I have to admit, there was a period of time when men scared me.  I'd much rather be around women.  They seemed a place of safety, and comfort and love for me; men, a scary and foreboding place that I had not yet learned to navigate.  My early life was filled with a sordid bi-polar quality.  I took trips through joy and ecstasy, and pain and hurt on what seemed to me to be a regular basis.  The women in my life were the source of great joy and wisdom,  love and mentorship, and the men, for the most part, tore my world to shreds.

Now it wasn't always this way.   As I grew older, I was able to experience mentorship across cultures, and races and sexes, and I must admit that it absolutely contributed to the success I achieved in my life.  In high school, when my head track coach and hurdle coach was unable to coach me, I turned to my oldest brother who was the NAIA National Hurdle champion to teach me.  One week with him during spring break taught me more than I had learned in my previous years of practice, and is the direct reason I won runner-up in the state in the 300 hurdles. Ralph Lindeman, taught me how to coach.  Instead of feeling threatened by me, he took me under his wing, and taught me what he knew.  He introduced me to the other coaches in the country, and let me pick his brain when it came down to questions I had with my own athletes.  He called me his protégé', and I took that responsibility seriously.  He is the reason for my success as a coach. 

The same has happened for me in business and political settings, from my youth, until now, and each time I have been a success, I can trace it back unequivocally to a mentor who was beside, before and behind me all the way.  That is, until I entered into the gay community.  I often feel at odds with the gay community.  We do things differently.  We do things, a little bit weird.  Maybe it is our preoccupation with youth and beauty, but for someone who entered into the community in my mid twenties, I have always thought it was a bit off?  To me, the community seems to be run by teens and twinks, and it just makes no sense to me. 

It is counterintuitive to hold your least experienced and most impressionable responsible for the tone and direction of a culture of people.  I have always thought that.  to all those who graduated from the Air Force Academy with me, you understand the disconnect that comes when you as a freshman are held to a higher standard than upperclassmen.  Are you trying to tell me, that someone who has been in the system for months, should do things better, and hold higher standards than someone who has been in the system for years?  It makes no sense, and yet, in the gay community, that seems to be the case.

This is what I see in the gay community.  I see older men with money, using their wealth and prestige to entice barely legal boys to endure advances from them.  I see them supply the drugs and alcohol that entraps many of them for years.  I see them engage in juvenile games of pitting one group against another.  It's tiresome, it's disgusting, it creates a self-perpetuating cycle of self-hatred among our own kind, and it tears at any hope we have of coming together as a community. 

Perfect example.  I was out camping/at the beach for memorial day.  Our group of gays held the same area as what I will describe as working class college straights.  If you've ever been to the beach, then you know it is dominated by physical activity and shows of prowess.  What you may or may not know, is that for many gay men, our physical ability is what is often attacked and used to emasculate us.  For many of us, our daddies would have felt a lot better about us, if we knew how to throw a ball, or actually enjoyed PE class. 

Well I watched to "twinks" throwing a nerf ball around.  While others, both gay and straight,  saw an opportunity to ridicule them, I was proud at them for getting out there in the middle of everyone and enjoying themselves.  Were there perfect spirals flying through the air at their hands... No, but who can really throw a nerf well.  While others talked about them I stayed out with them on the beach to offer them my support, and to be ready to defend them should any negative attention be sent their way.  I grabbed  a real football and went out to throw around with it, because I knew I could.  I felt it was my responsibility, as someone, older, more experienced, and a little more adept at physical skill to help them, and support them, and make sure that they felt comfortable being out in that situation.

I grabbed a beer and caught (some) and threw one-handed, because I could.  A few of us showed another young buck how to throw, and in front of us, and in front  of the straight boys, he improved.  It was important for me to do that.  To let him know, that athletic skill is learned, and if no one was willing to take the time to teach you how to do something, how are you expected to be good at it.  It was a small thing to do, and involved an activity that I enjoy and am good at.  But isn't that what mentorship is?  You take what you're good at, and you use it to lift and enlighten the lives of those around you? 



There were choices I had to make that day.  I could have felt that their inability to throw well showed poorly on me, and made me look bad.  I could have been embarrassed, and joined in the ridicule of those young boys.  Or I could have moved into a place of protection and support for them where they learned a little bit, got a little bit better, and everyone's perceptions may have been improved just a little bit. 

It's not asking much.  Can we allow the young people in our community to be just that:  young, impressionable, without all the answers?  What would happen if the older, more experienced of our community stopped preying on the young people, either physically or mentally, and we started to build them up.  Would we still be sitting here today, fighting for our rights if we all acted to strengthen and support and mentor each other.. instead of tearing each other apart? I don't think so.  I'm going to do my best to find out!  Mentor or men tore... it's your decision!