Jonah's Choice

I took up yoga a few years back, when I felt Madonna and I were drifting apart. As youngsters, Madonna and I were both carefree, independent, and sexually promiscuous. Entering my mid-20s, I was still all of those things, but Madonna had mostly moved on. With two kids and a husband, Madonna became more of a soccer mom than a sexpot.


So to retain our deep, lifelong friendship, I had to either take up yoga or learn the Kabala. Since the actual definition for "Kabala" is "Judaism for Gentiles", I opted for yoga.


I also joined the yoga movement for palliative reasons. Among my various odd physical ailments -- the kind that won't kill you, won't make you stronger, but will annoy the shit out of you -- I suffer from Benign Posturial Vertigo, which basically is an establishment way of saying that I get dizzy (and, as a result, nauseous) unless I'm either standing upright or my head is propped up on several pillows. There are various treatments for BPV -- including yoga -- but I never pursued them, being of the mind that, as my mom says, life is suffering. Although I think when the Dalai Lama says it, he's not referring to his inability to move his bowels for three days.

But then the BPV began striking in flagrante delicto. In the interests of keeping this blog R-rated and avoiding a Tipper tongue-lashing, I'll refrain from describing in detail the situations in which BPV might cause problems in bed. Suffice it to say, porn stars with BPV could receive disability benefits. Nothing says "I'm turned on" like seeing dinner in reverse.

Needless to say, there were very few yoga positions that I could do with any success in the beginning. The Buddha himself would have kicked me out of the studio.

"Peace and tranquility my ass. Get your poseur butt out of my class," he would have demanded, briefly leaving the palace of eternal bliss to ream me out.

Still, the drive for non-vomit inducing sex kept me motivated. Eventually I improved to the point where the instructor, Steve, did not instinctively frown at the sight of my entering the class. I've even started frowning myself when I see a novice struggling to perform a simple move.

"That's it, Nora, you can do it," Steve said to a recent newcomer in downward dog.

"Excuse me, Steve, can we move on?," I asked. I have a tendency to say what everyone else is thinking but don't say. It rarely registers in my brain that maybe they're not saying it for a reason. "Perhaps Nora could practice in the corner?"
It's amazing how quickly you forget your own failures when you achieve mediocrity.

To avoid Nora’s contemptuous glares, I kicked it up a notch and joined a more advanced class. My new instructor, Lesley, is a British expat, sales director turned physical trainer/spiritual healer/burgeoning musician. Although she is probably in her mid 40s, she can contort her body in ways that would make Ron Jeremy blush.

“Now, put your left heel over your right shoulder, turn both wrists 180 degrees counterclockwise, and lick your index fingers while humming the 1812 Overture,” she directed only half-jokingly in our last class.

Like most sales directors turned physical trainers/spiritual healers/burgeoning musicians/circus freaks, Lesley is also a lesbian. In fact, she is the second of two “Lesleys” I know who is a lesbian. I wonder if naming a girl Lesley is like naming a boy Jeeves – you’ve pretty much mapped out the course of that kid’s life on his birth certificate.

Lesley says she got out of sales because it wasn’t challenging, but I think it was because, like me, she lacks the inner voice that tells you what to say and what not to say. Some call it tact. I call it honesty. Whatever you call it, it’s a trait that’s not conducive to careers that require bending the truth or outright lying, like acting or politics.

I knew exactly how Lesley felt, because I felt the same way during my brief stint as a BabyGap sales associate.

“Excuse me,” a lady once asked, holding a leopard-print onesie up to her daughter’s body. “Is this the right size?”

“Yeah, that’s the right size,” I responded, “but it makes her like a bit hippy.”

I didn’t last there very long, especially when I started a running tally of ugly babies in the break room.

During today’s class, though, Lesley pushed the honesty a bit further than expected. We were attempting to perform a position that I haven’t seen since I discovered my dad’s porn collection in the basement. Hunched over, with my arms balanced on my right leg and my butt straight up in the air, a posture I usually only assume after a few drinks and some jewelry, Lesley tried to coach me into the position.

“That’s it. Now, stare straight ahead at the lovely lady sitting in front of you,” she directed. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

I smiled, politely. She was indeed attractive; a shapely Israeli woman with an olive-skin complexion and long, curly hair that fell below her shoulders. The only problem I had with her appearance was her shorts, which declared the name of her alma mater on the backside. If women want their butts to look smaller, they should try not writing on them.

Lesley continued, as I lifted one foot in the air, teetering on the brink of oblivion.

“Of course, she’s probably not your type, eh?,” she said, nudging my arm slightly. “A bit too feminine?”

And with that comment, I was outed to a class of twenty-two strangers, including the beautiful woman who might have been the next Mrs. Haslap.

Of course, I’m overstating things here, considering that the farthest I’ve ever gone with a woman was the peck on the cheek I gave my high school prom date, who shortly thereafter became a full-blown lesbian herself (she went to Smith, and it took), and the closest I’ve come to touching a female body part was when I got hit on the leg with a soccer ball in gym class, which caused a sizeable lump on my shin that my friend Mike called a “leg breast.”

And it’s not as if I had any plans to join the ex-gay movement myself. I haven’t been in the closet since I was a teenager, and I’m not planning to go back in. In my whole life I have only had one bona fide date with a girl (I don’t count the lesbian prom date, as I already had a pinky toe out the closet door by that point). When I was 12, Jennifer Lee asked me to the sixth grade bowl-a-thon. I knew it was morally wrong to accept her invitation, but her parents owned a really good Chinese restaurant in town and I thought I could score some free food out of it, plus I knew it would freak my mom out to date a gentile (although Jennifer was Asian, which, according to my mom, is one of the “good” gentile groups). But from the minute her dad picked me up for the date, I knew it was all a lie, a horrible, horrible lie. I still regret what I did to that poor girl. Those three hours at the Cherry Hill Bowling Alley must haunt her to this day. She probably thinks she turned me, although I shouldn’t discount that possibility. Maybe if she hadn’t been so flat-chested, I wouldn’t have spent the evening staring at Mr. Mostorino, our muscular and slightly effete gym teacher. One well-placed box of Kleenex could have made all the difference. But that’s all water under the unstuffed bra now.

Still, I didn’t appreciate the comment. It wasn’t the outing so much as the assumption. I had a similar feeling of resentment when I came out to my father while sitting at a local Starbucks over mochafrappucinos.

“Dad, I’m gay,” I said, not expecting a big reaction from him. My father never passed judgment on anyone, which could be the result of his being a therapist, but is more likely the result of his supreme narcissism. Of course you don’t judge other people when other people only exist to serve you. Still, his non-judgmentalness was often a welcome respite from my mother’s near-universal criticism. My mother could find a way to criticize Mother Teresa. Actually, Mother Teresa would be an easy target, what with the vow of poverty and all.

His reaction was a bit of a surprise, though. Without looking up from his coffee, he shrugged and said,

“Oh, I’ve known that since you were 6 years old.”

Which begged the question – what exactly was I doing when I was 6 years old that would send the message that I had a preference for penis? Did I sing “Bingo” with a lisp? Was I partial to thong diapers? Did I dress Kermit in leather chaps?

In a perverse way, I preferred my mother’s reaction. Although she was not surprised either, her assumption was at least based on 28 years of experience with me, and on the opinion of several radio psychiatrists, who she called several times to inquire about my sexuality. Though I never heard one of those calls personally, I imagine they went something like, “My son is 28, single, thin, and likes show tunes. Is he gay?” Not a difficult judgment call, that one.

But my dad’s reaction – and, to be fair, the reaction of most of my friends and family, including my grandmother, with whom the entire conversation consisted of “Grandma, I’m gay,” and “That’s nice, you want more pasta?” – belied something about me that I usually choose to ignore.

I couldn’t be straight if I wanted to. Not that I want to – being gay has imbibed me with various positive characteristics, including a profound sense of empathy for anyone in pain, and an aversion for anything plaid. In fact, if I wasn’t gay, I think I’d be quite boring.

No, it’s not a matter of internalized homophobia. It’s a matter of options. I like to have as many doors open as possible at all times. What if I choose Door Number 1, but Door Number 2 was the right one? If I was a contestant on the Price Is Right, the episode would be eighteen hours long.

“Jonah, you have to choose a door,” Bob would demand, becoming more infuriated with each passing minute.

“But Bob, what if it’s the wrong one? What if I choose Door Number 1, but Door Number 1 has an lifetime supply of chili, while Door Number 2 has a Corvette? That would be horrible, I don’t know if I could live with myself after that. I don’t even like chili, it gives me gas!”

“Just pick a goddamned door!,” Bob would shout, his effervescent enthusiasm quickly devolving into utter hatred. Eventually Rod Roddy would have to escort me off the premises.

But any illusion of options when it comes to my romantic life is just that, an illusion. Besides the whole, sexuality is not a choice thing – something I generally, if not universally, believe – even if I actually was straight, I’d have to be gay. It would be easier to learn to suck a cock than to stop humming along to Gershwin and voguing in the shower.

Lesley’s presumptuous comment only reminded me that not everything in life is under my control. Not only can I not control who I’m attracted to – I can’t control who people think I’m attracted to either. Even if I was straight, it wouldn’t matter. Society has spoken. I am a gay man.

Leaving class, I smiled again at the pretty Israeli woman. She giggled with her friends, though I’m not sure if she was giggling with or at me. Either way, our future together was shot. It would have been a beautiful wedding, too. She would have worn white, natch, even though we would have had a quickie before the ceremony. And we would have had many beautiful Israeli-American children. The youngest, Zoe, would have attended Harvard undergrad and Oxford, perhaps on a Rhodes Scholarship. She’d study philosophy, or architecture, or the philosophy of architecture – something very high-brow and elitist. Eventually, my Israeli wife and I would come to a compromise whereby we would share the pool boy; she would get Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I’d have him the rest of the week.

It could have been the perfect life, or it could have ended in disaster. I guess we'll never know.

Thanks to Lesley.