#1: Thank You, Mr. Hefner

1982, Minnesota

By JOLENE RICE

It was 1982. I was 12, and I was about to see a Playboy magazine for the first time.

I knew Playboy was very naughty. Why else would my father hide them?

One night, I waited until my parents went out and stole one from my dad’s secret drawer. My friend Sarah was with me. This was about as rebellious as the two of us got. We were “good girls.”

We went into my room, locked the door, and laid on my bed together with the magazine. Right away, I could tell that Sarah and I had different levels of interest in what we were seeing. Sarah was, and is, a straight girl. I was, and am, a lesbian … I just didn’t know it back then. That made me the most uncomfortable one in the room that night. As we lay there on our bellies, flipping past one perfect rack after another, I felt excruciatingly exposed.

“Oh my God! She shaved down there!” Sarah nearly lost her lunch when she saw her first manicured vagina. When she turned to me, she caught me staring at the picture. “Oh my God, do you like that?”

In an instant, I was ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated. I slammed shut the magazine and tried to cover by saying something like, “Oh my God that was weird.” I really can’t remember what I said because the vagina had turned my brain to mush.

“Wait.” Sarah grabbed the Playboy out my hands. “Don’t you want to look at a few more?”

My 12-year-old budding-lesbian brain searched for the right answer. Was Sarah testing me? I decided that the safest route was to feign indifference. “If you do.”

Sarah opened the Playboy again. As she guffawed her way past the naked ladies, I knew that I, for the first time in my life, wasn’t your average bear.

Jolene is a working screenwriter living in Los Angeles. In January 2007, her movie Still Small Voices premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network.

#2: Kids in the Stall

Mid-’90s, Iowa

By ANDREW COOK-FELTZ

The moment had come. Three of us had secretly planned to sneak into the girl’s restroom during lunch to buy a tampon out of the dispenser. Clearly, this act would prove to our 6th grade classmates that we were infatuated with girls and their vaginal instruments. We arrived at the girls’ room and froze. Time stood still.

None of us had the guts to enter the restroom, after all. That did not prevent our teacher from finding out about our plan. We were called into her office after school. I was ashamed and embarrassed. How will I be able to face Mom when she learns of this?

“What made you think you could get away with this?” she asked. “Boys are not allowed into the girl’s room. Whose idea was this?”

No one said a word. She’s going to kick us out of school. It’s over.

“Were you trying to be funny?”

No one responded. I eyeballed Hiren, who was staring into the floor.

Then, our teacher’s grimace turned into an inquisitive gaze, as she asked, “Were you boys simply trying to learn about tampons? Is that it?”

I considered the options. Either receive detention for sneaking into the girls’ room or try to get away with murder.

“Yeah, that’s why we were going in there,” I offered bravely, feeling the other two nervously probe my expression, attempting to determine if I had completely lost my mind.

“Well, for cryin’ out loud!” Mrs. Hamilton declared, sighing with relief. “All right, allow me to explain. Once a month, girls get what’s called a period. When that happens, they go into the bathroom and stick a tampon down into their panties….”

I’m not sure what was more shameful for me: lying to my teacher to avoid detention or watching her pantomime tampon insertion.

Andrew Cook-Feltz, or ACF, has a master’s degree in music performance. Originally from Iowa, he now lives in New York with his partner, Jeff. He’s taking time off from voice teaching and opera singing right now to pursue other interests, and to this day speculates as to the role this experience may have played in his being gay.

Posted by Common Ties on Monday, October 8th, 2007 | Email This Post

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