Emma Janson
UNASHAMED
A Memoir of How the Closet Can Kiss My Ass
AKNOWLEDGEMENT
A special thank you has to be given to the people who supported me through the writing process…
Ed, Caidyn, Jay, Cheryl, Leigha, Mandy, Jen, Hufsa, and Travis. But most of all to you Leigh.
I respect you for encouraging me to tell my story, even the embarrassing bits.
To the people who find knowledge and advice within the mistakes I have made, and to those readers who are strictly entertained. May you laugh, learn and find peace in your own rainbow.
ODE:
To the mighty dry hump—the godsend to any little girl’s clitoral repertoire.
My sexual adventures began with mutual exploration and self-gratification. This lets me know there are others with freak tendencies. Thank you, friends, family, and girls who in their own prepubescent curiosities let me play humping games. After all, it was you who unintentionally led me to personal sexual discovery.
Thanks to all who lay beneath me under the Cabbage Patch sheet set, reenacting adult roles on cheesy seventies sitcoms. I played the role of Jack Tripper from Three’s Company and you, the various women he tried to have sex with, including my favorite character, Lonna, the older sex-starved woman always throwing herself at Jack’s feet. All she wanted was for Jack to caress her body, a word we copied and used over and over again as the Cabbage Patch kids covered our shame.
Bless you for suggesting we brush our teeth before we practiced French kissing for the boys, for sneaking me into your mom’s room to show me porn, and for letting me taste her edible underwear before cramming them back into the package half eaten.
Thank you, babysitter, for comforting me as tears wet my cheeks over my stubbed toe from a vigorous game of kick-the-can. The view of your ample teenage breasts peeking curiously from your sweater as you hugged me is an image timeless to this day. My ticket to hell may have been purchased for crying uncontrollably to get that second mesmerizing look.
Thank you, friends, for letting me sleep in your bed during a sleepover, rather than on the floor, and for undressing in front of me proclaiming, “Who cares? We’re both girls.” Ladies, thank you, because through the confusion of sexual identity you were always there to bring me back to the bosom of familiarity. Pun intended.
NO ONE WANTS A NICE STORY.
They want pride and fireworks! They want balloons and screaming trannies with bad wigs to parade down the street! But, the fact is, most coming out stories are boring. It’s the before and after we all sit on the edge of our seats for. Mine is no exception; my story is totally lame. To make it worse, there are three of them, but we are not to that part yet.
CHAPTER 1
Every person remembers their first crush. For me there were a few before my world revolved around my first “girl” crush in eighth grade.
It literally began on the very first day of school. She was full of sunshine and rainbows from the moment our eyes met. When she smiled, her brilliant teeth gleamed from cheek to freckled cheek, offset by a summer tan. She scanned the room and made a beeline for the empty seat next to me, beaming when she asked if she could sit there. She had the biggest turquoise eyes that complimented her wide smile, freckles, and perfectly teased bangs. No one could refuse her when she smiled.
She pulled supplies from her pink and purple bag, making eighth grade small talk. “Isn’t this exciting? The first day of class! How was your summer? Hi, I’m Sunny.” Then she reached out her hand to shake mine with confidence. She looked like the cover girl from one of those teen magazines with floating text next to her head that reads, “5 Ways to Get Him to Ask You to the Dance!” Yes, she was that cute. She sat, we talked, and by the end of class, we were passing notes back and forth, making plans for a sleepover.
Our inevitable friendship was always upbeat. She laughed out loud because of me. It truly was my humor that won her heart and the title of “best friend.” My ability to make her giggle until she fell asleep earned me rights to more sleepovers. Every night we spent together that summer was invested in lying on the roof to get what we referred to as a “moon tan.” We even went so far as to bring up the tanning oil and spray bottles full of water to mist our skin. It was these simple things that made our relationship blissful. But the bliss lasted only until the boys took interest and the bombardment of locker love notes began.
Suddenly, yours truly became the jealous gangly friend who didn’t understand why her locker wasn’t filled with valentine hopefuls. The boys talked to Sunny as if I did not exist and made the burn worse by mocking my eighties’ hairstyle. Of course, her teased, sandy blonde hair was perfect. She must have had the one and only magical can of Aqua Net.
Being her friendly invisible ghost became my place in the world.
After watching Sunny reject many courting boys, it felt right to explain my feelings using carefully thought out words and expressions. My confidence was boosted because of our friendship, but we had to be alone in case she smacked me to the carpet. It was during a sleepover while making the bed when my mouth decided that it didn’t need to discuss any of what it was about to say with my brain.
“I like you. Like really like you,” I blurted as I fluffed a pillow and tossed it to the head of the bed. It was a poorly executed statement but boldly done. This was my way of testing her to see her reaction before I went any further. She was on the opposite side of the room gathering more blankets when my statement stunned her mouth in an open, fixed position.
She freaked out with a high-pitched thirteen-year-old, “Eww,” preceded by head rolls and hand waves to emphasize her disgust after which she chastised me as a “gay lesbo” who was no longer welcome to spend the night. It was attached at the end like a postscript when she said, “Oh, and by the way, I’ll kick your ass if you ever look at me funny again.” With her, like, totally valley-girl accent, okay?
It became real, however, when Sunny blabbed my delicate, unstable claim of passion to my entire eighth grade class. It traveled through the halls like a lingering fart, making everyone scrunch up their noses. This forced me to exploit my sister’s new cheerleading popularity to clarify the so-called truth. My sister told everyone that Sunny was a ditz who was starved for attention.
Four days later, Sunny said she was sorry and invited me to stay the night. She missed our friendship and wanted it back with established limitations. The privilege to sleep in her bed was gone. My new place in the world was on the floor next to her twin bed. Her stipulation was accepted and we remained friends.
After the trauma she caused me for weeks, coming out to my parents did not seem so difficult. But the only way to tell them such devastating news was to write a poem. How gay—a coming-out poem. It took me two hours to write. For an eighth grader, this was more than enough time spent on literary arts.
Trying to figure out how to explain myself took months; the whole process of reading my work and trying to say what was clearly said in the poem took minutes.
If only my coming out tale was as elaborate as others. The stories told from gay boys these days are so over the top they must make shit up to earn rainbow-colored cock points among their friends.
Every now and then you will hear the truth about how one guy sat his mom down, told her, she cried, and that was it. Those people get an “Aw, that’s nice” reaction with a pat on the back. No one buys them an apple martini just for the tale.