Coming Out or Not - The Awakening of the Beard

FB Discovers Himself

It was the summer of 1998. The FB was attending a conference of the New Labour Youth Commando Units held in the tropical paradise and den of inequity that is Blackpool. Well it is for us who hail from the North of England – like most of the population of Mirpur, Kashmir.

Unknown to myself this was going to a moment of pivotal awakening for the FB. I had just been elected to Student Union officership by the esteemed multitude of the three stoners and one Bhuddist who bothered to vote. As a result the Labour Party invited me to Blackpool for indoctrination, alchoholism and shagging. Bit of a three for one deal I thought, in the days before I had any sort of beard growth what so ever, so off I went.

Of course for the FB this ended up being a non-for-non deal. The indoctrination didn’t work because to some extent my deep disenchantment with Tony Blair was deep at that point and there was a no alchohol because it was one of those vices that sounded better done by some one else.

It was at that point I made a startling discovery. It was something that seemed to make sense of my life and some of the uncomfortable experiences that I had had as a child. I realized that I was different from everyone else and would have to spend my life as an outcast amongst those people I had spent all of three months with.

This all started back at school. I was a public school boy and went to prestigious institution that had a long history of distinguished men. It was a single sex school and was fully steeped in the traditional English past times of playing rugby and having pointless functions for rich parents.

It was with the first stirrings of testosterone in my bloodstream that I began to sense something within me was different. You see there were certain things I just couldn’t do any longer in the presence of my colleagues.

There were passions that were painfully hidden and couldn’t be controlled no matter how hard I tried. I looked for some sort of advice but as we were at a highly exclusive public school the cultural reinforcement was so strong that one could not get away.

By the time I had left school and gone to my liberal university I had thought I had covered it all up but that summer in 1998, while members of the future Labour NEC sat in drunken stupors on the concrete of Blackpool pier – it finally came to me.

I am hetrosexual.

You see from an early age I knew I liked girls. I was attracted to the opposite sex but in 10 years of public school I couldn’t bring myself to admit it.

I was the brown boy – the darling of all my white friends. They were jealous of my minority status. I would get invited round to tell tales of how culturally different I was and would get special dispensation on Muslim festival days. Everybody would come up to me to tell me how they respected my culture and were proud to have me as their friend.

Then there was the sexual tension of it all. Being a public school we always participated in jolly japes in the changing rooms such as slapping each other with wet towels. The problem was that I just wasn’t attracted to any of it.

I had to pretend to enjoy having some red faced berk whack his wet towel on my backside. I mean it was impossible to pretend that I didn’t enjoy sharing the room with other naked men pointing at each others lower beard growth and laughing.

Artistically it was hell too. I was forced to join in the public school past time of wearing Women’s clothing on stage and squeaking my lines for the sake of entertainment. As editor of the poetry magazine I had to make sure any entries weren’t overtly in praise of women. I almost let slip in an English lesson when I failed to spot the homo-erotic allusions in the last scene of Othello – I had to hastily cover it up with some blather about the blade.

When I got to University of course, I thought things would get better. I was sorely mistaken. I was a left wing public school boy and couldn’t last long with any sort of respect within my fellow left-wing university students if I let them know. So I sublimated it into the metrosexual milieu of the Fresher life.

So, in Blackpool, the camel was waiting for the straw.

It arrived in the shape of the President of the Nation Union of Labour Lovers. He slipped up to me in the middle of a really interesting rendition of Hit Me Baby One More Time and planted a hand firmly on my inner thigh.

It must have the years of suppressed rage and the decades of self denial that left him with a pint of Orange juice (with Ice) on his face and looks of disbelief in the faces of those around.

Tell you what though. Since that time. I have felt whole. Released from the pressure of lying to myself and free to be truly who I want to be.

Sure, I got stares from the odd person at the Fabian society, and I could no longer officially call myself a left wing liberal with any great authority, and any invitations for dinner and dancing at Downing Street were cancelled.

It was freedom; the freedom to destroy all the Elton John CDs in my collection – what joy; no more need for the fake homosexual experience story; no need to look all interested and understanding when being told about various uses for a cucumber; freedom to talk about Spartacus without mentioning the Oysters scene; freedom to curse Graham Norton for the no-talent bottle blonde git he really is; and ultimately freedom to follow the path of the FreeBeard

Now that was an interesting road …..