I had been fascinated by my willy since long before I could remember. Sometimes, I thought I was probably fascinated by it even when I was still inside Mom. When I was very little I learned that if I waited until the last moment to pee, the release of pressure as I went was very pleasurable. Occasionally, of course, I waited too long, and the result was anything but enjoyable. Wet pants or pajamas were very unpleasant and, I was taught, shameful. But in time I became able to judge the pressure and timing better.
I can’t remember when I learned to call it my willy. My older brother Adam told me that our Mom was English and that “willy” was the English slang name for it. I decided that had to be true because I believed Adam always told me the truth. At any rate, to me it was always my willy.
When I was about four, I became aware that from time to time my willy changed. That’s funny, I thought. Sometimes it’s soft and floppy; sometimes it’s hard and stiff. I wondered why.
“Look, Mommy,” I said one day, showing it to her. “Look what my willy does.”
She scolded me for showing her and said, “You don’t show your willy to people, Gayle. It’s private.”
I was puzzled and hurt. I had shown her something I thought was interesting. Why is she mad at me? I wondered. I think having a stiff willy is fun!
I had been baptized Gayle William Colton. My parents told me that I was named after my mother’s father, whom I had never met. As a kindergartener I had been teased by one of the other boys who said, “Gayle’s a girl’s name, so you must be a girl.” All the other boys began to laugh at me and I ran away, crying. I hate my name! I said to myself. Maybe, I thought, I can get people to call me something different. I decided to ask them to use my middle name instead. So I asked my family very politely to please call me Bill, but my parents wouldn’t agree and they wouldn’t let my brothers call me that either, while the boys at school enjoyed teasing me too much to change.
I think Mom probably loved me, but she was not a warm and cuddly person. Dad, on the other hand, didn’t seem to like me at all and had no patience for me. It wasn’t until several years later that I realized that Dad was a bully and Mom was too weak to stand up to him. I suppose that was why I was usually left alone to fight my own battles. Unfortunately, being the youngest and the smallest both in my family and in my class at school, I didn’t win many of those battles.
I had discovered early on that fondling my willy felt wonderful and was sometimes comforting, especially after Dad scolded me for some misdemeanor which I didn’t even understand. One day Mom came into my bedroom unannounced while I was lying on my bed playing with my willy. “What are you doing?!” she exclaimed. “That’s dirty and you shouldn’t ever be doing it.”
“I don’t understand. Why is it dirty?” I protested, but Mom wouldn’t discuss it. So once again I’d been scolded and I felt confused and misunderstood.
That night at bedtime Mom read to me the story of Adam and Eve. I didn’t understand all of it, but I did grasp that Adam hid from God because he was naked. So I decided that being naked was bad because God didn’t seem to like it, although I couldn’t figure out why.
In fact, I couldn’t figure out much about God. Sometimes in the stories Mom read to me God seemed to be angry and to punish people for reasons I didn’t understand, while at other times God seemed kind and friendly. I wondered, why does He change back and forth like that? How can I know what He wants me to do if He keeps changing?
Because Mom had said that playing with myself was dirty and because God probably didn’t like it, I tried for some time to not touch myself. I would lie in my bed at night, saying aloud to myself, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” But I was never able to resist for long. It just felt too good and I missed it too much. So I always gave in, but at the same time I felt very guilty.
I think other people saw me as being friendly with my peers although I never had one close friend. I tried to join in their games, at least the less rough ones, and I entered into the schoolyard banter. I was a good student and I loved to read. While I had no interest in playing organized sports, Mom had taught me to skate at a very young age, and I loved to glide across the ice in big, swooping figures. Sometimes I closed my eyes and imagined I was flying. I enjoyed the chill air on my face and the sound my skates made gripping the ice.
When I was six, I watched the Winter Olympics and discovered figure skating. I delighted in all the complicated maneuvers the skaters did and I wished desperately that I could have one of the lovely costumes which glittered and flowed as the skaters performed.
One day when I was raptly watching figure skating, Dad came into the room and demanded, “What are you watching those faggots for? You should be watching real men skate!” and he changed the channel to a hockey game. I had never seen hockey before. At first I enjoyed the speed of the game, but suddenly two players slammed into each other. They went down hard on the ice and began to punch each other. Aghast, I thought, why are they trying to hurt each other? Does Dad want me to do that?! I would hate it! I wanted to ask Dad what a faggot was, but I could sense from Dad’s tone that he didn’t approve of them so I was afraid to ask. I never watched another hockey game.
By the time I turned seven, I had learned from listening to other boys that there were other names for a willy, names like “dick,” and “cock,” and “pecker,” and “prick,” and I learned that when my willy was stiff and hard it was often known as a “boner.” The boys giggled over these words and they giggled even more when I shyly but proudly taught them the word “willy.”
“That’s awesome,” said one of the boys. “Let’s all call it that.” From then on they all used the word exclusively, thinking it a great joke which not even their older brothers would understand.
I tried to imagine the other boys’ willies. Sometimes I saw them in my mind as little stems; sometimes they appeared to me as long rods which stretched right out of a boy’s shorts. I wondered whether mine was like any other, but I was too shy to try to find out.
I also knew that my willy had something to do with girls and making babies, but I was puzzled. How can pee be used to make babies? How does it get from the boy to the girl? It was all very mysterious.
When I was eight some parents whose children skated at the rink organized a little competition. I was both surprised and elated when I won, and I went home with my heart thumping as I clutched my golden trophy.
When Dad got home that evening, I proudly showed him the trophy, holding it up and saying, “Look what I won!”
“What did you get that for?” Dad demanded.
“Skating,” I replied happily.
Dad snorted, called me a sissy, went into his den, and slammed the door.
Tears welled in my eyes. I stood at the door, crushed. Why can’t I ever do anything he likes? I lamented. Sadly, I went to my room, smashed the trophy with a hammer, and threw the pieces away.
By the time I was nine, I had read all the Narnia books as well as The Hobbit. I tried to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it was still too hard for me. The Hobbit had sparked my imagination and I began to write stories myself. I know now that they were simply imitations of Bilbo’s adventures, but I had fun with them. I had also discovered a love for history. The first story I wrote which I truly liked was about two Pilgrim boys and an Indian boy named Squnch.
From my older brother Adam, I learned to love trains and the old steam engines. The two of us devoured train magazines and talked about building a model railroad, but there really was no space in our house for one, although we held onto the dream.
When I was ten Mom gave me a book, telling me that if I had any questions I could ask her after I finished reading it. Opening the book at random, I saw a diagram of a boy’s willy sticking straight out in front. Oh, wow! I thought and, intrigued, went back to the beginning and started reading. I learned that the proper name for a willy was “penis,” and that the proper term for a boner was an “erection.” An erection? I laughed as I wondered if I could build a boner with my Erector Set! Giggling, I went back to reading.
The book talked about topics like “ejaculation,” and “wet dreams,” the latter sounding especially dreadful, like wetting my bed. It mentioned “masturbation,” which I realized was a fancy word for what I’d been doing for years. Even as I read I found that I had a very hard boner. I pulled down my pants and underpants. Playing with myself with one hand I continued to look at the book, which told about a girl’s anatomy and provided diagrams. I skipped over most of that thinking it didn’t really concern me.
When I got to the chapter titled “Intercourse,” I read more carefully, still fondling my willy, and I began to understand that somehow the man would stick his willy into the woman and deposit something called “sperm,” which joined with an egg to make a baby. I wondered if the sperm was in the pee. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to stick my willy into a girl; I thought that was just gross.
Finally, I stopped what I was doing, put the book away, pulled up my pants, and began working on a story.
A few weeks later Mom asked if I had read the book and if I had any questions. I replied, “Yes, I finished but I don’t have any questions except — can I keep the book?” She agreed. I couldn’t imagine discussing any of this with Mom. I wondered if she knew how good boners felt. Suddenly I realized that my parents must have done all the things mentioned in the book to make me and my brothers, Adam and Donald. I simply couldn’t imagine Dad sticking his willy into Mom. That was just too awful to contemplate.
One day in the early spring when I was eleven, I was lying naked on my bed playing with my willy, which I now sometimes called my “cock,” when I suddenly felt the need to go to the bathroom — immediately. Getting up quickly, I raced towards the bathroom, but halfway there my willy began to throb. Oh, God! What’s happening? I asked myself fearfully. I was terrified. I hoped I hadn’t done something bad to it! Whatever had happened, I no longer had to pee, so I went back to my room and put my pants back on.
The next day I was relieved to realize that my willy was working fine. Thereafter, when I fondled myself, I got that same feeling and soon discovered that the throbbing felt really good and that it didn’t mean I needed to pee, although I still wasn’t sure what it did mean.
I continued to wonder why Mom thought what I was doing and enjoying was dirty. Of course, she didn’t know about the latest development and I wasn’t about to tell her, so I continued to be confused.
I had two brothers. Adam was six years older than me, and usually he was kind to me. Donald, who was four years older than me, tormented me whenever possible.
Adam was a good student who did very well in school and was on the high-school debating team. He probably had the most in common with Dad who, while never a loving person, did enjoy and respect Adam’s intellect. In addition, Adam was a goodhearted, gentle soul who clearly loved me and who often played games with me, sometimes in the backyard tossing a ball back and forth, sometimes in the living room with board games. Adam did his best to show me how to throw like a boy, but in that he was a failure. I just couldn’t master it.
Donald, on the other hand, was the bane of my existence, and sometimes I feared him even more than I did my father. Although probably as academically capable as Adam, Donald cared less for school and more for his friends, who were not always a good influence. He could be brash and arrogant, and he and Dad often clashed while Mom, who hated conflict of any kind, faded into the background.
If I was around when they began to argue, I would leave, usually shutting myself in my bedroom. My bed was my refuge, where I felt safe and warm. It was where I went whenever I was upset, which was quite often.
It was clear from as far back as I could remember that Donald didn’t like me. Perhaps it was because he had been the pampered baby of the family for four years before I arrived on the scene. At best he ignored me; at worst he did everything he could to make my life miserable, from physically hurting me when there were no adults around to mentally hurting me and teasing me about my “girlie” name, even when there were adults present.
I still remember the day before Christmas when I was five. We three boys were standing at the railing around the stairwell, our toes all pointed through the rungs. I remember I was talking excitedly about Christmas and Santa Claus.
“You jerk,” Donald said. “Don’t you know yet that there isn’t any Santa Claus? It’s just Mom and Dad buying us presents. God, what a baby you are!”
I could feel tears filling my eyes.
“Idiot!” exclaimed Adam. “What did you tell him that for? I’d like to push you over the railing.”
“Try it,” said Donald, who was the smaller but the stronger of the two. Adam retreated as Donald went laughing down the stairs.
I fled to my room, crying. I slammed the door and threw myself onto my bed, tears drenching my pillow. A few moments later Adam quietly entered the room and sat on the bed beside me. He gently rubbed my back and told me that Donald didn’t know as much as he thought he did. After that day I never believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, but I did hate Donald more than ever.
A year or so later, on a rainy day when we were all playing in the house, I emerged around a corner into the hallway with my two cap guns firing, only to encounter Donald, who grabbed both the guns and twisted them, snapping my index fingers in the trigger guards. I shrieked in pain, looking down at my broken fingers. After a trip to the hospital, both parents cornered Donald and eventually grounded him for a week. All that accomplished was to make him surlier than ever.
I suppose that at times Mom did try to stick up for me when Donald got to be too much for me. Dad, on the other hand, encouraged Donald, saying that I was a wimp and needed to learn to stand up for myself. I couldn’t understand how I could do that since Donald was so much bigger and stronger than me. The few times I tried ended with very painful results and no change in Donald.
By the time I was ten, I realized that I was different from most of the boys my age. Besides not being able to throw a ball and not being interested in team sports, I knew I was attracted to boys, especially Dexter, a boy I had known since kindergarten. But I didn’t really understand what that meant and I worried about it.
I continued to write stories privately. As my daring grew I wrote a fantasy about masturbating with Dexter. Even writing it got me excited, but finally, fearing that somebody else would find it, I tore the story up and flushed it down the toilet.
Donald’s friends were no more interested in school than Donald was. They were interested in cars, girls, smoking, and picking on younger kids, in no particular order. They teased me because I was gentle, because I threw a ball like a girl, because I liked to sing and skate, and because I was successful in school. Their favorite name for me was “Little Fairy.” While I didn’t know then just what that meant, I knew it was a put down.
One day in the fall, I was walking happily home from school, scuffing my feet through the dry, fallen leaves. It was a beautiful, clear, crisp autumn afternoon with the aroma of burning leaves in the air. I could hear a woodpecker knocking for its supper and tried to locate the bird without success. I was happy for two reasons. First, I had received compliments from my teacher and my classmates that day on a story I had written. Second, in the school chorus rehearsal I learned that we were going to join with choruses from the other two elementary schools in town to give a concert which would include some of the songs from Hansel and Gretel. The teacher had asked me to sing “The Sandman’s Song” as a solo. So as I was shuffling through the leaves I was singing at the top of my lungs.
Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me. “Hey, Little Fairy, what do you have to sing about?” Glancing back, I saw three of Donald’s friends running toward me. Fear clutched my heart. I turned to flee, but I was too late and they caught me easily. One of them held my arms so tightly it hurt. I went cold, a frightened quivering in my stomach.
“So, Pansy,” one of them said, “Sing us a song.”
“I don’t want to!”
The older boy slowly and deliberately lit a cigarette, drew on it, and said, “Here, Little Faggot, smoke this,” holding it toward me.
I shook my head and closed my mouth tightly. The boy who had been holding me stood behind me squeezing my arms even tighter, while the third boy held my nose closed and forced my mouth open. The boy with the cigarette thrust it into my mouth and then forced my mouth closed again. Desperately, I held my breath as long as I could, but finally I had to breathe, inhaling the choking smoke as I gagged and tried to cough. My chest was aching and I was crying. I could taste the bile from my stomach welling up into my mouth and I nearly vomited before I swallowed it, the burning sensation lingering in my throat. The boys laughed.
One of them took the cigarette back and asked, “Have you ever been burned with a cigarette?”
“No,” I whimpered.
“Well I’m going to show you what it feels like.” As he held the cigarette in front of my face he asked, “Where would you like it? On the cheek? Maybe up your nose? How about in an eye?”
“Please,” I shrieked, cringing away from the hot coal. Slowly, the boy moved the cigarette toward my eye. Terrified now, I tried to pull back and run away. Although desperation gave me strength I still couldn’t escape the hands holding me. I felt the cigarette on my eyelashes and could smell them burning. “Why do you want to hurt me?” I screamed.
“Because you’re a queer, a fairy, and a faggot,” said the older boy. “We’ll let you go this time, but you’d better stay out of our sight.” With that, the boys released me, laughing as I went racing and sobbing towards home, where I ran up the stairs and threw myself on my bed.
At supper time, my stomach was still upset and I had a throbbing headache. Mom asked me if something was wrong, but I said “no” and tried to eat a little before asking to be excused from the table.
I never told my parents what had happened. I was too afraid that if I did, Donald would find out and tell the other boys, who would be certain to punish me.
In fact, I continued to live with a number of fears — my fear of God, my fear of disappointing my mother, my fear of Dad’s and Donald’s anger, my fear that other boys would think I was a sissy, and increasingly my fear caused by the realization that I was indeed different from all the other boys I knew.
My private stories more and more involved these fears. In them, my fears resolved themselves and I emerged happy, but I knew that, sadly, my life was not the stuff of fantasies.
I had heard about “split personalities” and sometimes questioned whether I had one because, while I seemed outgoing and confident on the outside, I knew I was a bundle of fears on the inside. This only added to my anxiety and I wondered if other boys had the same problems. Unfortunately, I wasn’t close enough to anybody to ask them so I just lived with my fears.