Go Deep: Billy Porter
By L. Michael Gipson
For those who've quietly ached to see a proud, talented and courageous reflection of themselves in urban music, he's been a long time coming. Since the untimely December 16, 1988 death of soul and disco diva, Sylvester, to AIDS, no out, black, gay soul singer has stepped to the scrutinizing public plate. Plenty of artists have been rumored and at least one 6'7 blonde and bronze drag queen has extended her 15 minutes of fame into a 15 year cause celebré. While the George Michaels and Melissa Etheridges of the pop and rock scenes have been kicking down their closet doors in a steady drumbeat, the mantle of black gay soul singer has been notably vacant. Even black lesbians had a short-lived moment of cheer when Me'shell N'degéocello sung about her same sex desires on her 2002 album "Cookie: An Anthropological Mixtape." Tevin Campbell, the self-professed "try-sexual" (as in, according to his Sister2Sister interview, he'll try anything), doesn't really count since an unsavory incident with a cop burst open Campbell's closet and hammered the final nail in a career already on life support. Luther's vacillation between silence and self-incriminating defiance amounted to a wink, a nod and strict adherence to a self-imposed don't ask, don't tell policy that left many wanting. So, finally, with some fanfare he's arrived; the nation's first kick-ass out black gay balladeer for this generation, Mr. Billy Porter.
For those who care about such relatively personal matters, the absence of a Billy Porter has probably done more-not less-to increase speculation about the sexuality of male singers striving to sell their masculine mystique as much as their melodies. Once upon a time, Billy Porter was marketed as the gentleman sex siren accompanied by all the usual career-damaging whispers that have dogged most r & b singers from Sisqo to Jaheim. This was in 1997 when Billy Porter, a young Broadway veteran, was on top of the world with a promising A&M Records debut, Untitled. The 1990 Grand Prize Star Search winner had a hot single, "Love Is on the Way"; receiving consistent radio airplay in adult contemporary and BET had placed in high rotation a video for Billy's brilliant Glenn Jones cover, "Show Me." With his smooth chocolate brown skin, a devilish smile, and from gospel to Broadway vocal chops, Billy seemed to be the total package.
Except for one small thing, the rumors about Billy's homosexuality weren't conjecture, they were truth; too much truth for his label. A&M appeared to struggle with marketing a kat who for all his acting abilities couldn't seem to fool the public into believing that he was their heterosexual boy next door. What's more, it seems that their gentleman artist wasn't entirely willing to be complicit in their image devising schemes. So, the church-bred, Pittsburgh native whose unique vocal styling had led him up a rocket ship ascent from The Great White Way to soul stardom suddenly found himself crashing to earth without a label deal. To add insult to injury he witnessed Celine Dion make a bonafide hit out of his career-defining show stopper, Love Is on the Way, a short time later.
For many other artists this would be the end of the story; who was Billy Porter? would be the brain stumper question for some music trivia game. Billy, however, wasn't just any artist. His voice is one for the ages and it soon found a home back on Broadway starring in everything from a revival of "Grease" to a landmark recording of "Dreamgirls: In Concert." No less than Rosie O'Donnell fell in love with Billy's talent and had him appear on his show innumerable times. Las Vegas wasn't far behind in their affections, tagging Billy with the task of developing and directing a hit review of Stevie Wonder's music for the secretive city. Billy followed success after success with a few choice film roles, animation voice overs and more theater offers than he knew what to do with. Until one day Billy decided to step back into the music industry limelight using a familiar back door, the theater. Billy fully and loudly spoke his truth through a 2005 George C. Wolfe produced one-man show, "Ghetto Superstar: The Man I Am." The show—part gay campy, part musical confession—has proven to be the making of Billy, having won over one of his toughest audience, those hard-nosed, New York critics. Leaving Billy poised to tackle another more daunting audience, the record buying public. Through his own label, Billy's recorded the best of his show and independently released it as a live album, "At the Corner of Broadway and Soul (LIVE)." The album covers everything from gospel classics like Smokie Norful's "I Need You Now" to a slew of Broadway ditties, including a gender faithful, Dreamgirls' classic, "And I Am Telling You." Perhaps the best of the project are Billy's own intelligent self-penned pop-soul tunes that demonstrate such demanding and awe-inspiring vocal arrangements that they leave listeners on the edge of their seats. On "At The Corner…", Billy's voice climbs so many scales and rips through so many jazz riffs and gospel runs that one is exuberantly exhausted from the experience. Since its release, Porter has appeared on Oprah Winfrey, in advertisements for MTV's gay themed cable channel, Logo, and is now featured on Broadway in Cheryl West's Birdie Blue, ensuring us that Billy intends to let his special brand of male Divadom shine in every media available to him for years to come.
Why and when did you start to sing?
I really don't know what made me want to sing. I just popped out of my mother's womb singing. When I discovered that my singing helped my not to get my ass kicked everyday—I never shut up! Gospel music was my first and only music until I was twelve. I grew up on The Hawkins Family, The Winans (pre- BeBe & CeCe), The Clark Sisters, Myna Summers, Mattie Moss Clark and Thomas Whitfield. Then at age 11, I was introduced to the theater, and the rest is history.
How does living on so many different intersections (i.e., black, gay, a person of faith, etc.) impact your art and music?
I'm only now beginning to understand the full extent of who I am, because I've finally been able to embrace all my contradictions. Therefore, my ministry has been able to breathe and grow
On your album, you discuss how Jennifer Holliday was such an inspiration. At 12 years old, did seeing Jennifer performing "And I'm Telling You" from Dreamgirls on the 1983 Tony Awards the reason you chose Broadway first? What else inspired your theatrical pursuits?
I was never about choosing Broadway first. That was the only type of creative outlet there was where I was from. I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, not Los Angeles or New York. And my parents knew nothing about the business, nor did they care. So, if I wanted a creative outlet, theater was it.
You sing a lot of gospel music on your new album and even your own lyrics are flavored with spirituality. Given your church roots and the obviousness of your deep and enduring faith, why did you not chose to pursue a career in gospel?
Because I'm gay. And because I'm not willing to lie about or hide who God made me. Gospel music is, unfortunately, so bound by religious constructs-which are man made and have nothing to do with spirituality—that weekly I was forced to endure a spiritual murdering of my spirit in my childhood. I'm grown now. I'm going to preach to the people nobody's preaching to.
Still, you wrote and recorded several gospel songs on your latest project, At the Corner of Broadway and Soul, so do you see a complete gospel project in your future?
I do see a gospel project in my future, but on my terms.
How have you reconciled your faith life with your sexuality?
God made me and he don't make no junk. It's a constant journey.You've starred in several huge Broadway shows, From Grease to Five Guys Named Moe, but do you consider yourself a Broadway star?No! Not yet. Soon, though. Very soon.
How has being a black man and then a black gay man impacted your options as a recording artist and Broadway star?
Nobody knows what to do with you when you're different. So, I've stopped waiting around for people without vision to get me. I get me! And that's all that matters.
You spent a great deal of time doing musical theater; do you prefer the stage to the studio?
I prefer anything that's live. I love the stage. The studio is fine. But my love is for all things LIVE.
In other interviews you've alluded to A&M not being able to handle you, what happened with your first album deal?
Too long a story. Read my book when it comes out. I'll tell it all! The music business has no idea what to do with a black faggot; especially one who could go toe-to-toe with their divas. The world wasn't ready for a male DIVA. But they need to get ready. 'Cause I ain't goin' no where. And I will not be denied! It's a new day.
How many units did your first project move? How difficult was it for an artist of your talent not to go platinum?
I have no idea. I don't really focus on those kinds of things. I just try to keep doing good work. Not going platinum and my deal not working out sent me into a whirlwind depression that lasted for at least 6 years, if not more.
Did you attempt to get a second album through another major after your first deal ended? If so, what was the response?
I tried very hard to get signed again. Everyone passed. Oh well. They'll all be sorry one day.
You were in a cult hit movie, The Broken Hearts Club, where you portrayed an out black gay man long before the public thought of you that way. How was that film experience for you?
One of the best experiences of my life. It was one of the first times that I realized that who I was already was enough.
Do you see other film projects in your future?
Of course.
How did the one-man show, "Ghetto Superstar: The Man I Am", transpire?
I got sick of waiting around for other people to get it. If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.
What was it like to work with a Broadway legend like director/producer and former Joseph Papp Public Theater Director, George C. Wolfe (i.e., The Colored Museum, Bring On Da Noise, Bring On Da Funk, etc.)?
He was exactly what I needed at the time. He's black, gay and unapologetically running shit! I needed to see that. I needed him in my life badly.
What have you taken from that experience?
No more apologies. Ya'll can take it or leave it! I know you toured in your hometown of Pittsburgh, but are you still touring "Ghetto Superstar"?I'm not touring at the moment. I'm working on trying to figure out how to do that.
How would you describe the music and your songwriting on your freshman project versus your new album?
The first album was someone else's interpretation of me and who I should have been.This project is ALL ME!
How has singing your own music differed from interpreting the works of other songwriters?
Empowering.
What inspires your songwriting?
The world around me inspires my writing. I miss message music. I miss political music. I miss music that makes you think. The world is literally blowing up around us and all we can get is "Jenny from the block." Now don't get me wrong, I love a good beat, but the balance is a little off these days.
Do you ever think you'll write songs about same gender love and relationships?
Mos def.
For those who like a little dirt, what hot nuggets do you want to share about Billy Porter's love life?
I have no hot nuggets other than the fact that I do have a man. His name is Ari Gold. And he's an amazing out gay artists who keeps me smiling and inspired everyday. Check out his website - arigold.com
What does Billy Porter feel about love?
It's work! And that's not a bad thing. You gotta work at it just like you work on everything else.Your show and music reveals a lot about your most vulnerable experiences.
Why did you feel it was important to expose so much of your experience with your audience?
Cause that's what artists do: we expose ourselves so that those can't, have a voice.
How are you still developing as an artist?
I will be developing as an artist until the day I die.
What words of advice would you have for a black gay teen who is looking up to you as an out soul artist and actor and wants to be the next Billy Porter?
The idea that anyone would look up to me is still so scary. But in the event that it does happen I would say... Keep you head up, stay strong, stare your demons straight in the eyes and tell them to get behind you! We got work to do!
What's next for Billy Porter?
I'm going to be on The Oprah Winfrey Show. I done died and gone to heaven! [our interview took place prior to Billy's November 2006 appearance on Oprah]
How can people cop At the Corner of Broadway and Soul and learn more about your upcoming shows?
My album can be found in stores and online at amazon.com and iTunes. You can get more info about me and hear unreleased music at my website, www.billyporter.com.
Thank You, Billy!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
New CD Reviews Posted on SoulTracks.com
SoulTracks has posted my review of Vanessa Bell Armstrong's latest project. No longer suffering from the inconsistencies that have crippled her more recent projects, Walking Miracle is nothing less than. It has something foor the secular and the spiritual listener.
Check out the review by following the link:
http://www.soultracks.com/vanessa_bell_armstrong.htm
You can also heck out my latest SoulTracks.com review of Shirely Murdock's forthcoming album Soulfood. It's not the kindest review, I've written but I believe it's one of my most fair. Forthcoming bios of Lewis Taylor and Fertile Ground will soon be posted on SoulTracks as well as a review of Vanessa Bell Armstrong's soon-to-be-released project. Soul Tracks is the number one soul music website in the country. Keep on the look out for more from me on SoulTracks! The link is below.
http://www.soultracks.com/shirley_murdock.htm
Check out the review by following the link:
http://www.soultracks.com/vanessa_bell_armstrong.htm
You can also heck out my latest SoulTracks.com review of Shirely Murdock's forthcoming album Soulfood. It's not the kindest review, I've written but I believe it's one of my most fair. Forthcoming bios of Lewis Taylor and Fertile Ground will soon be posted on SoulTracks as well as a review of Vanessa Bell Armstrong's soon-to-be-released project. Soul Tracks is the number one soul music website in the country. Keep on the look out for more from me on SoulTracks! The link is below.
http://www.soultracks.com/shirley_murdock.htm
Two Articles in The March 2007 Clik
Two Articles in The New Clik
One is a long awaited interview with Rashawn Brazell's mother. Rashawn was murdered, mutilated and left in parts throughout the NY City subway system and recycling center two years ago. His murder remains unsolved. This interview gives readers the prospective of Rashawn's mother, Desire Brazell and provides a much needed update to this case we're trying to keep from going cold. The second is a feature article providing an overview of internet and chatline robberies and murders targeting gay men and some methods folks can do to protect themselves against this type of targeted hate crime. I may post parts of the pieces on here later this week. Preview the March 2007 issue below:
http://www.clikmagazine.com
One is a long awaited interview with Rashawn Brazell's mother. Rashawn was murdered, mutilated and left in parts throughout the NY City subway system and recycling center two years ago. His murder remains unsolved. This interview gives readers the prospective of Rashawn's mother, Desire Brazell and provides a much needed update to this case we're trying to keep from going cold. The second is a feature article providing an overview of internet and chatline robberies and murders targeting gay men and some methods folks can do to protect themselves against this type of targeted hate crime. I may post parts of the pieces on here later this week. Preview the March 2007 issue below:
http://www.clikmagazine.com
Black Boys Secrets, Gay Men's Pain
Black Boys Secrets, Gay Men's Pain
By L. Michael Gipson
In 1989, a six foot, fourteen year old Roderick could be found greasing his thick, chocolate thighs with baby oil before popping a cherry Blow Pop into Vaseline glossed lips. Taking a cue from the girls on his block, Rod rocked form fitted wifebeaters and P.E. shorts that would ride high on his thighs, hitting just blow his heavy cheeks, before hitting his high-traffic neighborhood streets. Looking older than his years, Rod tried to strike a balance between presenting masculine enough to keep the corner boys from bashing him but Lolita enough to get the older men he desired to holler at him. Not for cash, but for sex and some grown male attention. Having been well taught on the joys of oral sex by a 13 year old cousin two years earlier, Rod found himself a magnet for lascivious older men. The problem is that these men weren't three to five years older than Rod, they're twenty-five, thirty, forty, even fifty year old men. At 32, Rod has since learned better, but as a teen he considered himself a willing co-partner in his many sexual seductions and encounters. Then, Rod believed because he could make these grown men moan and their toes curl that he had the power; that he was in control of these encounters. It would take being raped in a park by a 50 year old stranger that summer in 1989, when his partner ignored Rod's protests and continued penetrating Rod against his will, for Rod to realize that he'd never been in control at all.
"Until this man ignored my futile pleas for him stop, I thought men respected my wishes and my voice. I'd never been fucked before. The men before this dude would try to coerce me to do more, but they generally respected my boundaries. When he didn't stop I didn't know what to do. I felt confused, powerless and remember just crying the whole time," shares Rod, a health educator.
While Rod sought strangers, Khalil was accosted by family. Khalil was five years old when the sexual abuse with his uncle began. He was eight when it ended. He was twenty-five at his uncle's funeral when he was first told about his victimization from a fellow long-term survivor of his uncle's advances, his sister. Now a handsome, well-built 35 year old accountant, Khalil remembers bits and pieces of his childhood nightmare. He's scared to push too hard on those memories, scared to remember the horrible fullness of what he's lived.
"I'm a pretty well adjusted adult. I like who I turned out to be. If I open up those flood gates, I might become a basket case," says Khalil, "Part of me is afraid to open up that door and ruining my life."
Whether it's a Rod seeking sex with exploitive adults or a Khalil being molested by blood, the stories of black gay men surviving childhood or adolescent sexual abuse appear common. Now there may be more than stories demonstrating the disproportionate nature of childhood sexual abuse in black gay men's lives. In a paper to be published in the forthcoming journal of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, three independent qualitative studies on nearly a hundred Black men who have sex with men (MSM) found that prolonged and repeated sexual abuse was a common trend among the three samples of men. Moreover, they discovered another disturbing trend.
"We found that approximately 1 out of 3 Black MSM who participated in the three qualitative studies in Rochester, Lexington and Atlanta reported having experienced sexual abuse as a child," reports Dr. David Malebranche of ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Emory University. Malebranche along with Sheldon Fields, Ph.D. from the University of Rochester—School of Nursing, both black gay men, are among the paper's three researchers.
Thirty-two percent, almost a third of the Black gay men studied were sexually abused as children or adolescents. Another disturbing finding was that the men's abusers were often cousins, uncles and family friends. Both Khalil and Rod's childhoods reflect this trend of incest. While Rod's initial experience was a consensual act with a peer, it was still with his cousin by marriage. Similarly, Khalil was first molested by a blood related uncle. These men's experiences—whether a childhood sexual abuse or experience—are technically considered incestuous. These stories and findings raise concerns about the job the community is doing to protect the sexual welfare and development of black boys.
No generalization about black gay men can be made with these studies small sample sizes, but the results are a cause for consideration and an open discussion about how to better protect black boys. Culturally it seems the issue of protecting black boys' sexual development is often met with silence. There's also an unspoken, illogical assumptions about boys' ability to physically defend themselves against unwanted adult male abuse and advances and that those gay boys who seek out sex with men are prepared to handle the consequences of their desires and actions. In turn, boys are responding to these messages and lack of visible information on male-to-male sexual abuse with silence about their own experiences. Like Khalil, many men in the study never or had rarely shared their assaults with anyone before being interviewed, much less sought out counseling.
"My first thought after it happened was to not tell anyone about the rape. I thought who would believe a fat, 14 year old boy had gotten raped by a man? In 1989, there were no after school specials on male rape to warn me. I only told my mom about the rape two months later because I wanted an HIV test. Even then, I didn't tell her the real details of how I got in the position to be raped or my teen years with men until I was grown," says Rod.
In the US there is no legal understanding of consensual sex between a minor and an adult male. Still, it happens and stories like Rod's, where intergenerational sex was sought after and perpetrated by youth, raises a different set of questions about what—beyond the law—qualifies as abuse between men and boys? What, if any, damage is wrought for these boys from these experiences as they get older? Is subsequent adolescent sex with men conscious desire or does the abuse evolve into a pattern continued with other men?
Khalil's childhood sexual experiences with men didn't stop at age eight. There are others Khalil remembers and feels conflicted about. Like the two-year relationship he had as a 15 year old with a 30 year old man. The relationship was primarily a sexual one, and at the time Khalil thought of the relationship as consensual. Khalil's second relationship with an adult male occurred when he was sixteen. This time it was with his church's pastor, a man of nearly sixty years. Khalil says that this relationship wasn't consensual, but coercive and manipulative and that to escape it, he ultimately had to leave his church and avoid the subsequent calls to his home. Even today, when Khalil describes the two sexual relationships you can hear that he treats them differently; one less traumatic than the other, though both morally and legally inexcusable by Khalil's own admission.
"If the men label these relationships as abusive then they'll need to deal with it or process it differently. Still, I think there are a small number of men out there who have these kinds of sexual experiences that are not abusive. The men do not consider it abusive often do not manifest the same negative patterns of behavior noted in victims of sexual abuse," explains Dr. Fields.
Can a teenage boy consent to sex with an adult male? Does he have the mental and developmental capacity? Beyond the slower maturity of boys than girls and its implications for sexual readiness, physically we know that the human brain is still developing its final and perhaps most important function up to age 25, judgment. So, can one separate adolescent sexual experience from childhood sexual abuse? Well, in academia the separation is under debate. Regardless of the outcome, one thing that seems certain is that in the instances of gay boys, particularly effeminate gay boys, there may need to be a greater sense of urgency to address the matter of coercive sex or sexual abuse by adult men to avoid identity and self-acceptance issues later in life.
"Preliminary research findings suggest that young boys who are targeted as victims of sexual abuse by men are targeted because they may appear to be more effeminate and/or may be believed to be gay by their abusers," says Dr. Sana Loue, a research professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
If Dr. Loue is right, a common societal misperception embraced by some black gay men proves unfounded. The erroneous belief that male homosexuality is caused by childhood sexual abuse committed by men. Rod and many of the study's men blamed their same sex desire for men on their childhood sexual abuse, when ironically the reverse may have proven true. These men were targeted as boys because they were or appeared to already be gay. Even if the boys weren't particularly effeminate or viewed by their predators as gay, their attackers may have targeted them merely because the youth was both accessible and vulnerable, making the child's sexual orientation at the time incidental and not the later cause for a homosexual orientation.
"The claim that males become homosexuals because they have been sexually abused by men is not logically coherent. One could argue, then, that the reverse should also be true: that females and males become heterosexuals because they were sexually abused as children by individuals of the opposite sex," quips Dr. Loue.
It may be necessary to impress this more logical and ultimately therapeutic argument with the black gay teens at youth centers like the Beyond Identities Community Center (BICC) in Cleveland given the prevalence of sexual abuse cited by these boys. In my work with gay youth at BICC, I found as many as 8 out of 10 teen boys in my group sessions reporting sex with an illegally older male. Many BICC boys blame their sexual orientation on their abuse and early sexual experiences. Like Rod and Khalil, most of my BICC boys knew their relationships were not appropriate and occasionally felt ill at ease about their sexual histories with adults.
Unfortunately, I can recall almost as many instances of youth who fancied themselves as their elder's exploiters because they initiated the sexual advance and reaped the economic benefits of trading sex for their basic survival needs or to meet their hedonistic desires for bling-bling. These boys viewed those relationships as consensual. Refrains such as 'I'm mature for my age', 'Age ain't nothin' but a number' and my favorite 'These boys ain't got nothin' I want, I need a man to take care of me' were common. The price of such attitudes may be found in young black men's exploding HIV rates in city after city, since sex with an older man is a predictor of HIV infection for youth.
Beyond HIV, researchers say black gay boys could be setting themselves up for future poor self-worth, confusion and guilt about sexual orientation, a negative view of themselves and others as black gay men, a willingness to equate sex with love, high numbers of multiple sexual partners and risk taking behaviors. When I think of the adult black gay men who define their value primarily in their sexual currency, men's lack of self-esteem beyond the physical and material, the unwillingness to view their sexuality as natural, the lack of motivation to build a self-sustaining community and men's struggle to sustain loving, intimate relationships, I can't help but reflect on that one third. I can't help but wonder about the origins of these men' lessons and what these experiences taught.
Many of my abused BICC boys can't imagine a happy, healthy future for themselves as black gay men. Many don't see themselves being gay after thirty. They can envision transformations, perhaps church assisted, into a heterosexual life with a wife, house and kids. How this miracle of magnificent self-denial will occur is a remote question for them. This miracle's still more tangible for them than being a healthy, happy black gay man lacking the appeal and procurement privileges of youth. They say being gay is for the young. In them, I sense a fear of becoming those older men looking for boys to control and exploit. Predators they intimately know, older black gay men worth modeling they know more sparingly.
When I ask questions about their fears, they tell me different. I ask if they see themselves as men wanting to be in relationships with teenage boys. Uniformly they answer "no". When asked if they'd later approve of their teenage sons having sexual relationships with men, again "no". When asked why they don't think that they are worth just as much as their unborn, hypothetical children or the children they won't molest as adults, I receive blank stares from sad eyes. After a brief moment passes, the boys clumsily attempt to explain their individual exception to their own moral order. I laugh hearing in their initial answers—despite their protestations—an innate and simple moral understanding: little black boys, even those that are man-size, should be off limits by grown men.
"A good man would bare the burden of responsibility by gently rejecting a misguided youth's advances. A better man would hug that hungry boy and offer him the mentorship, affection and resources he is seeking from men. Instead of offering a potential lifetime of questions, confusion and embittered regret," says Rod, demonstrating in his words and actions that the abuse cycle's inevitability isn't inevitable at all That the strongest men, men like Rod and Khalil who have broken their silence to help their fellow brothers, meet the harsh challenges of life with courage, resiliency and keen survivor skills.
"Everything that has happened to me has only made me stronger, says Khalil, offering us a little hope about our wounded boys and their futures.
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By L. Michael Gipson
In 1989, a six foot, fourteen year old Roderick could be found greasing his thick, chocolate thighs with baby oil before popping a cherry Blow Pop into Vaseline glossed lips. Taking a cue from the girls on his block, Rod rocked form fitted wifebeaters and P.E. shorts that would ride high on his thighs, hitting just blow his heavy cheeks, before hitting his high-traffic neighborhood streets. Looking older than his years, Rod tried to strike a balance between presenting masculine enough to keep the corner boys from bashing him but Lolita enough to get the older men he desired to holler at him. Not for cash, but for sex and some grown male attention. Having been well taught on the joys of oral sex by a 13 year old cousin two years earlier, Rod found himself a magnet for lascivious older men. The problem is that these men weren't three to five years older than Rod, they're twenty-five, thirty, forty, even fifty year old men. At 32, Rod has since learned better, but as a teen he considered himself a willing co-partner in his many sexual seductions and encounters. Then, Rod believed because he could make these grown men moan and their toes curl that he had the power; that he was in control of these encounters. It would take being raped in a park by a 50 year old stranger that summer in 1989, when his partner ignored Rod's protests and continued penetrating Rod against his will, for Rod to realize that he'd never been in control at all.
"Until this man ignored my futile pleas for him stop, I thought men respected my wishes and my voice. I'd never been fucked before. The men before this dude would try to coerce me to do more, but they generally respected my boundaries. When he didn't stop I didn't know what to do. I felt confused, powerless and remember just crying the whole time," shares Rod, a health educator.
While Rod sought strangers, Khalil was accosted by family. Khalil was five years old when the sexual abuse with his uncle began. He was eight when it ended. He was twenty-five at his uncle's funeral when he was first told about his victimization from a fellow long-term survivor of his uncle's advances, his sister. Now a handsome, well-built 35 year old accountant, Khalil remembers bits and pieces of his childhood nightmare. He's scared to push too hard on those memories, scared to remember the horrible fullness of what he's lived.
"I'm a pretty well adjusted adult. I like who I turned out to be. If I open up those flood gates, I might become a basket case," says Khalil, "Part of me is afraid to open up that door and ruining my life."
Whether it's a Rod seeking sex with exploitive adults or a Khalil being molested by blood, the stories of black gay men surviving childhood or adolescent sexual abuse appear common. Now there may be more than stories demonstrating the disproportionate nature of childhood sexual abuse in black gay men's lives. In a paper to be published in the forthcoming journal of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, three independent qualitative studies on nearly a hundred Black men who have sex with men (MSM) found that prolonged and repeated sexual abuse was a common trend among the three samples of men. Moreover, they discovered another disturbing trend.
"We found that approximately 1 out of 3 Black MSM who participated in the three qualitative studies in Rochester, Lexington and Atlanta reported having experienced sexual abuse as a child," reports Dr. David Malebranche of ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Emory University. Malebranche along with Sheldon Fields, Ph.D. from the University of Rochester—School of Nursing, both black gay men, are among the paper's three researchers.
Thirty-two percent, almost a third of the Black gay men studied were sexually abused as children or adolescents. Another disturbing finding was that the men's abusers were often cousins, uncles and family friends. Both Khalil and Rod's childhoods reflect this trend of incest. While Rod's initial experience was a consensual act with a peer, it was still with his cousin by marriage. Similarly, Khalil was first molested by a blood related uncle. These men's experiences—whether a childhood sexual abuse or experience—are technically considered incestuous. These stories and findings raise concerns about the job the community is doing to protect the sexual welfare and development of black boys.
No generalization about black gay men can be made with these studies small sample sizes, but the results are a cause for consideration and an open discussion about how to better protect black boys. Culturally it seems the issue of protecting black boys' sexual development is often met with silence. There's also an unspoken, illogical assumptions about boys' ability to physically defend themselves against unwanted adult male abuse and advances and that those gay boys who seek out sex with men are prepared to handle the consequences of their desires and actions. In turn, boys are responding to these messages and lack of visible information on male-to-male sexual abuse with silence about their own experiences. Like Khalil, many men in the study never or had rarely shared their assaults with anyone before being interviewed, much less sought out counseling.
"My first thought after it happened was to not tell anyone about the rape. I thought who would believe a fat, 14 year old boy had gotten raped by a man? In 1989, there were no after school specials on male rape to warn me. I only told my mom about the rape two months later because I wanted an HIV test. Even then, I didn't tell her the real details of how I got in the position to be raped or my teen years with men until I was grown," says Rod.
In the US there is no legal understanding of consensual sex between a minor and an adult male. Still, it happens and stories like Rod's, where intergenerational sex was sought after and perpetrated by youth, raises a different set of questions about what—beyond the law—qualifies as abuse between men and boys? What, if any, damage is wrought for these boys from these experiences as they get older? Is subsequent adolescent sex with men conscious desire or does the abuse evolve into a pattern continued with other men?
Khalil's childhood sexual experiences with men didn't stop at age eight. There are others Khalil remembers and feels conflicted about. Like the two-year relationship he had as a 15 year old with a 30 year old man. The relationship was primarily a sexual one, and at the time Khalil thought of the relationship as consensual. Khalil's second relationship with an adult male occurred when he was sixteen. This time it was with his church's pastor, a man of nearly sixty years. Khalil says that this relationship wasn't consensual, but coercive and manipulative and that to escape it, he ultimately had to leave his church and avoid the subsequent calls to his home. Even today, when Khalil describes the two sexual relationships you can hear that he treats them differently; one less traumatic than the other, though both morally and legally inexcusable by Khalil's own admission.
"If the men label these relationships as abusive then they'll need to deal with it or process it differently. Still, I think there are a small number of men out there who have these kinds of sexual experiences that are not abusive. The men do not consider it abusive often do not manifest the same negative patterns of behavior noted in victims of sexual abuse," explains Dr. Fields.
Can a teenage boy consent to sex with an adult male? Does he have the mental and developmental capacity? Beyond the slower maturity of boys than girls and its implications for sexual readiness, physically we know that the human brain is still developing its final and perhaps most important function up to age 25, judgment. So, can one separate adolescent sexual experience from childhood sexual abuse? Well, in academia the separation is under debate. Regardless of the outcome, one thing that seems certain is that in the instances of gay boys, particularly effeminate gay boys, there may need to be a greater sense of urgency to address the matter of coercive sex or sexual abuse by adult men to avoid identity and self-acceptance issues later in life.
"Preliminary research findings suggest that young boys who are targeted as victims of sexual abuse by men are targeted because they may appear to be more effeminate and/or may be believed to be gay by their abusers," says Dr. Sana Loue, a research professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
If Dr. Loue is right, a common societal misperception embraced by some black gay men proves unfounded. The erroneous belief that male homosexuality is caused by childhood sexual abuse committed by men. Rod and many of the study's men blamed their same sex desire for men on their childhood sexual abuse, when ironically the reverse may have proven true. These men were targeted as boys because they were or appeared to already be gay. Even if the boys weren't particularly effeminate or viewed by their predators as gay, their attackers may have targeted them merely because the youth was both accessible and vulnerable, making the child's sexual orientation at the time incidental and not the later cause for a homosexual orientation.
"The claim that males become homosexuals because they have been sexually abused by men is not logically coherent. One could argue, then, that the reverse should also be true: that females and males become heterosexuals because they were sexually abused as children by individuals of the opposite sex," quips Dr. Loue.
It may be necessary to impress this more logical and ultimately therapeutic argument with the black gay teens at youth centers like the Beyond Identities Community Center (BICC) in Cleveland given the prevalence of sexual abuse cited by these boys. In my work with gay youth at BICC, I found as many as 8 out of 10 teen boys in my group sessions reporting sex with an illegally older male. Many BICC boys blame their sexual orientation on their abuse and early sexual experiences. Like Rod and Khalil, most of my BICC boys knew their relationships were not appropriate and occasionally felt ill at ease about their sexual histories with adults.
Unfortunately, I can recall almost as many instances of youth who fancied themselves as their elder's exploiters because they initiated the sexual advance and reaped the economic benefits of trading sex for their basic survival needs or to meet their hedonistic desires for bling-bling. These boys viewed those relationships as consensual. Refrains such as 'I'm mature for my age', 'Age ain't nothin' but a number' and my favorite 'These boys ain't got nothin' I want, I need a man to take care of me' were common. The price of such attitudes may be found in young black men's exploding HIV rates in city after city, since sex with an older man is a predictor of HIV infection for youth.
Beyond HIV, researchers say black gay boys could be setting themselves up for future poor self-worth, confusion and guilt about sexual orientation, a negative view of themselves and others as black gay men, a willingness to equate sex with love, high numbers of multiple sexual partners and risk taking behaviors. When I think of the adult black gay men who define their value primarily in their sexual currency, men's lack of self-esteem beyond the physical and material, the unwillingness to view their sexuality as natural, the lack of motivation to build a self-sustaining community and men's struggle to sustain loving, intimate relationships, I can't help but reflect on that one third. I can't help but wonder about the origins of these men' lessons and what these experiences taught.
Many of my abused BICC boys can't imagine a happy, healthy future for themselves as black gay men. Many don't see themselves being gay after thirty. They can envision transformations, perhaps church assisted, into a heterosexual life with a wife, house and kids. How this miracle of magnificent self-denial will occur is a remote question for them. This miracle's still more tangible for them than being a healthy, happy black gay man lacking the appeal and procurement privileges of youth. They say being gay is for the young. In them, I sense a fear of becoming those older men looking for boys to control and exploit. Predators they intimately know, older black gay men worth modeling they know more sparingly.
When I ask questions about their fears, they tell me different. I ask if they see themselves as men wanting to be in relationships with teenage boys. Uniformly they answer "no". When asked if they'd later approve of their teenage sons having sexual relationships with men, again "no". When asked why they don't think that they are worth just as much as their unborn, hypothetical children or the children they won't molest as adults, I receive blank stares from sad eyes. After a brief moment passes, the boys clumsily attempt to explain their individual exception to their own moral order. I laugh hearing in their initial answers—despite their protestations—an innate and simple moral understanding: little black boys, even those that are man-size, should be off limits by grown men.
"A good man would bare the burden of responsibility by gently rejecting a misguided youth's advances. A better man would hug that hungry boy and offer him the mentorship, affection and resources he is seeking from men. Instead of offering a potential lifetime of questions, confusion and embittered regret," says Rod, demonstrating in his words and actions that the abuse cycle's inevitability isn't inevitable at all That the strongest men, men like Rod and Khalil who have broken their silence to help their fellow brothers, meet the harsh challenges of life with courage, resiliency and keen survivor skills.
"Everything that has happened to me has only made me stronger, says Khalil, offering us a little hope about our wounded boys and their futures.
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