The Submariner

[February 1st, 2006] "Emotional communal pornography." That's what Brokeback Mountain producer James Schamus told Andy Towle at www.towleroad.com about the manifestation of middle-aged men—both gay and straight—who've begun to spill secrets of same-sex love over the Internet. At www.brokebackmountainmovie.com, you can count literally thousands of such confessions.

You'll find them flooding community bulletin boards, too. That's where I found, on a "men seeking men" site, a confession that started with this sentence: "When Ike was president I got my hands on my little brother's wiener." Wow.

After reading the rest of the post, which, in its own perverse and eloquent way, shared what it was like to have sex with your brother, be a closeted submariner and have HIV, I felt compelled to contact its author. I guess it was because in a sea of invisible Internet voices, both his story and his brutally honest way of telling it rang true—no matter how awful I found it to be. And to my surprise, he agreed to meet me face to face over coffee.

You see, Ken Ballard, although he's never been published, considers himself a writer. But he doesn't pen this kind of stuff for his writing group, "Ken's Fan Club." When I asked him if it was his frustration at being a struggling writer that obliged him to be so frank in cyberspace, a giant grin broke out over his somber face.

"No," he replied. "Not really."

So what was this all about? At 5 feet 6 inches and 180 pounds, there are still signs on Ken's bald, 57-year-old frame of a bodybuilder's physique. But age and illness has left the former Navy man tired, too tired to play the games that often go with trying to meet other men for sex—or something more meaningful.

"It was a way to present my less-than-positive attributes positively," says Ballard, who doesn't like to talk to strangers or drink alcohol, making it difficult to navigate in a cocktail-fueled queer world. "Besides, it was better than saying I was a bottom that likes to get fucked."

Ballard believes his story isn't special.

"Talk to any 50-year-old gay man in Portland, or any major city, and they will share similar experiences," says Ballard, who worked for a defense contractor on the East Coast after his stint in the service and prior to moving to P-town 12 years ago. He has been on disability for the past eight years.

Considering himself as much a "culprit" as a "victim" of his times, Ballard was able to share other aspects of his so-called "un-special" life. Like his marriage to a woman for 18 years, or his claims that he gave his partner HIV and that he still frequents bathhouses where he has unprotected sex.

"My sexuality has cost me a lot," says Ballard. "I live 2,000 miles away from my mother. I have HIV. And I live on a low income. But I still can't get away from the one thing that I wanted when I was 14. I crave dick."

That producer Schamus has it right. Disclosures such as Ballard's are a new, addictive form of "porn." But they're also stories that need to be told—and heard. I think in the act of telling them to another person (or even to the Internet ether), these confessionals become a way for gay men to release the demons—and guilt—that hide in their souls. It's not just communal pornography; it's communal catharsis.