I remember the moment well. He ran up to me in the hall of IS 61, Morris Intermediate School. This was a very good school in the West Brighton neighborhood of Staten Island, where I lived at the time. He ran up to me and kissed me on the lips in the hallway, my first official "lip" kiss as a teen. Then he ran away, ashamed of what he did. Needless to say I was a bit astonished. But I wasn't offended. I was just surprised. At the time I saw it as a one time "one off" experience. I already KNEW where my sexual loyalties laid back then, and even to this day. I AM, after all, a FLAMING heterosexual! I've known from Day One which team I'm gonna play with!
But this boy was attracted to me, and he felt the deep need to express that personally. I remember the moment well. I was in the hall of IS 61, between classes. I just wanted to get to my next class. But the fact that he then ran away upon kissing me tells me quite a bit a bit about him and our common cultural context. His "running away" told me about the common culture we both inhabited, a culture which said same sex attraction was inherently bad and a result of the fall.
I "used" to belong to that culture. I no longer do. I "used" to believe that. I no longer do.
And yet I STILL hold to traditional church teachings... Go figure...
