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I checked out the new Logo channel on Sunday. I have to admit, I had negative preconceptions. I thought that it would just have a bunch of those cheesy gay movies where an impossibly good-looking boy faces the tribulations of being oh-so-good-looking and gay, and in the end finds true love with another perfect male specimen. You know - the kind of movies you see reviewed in The Advocate and Out magazine all the time?

But Sunday I crawled out of bed and turned on Logo and watched the second half of Truth or Dare, then part of The Birdcage, and then later in the evening I saw the most incredible documentary. It was about what gay men endured in Nazi Germany. I already knew that gay men were persecuted, but I had never heard the personal stories of the men who were there or the specifics of the atrocities that were committed against them. I had to stop myself from putting my hands over my ears more than once.

And actually, the most heartbreaking part of the documentary wasn't necessarily the gruesome stories of what happened at the camps and prisons, but the stories the old men told about what happened before and after they were imprisoned.
One man was locked up for years and years, and when he finally made his way back home, his family was so embarrassed and ashamed that they didn't ever mention where he had been. He had NO ONE to talk to about it. His family acted like he had never even been gone. In fact, the interview he gave for the documentary was the first time he had ever been able to discuss at length what had happened. His emotions eventually completely overwhelmed him and he couldn't continue talking, his shaking hand covering his mouth as if what he was saying was somehow bad.

Another man told two stories that stuck with me. In the first, he met a young, blond Jewish boy and invited him to his house. They spent the night together. According to him, it was one of the most perfect, romantic, beautiful nights of his life. The next morning the Jewish boy was taken away and he never saw the boy again.
Later on, his lover and his lover's whole family were taken to a schoolhouse to be held until they were shipped away. The man found a Nazi uniform, dressed up in it, and entered the school pretending to be a Nazi to free his lover. Somehow they got away with it and got out of the school, but when they were only a short distance away from the school his lover changed his mind and turned around and went back to the school because he couldn't bear to leave his family behind. He ended up getting shipped away and killed.

I was heartbroken and crying the whole hour. When I think about it, I can't even believe how much time I spend bitching about my petty little problems with boys who aren't worth the time or the effort in the least. I'm very frivolous about my sexuality – I need to remember more often how privileged and spoiled I am to have the opportunity to be that frivolous.
And how maybe one of these days I need to stop being so frivolous.