1980’s: Coming Out.
One evening soon after, a stranger appeared at my door, explaining that her daughter and one of mine were classmates at school, and she was going to take me to “Divorce Workshop Group” – a support group for recently divorced parents. This group played an important part in my own healing from the sudden trauma of a broken marriage, with a balanced program of opportunities for obtaining factual information, informal discussion, and socialising. It was explicitly stated and repeatedly emphasised that this was not a dating agency – but even so, there were a full range of casual and longer term sexual relationships that developed.
At the same time that I was re-establishing a heterosexual social life with the DWG, I was also beginning to come to terms with my natural orientation as a gay man, and wondering how I could manage the mechanics of coming out fully and honestly. This became simpler when, after extended reflection and advice, I acceded to my wife’s request to take over custody of the children. In order to be closer to them in their new location in the north of the country, I then relocated myself, to Johannesburg, and a completely new life.
Like many new arrivals, I took a flat in the inner city flatland suburb of Hillbrow, which then had something of a cosmopolitan, trendy atmosphere – and the Butterfly Bar, one of only two gay bars in the city. From the first time that I visited the place, I had a powerful sense of coming home, of finding a place of belonging with people of my own kind, that I had seldom experienced before.
I slipped easily into the kind of lifestyle that many gay men do when first coming out. With the Butterfly Bar prominent in my social life, I quickly found a friendship network, came out publicly to my family and employer, and became involved in a local gay community organisation, manning the telephone at a gay helpline, and setting up a social / information program similar to the one I had known in Cape Town’s Divorce Workshop Group.
By now, I had become so far removed from the Catholic Church, that I was no longer troubled by the Catechism sexual rulebook. Although never particularly promiscuous, in what was effectively a delayed adolescence, I did experience a degree of sexual experiments, ranging from opportunistic brief encounters, through one- night stands, to longer term relationships. In time, I settled down with one man, Bruce, in what turned out to be a deeply rewarding, long term relationship.
Like myself, he too was not at the time practicing any religion, but had previously been a committed Anglican. Now, here’s the central irony of my life: The serious intent as a young adult to live entirely within the sexual rules of the Catholic Catechism, had led me gradually but inexorably away from the Catholic Church, from any religious practice, and from virtually all religious belief. But after settling down in a same – sex relationship with another man, led me one step at a time back to regular church attendance, and to an ever deeper exploration of many aspects of a life of faith, including at different times and to varying degrees, spirituality, theology, church history, and the bible – and a personal encounter and relationship with God.
