In Denial

Having sex with guys makes you straight, right?

Photo: Kirn/Corbis Historical/Getty Images.

She was tall, athletic, and loved to laugh. Let’s say her name was Amy.

Amy and I were inseparable best friends. We went everywhere together. My parents let us have sleepovers in the downstairs guestroom with its queen-sized sofa bed, where we could talk and laugh as late as we pleased.

One night, as we began to fall asleep, a thought came to my mind.

What if I scooch over and casually put my arms around her? What if I kiss her?

This shocked me fully awake. Where did such a strange idea come from?!

Surely I was the only girl to have ever had such an abhorrent feeling—as I saw it—of attraction to another girl. I’d never heard the word homosexuality or gay. I didn’t know such a possibility existed.

This was Kansas City in the early 1960s. Homosexuality was still criminalized in all but one state and officially categorized by psychiatrists as a mental illness. Many courts saw same-sex love as sick and immoral. Gay affection in public could get you beaten or even killed.

No one would have suspected it of me, anyway. I didn’t fit the lesbian stereotypes. In middle school, I couldn’t wait to be old enough to wear makeup, and in high school, I wore clothes that showed off my well-developed figure. I was no fool. Everywhere I looked, it was clear: Being a girly-girl with sex appeal gained at least some kind of power.

But this attraction to girls? It had to end. I worked hard at that and dated lots of boys, hoping one would sweep me off my feet, and I would finally feel what other girls felt. Sometimes I enjoyed making out with guys. I liked the attention and challenge of eliciting a sexual response. The problem was, when I succeeded, I immediately became repelled and frightened. The more the guy became aroused, the more I recoiled.

Senior year, one of my free-spirited girlfriends urged me to lose my virginity. I went along. Maybe she was right. This could be my breakthrough.

Kenneth was blond, blue-eyed, and gave off a military vibe. He was a few years older than me and had his own place. At the end of our second date, he invited me in. Before I knew it, we were in his bedroom. With little prelude, he somehow pulled me over to the bed and turned me onto my back. In a minute, he was on top of me.

The pain of entry was so intense I had to stifle my cries as tears seeped from the corners of my eyes into my hair.

After he climaxed, Kenneth rolled off and lay there on his back, not touching me or saying anything. I listened to his breathing slow down.

“Man, that really hurt,” I finally said into the silence.

Kenneth reached over for his cigarettes on the nightstand.

“A girl can’t expect to enjoy it the first time,” he said. His voice was cold, almost mocking. “Just be glad you’re not a virgin anymore.”

I left quickly, relieved that at least it was over. Walking home, I felt dirty, used, and empty.

Still, I continued on with my quest to be “normal.”

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A year later, I entered the University of Missouri (Mizzou), where I immersed myself in the theater department.

My secret attraction to women continued, and I kept trying to push it down, sleeping with men, hoping something would click. It never did. Even when I felt a romantic connection, the moment always arrived when the man seemed to transform into a stranger, driven by lust. I felt like I was merely a body providing his carnal pleasure.

Meanwhile, I hated my classes. All I wanted to do was be in the theater. I quit school and moved into a small room in a large, ramshackle Victorian house just off campus. My plan was to get a job and save money so I could go to New York City the following fall and study acting.

It was 1967, and my housemates were hippies. From the beginning I admired—and was also a little scared by—how free and uninhibited they seemed. They had no use for the strait-laced social mores I’d been raised on and tried to live by. Oh, and of course, they all did drugs, mainly pot and LSD, as part of their counterculture lifestyle. I didn’t do drugs and imagined I never would.

But then one night, I returned home after yet another awful date with a guy, including a sexual encounter gone wrong—at least for me. I’d pretended my way through, hating every moment. What made it worse was that he was a great guy: handsome, smart, kind. Everything most girls would want. I felt depressed and defeated.

That night, when my housemates passed around a joint, I thought, Oh, what the hell, why not? I took a puff. Then another. Almost immediately, a delicious sense of serenity washed over me, removing the thick layer of anxiety I’d been living with. By the following week, I was smoking every day. Each time I did, a wonderful and freeing don’t-worry-be-happy sensation made everything feel right.

Soon, I became open to new ways of thinking. I, too, like my housemates, would forge my own path and become an artist, unfettered by mainstream American values and stupid constraints.

A better way of life was calling me just up ahead. I was going to run and seize it. I would go to New York City and attend acting school. I would pursue my dream. It would all be great!

What could possibly go wrong?