Fred* never had any doubts. He always knew it. Never too hidden. But because he doesn’t exactly fit into all the boxes and doesn’t correspond to several stereotypes, he notes that people sometimes question his homosexuality. And he’s had enough.
“I have never visited a sauna, never fucked in a truck stop, never frolicked in the bushes of La Fontaine Park or those of Mount Royal,” he wrote to us earlier this year. I don’t say it with pride, more with embarrassment. My encounters with gay men have been punctuated with “are you sure you’re gay?” incredulous. Not the right music, the right laundry, the right movies, the right habits, the right look… Pretty sure I like penises, but apparently gayness is a package deal. Others will say an art of living. »
Fred also had very few partners, only long-term relationships. And if you want to know everything, he doesn’t listen to Mariah Carey (!) and we tend to consider him too sensual and insufficiently rough for a top (a giver, in the jargon). “I have opinions, and things to say,” he concluded in his eloquent message, which, obviously, made us very, very keen to meet him.
We finally arranged to meet over a cup of tea, one hot morning at the end of May, on the back balcony of his small apartment. Fred, in his early forties, in a relationship with a man for over 10 years (because yes, he is “really gay”), is quick to tell his story. “It’s therapeutic, that’s clear,” he will say even after almost two hours of confidences, about his journey and his not exactly typical conceptions, we will have understood.
“In my head, sexuality was an adult thing, intimate, that belonged to you, and not something that defined you,” he adds. And anyway, that was for later. »
It wasn’t all easy, though. Think: growing up in a “cliché of a working-class Quebec family,” as he puts it, surrounded by his parents, aunts, and grandmother, a “cocoon,” albeit a very loving one, where he also heard the worst horrors. An example? “All gays are pedophiles.” “OK, I have a secret,” he realized early on, even if his family would eventually accept it.
In primary school, on the first day of school, he received a “hit on the face”, intimidation which continued throughout his schooling. “I was the cliché of the cheerful child: […] the gentle guy who doesn’t defend himself. » At the start of secondary school, he came out of the closet despite himself when his little brother came across his computer one day (and especially his pornographic history). Reaction ? “My mother knew that for a long time…” he replies, without elaborating on the question.
Secondary end, after a few games of “pee-pee” with a neighbor, Fred makes his first boyfriend (“we’re making out, that’s all!”), appears quietly and goes out as a “drag queen” from is home. “With my mother’s makeup, my father on the verge of a heart attack. »
“We’ve talked about it often,” rationalizes our interlocutor philosophically. I too, sometimes, crime, I would have liked to have parents who traveled, or finished high school. So if I say that, how can I blame him for wanting a child who plays hockey? »
Arriving at CEGEP, Fred then discovered the joys of nightlife and the gay bars of the time (Sky, then Unity). But not for what you might think. Forget the clichés: “I’ve never slept with anyone, never been to an after-hour, never taken drugs,” he explains.
Around the same time, he ended up making another boyfriend, a story that lasted barely two weeks. For what ? “I understood he wanted me to put it on. ” Him ? He’s not quite ready. Said more bluntly: “I don’t think it’s because we have a hole that we have to put a penis in it! », he explains, deploring the cruel absence of build-up in the project. A reflection that he will return to later.
Shortly after, he met another man, an affair that this time lasted a long time, more than 10 years. “Very fun,” Fred smiles, “my first real relationship. […] We discovered everything together: holding hands, kissing, penetration, sleeping next to each other, we experienced some very beautiful things. And then in the end, it sucked. » He says no more, since we finally come to the crux of the subject.
Fred was then 30 years old. He finds himself here and for the first time in his life on the real “cruise market”. “Go,” he said to himself, “you’ve never done it, go!” » Big disappointments await him.
It’s just that on applications, the question comes up again and again, and especially right from the start: top or bottom (donor or receiver)? Except that Fred doesn’t see things so squarely, let’s say.
A “fluidity” absent from the gay universe, according to him. “You’re top or bottom,” period. Two boxes. With no other option.
That’s not all. “Everyone wants to get laid now! he also deplores. But we do not know eachother ! It’s part of great intimacy! » No space for a minimum of discussion or seduction. Zero dimming.
He recounts a handful of “unpleasant experiences” in this sense, punctuated by the famous and perennial question that follows: “Are you sure you’re gay? » As if the fact of wanting to take a minimum of time or not wanting to settle in a single position called into question one’s orientation.
” We will see ! It depends how you feel! », he repeats.
“For me,” he insists, “sexuality is something healthy, with someone you get along with. But now, we’re zero at that! »
However, it was by criticizing these famous dating applications (in general, gay in particular), that Fred ended up meeting, a few years later, his current boyfriend and life partner. That was 10 years ago.
But again, and despite all the love they have for each other, Fred’s more fluid aspirations continue to create friction. “Are you really great? “, her lover has already asked her outright. “In moments of great vulnerability, I too need comfort! », retorts our interlocutor. Should we really limit ourselves to one role, one title, one word? He doesn’t budge: “I don’t want one thing to define me,” he concludes. Gay, straight, dominant or submissive, “I see us as people.”