Once, when given a 500-word writing prompt of just the word “butter,” pages and pages of text flowed through my head.  A similar prompt of “pride” and all I thought was “Hi, gays!”, the echo of a viral pride meme from a couple years ago. How can a topic I’m intimately (literally) familiar with not draw dozens of pages?  After some thought, the answer became clear. I don’t have pride.

My Story

I am a cis-gay man, nearing 35 years old (or as the pride-supporting folks might infer, 85.) I told my mother I was gay shortly after I learned to formulate words. In an old house down the block, during naptime at daycare, meticulously split by gender two to a bedroom, I’d climb into my nap buddy’s bed as soon as the door closed. Was I seeking safety? Security? Warmth even? Maybe it was all those things, but coincidently or not, I found all of those things in someone of the same gender before age five.

Sitting on my racecar bed in my bedroom one night, my mother sat beside me having just finished reading a book, I proudly proclaimed, “Mom, I’m gay.” The way her back straightened was in stark contrast to the smile that she forced upon her face. “Honey, do you know what that means?”  

“It means I like other boys,” I said, wondering why she thought I’d use a word I didn’t understand. 

“Like how you and Johnny play together at school,” she asked without the expected upswing at the end of the sentence that makes a statement a question. 

“Yes, like that.”

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The way her shoulders left her ears confirmed I had said the right thing.

“Oh honey, you’re not gay,” she trailed off with an inflection that made it hard to determine if she was choking on the word I had proudly claimed as my own or if its profanity was up there with “motherfucker.”

Climbing under my racecar comforter without my nap buddy, I lulled myself to sleep by moving my feet forward and backward. Right for the gas, and left for the brake, just as any four year old should drive a racecar.

As the years passed, locker rooms felt different, girlfriends were hard, and teachers became my sole source of middle school relationships. By high school, girl-frands filled in for teachers, and open and out school peers became role-models.  I still filtered, though, substituting “Jessica” for “John” when telling stories. AOL instant messenger was my only source of exposure to gay culture. ASL (Age, Sex, Location) became the way of life.  The internet was my gateway to people I connected with, usually older men, talking and exchanging photos. I often joke, if I had gotten the same attention from girls I got from old men, I’d probably be bi.  But attention is attention and I soaked up every bit of it.

One evening, alone in my room, I met John.  John was much older than I was. I was still in high school, and John was a grown man with an ex-wife and children. John and I chatted online, sent scandalous photos in 0.25 megapixels and even had x-rated video chats.  But John was safe. John lived in Michigan and I in Virginia. Much like two females walking together at night, distance from men is safety for new gays, right? One day, John casually mentioned I lived close to an amusement park he had always wanted to go to and suggested we meet up, even providing an intricate plan of how I would get there and split away from the group to meet up with him.  This brought john to my backyard, almost literally, and my safety vanished with the ding of the AIM message.  I thought about how weird and absurd this suggestion was; we were chat buddies, long distant one night stands. Why would he want to… meet?

By this time, I was comfortable reducing my code shifting around some people, mainly people on my cheer team.  I couldn’t wait to share the newest drama with my co-captain. I sent a text laughing how comical it was that John wanted to meet and got the most peculiar reply, “If you meet him, what would y’all do?”

Still laughing about how peculiar this all was, I replied, “Fuck, of course!?” Surely my sarcasm would be apparent; I would never give up my distance-derived safety like that. I expected a “LOL” in reply but instead got increasingly specific questions, to which I upheld the sarcasm. Apparently, I wasn’t as good at sarcasm as I thought because in real life I was sending my teammate into a sheer panic. Out of love, I’m confident, my teammate notified our coach, sending screen shots of my “intentions” to have sexual relations with my AIM grandfather.   

Un-coming Out

Arriving home from a summer visit at my grandmother’s in Ohio later that month, completely disregarding the whole AIM event after successfully deflecting John’s request, I was greeted by a thin-lipped mother. Later that night, after my grandmother had fallen asleep, I found out why.  My mother sat me down on the couch, shoulders hunched to her ears, and inquired about my online activities. The discussion around internet safety gave way to genuine, ignorant curiosity to who I talked to and about what.  Long before TV shows gave way to memes where mathematic equations swirl around the heads of characters as they connect dots, my mother patented this visual. I never really “came out” but after those dots connected for her, code shifting became a thing of the past, at least in front of my mother.  I guess not getting kicked out of the house was as successful of a “coming out” as anyone could ask for in the early 2000’s. 

But, this isn’t a coming out, or lack thereof, story. This is Pride Month.

Deaf Culture

I currently study American Sign Language (ASL) and deaf culture. One of the most interesting parts of deaf culture is that a person who is physically deaf can identify as “deaf” or “Deaf,” with a capital D. The former indicating the physical lack of hearing. A person identifying as deaf does not join the Deaf culture, instead opting to participate their life in the hearing world. Often, this involves surgical procedures, such as cochlear implants, facilitating assimilation among the physically hearing.  Deaf (with the capital D) however, fully embrace the Deaf culture, utilizing sign language, and building their social circles around their deafness.  (You can read more about the differences here.)

What stuck out to me about learning this was the choice; having two culturally recognized options. The option to join the culture of people like you, or not—to choose which world you wanted to affiliate with.  Queers do not get this choice.  There is no “queer” v “Queer.” Yes, we live, work, shop, and socialize in a heterosexual world, much like deaf individuals do in a hearing world, but there is no option to participate in queer culture or not.  There is no medical procedure that gives you heterosexual skills.  The options you’re left with are living a lie or participating. 

Gay Bars

One perfect example of this is the infamous Gay Bar.  A mecca for Brittany-lovin’, alcohol drink’n men in too-tight clothes  competing for attention.  Obviously, going to a gay bar is optional for queers.  There are even options as to which type of bar you prefer: leather bars, twink bars, up-scale martini bars, bars with go-go dancers, bars you wouldn’t dare look in the dark corners of. The list goes on. But there really is nowhere else you can find similar people. 

When I use “similar people” I don’t mean people participating in the Brittany/alcohol/cocaine/competition culture, I simply mean others that prefer the same gender. The odds of meeting someone you have any desire to date, marry, or have a family with at the grocery store or even the local Chili’s are substantially less than at the Gay Bar.  Alas, we all congregate in this “safe space” to mingle. 

And mingle we do, among mixed drinks that make other bar’s drinks taste like water, we meet, chat, flirt, criticize, critique, compete, judge, and gossip. The thing about having limited gathering spots is that any size city soon becomes a small township, where the interminglings overlap in disgusting ways.  I’d imagine this is present in any subset of cultures, like restaurant, hospital, corporate industries, etc., but it reigns supreme among the pride-supporting folks.

Reflecting on my own interminglings leaves me grossed out. Just a few short relationships and a few hookups have intertwined me Kevin Bacon-style with what feels like 90% of the city.  I wish I could say this was a new event, but it hasn’t changed since I was 18 years old.  At 18, I was excited to experience similar people, be welcomed into a culture. And welcomed I was—by your husband, and the guy who’s boyfriend had just left to go use the restroom, and the guy who told me about his same-sex fiancé and adopted daughter during sex. My first painting of gay culture was of unhealed competition, nothing to be proud of, though I didn’t understand it. I wish I had understood at the time because, maybe, instead of becoming another pine tree in the forest, I could have become a bird. A mistake seamlessly blended into the painting because someone made something of it; something different, something that still fit. 

My Healing

I’ve always hated this stage I was forced to dance on; the game I was forced to play where the house rules and the deck is missing a card or two.  At 31, I vividly recall my second therapy appointment , sitting on a couch in a room with a much-too-small rug on the floor, comfortable, but palms sweating.  My therapist sitting across from me in a throne of a chair with a zippered portfolio neatly settled into her lap. A zippered portfolio. How HIPAA compliant. I like her, I thought. With a big soothing smile she asked, “where would you like to start?”

Recalling a recent, frustrating night at a local gay bar, witnessing “friends” gossip and judge, reminiscent of my family holidays where the topic of conversation was universally whoever wasn’t in the room, I replied, “I kinda hate the gays,” with a flat face.

“So does my wife.” she said, without cocking her neck the way you’d expect someone making a joke to.

I’ve never been good at identifying queers, “gaydar” as they call it. You would think gaydar and being gay would be a BOGO deal, but that’s not how life works, and man had I overlooked this one. 

Embarrassed, I let out a soft “oh.” That same soothing smile came back as she said, “We can talk about it.”

Years of therapy have allowed me to balance the good with the bad. I am blessed to have met a few exceptional friends during my minglings at gay bars. I am grateful to the spaces I have been welcomed solely on the premise of my queerness, even if my instinct questioned the motives.  Removing myself, I can see how helpful all these things—bars, friends, and culture—could be for the people that need it, similar to religion for those who need 10 commandments to know not to kill.

But, I don’t have pride.  I don’t have pride for relationships that only survive on alcohol and drugs.  I don’t have pride for relationships that stop at skin level, excluding unprotected sex because that’s the “gay handshake.” I don’t have pride for a culture that should be called “quid pro quo culture” instead of “queer culture.” 

My Pride

A few years ago, while out at a bar in June, I watched two “friends” have the most vile verbal fight I’ve ever witnessed. At our “safe place.” The next morning, I awoke to the news that one of them had un-alived themselves. Deeply unsettled, I shared a post on social media. The meme-style photo said, “so much pride, so little love.” I may not have pride, but I do have love, and love will have to do for now. 

 A Note from the Author

I was fortunate enough to have a loving mother through my queerness.  Although I’m sure she maxed out her patience and emotional intelligence dealing with it, she never stopped loving me. I later found out my mother grieved and processed in private for many years, but never let me see it.  I am proud of the effort she put in to learn the current gay culture and how it changed from her school years.  Parents are human – if you happen to have parents that don’t have the skills, emotional intelligence, or desire to accept your authentic self, below are some great resources to help you on your journey.

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/

https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-youth

https://lgbthotline.org/

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About the Author

Residing in Las Vegas, NV, Jacob is a director at a healthcare consulting firm, specializing in medical coding and compliance. Outside of his professional commitments, he explores a passion for wine and aviation. Jacob is also an avid student of American Sign Language (ASL) and Spanish, dedicated to expanding his linguistic abilities and cultural insights.

Check out my new coloring book and affirmations for kids, Mimi’s Big Mermaid Adventure & Affirmations now live on Amazon!

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Editor’s Note: May is Period Awareness Month! Yes, getting your period can be a drag, but it’s an important function of the female body. It’s something that we all deal with, but aren’t supposed to talk about, even though it happens on a frequent, and regular basis. Every girl and woman experiences their period differently, with it impacting their daily lives from sports to culture, religion, and social environments. The hormones related to menstruation and menopause impact women’s health in ways that are still not fully understood, and millions of girls and women do not have access to period products for the same reason: it’s rude to talk about your period. To bring awareness and de-stigmatize the period, The Earthly Kitchen is bringing you a collection of true stories every Friday for the month of May from guest writers. Be sure you’re subscribed to receive newsletters right to your inbox and share with your menstruating friends!

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"You're it," says another it.

There you are, 12,

For 12-infinity miles of red. Read-

About it, they say.

It's a rite of passage, they say.

Keep it to yourself, they say.

To embrace this self-chase: the bite of thorns,

Fallen branches out of nowhere,

Crackling beneath soles like a stir-fry,

Serving up helpings in a fiery Welcome to Womanhood.

"Get out of the woods and come inside!"

If you're 12:

Do not let it drive you away,

Out of places that matter most,

Knowing Certain has already passed,

Imprinted in drops of permanence.

Between the trout brook behind,

And the class IV rapids ahead,

You're it.

Maelina is a general lover of all things words and nature. From a young age, she knew she'd have an on-again, off-again love affair with writing. Words are her medicine, in any form. By day, she is a healthcare content strategist. By night, she's a poet who often doesn't know it. Oh, and a full-time parent, no big deal at all. And in full transparency, she's been on a writing hiatus and is finding out what it means to get back to it, one failure and one success at a time. Maelina's work has been published in blogs such as Tiny Buddha and her poems have been published in Annapurna Magazine, also on random sites like Leaves of Ink, and sometimes in other places without her knowing. Surprise! Maelina lives in Fairfield, Connecticut with her husband, daughter and family of plants.

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Editors Note: May is Period Awareness Month! Yes, getting your period can be a drag, but it’s an important function of the female body. It’s something that we all deal with, but aren’t supposed to talk about, even though it happens on a frequent, and regular basis. Every girl and woman experiences their period differently, with it impacting their daily lives from sports to culture, religion, and social environments. The hormones related to menstruation and menopause impact women’s health in ways that are still not fully understood, and millions of girls and women do not have access to period products for the same reason: it’s rude to talk about your period. To bring awareness and de-stigmatize the period, The Earthly Kitchen is bringing you a collection of true stories every Friday for the month of May from guest writers. Be sure you’re subscribed to receive newsletters right to your inbox and share with your menstruating friends!

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I was an awkward, chubby middle school kid in a town where sleek hair and clear skin were universal. I’m sure there were some girls eagerly awaiting their periods like Judy Bloom’s Margaret Simon, but I did not know them. In middle school, my friends eagerly awaited travel soccer rosters and dreaded the day when they might weigh more than 100 pounds (I already did, something I’d never have revealed but thought about nearly every minute of the day). 

I could not have, statistically speaking, been among the first girls to get her period when one spring afternoon in seventh grade I found blood in my underwear, but I told only my mom. When, I started running cross country in ninth grade, I lost forty pounds but—to my quiet shame—not my period. Even then, at fourteen and fifteen, many of my teammates had not yet started to menstruate and many who had once gotten their periods no longer did, long training runs and lunches of uncooked rolled oats and apple slices adding up to an end to that. 

Now, articles in running magazines emphasize that the healthiest runners, those with the professional longevity of NCAA champions and Olympians are able to train without missing their periods. In the years since I was a high school and then a college athlete, a whole vocabulary has grown up around the relationship between menstruation and exercise. What was called the “female athlete triad” (anorexia, osteoporosis and amenorrhea) has evolved to “RED-S”: relative energy deficiency syndrome. 

Still, I’m skeptical that the culture of period shame has been eliminated among young runners, or even among the serious, but decidedly adult runners. Even after college, the years in which I ran too much and ate too little to menstruate provided a kind affirmation, if one I knew to keep to myself, of my work ethic. Long before I’d have wanted to be pregnant, it was always with some disappointment that I noted the start of my period. Not pregnant, sure, but still fat enough to menstruate. Not as disciplined, as lean, as marked by stoic deprivation as the girls who never stashed tampons in the bottom of their school-issued duffle bags. 

I’m 41 now and my period has become irregular again and there’s no longer any pretending that this is indicative of my extreme fitness, my readiness to run 25 laps around an outdoor track faster than I ever have before or the likeliness that my ribs will show beneath my sports bra, and it’s also not indicative of a month I’ll wait for a positive pregnancy test. It’s just because I’m getting older and will soon, if I haven’t already, be unable to have any more children. 

This new significance is not marked by shame the way menstruation was for so many years—decades, if I’m being honest—in the past. It’s also no longer fraught with the evolving anxiety or hope tied to pregnancy, but instead a stark reminder of something both much more simple and more fundamental. The unavoidable fact that my body—or some part of my body’s system—is slowly becoming unable to do something I once took for granted or even resented. I am mortal. Time is passing. 

It’s tempting to seek a lessons-learned narrative about all this. Perhaps, to tell myself that I should have been in awe of my fertility in all those years, that I should not have hated my body for doing what I’d eventually want it to do. To rage at a sports culture that, at least in the time and place when I was transforming myself from a chubby, awkward middle-schooler to a devoted college athlete, viewed the hormonal reality of ovarian function as shameful. But it’s not that straightforward: I don’t want to excoriate myself for the desire to defy my body’s biology anymore than I would condemn myself now for wishing—if I could—to stop time from passing, to lay out decades more in which I might reasonably both win a 5k and have a baby, centuries more in which I might call my parents for advice and share a roof with my own two children. 

Amanda Parrish Morgan is the author of STROLLER (Bloomsbury, Oct 2022), which The New Yorker named one of the best books of 2022. Some of Amanda’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Wired, The Rumpus, LitHub, Guernica, The Millions, n+1, The American Scholar, The Washington Post and elsewhere. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two children where she teaches at Fairfield University, The University of Chicago’s Graham School, and the Westport Writers’ Workshop. She writes How We Spend Our Days on Substack.

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By Adiba Nelson

Dear reader: This isn’t your average “first period” story, but does such thing even exist? Don’t make it weird. I’ve already done that for you. Enjoy!

“Look at this book my mom gave me last night! It has ‘the word’ in it!”

“What word?”

“The word!”

“Wait”, I stared at my cousin with a mixture of panic and excitement dancing behind my pupils. “*The* word? As in the the word?”

“YES.”

I remember holding the bright green hardcover book in my hands, running my short, thin, six-year-old fingers over the glossy cover and studying the red letters on the cover: “Plants, Seeds and Embryos”. My aunt decided to use the book to introduce the concept of sex, and all that goes with it – periods included, to my cousin, who knew our cousin-ship would be on the skids if she didn’t immediately show it to me. I stared at the words. I knew what a plant was, and I knew what a seed was, but an embryo? It was a miracle I could even pronounce it. My cousin, who was two years older than me and turning the pages like they were on fire finally let her fingers come to a grinding halt.

“There!” she whisper-screamed, using her index finger to stab at the three black letters on the white page. I stared at the letters, barely believing my eyes, and my mouth fell open. Threatening to jump out of my throat like a sneaky olive in my Nana’s Christmas pasteles, I cupped my hands over my mouth in protection, and quietly let the word tiptoe out.

“Sex.”

Yahaira’s eyes grew to double their typical bullfrog size, shocked I dared to actually say the word. We both dissolved in a heap of giggles on her plush, teal bedroom carpet. Had I really just said the word? Had anyone heard me? Had God heard me? Was I going to go to hell for kind of cursing? I stared up at the Barbie dolls that lined the upper quarter of Yahaira’s bedroom wall like a plastic, human-ish shaped, 3D wallpaper border, and briefly wondered: would Barbie ever say that word?

I’d heard it before but wasn’t exactly sure what it meant. However, I knew it was an “adult” word, to describe things “adults” did, and it wasn’t a curse word, but it was curse-word adjacent. It wasn’t something that six-year-olds were supposed to discuss over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Capri-Suns, but I needed to know exactly what it meant. If I was going to giggle that hard over three little letters, I should have at least known what made them so funny.

A few nights later I finally mustered up the courage to ask my very spiritual, somewhat religious, but full of old wives tales mother what the word meant and even today, forty years later, I still cannot adequately explain how unprepared I was for what happened next. My Puerto Rican mother who believed in the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help her Virgen Maria, opened up the current issue of Playgirl magazine which, for some reason, was in the stereo cabinet, and proceeded to explain to me all the parts of a man’s sexual anatomy. This was followed by her free-hand illustrations of a woman’s sexual anatomy, and the explanation of how it works, and then, the piece-de-resistance, how they work *together*.

And thus, the conversation around periods and the almighty death roll we call a menstrual cycle was born.

It was all very matter of fact. There was the “uterus-and-the-uterine-wall-lining-and-the-shedding-and-the-fallopian-tubes-and-the-eggs-that-travel-and-either-do-or-do-not-get-fertilized- if-and-only-if-you’ve-had-unprotected-sex-which-you-absolutely-should-not-be-having-if-you- aren’t-married” part. There was the “sex-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-who-love-each-other- very-much” part. And then there was the “blood-comes-out-of-your-vagina-when-the-egg-isn’t- fertilized-and-you-catch-the-blood-with-a-pad-and-never-a-tampon-because-if-you-use-a-tampon-you-won’t-be-a-virgin-anymore-because-you’ll-have-to-break-your-hymen-to-use-a- tampon-and-your-hymen-should-only-be-broken-during-sex-so-you-can’t-ride-horses-either- because-I’ve-heard-that-can-break-your-hymen-and-devirginize-you-too” part.

This was an incredible amount of information to bestow on a six-year-old but truth reigned supreme in our household, and my mother assured me I had at least another seven to ten years before I had to worry about catching blood on notepads and avoiding horses at all costs. I breathed a sigh of relief and knowledge. Relief that this bloodletting was not in my immediate future and knowledge that I now knew what the old man next door looked like naked. 

However, my mother was wrong, and she had only partially informed me.

I didn’t have seven to ten years before Aunt Flo came for me, I had five. My period started when I was eleven-years-old. Also, my mother didn’t inform me about the rite of passage that young girls get to experience when they get their period for the first time. You know – the one where you call your mom from the hall bathroom and she comes running back and you show her the blood droplets on your stain free white panties and she turns around and announces to her semi-new boyfriend sitting in the living room that you’ve “just gotten your first period” and he hollers back a little too excitedly “Congratulations! I’ll be right back!” as he runs out the door. And then your mom guides you through how to affix your pad to new, clean panties and tosses your new “period panties” into the laundry basket just as her semi-new boyfriend bounds back into the apartment with a single red rose for you to signify your transition into womanhood, and then you all drive up to the top of “A” mountain, you begrudgingly, so that you can look out over the city and contemplate what this momentous occasion means for the rest of your life, while ten other cars rock back and forth with couples celebrating their own momentous occasions while they secretly prayed there were no eggs awaiting fertilization later that night.

You know – that ritual.

Oh wait. That’s not how *your* first period experience went? That ritual’s not a thing? That was just me and mygood fortune of free bleeding and celebrating it with 20 other strangers plus my mom and her boyfriend who were all making out on top of a mountain in the middle of the city?

Cool, cool, cool. First periods are awesome.

Adiba Nelson is the author of Ain’t That A Mother, subject of the Emmy winning documentary, “The Full Nelson,” and Executive Producer and Creative Consultant on the TV-series based on her memoir (currently in development). She writes the Sh*t We Don’t Say newsletter.

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