Denn wie man sich bettet, so liegt man,
es deckt einen keiner da zu.
[For as you make your bed, so you must lie in
it,
no-one else is going to tuck you in.]
Life after marriage
Mary and I were married on 9 April 1966. I had never told her that I was gay because I did not honestly know for sure that I was. I suppose I still had this idea that once I started having straight sex I might become straight(ish). But my heart still belonged to Mick, and I pined for him for months afterwards.
When straight men are deprived of female sex, in prison for example, they sometimes find relief in homosexual activity, and can find that quite enjoyable. That does not make them gay, or even bisexual. It's just that people can be adaptable in reacting to the circumstances of their lives. In the same way, a gay man deprived of male sex can sometimes find relief in straight sex. I am not suggesting that marriage is in any way like prison. No, stop smirking, there really is no comparison at all. All I am saying is that after some initial hesitation I found the sexual side of our marriage quite rewarding for a while. But looking back with hindsight I see that that doesn't mean that I am straight, or even bisexual.
We spent our honeymoon in Corsica, and had a marvellous time. I remember one morning we came down to breakfast in the hotel at 11 am, looking pleased with ourselves. The restaurant was supposed to stop serving breakfast at 10.30, and the cute young French waiter looked very pointedly at his watch, then at me, and said to himself "Mon dieu, formidable!". Cheeky little punk. But I felt really flattered. I thought to myself, "Wow, he thinks I'm just a normal randy young man."
Digression: Why should I have been pleased that the waiter thought that I was straight? That raises some deep questions, that I'm not sure I have ever thought through properly. Did I actually want to be straight? No, as far as I can tell, I have never wanted that. If I had ever been offered that mythical "straight pill", I would not have wanted to swallow it. For as long as I have been aware of the concept, I have been happy to think of myself as being gay. In fact, it's such an essential part of me that if I stopped being gay I would no longer be me. So I definitely would not want to be straight, though I have never (until recently) wanted anyone else to know that I am gay. So do I after all have some internalised homophobia, that makes me ashamed to share my gayness with others? No, I don't think so. I am just a naturally secretive person, who prefers to keep his thoughts and opinions to himself. In fact, the same character trait that made me reluctant as an undergraduate to inflict my religious beliefs on others also made me not want others to know that I am gay. Taking the analogy one step further, the pressure that Christian cults put on their members to evangelise and bring others into the church seems to me very similar to the pressure in gay circles for gays to come out (and I wonder whether there is sometimes too much pressure on young gays to come out, when that might not be the best thing for them). End of digression.
Mary's vivacious and outgoing personality was just what I needed to counteract my tendency to be an antisocial loner, and my calm and equable nature gave her the security and stability that she needed in her life. So from the start we were ideally suited to each other. Whenever two people start to live together, there are bound to be little frictions as they get used to each other's ways. But Mary and I hardly ever argued, and I don't remember us having any kind of a quarrel for, oh, must be well over twenty years now.
We didn't want to start a family straight away, so we left that for a couple of years. Steve was born in 1969 and Liz two years later. Now I don't want to upset all you gay readers by gushing on about the joys of parenthood. No, dammit, on second thoughts, that's exactly what I want to do. Not to upset you, but to do a bit of gushing, to emphasise that parenthood really is rewarding (as if you hadn't already agonised over that thought). The urge to reproduce and to bring up children is a deep biological imperative, and it had played a big part in my decision to look for a wife. [These days, it may be possible for gay couples to bring up children, but in the 1960s it was totally out of the question.] The fact is, seeing the kids grow up has been one of the big joys and rewards of my life. Babies are no fun - their lives just consist of messy feeding, excreting and crying. But from the time when they start to walk and talk, children are delightful, and having your own children is something very special. I loved reading them bedtime stories, playing with them and teasing them, taking them on trips to the seaside, seeing them learn and develop, and finding out that right from birth they have their own distinctive personalities. As they grew older there were some difficult times too. I don't want to say much here about the depression and alienation that Steve went through as a teenager. That gave us several very miserable years, but in the end he came through it. Both kids have left home now, and we only see them occasionally, but I know that my life would be very much poorer without them. The hug that I get from Steve when we meet is something that means a lot to me, particularly after those long years of alienation.
Soon after Liz was born, we finally gave up on religion. In fact, it was Mary who broke with it before me. She could not stand the church's attitude towards women. The women's movement was just getting under way in the USA in the early 1970s, when we spent a sabbatical year in Philadelphia, and Mary became strongly feminist. The Church of England was very misogynistic then (still is, in many ways), and only started ordaining women ministers about 20 years later. So she left it. That made me rethink my religious beliefs, and before long we had both jettisoned them altogether. Good riddance, frankly. I can accept that some people find strength through religion, but the sort of fundamentalist environment in which I had spent the best part of 20 years is not good for anyone.
By the way, I had no problems with Mary's feminism. I think that gay men actually make rather good husbands, because (in my case, at any rate) they have no macho attitudes or hangups about masculinity. I was always happy to do my share of cooking, shopping, changing nappies and so on.
All this time, there was just one little cloud on the horizon, threatening to put a damper on the happy idyll. The sexual side of the marriage was not thriving. I always left it to Mary to take the initiative here, and I was finding it harder and harder to perform as required. Mary was very understanding and sympathetic about this, but she found it frustrating, and so did I. Once or twice I came very close to telling her that I was gay, but I never did, because I was afraid that it might cause the marriage to break up, and I knew that I did not want that to happen. Looking back, I think that I was wrong not to tell her. I believe that our relationship was strong enough to have survived that. Eventually, Mary became reconciled to the fact that our sex life had atrophied altogether.
Once we had adjusted to this sexless relationship, the idyll resumed. So I will fast-forward through ten or twelve very happy years, including two more sabbatical years in Philadelphia (which I think of as my second home) and promotion to a full professorship, and go to the mid-1980s, when several apparently insignificant little things happened that combined to form some kind of minor mid-life crisis for me.
The first thing was that I read Andrew Hodges' excellent biography of Alan Turing, the mathematician who developed the theoretical foundations of computer science and also played a leading part in cracking the wartime Enigma code, and whose life ended tragically by suicide after he had been convicted for having sex with a young man in his apartment in Manchester. At one stage of my career I taught in the same Department in Manchester University where Turing had once worked, and I couldn't help contrasting my experience with his. We were both introverted, socially inept, gay mathematicians. Yet he, in the repressive 1950s, had managed to find in real life some of the sexual fulfilment that I had always assumed could only exist at the level of fantasy for me. I began to wonder whether, even though I was now in my mid-40s, it might still not be too late for me to do the same.
Second, a junior minister in the British government hit the headlines for what the media called 'indecent behaviour in a Soho club'. This was a blatant case of police entrapment and the case was eventually dropped (though not before the poor guy's career had been ruined). It emerged in the press reports that this 'Soho club' was in fact a place called the Gay Theatre which was said to feature nude young men dancing. I had never known that there were such places in London (there aren't any more: they were closed down by the Thatcher government), and I wanted to investigate further.
Third, I became a trustee of an educational charity based in London. This meant that I had to go to meetings in London about once a month. After the meeting there was usually a couple of hours to spare before catching the train home. So this gave me the opportunity to do a little exploring.
And the fourth thing was, well, a mild case of 'mid-life crisis', the feeling that many men in their 40s get that life is somehow passing them by, and that opportunities to do something about it are running out: "But at my back I always hear Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near."
So the next time I went to London I paid a visit to the Gay Theatre, feeling nervous. I found that some of the boys there were very attractive, and apart from stripping on stage they also seemed to mingle with the customers and were quite friendly. I was too shy to talk to any of them on that occasion. But I went back there on my next visit to London, and I also found other similar places. At one place called the Colt Club there was a beautiful young man called David (just a stage name, I suppose - I have no idea what his real name was). After his act I gave him a tip, and he kissed me. Wow, that boy knew how to kiss. I savoured the taste of his tongue for a long time afterwards. It made me realise how much I had been missing all those years.
After that, I had the self-confidence to explore gay pubs, clubs, saunas, cinemas, not just in London but in other cities nearer to home and on occasional business trips abroad to Dublin, Frankfurt, Marseilles, Copenhagen, ... and Philadelphia of course (on yet another sabbatical year at Penn., 1992-93). I like the saunas best, not so much for the physical contact as for the companionship and the relaxed atmosphere of being with other gay men. It feels like coming home after a lifetime of living abroad. But I am quite happy to be able to do this once a month or so, I don't need it more often than that, and the rest of the time I am very content with married life.
So that is how things have been for the past few years. As you get older, the pace slows, the hormones subside and life is less exciting. But it does become more tranquil and contented, and on the whole there's a lot to be said for that. One new thing that has come into my life in recent years is the Internet, and the online friendships that have come through that. For the first time since I was at school, I have friends that I can talk to openly about the gay side of my life. That is something I really appreciate, and I realise that it is something that I had been missing for too long.
That just about brings us up to date, with a few questions remaining to be asked:
Have I been cheating on Mary? No, I don't think so. I suppose if you want to hold me strictly to the marriage vows, I have to admit that I may have bent them a little from time to time. But there has never been any emotional commitment to another man, nor have I ever had the slightest intention of leaving Mary. The way I see it, I have in some ways lived my life backwards. The sexual experimentation and messing around that I should have enjoyed in my teens and twenties before settling down to a lifelong commitment to a partner has instead taken place long afterwards. But I could not imagine leaving Mary, or living without her.
Why do I stay with Mary? To me, Mary is the closest I expect to find to a soulmate in this world. We are compatible in just about every way you could imagine, except sexually. You may think that that is a rather large exception (as in the saying of Lewis Carroll, "I like children, except boys"). But to me, and I think to her, sex is not at all the most important thing in life, and the things that we have in common, especially after living together for well over half our lifetimes, far outweigh the one thing that we do not share any more.
If I had had more gay experiences in my teens and twenties, would I have ever considered marrying a woman? Hypothetical question. How can I possibly tell the answer to that? All I can say is that I have no regrets (well, not many), I think I have been lucky and in some ways have had the best of both worlds.
Shouldn't I tell Mary about my sexual orientation? Dunno. On the whole, I think it might do more harm than good if she found out now that I have been keeping this back from her all these years. But I probably should be more open with her. I'm in no hurry though. If the right opportunity comes along, I hope I'll be able to take advantage of it and let her know without upsetting her too much. If anything like that happens, I'll let you know in my journal.
