Of Skinny Dipping, Streaking and Confused Messages

When I was 12 years old, I was in love.  I certainly didn't think of it that way at the time, but the adult me knows it to be true.  There was a boy in my ward, let's call him Dixon, who I was intensely drawn to.  He was just a bit older than me - perhaps 4 or 5 months, maybe even fewer.  At 12 years old, a few months can seem like a whole lot.  And he seemed so much more mature and confident.  Plus he was wealthy.  His father was a doctor and drove a Porsche 911.  His mother drove a Cadillac Sedan de Ville - with a digital stereo I think with a built in CB!  And they had a VCR (it was the size of a footlocker), a thing which I didn't even know existed. 

I could not wait to join boy scouts and become a deacon because that would mean spending a lot of time with Dixon instead of admiring him from afar.  Much to my surprise, he actually showed an interest in me.  Dixon was my buddy/partner for my first 50 mile hike (we had actual, challenging adventures in scouts back then - no drive to the coast and set up a tent).  We spent time getting ready for our hike.  He taught me to love Saturday Night Live and other more "big boy" things like wanting to wear boxers, an idea my mother vetoed for reasons I still do not understand.  I was seriously in heaven.  Looking back now, I realize how intense my feelings were.  At least it seems like they were.  Thirty years can play tricks on memories.

Up until that time, I was usually the instigator in any sexual experimentation.  But Dixon was different.  He loved to be naked.  It seemed like his swimsuit, shorts or pants were off pretty frequently when we were together. We would be swimming and before I knew it his trunks would be off and he'd be laying on the pool deck (at his house - he had a real in ground pool!) or up on the cap of the pool (at my house with our much more pedestrian doughboy).  He told me that he liked running in his underwear (not naked, even he had limits) from his house to a school and back again in the middle of the night.  So, clearly he was very sexualized.  I think much more than I was.  We were constantly together the summer after I turned 12 and I made every effort to make sure I had him to myself as much as possible by shooing away other friends.

Then I moved to a more distant suburb of our community.  I was an Air Force brat and although my dad had retired at that point eliminating transfers, my parents seemed to get the moving itch every few years.  It wasn't that far, but it was too far to conveniently bicycle to each others houses.  So, we didn't see each other for a while.  

In 8th grade I invited Dixon to my house.  He spent the night at least once.  And on that occasion it was back to the old games.  This time, however, it was running naked down the street.  I was amazed that I actually did it.  I can remember the two of us running and even being seen which totally freaked me out but didn't seem to phase Dixon at all.  I also remember looking over at him and, how can I say this delicately, observing he was in the "ready to go" state.  After our run, we jumped in my pool (in ground now since my family had moved up in the world) and then went up to my room where, having been made all hot and bothered, I convinced him that we should hang out in the buff.  After a bit of that, he asked for his underwear, my parents came home, he spent the night and was gone in the morning.

I never really spoke to him again after 8th grade.  He went to the old money rich kids public school.  I went to the middle class/upper middle class school.  We kicked their butts in basketball.  They (and everyone else) kicked our butts in football.  I would see him at these events but we never talked.

Here's what I don't get:  I don't think he's gay.  I'm not certain, but it just feels like he isn't.  And we never had any kind of physical interaction, although I'm sure I'd have been all over that if I'd had the chance and he had initiated it.  So if he wasn't (isn't) gay, why all the emphasis on nudity in front of me?  As I said, it was almost always his idea.  And why the erection when we were running?  There wasn't a girl in sight for heavens sake.  On the other hand, when the topic of masturbation came up among the boys during that first 50 miler, he wanted no part of the conversation.  I said I did because everyone else said they did - I didn't even know what it was although it was clearly sexual in some way - but Dixon was silent.

Maybe he just liked the thrill of it.  The possibility of getting caught might have been what appealed to him.  And at 12 to 14, even the awesome, mature, beautiful Dixon wasn't aggressive enough to go after some female companionship for his adventures.  Or maybe he was (is) gay, and just a really, really repressed Mormon boy.  I mean, one never hears of those right?

None of it matters.  Dixon didn't make me gay.  I'm not looking to find what "broke" me so that I can "repair" it.  But I do ponder about things like that.  I wonder what impact such experiences had on me and what impact I had on others.  I probably worry a bit about the latter but such are the hazards of reflecting on life.  

I seem to have had a variety of these experiences.  Did they contribute to my sexual orientation or did I have them because of my sexual orientation?  I suppose I will never really know.