I was 17 at the time
So, this is not the story of how I actually lost my virginity. That story is no fun, and not one I enjoy telling. This one has a lot more bells and whistles.
First of all, sure, yeah — now-a-days you can say “virginity is a social construct” or “stop saying ‘lose’ your virginity” blah blah blah. This was the 80s. So everyone put your time-traveling hats on and forget the world of today and understand that back then, when I was 17 years old, this was VERY MUCH about “losing” your virginity … and virginity was a VERY big deal, at least to me.
So, let me set the scene.
Back in the day we had a family friend, an elderly gay gentleman with very little family who sort of adopted me, my mom, and my dad as his family. He was very dapper and very convivial; he made our holidays joyful and engaging as he sat at the table regaling us with stories of how he had started out a humble kid from Joplin, Missouri ,and made his way into the big bold city of New York using only his wits, his personality, and his gay male connections.
He often talked about his one living relative, Lela, a cousin who had married a man of ambition. She and this man went on to build an empire in Hollywood (not a film or even film-adjacent empire, but an empire…
