If you went to the rally and/or the National Equality March this weekend, please leave a comment about what you experienced out in D.C.

Sorry I had to tease you like that. We talked about so many things and I think quite a bit of it was worth bringing to the217. And now, the very final installment of Catholic School Boys.

W.T. So you do believe that sex out of wedlock or out of a committed relationship is not favorable?

Matt: Yeah, that’s what I personally believe. It works for me, but if someone else if having sex I’m not gonna freak out about it. I wouldn’t push it on anyone.

W.T. In school, did the topic of homosexuality ever come up with your friends?

Matt: Yeah, it was generally looked down upon. Fag was used sometimes and the word gay was used every other word. It was generally not a good thing. It was talked about and near the end of high school I had the discussion with some of my friends. One of my good female friends talked about how gays were cool, and then someone said something about me being gay, and at one point she said, “No, I know him, he couldn’t be gay.” She was still in the mindset where it’s not right to do religiously, but it’s cool and it’s okay. I don’t know how that works.

W.T. It seems like you’d feel guilt.

Matt: Yeah, it was definitely my second life.

W.T. So you started messing around 8th grade?

Matt: Or seventh grade. Maybe sixth grade. Somewhere in junior high. Messed around.

W.T. What were you thinking while you were doing that stuff?

Matt: Well I was enjoying it! Afterwards there was some guilt with it but it was definitely “this is fun, I want to do it again” sort of thing. For the other guy it was very much experimentation but for me it was definitely “I like guys.” There was a period in high school where I thought I would get over it. That it was a phase. I look back now on high school and I would never want to go back. I was so two-faced then, and that’s still there today if I would go back and visit friends. If I go hang out with them I revert to my old self, and I don’t like that version of myself.

W.T. Why do you think it’s necessary to keep on with that other face?

Matt: Partially for my parents. My sister doesn’t know. She should have figured it out by now. But my mom still works for the school. Her job wouldn’t be in jeopardy but there are people who would treat her differently. My friends would probably be like “whatever” but I only see them once or twice a year so I don’t care enough to really tell them. They’ll probably know at some point. I really don’t care who I tell but my mom has this super paranoid (NOTE: I’m not sure what Matt said here. A paranoid something. This interview took place at Murphy’s around 4 in the afternoon and some drunk guy screamed out in frustration while playing a video game. It was amazing.) … and it makes sense. My mom is completely cool with gays, but she thinks it’s wrong religiously so she thinks it’s wrong for me to do it. It’d be cool if you were to come over, if that makes sense.

W.T. Right, like if I came over and we played PlayStation or something.

Matt: Right. That’s okay!

W.T. What does she think the punishment for being gay is?

Matt: Being gay and practicing it, you’re going to Hell.

W.T. Your mom thinks you’re going to Hell.

Matt: No, at the same time she believes you can sin your whole life and repent and still go to Heaven. Theoretically I could go have a boyfriend for the next 40 or 50 years and then at the end I can repent and still go to Heaven.

W.T. Does she think you’d be willing to do that? Say at the end of your life that you would say, “Sorry, didn’t mean it.”

Matt: Haha, I don’t think I would do that, but she … what she really wants is for me to date a girl. Be normal.

W.T. How’s your relationship with God now?

Matt: Well like I said it’s sort of spiritual and religious but I don’t go to church.

W.T. What does being spiritual mean exactly?

Matt: I’ll just give you an example. In high school I told you we had to take religion classes. I got interested in the theology behind religion. I’ve been reading different theology books, some with clashing viewpoints on homosexuality. Lately I’ve been reading those and trying to figure out what I think.

W.T. Can you tell me about anything about the relationships you’ve been in. with the straight guys?

Matt: They aren’t real relationships. They’ve never been defined as “we’re dating.” We’ll mess around. I can pretty much say I’ve never had a boyfriend. We’ll mess around or constantly hang out and do everything together … and mess around. It’s like dating without the title. And that was the deal with the administrator’s son. They had a huge family and they all left for a while, for the summer. It was the two oldest brothers that stayed back. I was really good friends with the younger one and it was the older one where every day after work I would go over to their house. And we’d hang out and he usually ended up mostly naked. And then we’d end up wrestling.

W.T. How does one just end up naked?

Matt: He’s hot? Haha, he’s “I’m just so hot and need to take my shirt off. And I need to take my pants off too.”

W.T. So they were really in need of air conditioning or fans or something.

Matt: Right, that’s how one ends up naked. And that guy … we never did anything super sexual. We never went all the way. And then I’ve done things with guys … where we’ve done everything but sex. Like, everything that didn’t need a condom was done. That’s the other fun part. My parents think I’ve never done anything with a guy.

W.T. With your friends who do know, how does it affect your relationships with them?

Matt: It hasn’t really. They’re totally the same relationships. One of them I told because we were in a hotel in downtown Chicago and he was like, “Do you have any porn to watch?” And I was like, “I have porn but not stuff you want to watch.” And he’s like, “No you don’t! Show me!” He was completely cool with it.

W.T. So school, was it a good experience overall?

Matt: Yeah. I wouldn’t want to do it again.

W.T. If anything were to change at that school, what would you want it to be?

Matt: If they actually talked about it. If they addressed it in some way, shape, or form. And in the addressing of it if they even say, “We don’t like it but we like you and you’re here.” It needs to be the person’s choice, and not the school carting these kids off to Exodus camps.

W.T. You say choice, do you think it’s a choice to be gay?

Matt: Damn. You caught me using the wrong word. I don’t really think it’s a choice, but I’m not completely convinced either way. For me, I am completely mostly I would say 100% visually and sexually attracted to men. But I dated my girlfriend and was emotionally totally attached to her and physically things worked together. And that presents a problem to me defining it as not being a choice. And that’s why I don’t define myself.

W.T. Last question, what would you say to a student who is in a Catholic school right now, and he isn’t sure if he’s gay or not, but he’s questioning.

Matt: I would tell him to talk to someone about it. I think that the fact that I never told anyone or talked about it … it hindered me. And I probably wouldn’t talk to a teacher about it. It’s hard to find someone in a religious high school to talk to. Who do you talk to? If they’re in Champaign there’s a new RSO starting for gay Christians. It’s starting as a hangout group and an open discussion kind of group.

W.T. If he corners you and he says, “Tell me what you think about homosexuality,” what would you say to him?

Matt: I’m cool with it. I think that’s because of my own life and struggles back and forth deciding what I think about it. Even if I choose to go back and date my girlfriend, somehow we got married or something, but I would still be cool with my kids being gay. I think that’s the interesting thing about people who go to a Christian school and grow up in the church but want to be gay. Want to do both. I think the church needs to erase hate and not shun people away.

**

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Matt was actually the first guy I interviewed for the Catholic School Boys, but I saved him for last because I see him as having one of the more conservative backgrounds. If you haven’t realized this by now, one of my main goals with With Tongue is to prove that gay guys can come from many various backgrounds (whether they’re frat boys or Catholics or sissies or jocks). And, when you look into these separate categories, the backgrounds and experiences are often quite varied. No two gay men are the same. Like gay snowflakes.

The next series I will be doing will focus on gays (and, if I can find some, lesbians) who have a disability. I will be conducting interviews within a few weeks, and if you or someone you know would be willing to spend 30-60 minutes talking with me, it would be much appreciated. I can be contacted at withtongue@gmail.com.

And without any further adieu: the conclusion to Catholic School Boys. Matt is a 22 year old grad student at UIUC and went to a non-denominational Christian school in northern Illinois.

W.T. First, sexually how would you define yourself?

Matt: I don’t like to define myself, but I would normally define myself more gay.

W.T. How long did you go to your school?

Matt: From 3rd grade to senior year of high school. It was a whole class of 9 people.

W.T. Wow. What was sex education like at your school?

Matt: There was sex-ed in junior high. It was abstinence only. Sex was against the rules of the school, not to mention gay sex.

W.T. So it was abstinence only. When did you find out about contraception?

Matt: Oh, I don’t know. It was probably through parents, friends, and TV. Even though it was a Christian school it definitely wasn’t purist. I think I found out about sex from a friend in the third grade. But sex ed was definitely abstinence only and that was also pushed in Bible classes and what not. We had to take those every year.

W.T. Did they teach you about the reproductive system?

Matt: Yeah, sure, in biology. We learned where babies come from and everything. A lot of what they taught us about sex was a moral thing, not so much a focus on babies and STDs and AIDS. We had this class, Contemporary World Views, where they teach you about all these world views like Marxism, communism. And in the actual curriculum homosexuality was thrown in there.

W.T. Like right next to Nazis?

Matt: Haha, yeah, but the year I took it they took the homosexuality section out. The year before there were videos with the class and one of the videos showed two guys kidding. Some of the parents got upset and made them take it out.

W.T. When they talked about these views did they label any of them as bad?

Matt: No, overall that course was done well, but mostly because of the teacher that taught it. They would also say this is what they believe and contrast it with what Christian believe, but they wouldn’t say it’s necessarily bad.

W.T. That’s cool, so would you say your school was actually more liberal?

Matt: No. Not at all. We have two principals, and one of them is the kind of guy who thinks of tie-dye as the devil. Conservative. If he knew I was gay, he probably wouldn’t let me back in the school when I go home.

W.T. Alright, and do your parents know?

Matt: Yes. They kind of forced it out of me my sophomore year of college. I actually didn’t come out to anyone, or even myself until freshman year of college. The school was very conservative in that sense.

W.T. When do you think you first realized you were gay then?

Matt: Oh, in like junior high when I messed around with guys.

W.T. So tell me why you didn’t come out until college then.

Matt: Mostly because of the conservative viewpoint and I think a lot of my friends would not be okay with it. A lot of my high school friends don’t know. Or maybe they do now, I haven’t talked to a lot of them in a while. It was sort of like peer pressure I guess but really it was just the idea of “you don’t do that.” Even though junior year of high school I kind of had a thing with a school administrator’s son. And today he’s completely in the closet and getting married to a girl. But that’s a different story.

W.T. That sounds like a good story.

Matt: Let’s put it this way, all the guys I’ve ever dated are “straight.”

W.T. That sounds like really bad luck. Are you seeing anyone now?

Matt: No, not seeing anyone right now. Well, so then there’s the interesting thing in college, where I dated a girl. And this was after I came out. But we kind of just hit it off. And so then we decided to stop dating because I wasn’t really sure … well this is why I say I don’t define myself. I guess you could say I’m gay except for her. We’re totally still best friends and kind of sort of dating again, but not really. It’s interesting.

W.T. Are you still religious now? Were you even religious then?

Matt: Yes and no and yes. I definitely grew up in the church and my whole family is all about religion. It’s important. I was religious then. I did everything. I went to youth group and to church and did everything I was supposed to. I was a good little boy. Then in college I found a church that isn’t okay with gays, but they’re open about it. They’ll talk about it. It wasn’t like my church or school back home where the only mention of it was that you’re going to Hell.

W.T. What does this church say about it?

Matt: They think it’s sin, but they’re of the mindset of hate the sin, love the sinner. I started going to that and I’ve gone to it for a while. I did that for a church thing, but I also tried the no religion at all thing. Now I am back with the doing religion, but not organized religion. It’s been a lot of back and forth. My mom doesn’t accept that I like guys and that guys are hot, but she’s … she asked me a couple weeks ago if I was going to date my ex-girlfriend again. She’s a little bit about it right now but she’s still holding out. Thinking of it as a phase. A long phase. And she’s the fun mom who when she found out she asked me if I really wanted to have anal sex.

W.T. Haha, how did you answer?!

Matt: I stood up and laughed and walked away.

W.T. I hope you were walking crooked or something. So you say you’re religious but not necessarily organized. Do you follow a Bible at all?

Matt: Yeah, it’s a bit hard to explain. I would say I follow the basic beliefs of Evangelical Christianity but I haven’t completely settled on what I believe on the no gays or not verses.

W.T. What do you think about those verses?

Matt: I don’t like to think about them. Haha, they tell me I can’t do what I want to do! I have a wide range of friends and I have some who went to the church I am usually associated with. And they left that church because they decided they wanted to pursue gay relationships. That’s the thing, it’s cool if you’re in the church, but not if you’re acting on it. Two of them left, got married, and they go to the Quaker church. The Quaker church is okay with it. They got married in the Quaker church. They got married in Illinois last summer and they got legally married in Iowa.

W.T. How do you feel about gay marriage?

Matt: Well, I’m the bad gay guy who doesn’t care if it’s called marriage. I would be cool if it’s civil unions as long as it’s the exact same thing. A big part of the debate is just the word and I don’t find it necessary.

W.T. So you would say that marriage is between a man and a woman in the church?

Matt: I would say that’s how the church defines it. Personally I don’t care. And I would be perfectly fine with it not being called marriage for gays.

W.T. Do you ever foresee yourself getting married to a man? Or “civil unioned?”

Matt: Well, I foresee myself getting married in the future. There’s still the girlfriend thing.

W.T. Back to high school, what was dating like?

Matt: It was a little strange because it was such a small school. All my friends shared girlfriends, you know? Cause they’d break up or whatever. And that’d be strange because she’d put out for one guy and not the other. You always knew when people were sleeping together. They were sleeping together on teachers’ desks.

W.T. What! How is that possible? Where do you find the time?

Matt: Drama club, after school.

W.T. Oh, of course.

Matt: While we were taught abstinence, it definitely did not happen. When I was in 8th grade or a freshman, there were some guys in the high school who came out to some people. They ended up leaving the school. They left before they were asked to. That’s against the rules. It’s not morally acceptable. They would have been asked to leave because they were bad influences. Private schools don’t have any regulations so they can do that. The same thing would happen with people doing drugs.

W.T. Ah, so homosexuality, heroin…

Matt: Pot, yeah, it’s all the same thing.

W.T. The school considers it sexual deviance. What do you consider sexual deviance?

Matt: I think before I would have said … well I was the type of person who was not going to have sex before marriage, but maybe I would do other things.

W.T. Is that still true for you?

Matt: Yes. I haven’t had sex before marriage. I don’t know how strongly I still feel about that though. I think it’s more of a committed thing, not a marriage thing. Maybe partially do to the fact that you can’t legally get married in the state.

W.T. Unless you’re with the Quakers. But I guess that isn’t necessarily coming with legal rights. How do you feel about the priest scandal? How did it affect your view on homosexuality?

Matt: I don’t think it changed my view a lot actually. My view on homosexuality in the church is that they don’t do it right. I’m okay with churches saying that they don’t think it’s right, but I don’t agree with how they act towards it. That they make it one of those unmentionable topics and that it’s among the worst sins. The church’s view and treatment of it needs to be different. It needs to be more of an open discussion.

W.T. How do you feel about the organizations that try to convert you from homosexual to heterosexual?

Matt: Like Exodus? That’s the big one. I don’t want to speak too harshly. I don’t like them. I have a lot of friends that have done it. I have a few friends who have done it and say they’re straight. But it’s not that simple. One of the guys would say he’s straight, but he’ll also have days where he will feel gay. He’s really attracted to guys. But he feels that the Bible is right and that it’s wrong, and therefore he’s going to compromise his sexuality for religion. It’s something I’m not willing to do. At least I don’t think I am. I’d have a really hard time doing it, I think. Choosing one or the other is giving up on something that’s a part of me.

W.T. Can you tell me a little bit more about your friend who’s straight now?

Matt: He at least at one point had a girlfriend. I know he doesn’t have one now. He think it’s not right to be gay so he’s not gonna do it. I’m sure he’s sexually frustrated. He definitely deals with it on a daily basis. He actually works for a church and he’s in seminary right now. He’s definitely committed to it. He has an interesting story too and I won’t really get into it, but he was totally a little slut before that.

END PART 1

Coming up in Part 2: guilt, spirituality, dating, whether or not it’s a choice, and more on the administrator’s son

It has come to my attention that David Sedaris will be in town October 16th at the Virginia Theatre.

If you know how to read or if ever listen to NPR (you hipster schmuck) you probably know his work. He’s that gay writer who was an elf once. Yeah, that one.

If you have the change to spare, you should definitely grab a ticket. They don’t do online purchases but you can call them up at 217.356.9063 to get in on the action. Or you can check out their website which will tell you to do the same thing. That is possible here.

Catholic School Boys is almost over (one story left and this one gets pretty juicy) but if you enjoy the topic of sexuality and spirituality you should check out this event on campus. It will be a “panel … comprised of students, parents, and religious leaders representing a variety of faiths and experiences, followed by discussion.”

Also, I’m not sure if it’s still possible to jump on the Washington, D.C. bandwagon, but here’s the link to UIUC’s participation and the link for the NO H8 campaign’s flash protest taking place the day before the march.

First, don’t worry, there’s still one more Catholic School Boy article coming out. But, since it’s October, I want to mention that I saw Sorority Row last night. If you’ve ever enjoyed watching bitches fight (e.g. Desperate Housewives, Sex & the City, Glee, WifeSwap), you’ll love seeing them kill each other with a lug wrench. And an axe.

I don’t want to get into spoiling this movie for you because you should really go see it. It involves lots of naked people (men and women) so even if you’re not interested in teeny bopper murder you can at least get off a few times.

What I do want to tell you, however, is that while I was looking for reviews of the movie, I came across a blog by a queer who critiques horror movies. It’s called CampBlood Blog and you should really check it out if you’re into slasher/horror movies.

Aight. Time to go write a paper on madness. Happy October everybody!