Secondhand Sunday

Sundays are my Secondhand day. I'm basically too lazy to think of anything new to say so I re-post a "vintage" entry.

If you aren't in the mood for repeats, please feel free to change the channel.


"MAN IN NIGHTIE EXPOSES HIMSELF"

Original Post Date, July 2, 2009


A 42-year-old Solon man dressed in lingerie was arrested Tuesday for exposing himself to motorists, police said.
Jeffrey Hirsch was pulling up his pants and wiping off his lipstick and gloss when Parma police officers approached him, Detective Marty Compton said. Hirsch was cited for public indecency.

A woman called police about 1:30 p.m. and said a man had just exposed himself to her while driving south on Pearl Road near Brookpark Road. She followed the man, who was driving a gold 2007 GMC Yukon, and described the vehicle to police dispatchers. The Yukon's license plate is ET 77 JA.

Everytime I see a headline like this, I hold my breath for a second until I see the person's name.

I dated and subsequently fell madly in love with a man in 1997. He was tall, handsome and had a great body. He was also probably the biggest homophobe I had ever met in my life. I lived in Lakewood, OH, which in the original Trivial Pursuit game was tagged as the city with the largest per capita gay population in the country. Well, that just annoyed him more. I teased him that the people who hate the most are usually the ones most afraid of their attraction to what they revile. He wasn't amused.

After a while, I started to suspect that he might be cheating on me so I started to "snoop" around his apartment. I found women's makeup and perfume that I attributed to a former girlfriend. Then there were women's shoes and clothing, both in larger sizes. I didn't say anything right away until I found lingerie. It was right before Valentine's Day and I just assumed he had bought it for me. When Valentine's Day came and went and I didn't receive that lingerie as a gift, I knew something wasn't right.

He had lots of excuses that eventually led to our final breakup. Our on again, off again three year relationship has always been rather tumultuous and I always made excuses for his abusive behavior. This time, he revealed that he was gay but married a woman less than a year later telling me that he had lied to me about being gay.

A few years went by and he started coming around again. Getting out of that relationship had allowed me to look at the issues in my life that had made me decide to stay with an abusive man. I had forgiven him, my mother and myself and foolishly thought that we could be friends.

He had started a family but had this secret life on the side. He opened my eyes to a whole underground secret sex world that existed in quiet suburban Cleveland. PTA moms became swingers at night, married men took male lovers and estates on the lake became makeshift brothels. I think my curiosity got the best of me but I never participated in anything.

As the years went by, he drifted in and out of my life and his propensity for these behaviors increased and became more dangerous. He remained married and continued to grow his family, all the while having relationships with men on the side. I don't really know if his wife knew because his story kept changing when I asked him.

He said he could never truly live a gay life because he had too much to lose. Part of me always held onto what I thought we could have had as I tried to come to terms with the man he had become or I suppose, always was.

I last saw him in the fall when he called to tell me he was getting a divorce. He asked if I would help him find an apartment. I agreed and when he showed up, was wearing a dress, high heels, makeup and a wig. I had seen him like this before and I really wanted to be supportive of him but I was sad.

Sad for myself and what might have been if circumstances were different, sad for his wife who may or may not know who he really is, but mostly sad for him because he was too afraid to be true to himself.

He never did get that divorce but I had to divorce myself from him because there were just too many emotions attached to him after 11 years. I went through a grieving process as if he had died, which, I guess, he sort of did.