cutting out letters for an anti-uranium banner. He pulled a stool over and sat me down. ‘Rose has had a very bad time of being gay. When she told her parents, her father asked if she was telling him she wanted to be a man. He had her committed. Her girlfriend helped her escape. When she went back home to collect her things her father had burnt everything.’

  ‘That’s outrageous. Poor Rose. It’s amazing that she isn’t fucked up more.’ I wanted to put my arms around her but I suspected this was not the right moment.

  The student counselling room was a small office with large cushions on the floor. Woody and I lay on them waiting for the telephone to ring. The lack of response was disappointing.

  ‘It’s a new thing. It might take some time before people get the courage up.’ Woody stretched. He turned to me and smiled. ‘Can I have a hug?’ He rolled on top of me. He was a big guy, much bigger than John.

  ‘Woody, you’re crushing me!’

  ‘Sorry.’ He rolled off to one side and stayed there with his arm over me. It was nice to be cuddled by a big bear. I felt protected from the outside world. He nuzzled my neck. ‘You smell nice.’ Then he started kissing me and I flew into a panic. He wants more than a cuddle. He’s nice but I don’t find him attractive. I sat up. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘You said a hug. I’m in a relationship. And so are you.’

  ‘We’re not monogamous.’

  ‘But that’s what a relationship is. Isn’t that what everyone wants?’

  ‘I don’t believe all my needs are satisfied by one person. My lover Peter likes to play tennis and I don’t, so he plays with other people. Why can’t sex be like that?’

  This started me thinking. Sex with John is pretty good but it’s becoming a bit routine. There’re only so many ways to skin a cat. But John would be hurt if I told him my needs aren’t being met.

  I stood in the stream of marchers trying to read the various banners: Victorian Teachers Union, Christian Students Alliance. But no Gaysoc. It was extraordinary to be among all that energy, the air charged with purpose.

  We marched down Collins Street. It was eerie to walk down a major city street and hear no cars or trams. ‘Keep uranium in the ground. What do we want? No uranium. When do we want it? Now!’ The chants bounced off the glass towers along with the whistling and playing of guitars. I was marching alone but feeling strong, like part of a tidal wave about to crash down and change the landscape forever. I wondered if this was what the Vietnam demonstrations were like.

  ‘Hey! You with the nice bum!’ I turned to see Woody holding a banner that said, ‘Uranium – not a good look. Monash Gaysoc.’ I jumped all over him. Both Woody and the boy at the other end of the banner were wearing red bandannas. He’s very cute. Mediterranean-looking. Why haven’t I seen him at Gaysoc? Woody introduced his lover Peter Craig, who asked me to take his end of the banner. The photo on the front page could be me holding a Gaysoc banner. But I wanted the other marchers to see a proud gay person and so I took it.

  Every elevated place had a photographer on it. Press, students documenting the march, and probably ASIO. I might have a file by now.

  When the march reached the main intersection we were asked by a marshal to sit down. Cars were already banked up, honking their horns. An irate taxi driver jumped out and started abusing us. We were powerful but I don’t think we were making many friends.

  After the march Woody, Peter and I went to a greasy spoon in Swanston Street. A volleyball nut as well as a tennis player, Peter was into all sports.

  ‘Like my lover John.’

  ‘He didn’t come to the march?’

  ‘It’s not really his bag.’

  I liked Peter. ‘Hope I see you round,’ I added as we said our goodbyes. I wanted to make a time and place then and there, but was afraid of appearing pushy.

  John and I went to the fourth National Homosexual Conference at the Universal Workshop. As we cl
imbed the stairs, he took my hand and we walked into the foyer holding hands. I felt proud and secure, as though I was wrapped up in a blanket.

  The atmosphere was abuzz with anticipation. Smiling people greeted each other with kisses and hugs. I love seeing men kissing men and women kissing women. We were given name badges and the conference program, which included workshops on gay teachers and students, and growing old with dignity.

  I spotted Woody. When I asked if Peter was with him, he told me they had just broken up. He didn’t want to say any more. John and I went off to the first workshop: Get Your Filthy Laws Off My Body.

  At lunch a young guy with curly hair came over to us. ‘A group of young gays want to set up our own group, because there’s nothing in the program dealing with our issues. We’re meeting next Saturday at the graduate lounge at Melbourne Uni.’

  At the final plenary session, a confident young woman named Alison took the microphone and addressed the conference. ‘We the newly formed Young Gays are disappointed by the lack of workshops dealing with our issues. Being young and gay in 1979 is probably easier than when you were coming out, but things are still difficult. Kids still get hassled at school, some attempt to take their own lives. Your attitude that we should have to deal with it because you did is patronising, and not very community-spirited. Being young and gay is political. It forces people to confront adolescent sexuality. I hope our group can be strident enough to challenge the old theories about recruitment of the young.’ Her motion of support for Young Gays was carried. Young Gays looked like being a formidable part of the gay community.

  The group began to meet on Saturday afternoons at the Universal Workshop. At the inaugural meeting the people running the group were confident, political and vocal, and there was a sense that anything could be achieved.

  The next few meetings were spent trying to work out the structure. Collective? Committee? We decided it should be democratic, with a rotating chair. There were house rules, like confidentiality and one person talking at a time. This group found both very hard.

  A letterhead was designed, two smiling stick-figures holding hands, and ‘Young Gays’ in a child’s handwriting. The group then decided to write to school counsellors to let them know how to get in touch with us.

  As word got around, the group soon swelled to forty people. There were so many good-looking boys I fell in love at every meeting, at a picnic near the floral clock, a day of beach volleyball. Kids have ever-changing best friends; I had ever-changing boyfriends, whom I flirted with and who appeared in my masturbation fantasies. Often when John and I were having sex, my eyes would close and I would be having sex with the beautiful Eurasian boy, or the guy in the singlet.

  I wanted to share all this with John but felt I couldn’t. Occasionally he would ask if I thought so-and-so was cute. Guilt would wash over me and I would deny it.

  John and I were on our way to a cottage at Warburton that belonged to a friend of my parents. I’d asked Mum and Dad if I could take a couple of friends up there. I didn’t tell them it would be fifteen to twenty young gays.

  There was an infectious feeling of expectation as we explored the surroundings, made cups of coffee, fought over sleeping arrangements and flirted madly. Some people had brought tents and set them up outside.

  After dinner the group decided to go into town to the pub. We found a corner near the fire, dragged a circle of chairs together and plonked ourselves down. I was aware that people were watching us. Perhaps it’s the earrings and groovy haircuts. I guess they don’t see boys with earrings much around these parts.

  After a few drinks the group became openly affectionate, sitting on knees, holding hands and kissing. It seemed that lots of the gang were pairing up for a night of doing the wild thing.

  A guy at the bar whose yellow T-shirt stretched over a beer belly walked over to Alison. ‘Do you know your friends are poofters? Don’t you think it’s disgusting?’

  ‘I’m a dyke, you deadshit.’

  He shoved her, she fell to the ground and he started kicking her. Alan and another guy from our group went to help her, but were swamped by men with moustaches and beerguts swinging punches. The wives stood on the sidelines trying to call them off.

  Someone came over to John and asked him, ‘Are you a poofter?’

  ‘I don’t want to fight you.’

  ‘I asked you a question.’

  ‘I heard you.’

  ‘Fucken smartarse poofter.’ He swung at John, connecting with his jaw. It made no noise, no whack like in the movies. I laughed out of shock, before it dawned on me what had happened. We got out as fast as we could.

  ‘Should we go to the police?’ someone asked.

  ‘They’re not going to be interested in a bunch of poofters and dykes.’

  Alan’s forehead was bleeding. He needed stitches. The nearest hospital was back towards the city, in Box Hill. Alison bundled him into her car. It was two o’clock in the morning before our war hero returned. He’d had to be observed for four hours. He held up a pamphlet, ‘After a Head Injury’. ‘If I start acting strangely you have to take me back.’

  ‘Darling, you always act strangely,’ one of the boys joked. Alan got lots of stroking. The incident at the pub had bonded us stronger than anything.

  John and I lay awake for some time, our ankles crossed over each other, talking about what had happened, and what would have happened if one of us had been seriously injured. I was still very angry and running through scenes of what I wished I’d said. ‘We should go back tomorrow night and trash the place.’

  ‘It’s not the owner’s fault.’ We were safe, snuggled up on a very soft double bed as we drifted off to sleep, John’s arms around me.

  John had gone to a meeting with other student organisations to work out how to set up a gay group at his own college, and had met Peter Craig. ‘Amazing to meet a gay guy who’s into sport. We’re going to play tennis tomorrow at Clifton Hill.’

  Peter and John played while I sat in the umpire’s seat watching the two young Mediterraneans thrashing it out, their sinewy bodies working hard in the sun.

  We went back to Peter’s place in Fitzroy to have a cold drink. While John and Peter were making up lemon barleys, I picked up the Advocate from the coffee table. On the third page a headline asked, ‘Is There a Gay Cancer?’ Gay cancer? What does that mean? Cancer that only sleeps with cancer? ‘Doctors with large gay practices in San Francisco and New York are reporting the appearance of a cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma, previously seen in older Mediterranean and Jewish men but never in young men,’ I read. It doesn’t make sense. Cancer is not contagious. I showed John the gay cancer story. The three of us wondered where it came from and how it could be spreading. We hoped to God that none of us got it.

  The night before Melbourne Cup Day there was a party thrown by the Gay Community News people. John was studying for an anatomy exam later that week, so Peter and I went together.

  When I called for him he came to the door in a towel, his sinewy body still glistening from the shower. A seriously sexy man. Eventually he emerged in blue satin running shorts and a blue and white striped singlet. ‘It’s Cup Eve. I thought I’d dress in my racing silks.’ I felt daggy next to him. He offered to dress me the same way. There was something very sexy about wearing the clothes of a man I found so attractive.

  Dressed alike we attracted a lot of attention at the party. One man even referred to Peter as my boyfriend. Late in the night, Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall was playing. We weren’t dancing but sort of moving to the music, watching the other people in the room bathed in red light. The combination of dope and alcohol made me feel brave. Giggly. Sexy. ‘Rock With You’ came on. I put my arms around Peter’s waist and started rocking with him. I could smell him, a musty man-smell mixed with shampoo. I started kissing his neck.

  Peter tried to push me away. But I was aroused and pressed my hard-on against him. Maybe he’s embarrassed to be doing this in public? ‘Can we go back to your pla
ce?’

  ‘Sure, but not for sex,’ Peter warned. ‘I couldn’t do it to John.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to know.’

  ‘I wouldn’t feel right about it.’ Peter walked away. It was the first time I’d tried to initiate something, and it was my first rejection. The worst part was trying to pretend that nothing had happened.

  Chapter SIX

  Adventure and Separation

  A few months later, early in the summer of 1980, I had moved out of home, and was lying in my flat in St Kilda looking at the palm tree outside my window. I was feeling so jealous of my friends’ exploits: picking up someone at the Screech Beach changing-sheds, starting a romance with someone in a sauna, or going home with the spunk of the party. These were things I would like to try. I was nearly twenty-two, and compared to my friends’ my sexual experience was limited. It had been mainly John, and although it had been mostly good it hadn’t been very adventurous. And John needed the experience as much as me, I rationalised. I was the only person he’d had sex with. He might learn some tricks and techniques that would reignite our sex life. But how would I feel if I heard that he’d had sex with someone? I really didn’t know. And how would I bring this up with him? Maybe he was feeling the same things, but I suspected not. I didn’t want to hurt him.

  John and I went to see Nine to Five and had coffee in a city café. I was preparing to drop the bomb. I wonder if dropping the whole thing would be easier? ‘How would you feel if we were to open our relationship?’

  His forehead creased. ‘You mean have sex outside the relationship? Who with?’ I said no one in particular. He stared at the table and his breath was rapid. ‘I don’t understand why you would want to.’

  Fuck, I didn’t think he’d be this upset. ‘You know I love you?’ He didn’t say anything. ‘But I’m worried that we’re missing out on what people our age are supposed to be experiencing. I feel sexually inexperienced. Don’t you feel that? You’ve only ever had sex with me.’

  ‘I don’t want to have sex with other people.’