The Gift of Gay Porn 2

The brown paper bag in the center of the room contained my first exposure to hardcore gay pornography. With so many magazines inside, the broad spectrum of positions, fetishes, scenarios, and genres was well documented. I couldn’t help but wonder if there were something else at work there, something deeper than mere physicality and muscle contractions.

The knock on my door knocked me out of my bewildered contemplation. I scrambled to put the bag under my chair and rapidly manufactured a facial expression that would conceal I just had been looking at the innumerable number of ways gay men have sex.

Mark, my number one suspect in the brown bag mystery, opened the door and defied the room with a grin.

But first …

July 14, 1998…just another day in the life.

The day started with my calling a few constituents who had wanted the governor to be aware of their issues. One young girl was concerned about the state of disrepair at a nearby state park. (Her father was amazed that her daughter, who was in elementary school, would actually get a call from the governor’s office.) One father was incensed about his son’s tragic, accidental death at the hands of a police officer. Several Republican legislators were infuriated about the governor’s veto of an omnibus education reform package. Rather than line-item veto the bill, the governor decided to veto the whole thing, a bill which included about 80% of the recommendations that came to him from his own higher education commission.

At about nine that morning I met with the governor to discuss the growing rebellion among Republican legislators concerning a return to the state capitol for a special legislative session to pass again the bill the governor vetoed, but this time with 100% of the recommendations included. The Republican majorities in the House and Senate were immovable on their insistence that there would be no special session, and the governor was unbending in his demand that the entire education package be passed, especially since 1998 would be his last year in office.

From the governor’s office I went to see the Speaker of the House. I knew the discussion about a special legislative session would end in futility, but I had no choice but to offer the idea. As expected, the speaker dismissed the notion out of hand and said that if the governor called them back they’d adjourn within minutes and go home. Furthermore, he was prepared to convene and adjourn as many times as the governor ordered them back.

From his office I went to see the Majority Leader of the Senate. He was a jovial kind of guy and one of the governor’s more ardent supporters. However, not even his firm hand over the Senate could convince his caucus to reconvene only to pass a bill nearly identical to the one the governor had vetoed.

I got back to my office about 11:30, and snacking on a pre-lunch protein bar and a can of Mountain Dew, decided to answer half a dozen constituent letters. All the letters started the same way: The Governor has asked me to respond to your recent letter in which you expressed concern about, etc. The truth was that the governor had no idea the constituent had written a letter or of anything about his concern. That first sentence made the governor look interested and it made me look important. It was a win-win for the two of us.

After a quick break for a lunch of leftovers, I was back in my office a little after one o’clock. Two lobbyists representing the car wash businesses in Iowa wanted to see me about their concerns regarding a particular tax bill that was certain to pass in the next session. My secretary entered the office and asked if either of the men wanted a cup of coffee. One asked for regular and the other asked for decaf. I learned later that we didn’t have any decaf made at that time, but my secretary brought two cups of coffee and asked Who had the decaf?

But then...

Mark had come to tell me that he wasn’t interested in attending the Bible study I held in my room every week. He’d never read much of the Bible because he thought it sounded boring and irrelevant to his life. His eyes seemed to dart around the room as though he were looking for a brown paper bag. The darting convinced me he was the man.

Mark was at least bisexual, yet in the two years I was in the fraternity I never considered him to be either bisexual or gay. His girlfriend, Lisa, on occasion stayed overnight with him. His roommate often looked for an open bed on the weekend and sometimes that open bed was in my room, which had a nice big sofa. And from time to time the word would go out that we were to stay out of the main restroom because Mark and Lisa were showering together. His romance with Lisa seemed to me to be an indicator that he was straight even though his speech and mannerisms stereotypically pointed to a gay predilection. (He married Lisa after he graduated.)

I knew Mark didn’t like me but I didn’t know why. Looking back, I’m sure he thought Christians like me were hypocrites, judgmental, legalistic, and lifeless. During my initiation ceremony he made a point of commenting about my faith. It was as though he said Your dogma lives loudly in you. Meaning, shut it off or at least turn it down. He knew I didn’t drink alcohol because at house parties I didn’t imbibe, and during the post-initiation bender I chugged a pitcher of water instead of the requisite pitcher of beer. (This was in the days long before initiation restraints existed.)

If only Mark and I had been friends, or at least on friendly terms, then we could have talked about the sexual world he frequented. I would have peeled back a tiny fraction of Mark’s tough, outer layer to talk openly about our fathers, our wounds, the manhood code to which all men strive to conform, and all the other facets of this lifestyle, including loneliness and isolation. Such a conversation would have led me to a better understanding of his life and a deeper compassion for him as a human being.

Like Adrian earlier in my life, Mark put a face on the gay man and with that face his sexuality looked unimportant. I dialed back my theological zeal about homosexuality so I could alter the arrogance with which I applied my truth to the world. I could never agree with Mark that the Scriptures were either silent or ambivalent concerning consensual same-sex intimacy and that they needed to be reinterpreted in the light of a modern society. Yet, I could agree that Mark was a man who deserved to be heard. And that’s all he really wanted in the first place.

Now then … back to that day in the life.

It doesn’t really matter what happened the rest of that day in the governor’s office, except that Mark died. He may have died from complications related to AIDS. He was 41, one day shy of his birthday.

Years later I had the idea of making a panel for the mammoth AIDS quilt in Mark’s honor. I did some research and discovered that his name was not among the honorees. Yet, as time passed so did the idea. It faded away because what difference would it make?

Mark never told me he put the bag of porn in my room, but I’m certain he did it. I will never really know what his objective was. Was it a prank or a jab? Or was it a veiled and awkward attempt to open a dialogue with someone who had an opposing view and who may have been seen as an antagonist. This doesn’t matter either. What matters is that Paul and Mark were good men who lived and died with a label I no longer affix routinely, as though the affixing was some kind of spiritual gifting.

A bag of gay porn in the middle of the room compelled me to consider that every man has something he’d rather discard than ever look at again. Every man has something in his life that isn’t working. Every man has tears and fears that no one ever sees. Every man wants to deflect the examined life. Every man’s battle is different and yet perhaps they’re all the same.

What's in your bag?