Naked: I Like Guys

After the success of his first collection of essays, Barrel Fever, and his subsequent numerous appearances on Public Radio International's This American Life, David Sedaris released his second collection of essays, Naked, in 1997. This collection contains stories that are a little more personal, and a good number of them on his experiences growing up as a gay teenager in Raleigh, North Carolina. This particular essay focuses on a month-long summer trip to Greece he took after he completed the eighth grade, designed for American kids who have Greek ancestry. He starts off by relating his experiences during not only the eighth grade, but also in previous grades, with homophobia. While he had realized at a young age that he was "different" from the other boys, he also knew that, given the time and place that he grew up in, he had to hide the feelings he had towards other boys. Many teachers in the school even went out of their way to make fun of homosexuality. For example, his Spanish teacher told Sedaris' class once that she wanted to have a boy first, because she felt that if she had a girl first, any boy she had after the girl might "turn out funny." Another one of his teachers used to occasionally prance around the classroom, limp-wristed and all, making fun of homosexuals. Of course, the only way that Sedaris could deal with this was to separate himself from the other boys who were "different" (they could all identify themselves because they all had "speech problems" (i.e. lisps) in elementary school, and had to see a speech therapist to deal with the "problem"), and also being the one to laugh the longest and hardest at any jokes that had to do with sexuality. Anyway, when school lets out, Sedaris and his older sister Lisa fly up to New York with their father to meet up with the rest of the kids who are participating in the trip. Lisa immediately abandons Sedaris, leaving him to fend for himself on a trip that he really didn't want to go on in the first place. While in Greece, however, he realizes that his bunk mate Jason might have similar feelings towards guys. Upon hearing one of the counselors use a derogatory term for gays towards the entirety of the boys on the trip, Sedaris and Jason turned it into a game, calling each other by the same derogatory term. Their friendship starts to turn somewhat physical, and upon realizing what this could mean for them, Sedaris and Jason suddenly turn on each other. Jason finds a girlfriend, and even claims to have found Sedaris' (non-existent) journal, and shares a page from it that says "I Like Guys." Upon his arrival back in the United States, Sedaris goes home, and after another month of summer break, goes back to school, which has been integrated. Most of his former teachers had left, and one of his new teachers, a black man, not only made fun of gays, but also people like Albert Einstein and the host of a popular local television show. Sedaris ends the piece saying, "this [ridicule] is something we each have in common, proof that we're all brothers under the skin."

Sedaris, David. "I Like Guys." 1997. Naked. Paperback ed. New York: Back Bay, 1998. 81-94.

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