When I came out of the closet at 17, my dad gave me a letter and a book on AIDS.
I do not remember the letter’s entire contents, but I know he leaned into cliche, asking: ‘Is this a phase?’
More entertainingly, he commented: ‘I hope you are not doing this to be like Grayson Perry.’
In fairness, I was, and still am obsessed with Grayson Perry – but he is in fact a heterosexual transvestite, so my father had missed the point.
He also wrote that he hoped I was not being gay to get friends. Oh, the irony.
I had already internalised the concept that being gay was the worst possible thing that could ever happen to you. In the mid-2000s, the word ‘gay’ was consistently used as a negative term by my peers.
I became convinced I was becoming gay because I was constantly being told I was.
My best friend at the time told me her father declared at a dinner party that I was gay.
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For the next six years, another primary school friend messaged me yearly with: ‘My parents say you are gay, are you gay yet?’ (It is still perplexing to me that 50-year-old men and women would comment on a child’s sexuality).
The ages of 13 through to 16 were hell. I became introverted, odd and angry. I destroyed several family photos where I perceived myself being depicted as camp as they triggered self-hatred.
Whenever I felt attracted to the same sex, I tried to obliterate my true self and to convince myself I was heterosexual, writing lines in my head: ‘I AM NOT GAY’.
None of this was helped by the fact my father had made derogatory comments about gay people while I was still a sleeper agent.
‘The mess they make in hotel rooms…’ he noted during a casual car conversation, apparently describing gay men. Or on the topic of gay adoption: ‘Oh, they are not going to do that, are they?’
So my dad’s letter, only half-legible through his muddled handwriting, sat very badly with me, and I made the decision to immediately dispose of it.
This was probably the most mature decision of my life.
This act of brushing off the initial ignorance from my dad is the same advice I now give to any LGBTQIA+ individuals who ask me about coming out to their parents today.
‘Their first reaction is not their only one,’ I’ll say. ‘You have spent years processing this and they have just found out, although you do not deserve to take the brunt of the prejudices they have assimilated throughout their lives.’
To be clear, I do not believe people should be forced to persist with a relationship with their parents if the healthiest thing is to walk away.
In my circumstance, however, the ‘gay thing’ aside, my father has been hugely supportive of me in many ways, hence this was a relationship I did not want to lose.
Personally, I am glad I did not take his initial response at face value. He was sheepish, and I was clueless.
After the letter came the book on AIDS – And The Band Played On by American journalist Randy Shilts – and Dad trying to ask me exactly ‘what’ I was attracted to. My skin still crawls.
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He’s 70 now, but my dad was 30 when the AIDS epidemic started. He saw the fear generated by public service announcements and the hostility that pushed back LGBTQIA+ rights.
He’d also had a lens into the gay community while at boarding school, where he witnessed horrific homophobic abuse.
When Dad gave me And the Band Played On, I hope it was his way of trying to inform and protect me.
The book did actually set me on the path to become a virologist and militant homosexual.
Together with my exceptional cofounder Anna Vybornova we have started the world’s only anal sex lab, Polari Labs. We study the mechanics of anal sex specifically focusing on how to make the preparation safer and sex pain free.
Our first invention, A-BALL, is the alternative to anal douching that makes anal preparation effortless. The product hits the market in 2026 but early subscriptions are also available.
A-BALL
Preparing for anal sex can be a hassle. Most people use a method called anal douching that can take up to half an hour, requiring awkward bathroom logistics and causing stress around intimacy. Our first invention, the A-Ball, is a tiny, disintegrating insert that forms a gentle internal barrier and in just 30 seconds you are ready for action.
Neither of us had any clue of it then, but my father giving me that book was the first step in inspiring my queer activism and entrepreneurship.
Shortly after a couple of years, he got over the initial shock of siring a homosexual, we found common ground.
We went on holiday to Turkey recently and he ended up engrossed in my beachside read, Gay Man Talking by Daniel Harding. In it, the author shares his experience with his mother expressing concern about AIDS when he told her he was gay.
As we spoke about it, I realised he was proud he is of me and what I do and we continue to swap books.
Although I will add he is still uncertain about my vow to not stop talking about anal douching.
Last December, he exclaimed while slamming his fists into the table: ‘No more f***ing anal sex chat, I have had enough of f***ing anal sex, it’s f***ing Christmas!’
Fair enough.
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