The Day I Decided to Stop Being Straight

Originally Published in the UK Times Online

A minor incident in a barber’s shop last week has helped me to realize that I may no longer be straight. Not a fully fledged straight guy, anyway; perhaps not even a part-timer who helps the team out when it’s busy. It appears I may be going Gay.

I was waiting my turn for a chatty Latvian to apply the hot towels and razor when a handsome young dad entered with a small, fair-haired boy at his side. The man took a seat and hoisted the wide-eyed child proudly on to his knee. The first haircut, I speculated inwardly, as a lack of fatherly glow and feeling of mild disinterest swept over me.

From time to time, the dad leaned forward as they waited and whispered close to his son’s ear, tenderly kissing his fair head. Touching stuff if you’re into that sort of thing, I imagine.

Still, I think my life changed at that moment. I learned that I totally don't want children. Plus, I so totally wanted to do the Father.

That’s reality, folks. Simple really. A proud dad, an adored little boy and a beautiful display of dependence and responsibility. It was the epiphany I had needed and I emerged with a dashing new haircut and a desire to plow the Dad into next week.

Straight guys have children these days, of course they do, and not always to just have someone to take to ballgame or do chores or by accident when they are teens. Some straight couples adopt; others follow simple paths to biological parenthood, quite inexpensively, with the involvement of a woman. It is, really, a sort of snook to the system of nature. It’s just too easy. Anyone can do it. It’s just not for me.

And lately I have, almost imperceptibly, been working to avoid fatherhood the old-fashioned way – by not having sex with my wife. And I have been flirting with someone at my local pub, thinking about him at odd times, making excuses to call him and wondering if he likes me. It’s rather strange.

This will come as a shock to — among others — my female partner of 10 years, straight pals from my former media career, my rabidly homosexual chums in the blogging industry and, not least, my family (who thought they were in the clear with me). Well, it’s come as a shock to me, too.

My sexuality was formed behind in the back seats of cars and in school dormitories, a most unimaginatively clichéd pattern of pubescent fumbling that was completely accepted by society. This propelled me into a lifestyle, reinforced by a social milieu of flamboyant media heterosexuals. In the mainstream media, where I worked for seven years, heterosexuality was very nearly compulsory.

At these tidings, my sceptical buddies will splutter, “You what?! Mr. Wolfrum, panty-chaser extraordinaire, has decided he’s now dancing at the other end of the ballroom? Pur-leeeeeeeze!” They have seen little evidence of an interest in the same sex during my adult life, nor asked why. And that’s the clincher.

If there had been an interest, it became eclipsed by other more instant, carnal and deliciously taboo temptations of having sexual relations with women, so it never gained light to grow. For 20 years, my life took the usual track, and I was never beaten or called names for my straightness.

So I will have to face down a tidal wave of doubt as I’m coming out in public. People will look at me strangely now — though I doubt they’ll mutter, “Well, of course, we always wondered. After all, he is interested in Project Runway and shoes.”

Some will dismiss it as heresy. I have long argued that heterosexuality is natural but abnormal, to a torrent of hostility from straight friends who refuse to acknowledge that what you are and what stake you hold in society are not the same.

Loving the opposite sex occurs in nature, without artificial triggers. But it is still not average behaviour. Heterosexuality is an aberration; a natural aberration. But Straights are a majority and majorities, though sometimes vocal, always get their way.

I will spare you tales of exploits in the gloaming world of fast straight encounters. You would simply not believe what I have seen and done. You would not want to know.

But still, I wince when hets describe girlfriends as “wives”, making marriage seem like a really special thing and forgetting that there are already 7 billion people on the planet and no one rightly cares whether they procreate or not.

So, for the first time in my life, I’ve been getting to know guys. It’s been a blast. As a blogger, I find them naturally adept at writing blog posts. They listen and they are good at multi-tasking. They are fun to be around and sometimes they’re pretty.

Does this mean that I no longer like women? No, of course not, and I won’t pretend. But based on societal norms, it’s best for me if I just bury those desires and live life as a Gay male.

Will I be a good Gay Male? I hope so. Would I keep faith? Well, I would try. The same siren voices to stray call to all men, all the time. I would be no different.

But anything is possible. With the right kind of understanding guy, who loves me and possesses pragmatism and patience, I can picture myself as a good Gay Male.

There was symmetry in rediscovering myself last week in a barber shop in the village of my childhood, the place of my innocence, before life’s twisting turns. It was a moment when I realized that words were far more important than actions or feelings. Now, I am free to say that I'm a Gay Male, even if all the evidence points to the opposite. But it's a choice I choose to make. As is my decision to throw all other straight men under the bus.

Being straight – while my natural preference – just doesn’t seem right any longer. Better to go with the cultural wave and be gay. Starting with that hot guy from the barbershop.

–WKW