So we started dating secretly could not tell anyone junior year really was quite the transformation for you huh I have like 10 years to catch up on seual refres we had to strip down completely naked and run through every floor on the guy side of the dormatory in a stampede
All the floors knew about this because it happened every Year welcome back to another episode of who’s your daddy podcast for two gay guys who are not yet parent talk about gay parenting and all the other things yes right uh as we said in the first episode this season we are diving into a lot more than just lgbtq plus parenting
And yeah so listen to us as to parent demanding I like that oh God is it that kind of podcast uhhuh it is ASR you better sit down and listen okay what are we talking about this episode um so I convinced you to talk about your experience at Christian
University because you already in the head space for it and everybody has been asking um for this podcast plus this is a great like if you listen to the last episode it’s a great primer for this one to be like M ooh okay o okay what’s
Happening yeah I I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited to film an episode which is hilarious because this is absolutely like not the chosen theme for this podcast but here we are I know I think that’s why we’re I mean I that’s why I wanted to do some alternative
Things I think this season all interconnected like this is our identity there’s more to life than just becoming a parent and I think we have a lot of things that we can talk about and experiences that we can share that maybe people have haven’t heard on the podcast
Or maybe they just like can’t relate to yep parenting and if you’re my future child listening to this you are not allowed to listen past this point until you are at least 18 oh my God is it really going to be like R-rated oh honey buckle up PG-13 I guess said buckle up
Buckle up oh my God I’m sit my ice Coffee Okay here we go so we so last episode we talked about Matthew’s coming out story which was very intense almost I would give I’m trying to think of like the words it was very a big deep dive there was a lot of things going on and we sort
Of glazed over like going from high school into college and from high school to college you were like I am done with homosexuality like it is in my past I’m going to go to a Christian University be the perfect human and everyone will love me but that’s very different than how
You ended college so we sort of like and S we sort of skipped like those those four years or the first three maybe the first three defin I feel like that maybe was like those two to three years was like the this huge transformation of like completely writing off your
Sexuality and then like coming to to terms and like accepting yourself so like and this is walk us through it pre Michael of course yeah of course we met in 2014 my coming up video came out in were I started college in 2010 so coming into college 2010 Seattle Pacific
University I want to give you a little bit of background of Seattle Pacific University um it’s a Christian University in Queen Anne which is a district in central Seattle um it’s kind of like a more upscale like nice neighborhood a little bit more expensive iort of anyways that’s the vibe yeah um
Seattle Pacific University has about 2500 undergrad students um it is a first Free Methodist denomination which unlike the name is not very free I think they mean that you just like don’t have to pay to go I think they actually call it no first Free Methodist is because they they call the
Free methodists because they’re free from the methodists they it’s like a branch off of the Methodist church and they specifically divided to become more conservative in nature so Methodist is not nearly as bad as first Free Methodist if you look at this from like a liberal conservative perspective I did
Not care to like look that term up and why it was called that but now I’m not saying that’s the answer that’s my interpretation of it they could call it first free for something else but I do know why they divided okay well one of my sisters is part of an Evangelical
Free Church an efree they literally call it e free yeah so free doesn’t necessarily mean great in religious not great I can tell you that we’ll get into that in another episode uhhuh so um yeah Seattle Pacific University quite conservative leaning University it has lifestyle expectations there’s boy dorms
There’s girl dorms which is not abnormal not abnormal right for boy and girl floors right but you had boy and girl floors floors floors yes but it’s typically like of the dorm is boys and one half of the dorm is girls and there’s no like you can’t cross into
The girls floor without going through the lobby typically of the building so like it’s pretty divided you know you have a physical barrier to keep the men’s penises away from the girls vaginas God okay or in this case the men’s penises away from the men’s penises well they didn’t do a very good
Job of that they did not so starting freshman year at Seattle Pacific I came on campus just as straight as straight could be oh I’m sure yeah as closet as I could be honestly I had just finished spending my summer in Sweden which was my first time out of the country ever
With your Crut High School Crush like foreign exchange student Crush who was straight mhm yep his name is John unon do you want to know something funny what I went to work yesterday and one of the doctors is moving back to Germany and we were talking about the other doctor who
Has a very German name not knowing how to speak German this other one literally grew up there and she’s like whenever I go to Germany everybody like starts to speak to me in German thinking like oh my gosh your last name and she’s like oh my like I cannot and she also said
Something about going to Sweden when she goes to Sweden people don’t understand why she can’t speak Swedish what I know and I was like well my husband oddly enough like did learn some Swedish and then when he goes to Sweden and starts speaking everybody people are surprised
That every looks at him and is like why do you why do you know how to speak Swedish like why did you even learn it I taught myself to speak Swedish in my senior year of high schol I told them that yeah because I fell in love with a
Swedish exchange student so I he wanted to go visit him downloaded Rosetta Stone illegally off of lime wire and practiced for8 months didn’t know you could download like applications I just did it for music yeah wow yeah spent a lot of time on the computer early 2000s
Amazing yeah so okay anyway so you’re in your freshman in college I also went through a pretty major heartbreak that summer as he was returning back to Sweden I had this High hope that he would like realize that he was and yeah whisk me away to Europe and I would
Never have to come back to the States and could never like didn’t have to face my like um traumatic religious experience yeah he would just be like live with me it’s fine obviously that didn’t happen so I was crushed and decided to turn away from homosexuality forever I was now re
Christianized ready to attend spu and follow all of their rules yeah freshman year 2010 shortly after getting on campus there it was an article that was released by The Stranger which is a hilarious publication out of Seattle and this was released in response to Seattle Pacific University uh basically doubling
Down on their super Antiquated lifestyle expectations and removing the right of a gay group on campus called haven of reserving rooms or space on campus for club meetings oh so there was an lgbtq group but it was not recognized by the university and they were not allowed to
Reserve a room or space to meet wow so the headline is the secret sex lives of spu students masturbation in prayer rooms mouss on genitals virginity’s lost and forbidden everything if you are a child please close your ears Seattle pa Pacific University the 120-year-old Free Methodist school at the northern base of
Queen Anne Hill officially bans premarital extramarital or homosexual sexual activities read the University’s 758 word statement on human sexuality and you’ll learn when heterosexuals at spu are allowed to engage in heterosexual sex and why homosexual acts are prohibited on campus and why things must be this way in parenthesis and
Quotations God earlier in the year this whole thing hit the fan with Haven and spu administrators just taking away all the rights of Haven and not allowing them to meet on campus bunch of angry letters and threats to the university were made by alumni saying they’re going
To withhold donations Etc and so 2 weeks later the administrators came back on their word and said oh Haven can now reserve space on campus again big whoop scrolling down this is the Secret Lives of spu students on campus these are people who have written in to the
Stranger to say like this is what it’s like on campus and this is actually like my experience oh wow so as a fresh it’s not like the onion it’s not like a like a no it’s not false madeup article well at the beginning you were like the
Stranger which was hilarious which I was like is it like an onion then is no okay okay what I love about this is that I was so against homosexuality at the time like I wouldn’t even acknowledge like my own sexuality I wasn’t dating I was just
Like a man for God and this article came out and everybody was reading it and it was such like a big thing on campus and and there’s these Whispers small University though on campus lgbtq plus students were not visible yes you had the Haven group but it was a On The
Fringe something that was like external did you have to did you have to identify as lgbtq to be part of it no you didn’t so you could be an ally right of course yeah allies are welcome but of course you could attend if you’re an ally yeah Ally or questioning or or anything
Really a lot of the students we we just didn’t address homosexuality it just was ignored uh sounds like my childhood yeah and it was like something that was if you’re gay or whatever we’re just not going to talk about it don’t ask don’t tell yeah a lot of stuff happened behind
Closed doors in secret the amount of times that like relationships would get super complicated and You’ realize that this person’s screwing this person and this person screwing this person and you had these whole networks of love triangles that were like between the same sexes in between dorm floors was
Insane and I just loved every minute of it looking back stressful in the moment looking back entertaining first story on here I just want to read a couple St loves reality TV so much yeah cuz it reminds me of my life yeah I want to read a couple stories from this article
To give you like a just a little I’m ready this story is called the music practice rooms in the graveyard just north of Campus by a member of the class of 2007 before any student moves into a dormatory on the Seattle Pacific University campus they requested to sign a document outlining Community
Expectations guidelines rules for living in the spu bubble don’t smoke cigarettes or pot don’t drink alcohol on campus and most notably don’t have sex with your fellow students but every student male or female straight or gay or by is a horny human and the fact is that most
Spu students love to hook up in their dorm rooms in the library study rooms in the public lounges people try to keep their sex lives quiet and on the down low because if you’re caught it’s trouble sorry interjecting which is why we didn’t talk about it we just didn’t
Address anything you don’t want to get caught someone could tattle on you literally I know it’s just so funny tattle on you and you lose your scholarship you’re kicked out of the dorm you can’t go to college it’s crazy yeah if you’re caught it’s trouble but
To do this they end up in some pretty weird and risky places when I was at school good friends of mine like to [ __ ] late at night in the graveyard just north of Campus the private music practice rooms in Crawford Music Hall and the art studios were popular too the
Common quality among all these places secluded and almost always open what do you think I mean makes sense I’m sure that I’m sure if you like asked all different types of people at universities you’d get real weird answers yeah like where people were this one’s called the prayer room the park
Car and the bathroom and auto not everybody not every university has a prayer room so I mean that’s we had a prayer room on every floor it’s a little unique oh so could it be locked no so you were taking a risk yeah the prayer room was not locked the it’s
A small room so that could be dangerous potentially oh yeah to have a lock on the door what are you doing in there that you would need a lock I don’t know you want to be disturbed okay by a member of the class of 2010 being in the
Dorms makes sex difficult especially if you’re gay I didn’t start having sex until my sophomore year but I did jerk off a lot most of the time this would take place in my room when I knew my roommate would be in class because I thought that would be safest maybe for
Most guys having a roommate walk in on you isn’t so bad but since the porn I was watching was gay it came with bigger consequences came with bigger consequences and just some mild embarrassment so I was careful trying my best to whip it out only when I knew I
Wouldn’t be bothered I thought about doing it in the showers but guys at spu have a very homoerotic sense about them and having a guy just get in the shower with you is not uncommon true so not a good place for me to jerk off plus the guys would have gotten really suspicious
If they came to the shower and found me with my finger in my ass eventually I found okay eventually I found my favorite jerk off spot the prayer room on each floor in my hall there were small prayer rooms with doors that were designed for prayer and reflection well I use the prayer
Room often but I wasn’t praying kind of Blasphemous yeah but to be honest I’m sad I never actually got to have full-on sex in there oh my God another benefit of the prayer room privacy I could put my head phones in and watch porn without having to worry much oh and speaking of
Porn at spu they have this awful thing called a Content filter it blocks all of the good sites from being accessed while you’re on spu’s network fortunately it didn’t take me long to discover how to circumvent the filter proxy servers are amazing by the way then during my
Sophomore year I started having sex at first this functioned much like my masturbating life did except with more precautions I had to be damn sure that my roommate wouldn’t be coming back for this a lot of times if he was around I’d just go and have sex in my car park down
The street from my hall car seats are oh what it says car seats are great for giving head it’s like vulgar I swear once I even met up with my boyfriend and sucked him off in the bathroom in autom Miller Hall oh my God that was fun after it came out I got
More comfortable and started texting my roommate to make sure he wouldn’t be home I think this made him really uncomfortable but honestly I don’t care a guy’s got to get some [ __ ] oh my Lord why is this person at a Christian University dude we just went over this I
Know it’s just funny it’s like he went from like freshman year and then like sophomore year he’s just like just kidding whatever I need the D it’s I mean real fast it’s a Tale As Old As Time wow there was no grinder I mean if grinder was a thing it was not
Popular enough to be I guess yeah I think I I went to no yeah I started University without an iPhone right my first two years were without an iPhone I don’t think I had an iPhone till 2013 yeah I think it was like late 2012 for
Me so there was no gr grinder was definitely not an app no there were not location services no to that extent right okay that was only 10 years ago I know things have changed that’s a lot but not a lot as at some Chang onu campus there’s still a long ways to go
The off-campus apartment by a member of the class of 2010 I have a theory that gay men go to spu in order to cure themselves of their wicked ways but they just end up [ __ ] each other in so many senses of the word close your ears
AI I never told any of my friends at spu that I was gay even though it was probably apparent I carry a purse with me wherever I go for chist sake oh my God it’s not an environment where you can feel comfortable being in your own
Skin or at Le at least it wasn’t then the fact that haven has now been recognized officially as a legitimate Club on campus says a lot and that now people have a place to go when they feel alone alienated and the like but for me there was no such place I never really
Came to terms with my sexuality until I left the school but one student helped me for a lack of a better term throw me out of the closet let’s call him Matt oh love that name no wasn’t there this time we ended up losing our virginities to
Each other Matt and I never had sex on campus not that it didn’t cross our minds I love the idea of having sex on campus just for the sake of sticking it to the Man word play but realistically the possibility of being caught was just too heavy on my mind
After all in order for the administration to intervene all they need is an accusation really they don’t actually need physical proof that’s messed up punishment would probably include counseling a fine yes a fine and some sort of disciplinary probation a fine and probation a fine a fine oh my God
Yeah you’re paying the university to be gay so we lost our virginities on his living room floor after we had both moved out of the dorms we were still students but being a couple blocks off campus in a rented apartment provided a greater sense of comfort with no chance
Of getting reprimanded now looking back I wish I had had sex on campus being as tuo as it is it would probably have been pretty [ __ ] hot still losing my virginity while I was a student at the school was liberating also frightening as [ __ ] I’d more or less set my status
As a [ __ ] and stone which meant I had to walk on eggshells for the rest of my college career lest my newly established sex life backfire on me I didn’t even walk during graduation it’s impossible to feel comfortable as a gay man on campus that is outwardly against you and
I couldn’t justify being proud of my education from a school that thought I was leading a disgusting life on the other hand as much as I hate to say it spu showed me who I really was all the negativity surrounding homosexuality helped me deal with my own negativity surrounding my own homosexuality without
Them even realizing plus Matt was the hottest sex I’ve ever had in my life so thanks for that too spu oh wow really appreciate that last sentence uhhuh uhhuh it’s not about me but that’s interesting cuz it’s like all these people go there I’m assuming not because it’s a super liberal University where
You can just like be yourself they go there because they like want to get away from it but then they just end up being the most gay yeah I actually got a little choked up reading that for a second I don’t know why but like one of those last paragraphs talking about the
University like not it’s impossible to feel comfortable as a gay man on a campus that is outwardly against you yeah and I couldn’t justify being proud of my education from a school that thought I was leading a disgusting life yeah just like the how it’s so in the
System that it’s like law it’s not only someone’s belief but it’s also illegal just like it was in the country at that time I think there’s obviously like an argument for universities maybe not wanting people to like go have sex in um their teaching halls and like public
Places but I obviously this one has like a very specific Bend right uh against a certain people group right it’s not only that you aren’t allowed to have sex it’s that if you have an accusation of like being gay it’s persecution they can just like Snap people who are gay it’s just
Persecution of lgbtq plus people in general like one part of it kind of makes sense just in general but then the other part is just like whoa pointed stated it perfectly at the beginning I have a theory that gay men go to spu in order to cure themselves of their Wicked
Ways mhm and I never told any of my friends at spu that I was gay even though it was probably apparent it’s not an environment where you can feel feel comfortable being in your own skin and that is just the reality that’s the reality of my middle school experience
Of my high school experience of my college experience like you could not be free you could not be yourself and I think that’s what so many people are living with right now mhm and that [ __ ] sucks yeah that it’s still like that and it just uh makes me
Mad okay I want to do one more story from this okay cuz it’s about football and I just love that you love football I don’t love football but I love the story okay by a member of the class of 2006 the football field it all started with men’s intramural football during our
First weekend of games I met a super hot guy from the opposing team I swore he was making eye contact with me the entire game but I thought to myself we’re at SP [ __ ] you later that week I came to find out that he was also in
My anatomy and physiology class yes one particular evening we brought Ry whiskey also prohibited by spu daring into the studying equation we got pretty tipsy and before you knew it we threw studying out the window and just had a grand old time laughing and talking so cute we
Were sitting on my old blue couch when he spilled his drink we both shot up to start cleaning it up and then as we were there on our hands and knees dabbing at The Spill we looked up at each other and seriously locked eyes take a deep breath he leaned forward
And slowly and cautiously moved in closer we kissed oh my God we kept kissing until we had been making out for 15 minutes or so then suddenly we heard my roommate get home that really crashed the party I knew we would have gone further if my roommate
Hadn’t come home so the next day I preemptively made my way to the store for condoms in Lube I was closeted yes but I’d fooled around with some guys in high school and watched plenty of gay porn so I knew what I needed and wanted
He couldn’t wait to call me the next day to meet up to study he arrived at my place and we didn’t say a word just instantly started making out I locked my door the clothes started coming off we gave each other head and then he asked
Me to [ __ ] him so he [ __ ] for a long time it was incredible not gross or shameful like the church taught me it would be natural real human a I got an A on my exam the next day too oh snap yeah wow good for him maybe he was just glowing
The next day just good for him honestly wow dang that’s insane oh wow invigorating right now I just like I that was not my experience on campus um but good for him yeah so like get what happened for you right okay while all these people were having their
Rendevous without you knowing that gives you just so much background information on what it was like going to spu for a gay guy and my freshman year I made Seven really close friends by the time our we ended our junior year uh five of
Us were out of the closet and all of us were straight uh at the beginning of that freshman year pretty solid percentage Yeah I had this friend and we were really close and we were like hanging out all the time and the sexual tension was like building and I was
Confused and was like no I’m not going to do anything and he kept like bringing it up like um so what do you think about gay people and like let’s talk about the church and what do you think about this and what do you think about that and I
Kept shutting him down he would like stay the night in her dorm sometimes and he on the couch no he’d share a bed okay but i’ make him sleep on the other end so his head was facing the other way and my head was facing the other way so that
Like we were just not make it home no he just wanted to have a sleepover okay we thought it was fun do I know this person no you never met him really yeah okay we had a lot of like jealousy issues like not like he was jealous of me hanging
Out with other friends I was jealous of him hanging out with other friends needless to say like he you guys were like dating without dating yeah but he was like also hooking up with some of the friends in the group and I didn’t know that and there was like all the
Stuff going on behind the scenes where I’m like why do you like this person better than me when it was really like that’s your boyfriend kind of thing so like group dynamics where people are dating each other but you don’t know it because you can’t talk about it because if you do
You could get fined or put on probation and everything had to happen in secret so like people would stay the night at each other’s dorms and hook up at night I mean that’s when most people hook up dormmate can’t know or maybe they need to sleep in someone else’s dorm that
Night or you know some like they don’t need to know but they’re like shifting pieces like they can’t know but you’re like can you sleep somewhere else tonight I don’t know if this has ever happened to you with like your homoerotic repression but I would go to
Bed and I would wake up and we would be like hooking up wait what yeah like you the the guy that was sleeping opposite like you’re just sleeping and then but you wake up and then you’re like OHA yeah uh I don’t know that does that never happen to
You I don’t think so I don’t know like what happened if if he like started cuddling me or something was happening and I was like in this state of almost unconsciousness like half asleep I don’t know you know what’s funny actually now that you say that there have been times
Where you’ve initiated and you thought it was me but it was you maybe it was this it was the exact same thing it’s like you being asleep and then your subconscious takes over and then the next morning you’re like no you initiated and I was like that was not me
That was all you so that actually makes a lot of sense now is this like sleepwalking I guess but it’s not SLE way damn yeah so it that was definitely you who initiated but there were there were situations a couple yeah there were some occasions where that would happen
With my friend and there was so much shame like surrounding that that afterwards I’d like cut off all contact it was so bad cuz he was in a different place than I was as far as like his coming out journey and he was definitely like well and this is freshman year yeah
The fresh the same freshman year that you like rode off homosexuality and then you’re like yeah but like how am I supposed to control what I do I’m I get it you’re like 18 or 19 and you’re just hormones are off the charts horny boys is just and I mean like we’d
Have cuddle puddles and like we’d watch movies together like there was and it was all of us guys like seven or eight of us who just hang out all the time and had a tradition where everybody stripped down naked and ran through the Halls and and then other people squirted yeah so
Cetch up on them that’s the other thing about my university is that it plays into it there’s there’s no fraternities or sororities on campus so the dorm Halls become the fraternities and sororities each floor has its own identity like you attribute personalities to those floors like you’re like oh yeah six Ashton those
Guys are dicks this is how they are or fifth Hill oh I love those guys they’re so fun they’re like always hanging out together or third Moyer mhm they’re all rich kids like there was just a stereotype for every floor just like you have in fraternities and sororities but
They also had their own traditions and initiations so freshman year our freshman initiation I was on six Hill you were a dick right no no no that was six Aston oh sorry no they were also great they were kind of like you can oriented like six Ashton was like
Gryffindor okay Hill Hall was like Hufflepuff very family Orient oriented they stick together they defend each other they hang out all the time they don’t associate themselves with other dorms outside of that they stick like very internally okay six Hills initiation for their freshman this is
Like the second week of college and our resident advisor said everybody go into your dorm rooms and take off all your clothes and sit in the dark and wait for us to tell you what to do so we took off all of our clothes got down to our
Underwear and they came in with masks and abduct us and took us outside and painted us and then we ran around campus to introduce ourselves to the girl floors one at a time in our underwear and yell our phone numbers to them okay that was one and the other one was we
Had to strip down completely naked and run through every floor on the guy side of the dormatory in a stampede six Hill naked run all the the floors knew about this because it happened every year what fifth Hill did and fourth hill and Third Hill did they all got ready for us with
Whiffle bats and uh they made barriers with boxes and anything that they could find uh Chairs furniture put it out in the Halls they got hot sauce they got things to spray on us oh God water bottles hot sauce hot sauce and as we’d run through we’d be screaming and
Yelling and running through completely butos naked 35 40 people all at once I just like don’t understand how that how the university just turned a blind eye to people running through their buildings naked while also other people are throwing like condiments at them yeah because it’s not gay sex I guess
But that’s messy who cleans that up is it carpeted yes you got hot sauce just like in the carpet I don’t know it doesn’t make sense to me it happened gross H yeah I got like stuck under under a water fountain while like a water fountain yeah like you know the
Water fountains in the hallway they kind of like stick out like got stuck under one while 20 naked guys were like stepping over me to jump over a barrier okay it was terrifying they also take down all of the shower curtains in the men’s bathroom so you have like year
Round year round year round this isn’t an event this is a year round activity because it promotes male to male bonding sure does yeah but could you imagine a whole like how am I supposed to shower I had to find specific times to go into the shower to like avoid other people
What was happening it was terrifying it’s not that terrifying what if you get a boner like what do you do you’re 19 you’re 18 it’s like maybe they think I don’t know just turn around people would hop in the shower with you yeah be like excuse me I’m having a moment
Moment running through the Halls naked like what if you got a boner there I was that was a thought yeah that I had well Ry I don’t know a little bit too terrified to like even I don’t know how anybody could yeah feel slightly aroused in that situation I don’t know ask the
Guy from saltburn I’m sure he’d find a way okay all right sophomore year much the same did a tradition called circle jerk oh this is right mhm but it was sitting around in a circle and then okay so how how they explained it is everyone was going to go
In the room get completely naked and then they’re going to bring us to um the floor Lounge all of the men together from fifth Ashton and we were going to play circle jerk which is a tradition a game an initiation and what do you do
All right so what you actually I know I was like this you only get down to your underwear and then we um would go out to Tiffany Loop which is like a big central part of campus and we’d get a trash can put it in the middle everybody would
Hold hands like making a circle around the trash can and then it was literally just a game where you like jerk each other into the trash can and whoever like the last man standing if you hit the trash can you’re out so then it was like it was actually really fun so but
Like they explain it like circle jerk so many great amazing whole some traditions at your Christian University a lot of homoerotic undertones throughout like like literally buil into all the Traditions sounds like it it’s so bizarre um sounds like the gays just really took over at the start and we’re
Like all right this is our tradition like okay you’re going to try toess us this is what we’re doing if you don’t do it then you’re not man enough I guess you’re you’re going against tradition and that’s that’s bad all right so we’ll talk about what happened Junior year
Okay spill the eggs spill the basket SP eggs the beans the beans Spill the Beans spill the eggs did anything happen like formatively in like sophomore year or like you just C you just ran naked circle jerk in freshman year and then sorry I was trying to speed through it
Cuz I knew like I had to get to junior year and talk about what happened then but sophomore year a lot of conversation happen I was going to say like what was the that’s what I’m saying is like what is the transformation right you like what did
You do go home that summer sophomore year I went to between freshman and sophomore freshman and sophomore year I went home okay and how are you feeling I remember was super heavy into YouTube I went to VidCon yeah I befriended Joey grapa uh it used to be so Joey grapa had
This uh her his like best friend Britney and they had a channel together on YouTube called Winter Springs Pro and that was like their original YouTube channel um before Joey like broke off often did his own thing and so those two were together at VidCon and I just like
Really bonded with them um all of us were in the closet at the time Britney’s a lesbian I think she’s happily married living in Hawaii last I saw um Joey is gay obviously in LA but like just hilarious that you know we find each other magnets oh um so that was the whole
Thing uh but yeah YouTube kind of dominat my life in 2011 summer but then sophomore year I changed floors partly because of what had happened with my friend the previous year and I was trying like desperately to run away from anything that challenged my Outlook on sexuality so I changed to fifth Ashton
Completely different dorm different floor made a bunch of good friends and we had a lot of good conversations I also started to open open my mind a little bit more going to other parts of Seattle experiencing how other people were living started to open my eyes to
Like what my friends were doing in Europe and like how they were living and it was just all this primer of like hey things are different the religious classes on campus were actually super helpful too not going to lie as much as I make spu just out to be like this evil
Place the staff like the the professors yeah are really smart and good people at least in my experience when I was there I mean that would I think that’s fair I think Administration can be awful and academics can be wonderful yeah and their outlook on Theology and philosophy
Like just fit it it changed what I believed and it helped me to see that like things are not as black and white as I thought I think is a hard City to be in to like be in a silo of of thoughts about things like right you’re
Not in like a little bubble you’re like it’s a pretty Multicultural totally City that’s got a lot going on with a lot of people I had a lot of deep discussions in taking theology classes my sophomore year I really like Dove deep into the Bible and um started to analyze it in
Different ways that I had previously one thing that I learned in college sophomore year is that the Bible as a uh historical document needs to be looked at from different perspectives um culturally from the culture that it was written in to uh like periodically the time that it was written at that things
Could mean different things at that time in place like there’s cont there’s so much context and it’s been translated like 1,500,000 times and each translation like has its own little like yes version of how it interprets what the original literary motifs like looking at the literal literary context
Of things mhm so there’s there’s all kinds of different perspectives that you can look at it with but Matthew I want to read it and think what I wanted to say yeah that’s [ __ ] exactly sorry yeah in classes we’d actually like look at the Bible and be like okay so this
Statement from Leviticus like what did that actually mean at the time and what was the context and does that actually apply today and like let’s look at First Peter and see what they’re saying there and how does that relate and also what’s the context of that is it really okay
For gay people to be gay or you know like so the answers from those classes weren’t necessarily like definitive it was more so just like poking holes and questioning like is what you were taught true mhm let’s look at this another way and see how that is MH we take those
Conversations back to the dorms we talk with our friends we’d have longer conversations I would have conversations with other people outside the university and um all of this was like reflecting back on myself and like trying to figure out where was I at with this and where are my decisions changing how
Am I how am I shaping this okay yeah yeah so moving on to junior year that summer between sophomore and junior year I went and studied abroad in Spain fun yeah yeah there would be people who would come up to me in the bar and ask
Me if I’m gay in Spanish oh really and I wasn’t great at Spanish so I’d be like okay what and then my friend would translate and be like uh this is awkward cuz I wasn’t out and I’m like I don’t know what to say I’m like I’m just going to walk away
So many missed opportunities oh my God I know going out in Madrid and I’m like what the hell what was I thinking it’s like 19 20-year-old little twink could have had so much fun could have you could have also had gotten something gotten yeah gotten something yeah that
Summer I also went to summer in the city which is a YouTube event in London got to hang out with a bunch of my UK YouTube Friends MH and saw a bunch of people who had like already come out and they were telling their stories and I
Felt inspired and also had a small crush on someone there decided to maybe like open up and try some different things oh just cuddling okay well I mean you’ve cuddle puddled your way from the last three years so it’s a cuddle wh get it oh my god do I know this person
Yeah who’s your cuddle wh I had a crush on um Steven burn after that summer I was like oh I like you you like me too let’s be cute and date long distance date long distance I guess where was he living um London London London and that was going to work
On how that was a great safety step for me to have somebody far away that I could keep completely separate from my life at school yeah and that you also could probably never fly afford to fly to exactly junior year decided like at the beginning of the year I was going to
Start figuring out my sexuality and actually address it at that point I had come out to myself like I’m I’m like okay I believe I’m by or gay probably gay remind me at what point you had had that like big breakdown discussion with your parents winter of junior year oh
Okay so we’re going into junior year of college and like you’re deciding it to yourself and then you’re going to do that okay y mhm it was like three or four months before I came out to my parents that I had decided myself to um start being more open to experiencing
Other things with boys boys yeah so I started junior year as a resident adviser and there’s a great like atmosphere around bonding with other res advisers in um leadership on campus so we actually show up to campus like 3 weeks before school starts to go through training and bonding and
Retreats and all these fun experiences there is somebody in leadership who I thought was so cute and I loved hanging around them and I was like I’m just having so much fun with you and I’m just like why am I so I don’t know why am I so giddy why
Does so gidy what are all these butterflies why are they reciprocating like that’s the thing usually if I’m hanging out with someone who’s straight they don’t reciprocate oh yeah and I’m like this is just working way too well um and then it was yeah during that 3-week period before school started he
Came out to me and my heart was just like like oh my God it was yeah palpable flut flut flut flut we also had one of those moments on his dorm room floor where we were just like hanging out well you spilled your drink and and I like basically spilled something and
No your eyes mat I’m sorry I didn’t spill anything you said spill drink so okay sorry continue spilled the tea I also told him that I was like oh yeah I’m struggling with my sexuality trying to figure it out maybe you can help me basically yeah that this is going to be
Your first book is like a smut novel about Christian University people like boys like coming out to each other yeah so we made out and it was great so I think that was like my first first time kissing somebody like actually kissing uh it’s fireworks I was like okay I’m
Never going back this is this is this is this is something great okay fine wait this is great it’s like when kids get their first taste of like chocolate milk and they’re like what this is where things get really complicated um because we’re hormonal young resent advisers like yeah people
Leadership so we started dating secretly could not tell anyone so fun one it’s not I don’t think it was okay for leadership to date leadership really I wasn’t necessarily not okay it was just taboo for one but then it was obviously not okay for two men to date each other
On campus especially if you’re leadership mhm that doesn’t look good there was another person in leadership who I had my eyes on and I was like that guy is like so cute and this is where I sound horrible but I’m like currently dating this guy in leadership in secret and I’m looking at
This other person I’m like he is cute like holy crap what do I do to like get close to him and I remember going on a walk with at the time my secret boyfriend we were walking to gasworks park for some reason guy number two came
Up in subject and he’s like did you know he came out to me recently and he’s also gay and I’m like what and you’re like you’re like really I mean oh wow really yeah no literally and my heart was like and the door has been opened like let
The floodgates Roar God you and your floodgates woo so shortly after I broke up with him junior year really was quite the transformation for you huh you were like and thank you very much goodbye uh thank you next I have like 10 years to catch up on sexual repression no we
Broke up because there was like I’d hang out with other people and he would be get like really sad and upset jeal neither of us were in a good place we’re like we’re both leadership this is is not good I can’t spend time with you you can’t spend time with me and we’re
Experiencing all the negative aspects of a relationship without the positives yeah and he wasn’t at a place where he wanted to come out yet and I wasn’t at a place where I wanted to come out yet so we were both like this isn’t going to work and then I started talking to guy
Number two of course you did started hanging out we’d all hang out together too it’d be like me what was this like 24 hours later basically I know you it was not 24 hours later come on I have some decent it was at least 2 days
Shred okay and then God how can I explain this without using people’s names I don’t know boy a boy B boy C boy a boy B boy C yep we are going to talk about like a love hexagon you all heard of love triangles well this is a love hexagon in my
Christian University we had guy a who I broke up with guy B who I was like really interested in and we were hanging out then guy C comes along and you’re like wow he’s really cute well the thing is that nothing was happening between me
And Guy B and it was just a crush gu see we were like we became best friends I know I have a lot of best friends here I know you’re like so popular but gu see came along it’s not my fault that I’m popular we were just staying up late at
Night having these really deep conversations and whatever and at oh my God we watched Perks of Being a Wallflower together do you remember that I do remember that movie really cute and we would cuddle on the couch of course you would but it was just guy to guy
Cuddling like for fun this just doesn’t yeah but it like literally like I don’t know how to explain it to you that’s how everybody would justify it on campus we’re just Bros cuddling and somehow we would just say okay yeah that’s totally straight and normal repression right he told me he had never
Kissed anyone before and you’re like so and I was like I want to be your your first kiss you said that mhm you were out to him that was like me coming out to him bold yeah did he know that you knew he was out he was not out he wasn’t
Even he didn’t even like fully consider himself as gay or I don’t think he knew what he was oh boy B Was Out Boy B told boy a but boy C had not said anything to anybody yeah he was this is hard this is hard to keep track of yeah okay so anyway
Were you his first kiss boyy and I kissed um and then we proceeded to like take off all your clothes kiss a lot and hang out a lot and he was coming over we’re watching movies we were driving off campus hanging out in my car just spending a lot of time
Together Kim you raised a [Laughter] [ __ ] like I was not I was not super out of place with things like I was pretty much approved comparatively to some of this is this is very like prud yeah no I’m just poking fun but no shame complexity of this gets more complicated
Okay because then there’s boy D who was best friends with boy C who would get jealous that I’m hanging out with boy C and come over to my dorm and insist that he’s staying the night and then he would crawl into bed with me and like cuddle I
Need a counter on how many times you cuddled in college limit does not exist limit does not exist boy a boy B boy C and boy D all hung out together like same group of friends besties what I didn’t know was that boy D was hooking
Up with boy B boy B was the boy who came out to you and you were like no came out to came out to boy a but I I had a big crush on him right right right but nothing happened yep okay boy C was
First kiss I want to be your first kiss and then boy D was jealous that you were hanging out with boy C so much but then started dating boy B yeah hey then I start going on dates with b and but you knew that D was hooking up with
Be yeah okay I did okay but they weren’t serious and things were just like happening under the radar okay yeah and I wasn’t like it was a slow figuring it out I was like kind maybe there hooking up and then later on I was like oh yeah they’re definitely hooking up we were
Going on dates and I was like oh my God I like you so much I want to be your boyfriend and I’m just like Head Over Heels we continue that for a couple months and by the way boy B was a dick he would leave me on red he would before
Leaving people on Red was a thing no like I had an iPhone at the time he would leave me on red oh he would say that we’re hanging out and then he wouldn’t show up he sounds talks SE yeah he’d like come hook up
With me and then not talk to me for a week and ignore me like not even make eye contact with me on campus mhm he is literally the guy from heartstopper you know at the beginning oh yeah he has an avoidant personality exactly so that’s happening we continue that for like 2
Months and we’re dating and it’s fun and also horrible because he keeps ignoring me uh and then I run into boy a on campus this one night and I’m like hey how you been like what’s new what’s going on and he’s like oh actually you know I’ve been um dating boy B like
We’re boyfriends we’ve been seeing each other like the last month and I’m like shut the front door me too yeah and him and I just look at each other and we’re like what we’re dating the same guy but not only that b is hooking up with d and
He’s dating a and he’s dating you so boy B is hooking up with boy a with me and boy D and boy C is just being friends with everybody he’s like cuddling with everyone but he’s not really doing a lot except with me got it yes and then
You’re kissing boy c yeah wow and then we all just bounce off of each other this sounds like a a real housewives sort of drama and then there’s boy e boy e and I were like hanging out throughout all of this and we were talking and becoming closer and
Closer friends and then once I found out what the hell was going on with boy B I was like I not talking to them anymore they are toxic I am cutting them off and I was just like boy e you are mine this is lovely this is great and you shall be
My squishy and you shall be my squishy forever um boy e none of us were out literally none of us were out unbelievable and boy e like didn’t want to date date he wasn’t he was like I want to be your friend but I don’t
Really want to date and I he wanted to be your squishy just not your yeah not your boo thing right and I had a hard time with rejection I was like shocking right I’m like no but I like you I’m shocked so I was crushed um and we ended up dating
For a while and he wasn’t really into it and then he broke things off at the like early in the summer after I had come out but he was there through like my whole coming out experience and was super helpful and supportive through all of
That like as a friend amazing um I just didn’t listen to him when he said he didn’t want to date and of ab C and ABC d and e how many of them were at our wedding um c e CN CN CN yeah a yeah cuz I um yeah I
Confronted boy B and I was like what you did is horrible you’re a terrible person and boy a and I are both breaking up with you oh wow and I Slamm the door on that jeez yeah Mama didn’t raise no quitter uh-uh so that’s a little thing on that oh and then there
Is boy F what yeah at our wedding no but he was the guy from freshman year and then he came into the picture a little bit I’ve lost all sense of space and time boy from freshman year if you’ve managed to keep track of everything that’s happened from this point like I applaud
You but that is that is that is that wait the boy from freshman year that would come over to my dorm and would spend the night and we would like sleep in the same bed together oh yes you slept made out with him you were sleep stalking you were sleep whatever you’re
Doing not sleepwalking but you sleep seducing hooking up or something so then may you you like post your public coming out story correct when did you you said like no Thanksgiving of junior year you like were like I think I’m Christmas break you were like Balling on the couch
I think I’m by so then what happened between Christmas break and may for you to be like just kidding I’m gay everything with boy a happened before Christmas break and then everything with boy B C D E and F happened after Christmas break who so then did you end
Up like coming out to your parents and like friends as like just hey I’m gay I’m going to post a video about it or like it was um like literally those conversations took place from like the beginning of junior year to um my coming
Out video and it was a lot of like my a lot of conversations with my staff like my uh resident adviser co-workers so cuz we had a lot lot of like deep conversations and we would meet once a week actually part of that was like telling her life stories like we beg a
Lot of stuff with Christianity and like the church culture but one thing I do love about it is like the vulnerability and sharing like your life stories with each other and that like intentionality that really was super helpful for me for one cuz I got to like come out to a
Group of people and find that support before I like extended that to other people and of course I wouldn’t have come out to them had I not thought it was a safe space but I got to know them and then realized that it was a supportive community and that I could
Like come out to them find that support and they really like held me up and supported me through all of my trials and tribulations from the alphabet boys oh my God I love that the alphabet boys yeah it was just like a it really felt like High School in my junior year of
College like probably what people go through in high school trying to figure out dating yeah stressful yeah and all in secret so then you decide to to post your video yep I uh kind of recited what I wanted to talk about to a couple close friends that were resident advisers before I like
Actually filmed it and I just wanted to go through everything and be like does this make sense am I off track does this sound crazy to you and they we’re like no like all of this is true and like you need to share it and there was a couple
Week period afterwards where we didn’t really know what was going to happen uh the university had never had a resident adviser put out a public statement like this on their sexuality and so like comparing that with their lifestyle expectations and what they’re going to
Do with me I was scared that I was going to lose my job as a resident adviser lose my scholarship and not be able to afford to go to school mhm and um my boss from Residence Life was so supportive and helpful in that and she was like I have your back nothing’s
Going to happen you didn’t do anything wrong we got you yeah that’s awesome and the university ended up not doing anything they said because I’m a par employee which means not a real employee on campus the uh rules that apply to employees on campus don’t apply to me
Nice little sco around love we love that justification yeah fast forward to like recently when um a professor on campus who was an adun Professor applying for like a full-time position and had massive support from the student body to have a full-time position was denied
Because he was an out gay man mhm 10 years later yeah 10 years after this it’s like still stuff going on and then a year after your coming up video your senior and this random boy in Nebraska that’s you responds to your video yeah so all
Of it led to you we got the alphabet boys to thing for that so lucky the alphabet boys are at our wedding so they’re the lucky ones oh my God yeah that in and of itself is the full story of um what the heck happened during University you and somebody else
Was telling me that like some of some people coming into that space there’s like this saying called like ring by Spring M yep and that’s kind of like a real thing yeah do you want to explain what ring by Spring means sure ring by Spring means new students coming on
Campus uh you want to get your ring by Spring that is the goal my understanding of it is like student body ratio is 3 to one women to men or two to one two to one women to men there’s twice as many women on campus as there are men and the
And the women want to get their ring by Spring like they want to be engaged by Spring a freshman year sure whatever it was saying so like yeah yeah yeah yeah so but that was kind of like Yeah The Dream goal and some people are like
Going there just to like find someone to marry more or less I don’t know if people are intentionally going there like I am going here for a husband but maybe subconsciously your mom have like a niece or something that yeah totally that they like were just like go to
College East Coast back hill stuff yeah yeah but no that I think that’s a subconscious thing and it’s definitely like it weighs has pressure you know there’s that kind of looming you need to find somebody you need to find your wife or husband for like before you finish
College like that needs to happen uhhuh that’s like your thing on the list that needs to get checked off and you hadn’t found them no it was failing by two two years in so the stress was on we found ways to manage found alphabet boys and all your cuddle parties my God awesome
Well that was a very enthralling uh recap of your Christian University experience thank you for sharing God I hope so here I am doubting it again just like I was my coming out why like I’m like oh my god did I talk too much did I
Ramble where are we at gosh no it’s great please if you’re listening leave us a review a rating be likef STFU Matthew we love your stories cuz otherwise I’m just going to like quit the podcast because I have nothing else to contribute other than stories of mine okay So eventually we’re going to
Get to my coming out story and then um we have some guests lined up for a few episodes later we’re going to ask them some fun questions too we’re also going to do a great Q&A so leave your questions and a review if you’d like ask
Us anything please we love we love to answer questions I want to do like an advice one as well so if you have any like questions that you want like Bon I think that would be fun to do all right great you can email it at who unod
Gmail.gmail.com if you don’t want to like leave it on a public comment that’s true um or you just leave it in a comment or a rating or whatever and thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode we’ll be back next week with some more fun stuff please pray for
Me okay whatever until next time daddy out who aren’t really daddies
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