Last year, I came out to the only important people left in my life who were still oblivious to my sexuality: my three children. I was 41 and had known I was gay since before I'd heard that word, so you might think I'd taken my own sweet time about this. It's not quite that simple. I'm an old hand at this coming-out lark. In fact, I feel a bit of a fraud hitching a ride now on the gay bandwagon. Put it this way: had I filmed my first coming-out, as Tom Daley did with his, it would have been recorded not on a mobile phone but on a chunky video camera the size of a cereal box. Uploading it to YouTube would have been pointless because neither uploading nor YouTube had been invented in 1985...
The difference between being gay in the 1980s and now is immeasurable, and not merely for those of us who have fathered three children in the interim. Back then, shame had so many outlets for a gay teenager in Britain. Those days are numbered, if not yet over, and that makes me happy. But I also feel a niggling strain of jealousy, even resentment, that it wasn't as easy for me the first time around as it is today for many people...
Cause what would the weekend papers be without a feature about a gay dad?
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I just read that in the paper. I thought it was a very good piece. The Guardian at the weekend is almost unbearable, though. Full of tedious shit by writers called 'Jocasta'...
ReplyDeleteA good piece, yes.
DeleteI'm quite the fan of his writing.
He also has great hair.