Gay Friendly Male Needs Your Input Please

[Challenger]

Hello All. My name is Mike and I live in Central Texas. All of my life I have written short stories and have been blessed to have some of them published. However, now, at the age of 60, I am writing perhaps the most important one of my life. This story is meant to be submitted to national venues for publication, if accepted. But that is not why it is so important. It is important because it involves the story of my best friend and myself in the 1960s and a pivitol event that helped shape my life. It involves one of those childhood buddies who you could always trust, the one who would never let you down, the one you would finally figure out, many years later, that you loved but nevergot to tell him so. I hope all of you had one of those friends. Now I am trying to tell him how I felt.

The central theme in this story is the night that my friend and I went camping on Buffalo Bayou in Houston, TX in the summer of 1963. That night we were approached and eventually attacked by a gay male about 25 years old. First he talked us into believing that the large campfire we built would draw the local sheriff and that they would arrest us. He convinced us that we should move our camp further back into the woods and build a small campfire so we would be well hidden. (Now we know why) Once we did that he suggested that my friend and him go look for fire wood in one direction while I went another direction to look for firewood. That we did, but, about one minute into that drill a warning bell went off somewhere inside me. I circled around to the direction that the man and my friend had gone. I started watching them when they did not know it.

First there were some verbal exchanges that got heated and eventually the gay man physically attacked my friend. He tried to push him down to the ground but when my friend fought back the gay man eventually pulled a knife. That is when I pulled my knife, rushed in, stabbed the gay man in his knife hand, and he eventually ran off through the woods. (Short version)

Here is the problem and where I need your advice - During the verbal exchanges between all of us some very derogatory words were used in reference to gays. Imagine two 13 year old Houston Heights poor boys and what we had been taught about gays. We used all of those words that night during the fight and the shouting. Use your imagination, I do not want to repeat them here. However, in my first draft of the story I do use them. I wrote it exactly like it happened. It needed no embellishment as it was bad enough as is.

I wonder if for the sake of good will towards all if I should dilute it so as not to affront whoever would be affronted, gay or straight? Should I be raw and risk the ire of all gays everywhere (IF it ever sees the light of day) or should I tone it down and possibly risk the dramatic effect?

Of course I would never use those words again out of the context of that event. Both my friend and I matured and came understand that gay sex is just the same as non-gay sex. Sex is sex, just choose what feels normal to you and move on. We prefer heterosexual but are no longer threatened by homosexual behavior.

I thought I would ask the people who might know the best. I cannot promise to do as others wish when writing up this critical event in our lives, but I am open to debate.

Peace be with you all. I appreciate any feedback.

And for those serving in the Military, or those that have served, from one Vet to another, thank you!

[Beaux]

Hi. I wish you the best of luck with your book, however, I hope that you realize that what your describing in the man that attacked you is a Pedophile not a homosexual. Some male pedophiles are attracted to young boys however that does not classify them as homosexual. Most pedophiles will attack a child of either gender but would never consider having sex with a man. As a writer I know that you must spend a great deal of time researching your subjects, I would suggest that you spend some time researching the condition of pedophilla.
As far as dialogue goes, say what you said at the time, however in the contextual embelishments you should be as factual in the account of your attackers possible mental state as possible.
To simply say that the attacker was gay would be similar to a news announcer saying: "A hetrosexual man in Huston attempted to molest a 12 year old girl today."

[seeking]

personally, under the situation that you and your friend are being attacked, i think it is not necessary to dilute the words u said. Both of u are frightened and angry and...whatever. Diluting the words may sound a little bit unnatural to me.

And this was happened in the 60s.......is more reasonable to use the exact words as at that time, even in USA, most people are still repelling to homosexual i guess??

[East]

The advice Beaux gave you is excellent...Pedophiles are not gay or homosexual ..a pedophile is only interested in children and is neither gay or straight. Good luck with your story!

[jbrowder24]

First of all, thank you. The fact that you would come to a gay forum and ask for input shows a great amount of consideration and character

I agree with what Beaux said as well. To describe him as a man who attacked you would be enough to imply his pedophile preference was for boys. As for the dialogue, it's tough to say without seeing exactly what and how many, but you should write it as feels genuine. By genuine, I do not necessarily mean it has to be word for word what was really said... but write it as really shows the genuine emotions. If you feel that what was really said best portrays that, then go ahead (depending perhaps on what the publications allow).

One thing to keep in mind, if you're worried about backlash.... pretty much, there will always be backlash. The rise of the Internet as its grown to include social media... it doesn't take much to set certain people off, and a little backlash is pretty much a guarantee in this day and age. But whatever is said, most people will still judge your work on its own merit. They will see that it's genuine to life in 1963. They will understand that regrettable things can be yelled during a trauma. You might not hear from all these readers... but most of us get it.

Good luck with your submissions.

[SlipknotRlZZ]

I think you should go for writing everything the way it was. Nobody will be offended as long as you mention everything you said about maturing and so on in your message here.

I always say that in writing it is crucial not to hold back emotion (except when the purpose of the book may be such). Emotion is what gives life to the text. And here, in this situaion, emotion will be expressed a dozen times better if you told the reader about every detail you can recall.

They said it, he was a pedophile. :]

Good luck and I hope you let us have a look at the finished novel when you publish it! :]]

[LiZaRD_PlaNET]

If your publisher allows the raw version, then so be it, but include a preface or a footnote or something explaining why those words were used. People should be adult enough to understand and not focus on that particular segment of your story.

[Challenger]

What great responses from everyone! Thank you once and thank you twice.

Beaux - THAT was a good answer. I never even made the distinction. Considering what I do for a living it is almost disturbing that I did not click to that. I am a computer forensics examiner that often gets hired to go looking of pedophiles. I never thought of them as homosexuals but I regret to say I missed the reverse distinction all together. I will not make that mistake again, thank you.

I guess that the concept has been stuck in my brain since the age of 13. When that pedophile came calling. He was actually one of two that approached me in those years. We lived in the Heights in Houston from about '60 to '65. You may remember that the serial murderer and PEDOPHILE Dean Coril popped up in the Heights at that time. He was eventually known to murder 27 young boys. In fact some families lost two of their children to the same man over that time frame and the Houston Police never put it together. They classified them ALL as runaways and quit looking. The current thinking is that they missed another 15 bodies because they stopped looking once their guy set a new record for murders. There were 42 young boys who went missing in that time frame and that area. HPD shut down the whole investigation at 27. To this day some families do not know what happened.

I want to stop a minute a tell you all how courageous you all are. It is so difficult to believe that in 2011 their is still so much prejudice and backlash thrown in the direction of gays. Even with those two events in my background I managed to figure out that gays were a lot less dangerous than non-gays. My Dad grew up in Louisiana, a state known for hate crimes and gay bashing and black bashing and bashing anything out of the ordinary. My uncle was a full fledged member of the KKK. Somehow Dad and Mom got us out of that environment and taught us that prejudice was wrong and that each person needed to be judged on their own merits. Thank God they did.

I have an 86 year old friend who just went into Hospice. He is a conservative old hoot, does not want the government to spend a dime on welfare. We got into a conversation last week while I was visiting his bedside and somehow we got on the subject of gay people. I did not know what to expect but he looked me in the eye and told me "Mike, I don't think that gay people wake up one morning and say "Hey. I think I will be gay from now on and just put up with all of the shit that comes with that. Why not?" . He then told me that he knew that gays were gays and non-gays were non-gays and so what. Live and let live." My respect for him grew another 200%. Hell, that man was mayor of a very small, very conservative town in an extremely conservative county for 25 years straight. This little town of ours has never had a hate crime that I know of. Gays were never driven out, or rounded up, or even taken special notice of that I know of. Too bad it isn't that way everywhere in this world. When do you think that will be? When do you think we will look back on the way gays are treated with the same despair that we now look back on slavery?

You are all brave souls and I deeply regret the shit that comes your way for doing what is natural.

Thank you all again for your responses.

I will be happy to submit the story when it is ready for publication because as you know, if I waited until it was published all of the gay issues and drug issues may have been solved by then.

God bless you all,

Mike

[simon]

well I couldn't say it any better than Beaux in the first post but would just like to add my voice to the rest,he was a pedo,gay men fancy gay men not kids,if it was two girls instead of two boys I bet you would have not said a heto man but would have used the term pedo,by all means use the words you used at the time but it would be correct to add that you realise he was a pedo.

Thanks for asking,and it would be good if you could come back on after you have finished your story so we can read it.

[Roder51]

Beaux gave you great advice I think. when writing about this kind of thing you have to chose your verbs and adjectives quite well I think as it is a very delicate subject. Chose them wisely. we don't wanna give the wrong impression and thereby making the gay world look bad. Fred Phelps has taken over that department for us. It sounds to be a wonderful novel all the same. Please keep us posted.