Growing Up Homosexual In A Small Town In The Bible Belt

I grew up in a Bible belt town where dancing was considered the act of the Devil and girls were married off at 16. Not really, but it was pretty much the attitudes. When I was in high school and everyone was dating, I wanted to help Mr. Jonah after school with the band room. He was nice and he always put his arm around my shoulder and was so supportive of my feelings and sometimes he would pat me on the ass or rub my ass when he was helping me with my feelings. I wanted to be hugged by Mr. Jonah and I put my arms around him and he hugged me tight and told me that everything was going to be all right, after all I was special.

Mr. Jonah suggested that I join the photography club. My parents bought me a nice enough camera and the girls, it was mostly girls, didn't pay any attention to me. But, the truth be told I was a much better photographer than they were. I had the knack, at least that's what Mr. Jonah told me. He arranged for me to get a part time job with his friend Mac, who owned the portrait and photography studio in town. My job was cleaning up and being a gopher after school a couple of days a week. But I also got pointers from Mr. Mac.

One Saturday Mr. Mac asked me to come in and help him with some old books he had, sort them, decide which ones went to the library and which ones went to the trash. He had lots of books, many them really old. One of them was a photography book, I suppose you would call it a coffee table book. Except that the subject matter was photography of men. No nudes, nothing like that. Just men posing, always young and well built, without shirts, in shorts, and some with these thongs. He told me I could keep it. And this other book, but the photographs had naked men, soft poses, black and white photographs, nice young men, naked, penises, soft backsides. I took my books home and hid them in my closet. Guess which one I looked at?

Mr. Mac gave me a summer job helping him with his business. Going out to weddings, to buildings, to birthday parties, to family sittings, portraits of the ladies at the church. But Mr. Mac had a hobby, taking pictures of me naked, posing for him, sexy poses, natural poses, bending over poses, penis poses. Mr. Mac was a perfectionist, he would move my penis with his hand until it was right for the photograph. And that included letting me know that I had a beautiful perfect penis, and he wanted to kiss it and he kissed it and when it got hard he took photographs of it. And he showed me his penis, and he asked me if I wanted to kiss it, and it was what I wanted to do right then. After I kissed his penis he kissed me, on the mouth and laid down on the bed in his studio with me and the lights went out and I woke up feeling so good watching him dress.

Our town in the Bible belt had strict rules. No dancing. Girls get married at 16. But in the other corner with the cobwebs was another life.