Let me address Greg?s comments on sexuality. I will never forget my first day at The Seed, I was seventeen years old. After the intake, the search, etc., I was walked upstairs by a staff member, and with his arm around me he said in a gentle, yet matter of fact way, ?Oh by the way don?t worry about being gay. We were all gay before coming into The Seed.? At that moment, I really thought, ?Wow, maybe they have some magical cure here, or I will undergo some transformation that will cure me of this problem.? Remember, it was 1980, and many were just starting to come out (a few years before Madonna). For several years, I tried my best to repress it believing the dime-store responses I was being given in the back office every time I had a ?problem? with the gay issue. Usually my ?problem? would service after struggling for weeks into my head because I had fantasized about some movie star or another guy in the group. By the way there weren?t many around to fantasize about although several strutted their stuff as if they were hot shit. As time passed, I continued to pray and use all the tools on every wall downstairs and upstairs. . .and I even remember when I would spend the night at the building, I would read all of those inspirational signs hoping that some day soon, maybe by the time I turned 25, this would go away because THEY said it would, and I was told by more than one staff member, ?Do the right thing, and the right thing will happen? or ?Be grateful; you have no real problems.? The feelings I?m describing were from 80-85 (the more repressed years for me.) After that I went to school, even though I was persuaded several times not to go since ?I did not have a clear purpose as to why I wanted to go.? Thank God, I bit the bullet on that and did not listen to a fucking thing in relation to going to school since I ended spending 4 years in college and 6 more years in graduate school, which for me represented the doors to intellectual freedom, something they definitely tried to repress, but it was O.K. for some selected members that had received staff?s blessing to pursue their careers (few and far between in the 80?s). Anyway, school was an eye-opener for me; it was as if I lived a double-life. I was alienated by staff for the first few years of going to school, and my intentions were questioned several times as to whether I had made the right decision. They basically treated my career goals as Mickey Mouse compared to some of the more ?gifted members.? Looking back on all that mumbo jumbo, ?gifted? meant you came from some family with a large inheritance or social status, such as the town knew who your grandparents were in Cleveland or something. To be honest, by the time I was in school and working for several years, the roles switched some for me because I felt I had infiltrated the cult of the brainless when I was at home with the guys I lived with or sitting in the group. . .actually, at times it was laughable to see how one-dimensional many of them really were, but I plugged along anyway. I liked to think that the reason I continued to follow was out of ?loyalty,? but in reality it was the fear of the unknown. This was all I knew from 17 on and leaving for me felt like jumping off a cliff. Despite the critical thinking graduate school demanded of me, when I was at home or in the group, I was emotionally the 17 year old that walked in many years ago, especially when I was confronted by those with power. So back to the gay thing, well as became more and more poisoned with school, I started to come out to one of the guys on the football beach outings. He was married, and we ere very close friends, actually I felt a strong brotherly connection to him, and he accepted me. It was like our secret. He really was the best thing at that time for me because it was like I came alive from knowing that someone knew. See in the 90?s there were cliques. Even though for years we said, ?At The Seed there are no cliques and no best friend, and the best friend you will ever have is Art,? there were people grandfathering certain people to move ahead. . .at all levels. So for a long time my football buddy was the friend that knew, everything. That empowered me a great deal. . .I felt that it did not matter that I was invisible to many, what mattered was that someone knew I was gay, and we talked about everything . . .we would be playing football, and I would tell him what I loved about guys (in detail), and he would tell me what he liked about sex, etc. Later more people found out, little by little, and finally one person, who had special status with Art came out of the closet, and then it appeared to be ?O.K.? by the late 90?s for many if you were gay since the blessing came from the top. The 90?s were in many respects problematic and suffocating (in terms of Seed politics), yet more liberal on social issues: everyone ?had? to be a democrat and ?had? to be pro-choice and ?had? to think it was O.K. to have sex before marriage as long as you had received the blessing, something I certainly did not receive on many issues. As good as that all sounds though, there were many undercurrents of hypocrisy to the new liberal ways and the only thing that really counted, when push came to shove, was if you were one of the ?shrewd? money-makers.
(to be continued) by the way, I don?t know how to pick a user name Greg.
