![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.michaelrossplaywright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/people-gasping-in-shock.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nIt is common for those within the so-called \u201cgay community\u201d to swap \u201ccoming out\u201d tales. In these stories (wildly exaggerated, one often suspects) doors are slammed, mothers weep, fathers bellow \u201cyou\u2019re no son of mine!\u201d and local priests are called in to conduct exorcisms. And those are the more positive ones! Often the teller of the tale recounts sadly how they spent the next few weeks sleeping on a park bench, or on the run from murderous family members armed with pitchforks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, steady yourself dear reader for perhaps the most horrifying \u201ccoming out\u201d story you\u2019ll ever hear!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After that \u201cgame-changing\u201d first meeting with Dan in Soho at age 17, I returned home that night intent on destroying every last vestige of my former \u2018life\u2019 (for want of a better word). Yes, out would go my precious scrapbook!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those of us of a certain age, in the days before every home had the internet (ooh, that ages me, doesn\u2019t it?) pornography was rather hard to come by, particularly of the homo variety, certainly out in the suburbs. So one sought out pictures of naked (or more usually semi-naked) men wherever one could find them. If one always had ones eyes peeled, as I did, then it was amazing how much could turn up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A dripping wet Olympic swimmer in his speedos from the sports pages of my parents newspaper, ads for men\u2019s underwear pulled from the glossy weekend supplements. I went through a phase of buying Men\u2019s Health and Fitness magazines, until it was quite clear that the checkout cashiers in WH Smith were not fooled in the slightest (a weedier, less sporty boy it would be harder to imagine) so I might as well butch it out and reach for the Gay Times and Attitude on the top shelf. Although not strictly pornography, these \u2018lifestyle\u2019 magazines were crammed with salacious ads for porno videos and sex chat-lines. The actual articles which filled the remainder of these magazines (about marches, HIV and the Spice Girls) held no interest for me so I would toss them away after I\u2019d lovingly glued all their juiciest pictures into my scrapbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I had made the decision that this treasure trove was to leave my possession immediately and be deposited in some faraway litter bin! I lifted the mattress of my bed and reached under but to my horror I could feel no book. Where had it gone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then there was a rap on my door and my mother was calling my name. \u201cWait a minute,\u201d I squeaked as I quickly returned the bed to it\u2019s normal condition just as the door opened and my mother and father both entered the room, in their pyjamas and dressing gowns. To my horror, my mother was clutching my scrapbook! \u201cHello darling,\u201d she said, and before I could protest I was gently pushed back onto the bed, a parent to either side of me, pinning me down, telling me how much they loved me. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, I seem to recall they both kissed<\/em> me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As my mother thrust the scrapbook into my hands, far from condemning me for it, she gave me her blessing<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s entirely normal,\u2019 my mother was slurring at me (they had both clearly been drinking). \u2018There\u2019s no need to hide it away. Stick the pictures all over your walls!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou mustn\u2019t feel ashamed!\u201d commanded my father, going on to recount, to my complete disgust, his own youthful dalliance with homosexuality. My mother then proceeded to tell me how, in her role as secondary school teacher, countless confused boys and girls over the years had approached her tearfully after lessons and poured their hearts out, clearly viewing her as some kind of hideous Clare Rayner\/Oprah Winfrey figure. She recounted how she\u2019d hugged them and told them how \u2018normal\u2019 they were, that they should \u2018accept\u2019 themselves and just \u2018be who they really are.\u2019 Well, I couldn\u2019t believe it! Instead of teaching them Thomas Hardy and proper punctuation, my mother was instead promoting homosexuality, which, back then, lest we forget, was still strictly forbidden by the Section 28 law (although it was soon to be repealed by the Nu-Labour government, opening the flood gates for all that has followed!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course I held my counsel and let them exhaust themselves with their own tolerance whilst I plotted my plan of action. The following few days were sheer hell. My mother left packets of condoms and safe-sex leaflets around the house. She even talked about us going to Pride together! The revelry ended abruptly however when a week later my mother received a call from her school informing her she was suspended pending an investigation. Apparently they had received an anonymous tip-off that she had been disseminating homosexualist propaganda to vulnerable young children. \u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d my mother wept into her wine glass over dinner, \u201cwhy would any of those dear kids have reported me? I saved them from self-harm and suicide,\u201d she wailed with her ludicrous messianic complex. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make sense!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, isn\u2019t that the ghastliest coming out story you\u2019ve ever heard? What do you think? Or have you heard a worse one? I\u2019d love to hear your thoughts! Of course in my case the ultimate irony was that by the time they had discovered the scrapbook, I had already ceased to be a homosexual!<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\nOur sparkly new promo film!<\/h1>\n\n\n\n