h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My brother has never liked sports, which had always upset my dad, who had been the captain of every sporting team in his High School; he was always extremely vain and listened to (God forbid) CHER! We would often joke and say "you're like a bloody puff", but he was only 12 so we said nothing else about his behaviour.

My family moved to live in Tenerife shortly after my brother's 13th birthday, where I went with a group of friends to visit them 6 months later. My best friend had, coincidentally, come out to us just before the holiday, so, when in a pub one night he told us that a certain bloke had been beckoning him for 10 minutes we told him that we would all follow along shortly, just as soon as my brother got back from the toilet. As we followed L (I'm not sure he would want his name mentioned) my brother appeared ahead of us, just behind the bloke. Anyway, in my role as friend, I asked the female friend of bloke if he was gay and if he was interested in 'my friend'. The affirmative response led to L approaching bloke (we now know his name is D). His sister, however, approached me some time after and said "it wasn't him he fancied, it was the blonde one", to which I instantly replied "I don't think so, he's not gay - he's my brother".... "That's not what he has just told D" came as quite a surprise, but at the same time made perfect sense.

My brother certainly chose an odd way to come out to me, but when I turned to him and said "We've known for quite some time, we just haven't actually 'known'" I think I caused more confusion than his sexuality did. He told my parents shortly after I returned to England, and although there response was not a jump for joy, they have expressed no anger nor have we sensed any repressed anxiety... My mother loves having a new 'girlfiend' to take clubbing with her, who bitches more than she does, AND agrees with her taste in men. My dad has resigned himself to the fact that my brother will never enjoy sports, or talk about birds, and although he misses having 'the son he always wanted' he nonetheless enjoys having 'the son he has' around.

As for me, well, two of my best friends told me they were gay (L + B) years after I had come to love them, my brother is the most gorgeous Queen you're likely to see this side of Stephen Gately, I know ALL of the STEPS / SClub7 / Brittany Spears / ABBA etc dance routines and lyrics, I am currently the Secretary of the Oxford University LGB society and Rep. for my College and have stormed many major cities in protest over Section 28. I suppose you could call me a 'hag' if you like, but the fact of the matter is, you can't prevent who you become friends with, so please don't label me!

The one thing I truly resent about having a gay brother (well actually there is more than one) ; he's skinnier than me; gets more men than me and has better legs than me, but worst of all these things, for his Christmas present last year, I bought him two tickets to see Cher live and guess who had to go?... Even I draw the line of bad taste somewhere and Cher is definitely it... why oh why oh why can gay men not like Texas?

Some of us do like Texas. We have as wide and diverse a taste in Music as straight people.


Anyway I must have been the opposite of your brother. I was a sportsman, Rugby and Athletics and captained the school at the later. So the surprise on some of my friends faces must have been somewaht worse after all I showered with them after sports etc. But those who know also know that I'm not promisquous and don't get horny every time I'm in a room with other naked men getting changed and showered.

But I also got and still get all the 'poof' etc comments made at me. Indeed last week I was playing bowls and one of my rink said he'd thrown it 'as straight as a heterosexual', I joked back to him 'Why what are you implying?' he know so he was in fits. Some of the opposition didn't know what to make of it though.

I've recently come out to a few of my closest friends and they've been absolutely fine about it... It's just such a relief now that people know and I'm perfectly happy with being gay, just scared of how people will react and perceive me once they know... I told my mother a few days ago and she wasn't exactly shocked by it and was very calm about it, and that also lifted a lot of the stress and worry from my shoulders... It really is fantastic to be open about it and all I ahve to do now is to be open with my schoolfriends... Most people who have come out at my school haven't had any problems even with it being a public boys' school so I hope I won't... But does anybody have any ideas how I should go about it exactly? Or even any advice with being gay in general?

Farewell, my friends,

Mr. Odie x

Advice about being 'Gay' in general - can't help you i'm afraid being a "Bi-sexual lesbian" myself (which is what my brother calls me!!)

Since writing the first article about my brother I have come out to myself as being bisexual - it should have really dawned on me all those times when I was snogging women...

My gay friends had always called me the 'lesbian' because I was the only female in their group and was always getting involved in homosexual events (another obvious sign I suppose!), so when rat-arsed at a HalloQueen Bop that I had partially organised I confessed to a friend of mine that I fancied the FEMALE librarian of LGB Soc. they were all like "Oh my God, she really is a lesbian that snogs men, eugh she's bisexual", to which my brother responded with the earlier comment.

I dated the librarian for a month but was forced to end it when I could not deny any longer that I was completely in love with a man, who, as it happens, is bi-sexual. He doesn't do 'shirtlifting', 'bum-bashing', 'mincing homs' etc. he just likes the odd bit of c**k! Some might say he is in denial of being gay and refuses to go any further in case he finds out that he actually likes it, but that is his choice and it's fine by me for now for obvios reasons!

Being at Oxford, we have SEVERAL Public school 'boys' here, and a lot of them are closeted; many of them do not mix with LGB Soc because it is too camp/meat-market/Steps, but the general rule is that they do what they want, only TELL close friends and then anyone else who finds out can deal with it as they want to, 'cos if they have not been important enough to tell then it does not matter that they know, or what they think.

For more LGB info. and links you could visit the OU LGB Soc. website which is at http://users.ox.ac.uk/~lgbsoc (it was created by my room mate and my ex. is the female pin up of the month - I was last month's)