By Jack Cooper
/ Nonfiction /
…I learned that there was something shameful about loving boys, especially since I was a boy. I didn’t understand my unsavory attachment to other boys. It represented everything my childhood asked me not to be. I was clueless about those unnamable feelings that had taken hold of me.
At the time, I didn’t know my inclinations provoked such distaste. I had not yet become aware of the social and religious norms that indicated something weak or unhealthy about my feelings. What sort of boy craves affection from other boys? What boy could be so soft and sensitive? Such a creepy passion wasn’t normal. It went beyond sinful. If having a passion for other boys was emblematic of depravity, what would others have thought about my affection and desire for another boy?
I was raised among Italians, all deeply Catholic. In the 1960s and 70s, America was still a Puritan country when it came to same-sex affection. Everything in a boy’s education focused on making him manly. The official culture of my youth was Boy Scouting, team sports, and religious instruction. Street culture provided schoolyard fights, bullying, and neighborhood gangs. There was no escaping manhood, responsible or otherwise, without persecution and disgrace. I was an innocent bystander caught up in a society that dictated my young life's who, what, and when.
I realized that I was different from the other boys. I was a boy who wanted to be with other boys. I had no interest in sports. I avoided group activities. In my working-class neighborhood, boy culture was rough and tumble and hierarchical. Most of the misbehavior was mindless anarchy. I never picked a fight but fought back ferociously when pushed around. I didn’t need to win to demonstrate that I could be like them in appearance.
I was moved and motivated by things different from those of my peers. Other kids seemed not to notice the things that moved me deeply. When I saw a boy that attracted me, it would leave me breathless. It gave me more than simple pleasure. I felt the sense of my existence enlarge in unaccountable ways. I wanted to stay in the enchantment. I hungered for more.
I preferred these sensory and sensual phantasms to the everyday reality of my school and neighborhood life, and I was learning that it was so shameful it needed to be hidden. I couldn’t put my desires into words back then, but I felt them keenly. My fantasies were not just escapist pastimes. They were abnormal passions. I was a mutant, a monster with a freakish vulnerability for other boys. Years later, I found a name for my debilitation - gay.
The exquisite pleasures my affections gave me were the first stirrings of sexual desire, but it was less specific and had no easy outlet. My desires were desperate yet enigmatic. I could not explain what I burned for, except that I wanted it more than anything. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
While the other boys watched Carl Yastrzemski and Hank Aaron play ball, I watched the other boys. Same-sex attractions gave me bewildering pleasure. It would take me out of myself and into the animating presence of something I craved but did not understand. Comprehension had nothing to do with it. What mattered was being in its presence. Real life seemed small and minor in comparison.
I wasn’t seeking knowledge or wisdom. I wasn’t even seeking pleasure. I wanted to surrender to an ecstasy beyond my control and understanding. Same-sex attractions left me no wiser, just happier. They took me out of my ordinary self. Yet the emotional intensity gave it a visceral credibility. I struggled to describe something invisible, intangible, and unknowable.
I wanted to share my feelings but knew it would be a mistake. It was best to hide my passions. Why add weak and weird to who I was? Many children lead secret lives. Mine was more unusual than most. In public, I was an excellent student, a loner, and terrible at sports. It was not a glamorous identity, but it was a manageable one. In private, I was a pleasure-lover who lived in his imagination, fired by same-sex mysteries. I was never bored by solitude. I was preoccupied with things I believed no one else was.
It made everyday living more difficult. I didn’t understand the attraction to boys. However, I recognized that I could not cultivate this vulnerability. It needed to be suppressed. There was no one to ask for advice. I could only wait and watch. Neither I nor the world was likely to change. I formed strong opinions based on scant experience. I would find a way to lead two lives. Eventually, I hoped there would be someone to talk to, and I would be validated someday. That validation wouldn’t come for many, many years.