stepping ut
JONATHAN STEWART, 23, CELEBRITY-BOOKING AGENT, OXFORD was wearing a flight suit I’d bought from a military surplus shop for £45. Unfortunately, I didn’t boil it before I put it on. Big mistake. Big. Huge. The flight suit had bedbugs, and as a result I got bedbugs too. I’d just moved to Brighton to study for three years, and I considered myself fairly well-versed in what it meant to be gay. No, I’d never been to a gay club, but I’d watched Queer as Folk, and I’d given a blowjob, and I had a profile on Thingbox, where I’d learned that being gay meant having a beard, saying scathing things to people who didn’t have beards, and being able to dribble pop culture references on cue. I couldn’t (and still can’t) grow a beard, and scathing doesn’t really work for me, but I was halfway through Buffy the Vampire Slayer; as far as I was concerned, I was ready to make my debut on the scene. The university’s LGBT+ society’s bar crawl had the theme of Outer Space and we were headed for Revenge in Brighton. My plan was to cobble together an astronaut costume using the flight suit, some plastic shot glasses and a fishbowl. I entertained visions of me slowly descending a grand staircase while a crowd stopped dancing to watch with hushed reverence, and to applaud. “Wow,” they’d whisper to one another, all of them with heart-breaking jaw lines and really nice shoes, “Who is he? And more importantly, where did he get that incredible outfit?” Unfortunately, I had zero costumemaking skills, and after wrestling with
my ineptitude and a hot glue gun for a few hours, I ended up settling for a distinctly underwhelming Top Gun vibe instead — and that’s where the flight suit came in. It was a stretch, I know, but somebody else came as Batman, so I wasn’t the only one to take liberties. I had a pocketful of cherry lollipops I’d bought online, in bulk, for the sole purpose of taking them to gay clubs. I didn’t know exactly what went on in gay clubs, but from what I’d seen on TV I was reasonably sure there were lollipops involved. I couldn’t (and still can’t) dance, but I’d been to straight
i
THEN: Jonathan’s spacesuit didn’t turn out well NOW: Hopefully, he knows to avoid strange drinks
“I WAS IN BRIGHTON. I WAS IN A CLUB WHERE MEN WERE KISSING EACH OTHER, OPENLY AND MESSILY — AND WITH FLUORESCENT TONGUES ” clubs before so I just pulled out the “crouch down, then stand up” and my favourite, the “I’m holding four open cans of Red Stripe because they were on offer.” JOIN THE CLUB: In retrospect, it wasn’t Jonathan was overwhelmed. entirely different to clubs I’d been to before: loud, sticky, and full of people who were great at shoving and glaring. But at the time I was completely overwhelmed by the excitement of it all — I was in Brighton, I was in a club where men were kissing each other, openly and messily, with fluorescent tongues! There was a guy dressed as Buzz Lightyear whose arms were bigger than my entire body and he had to talk to me because he was our bar-crawl guide. I spent a lot of time on the roof pretending to smoke and talking too loudly about myself. I shared lollipops with an alarming amount of strangers. I tried Tuaca. If you’ve never been bullied into drinking Tuaca, it’s supposedly a naturally flavoured brandy and is fucking awful. At the end of the night, I staggered out of the club with a guy who had a James-McAvoy-as-Mr-Tumnus goatee and violently blue eyes. He gave me my first joint, which I pretended to smoke. Sorry for wasting your joint, Lewis. That flight-suit probably gave you bedbugs so I’m sorry for that, too.
stepping
out
We all remember that exciting, nerve-racking night when we made our debut on the scene. So what was it like for you, the first time you walked through the door of a gay venue?
ut
IF YOU’D LIKE TO BE CONSIDERED FOR STEPPING OUT, EMAIL AN OUTLINE OF YOUR STORY TO [email protected]
JUNE 2017
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my ineptitude and a hot glue gun for a few hours, I ended up settling for a distinctly underwhelming Top Gun vibe instead — and that’s where the flight suit came in. It was a stretch, I know, but somebody else came as Batman, so I wasn’t the only one to take liberties. I had a pocketful of cherry lollipops I’d bought online, in bulk, for the sole purpose of taking them to gay clubs. I didn’t know exactly what went on in gay clubs, but from what I’d seen on TV I was reasonably sure there were lollipops involved. I couldn’t (and still can’t) dance, but I’d been to straight
i
THEN: Jonathan’s spacesuit didn’t turn out well NOW: Hopefully, he knows to avoid strange drinks
“I WAS IN BRIGHTON. I WAS IN A CLUB WHERE MEN WERE KISSING EACH OTHER, OPENLY AND MESSILY — AND WITH FLUORESCENT TONGUES ” clubs before so I just pulled out the “crouch down, then stand up” and my favourite, the “I’m holding four open cans of Red Stripe because they were on offer.” JOIN THE CLUB: In retrospect, it wasn’t Jonathan was overwhelmed. entirely different to clubs I’d been to before: loud, sticky, and full of people who were great at shoving and glaring. But at the time I was completely overwhelmed by the excitement of it all — I was in Brighton, I was in a club where men were kissing each other, openly and messily, with fluorescent tongues! There was a guy dressed as Buzz Lightyear whose arms were bigger than my entire body and he had to talk to me because he was our bar-crawl guide. I spent a lot of time on the roof pretending to smoke and talking too loudly about myself. I shared lollipops with an alarming amount of strangers. I tried Tuaca. If you’ve never been bullied into drinking Tuaca, it’s supposedly a naturally flavoured brandy and is fucking awful. At the end of the night, I staggered out of the club with a guy who had a James-McAvoy-as-Mr-Tumnus goatee and violently blue eyes. He gave me my first joint, which I pretended to smoke. Sorry for wasting your joint, Lewis. That flight-suit probably gave you bedbugs so I’m sorry for that, too.
stepping
out
We all remember that exciting, nerve-racking night when we made our debut on the scene. So what was it like for you, the first time you walked through the door of a gay venue?
ut
IF YOU’D LIKE TO BE CONSIDERED FOR STEPPING OUT, EMAIL AN OUTLINE OF YOUR STORY TO [email protected]
JUNE 2017
283_LIFE_STEPPING_OUThs.indd 145
145
12/04/2017 12:38 pm
