If it walks like a duck... then you're a brief wearing fairy
I was a young man at Bethel about 30 years ago, back in the early 80's and I was in pretty good shape back then. To give this story context as well as to admit my faults up front: I was a vain young man as I worked out quite a bit. I had a good body and I knew it. I hung around other brothers like me and we all wore our clothes to show off our "guns" and "six packs" as much as a Bethelite was allowed to. We all probably laughed a bit too loud together and had a bit too much fun wearing our 80's muscle shirts to parties and probably got just a bit too much attention from the sisters. At least, as far as some key people were concerned. In time, I found out that this issue alone would probably mean I would never go anywhere in the Bethel world. I was of course clueless about that, being a young dumb idealistic kid.
I worked in the factory and shared a locker room with the factory overseer, initials: RW. This guy was one of my least favorite Bethel people. He was a short, pudgy, funny looking man with a big bottom lip of around 40 years in age. He had a Napleon complex, lofty eyes and a chip on his shoulder bigger than he was. You could just smell the haughtiness emanating from him. Not all brothers with "power" at Bethel were like him as even most of the odd ones had some niceness about them. Not this guy. It amazes me that he's still there to this day and even more powerful than ever.
Now, as background on this story, you should know that whenever the issue of somebody's sexual orientation came up (like with Michael Jackson for example) the Bethel mantra was "if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck". The meaning was simple: if a man looked or acted effeminate, then he was gay. Why talk about it any further? Enough said. Case closed. Discussion over.
Another thing I want to explain is that at that time there were large billboards all over town with a male model wearing only skimpy briefs. It caused much stir in Bethel as being very provocative and the women secretly loved this billboard as this model guy was well built and his bulge prominently displayed as he lounged for the picture. The jealous Bethel men simply dismissed this billboard guy as "gay" because, after all, male models are all gay aren't they? Enough said. Case closed. Discussion over. (I later found out to my amusement that this guy was not gay.)
A final thing you need to know is that I wore colored briefs, very similar to the one the model wore on that billboard. Nobody of course saw me in those underwear except the my room mates and the guys in my locker room as I was a good Bethel boy the whole time I was there never having sex with any sister. The reason I wore them will become evident in my story.
OK, so, now that you know all this background, here is what happened. I was changing one day and we were cutting up like we usually did. It was a locker room for Pete's sake, so there was lots of trash talking, lots of teasing, lots of "capping" on each other, towel snapping, etc. We were young and full of it and did what young guys did. There was however limits to what kind of capping you could do. For example, somebody's wife was out of bounds, so was their mother and so on. We never teased about serious things like if somebody was sick or hurt, things like that. Now, RW was the top dog in that locker room and of course the oldest. If he "capped" on you, you laughed and didn't dare say anything back. You STAYED capped. We had heard numerous stories of people who went up against RW, and they usually ended up leaving Bethel soon after. This wasn't going to happen to us we told ourselves. So, we always gave RW the respect he demanded.
Well, this particular day RW zeroed in on me. He looked at me with everyone listening and said quite loudly:
RW: Hey [LivingTheDream] I was driving and saw that billboard today with your "boy" on it. How is he doing? You guys get together yet? [We all knew what billboard he was talking about.]
Locker room: OOOOOOOOOOH
Me: Where did that come from? Why would you say something like that to me?
RW: Well, you both wear the same underwear, so I thought you "knew" each other. [snicker]
Locker room: OOOOOOOOOOH, SNAAAAAP!!!!
Me: [Incredulous, sputtering] ww...what? Are you trying to say I'm gay?
RW: Well, if it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck... [snicker]
Locker room: HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa
Me: [very hurt - voice raised] You are way out of line! You have no right to accuse me of something like that in front of my friends. You're just jealous because you couldn't wear the underwear I do as you couldn't squeeze your fat butt into them and if you did, you'd look like a little sausage!
Locker room: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. HaHaHaHa.
RW: [Red faced, very angry, pointing at me] OUTSIDE, NOW!
The guys all looked at me like "bye, nice knowing you" and we marched out of the locker room together. With a good distance between us and the locker room he turned and started in on me:
RW: How DARE you speak to me that way...
Me: [cutting him off] HOW DARE I? HOW DARE YOU! You cannot sit there as the older man among us and accuse me of homosexuality in front of all my friends like that. That was extremely humiliating and I won't take that kind of crap from anyone, not you, no one. I didn't volunteer to come here to be abused by the likes of you. Just last week you were hinting around that I liked the ladies "a bit too much" and now you're going the opposite way and hinting I like men a little too much? Why are you so fixated on my sexuality?
RW: [a little sheepish now] Look, I was just trying to counsel you. Back in my day if an older brother gave a simple hint, I took it as a command. I had said something about those underwear you wear before this and you didn't take the hint, so I was trying again.
Me: You're kidding right? You really don't like my underwear? Look, I wear these mainly because they give me support OK? I don't like boxers for that reason.
RW: Well, you can wear the kind I wear then.
Me: I don't like those "tighty whities" either. They show stains too easily and the laundry room boils and bleaches white underwear so they wear out very fast. I don't want to have to rinse them before putting them in the laundry and then get them back with bleach holes eaten into them after a few weeks. These colored briefs don't have any of those problems... as if it were any of your business.
RW: Well, to me, they just look like what guys like that gay male model wears and that doesn't speak well for a Christian man.
Me: First of all, nobody but my locker room brothers and my room mates see my underwear. So, exactly who is this "not speaking well to"? It's not like worldly people see me in them. Second of all, that male model happens to be married and jealous people like you only label him as gay because you can't stand his good looks, which is typical of funny looking witnesses with any sort of power. Also, you don't seem to have a problem with brother Tim. He wears the exact same underwear I do and you've never said a word to Tim about it. Nothing.
RW: Yes, I know, but Tim doesn't fixate on his body like you do and he is very frail and besides, he's a quiet man. You, well, you're all pumped up and... well, it just looks like those...you know... male model guys to me.
Me: So, you are saying you just don't like these underwear on me then, right? If I'm in shape, have a nice body and actually look good in these underwear, that is where the "not speaking well for a Christian man" part comes in? You only like it when a guy is skinny and quiet and doesn't threaten you, so then he could wear women's underwear if he wanted and you would have no problem with it? This sounds like a personal problem on your part, not mine. Jealousy doesn't suit an older man like you.
RW: Well, what would brother [GB I knew very well back then] say about all this? Your speaking to me this way?
Me: I'm glad you brought that up. Brother [GB] is more mature than that to care what a young Bethelite's underwear looks like, and he definitely wouldn't be jealous of my body like you apparently are. Let's go ask him.
RW: [silence, thinking out his next move...]
Me: Look, if you don't want me to wear them because it really bothers you for whatever reason and you're that adamant about it, why not just pull me aside and speak to me as a brother? Why not just ask me? I would get rid of these things and wear something else if that truly offends you, as my brother. Fine. Ask in a mature way, one-on-one, and I'll deal with it. But don't try to humiliate and bully me like that in front of others, that just will not work on me.
RW: Do what you want.
Me: Ask me as a brother...
RW: Do what you want. [leaves]
By then the guys had left the locker room and were starting work. I finished changing and then went to my station. Everybody looked at me, but nobody said anything at first. At the next break I told my story and they all were amazed I wasn't kicked out of Bethel for saying what I said to him both in the locker room and in private later. But, there I was, still in Bethel and I had gone up against the big bad RW and lived to tell about it. Of course, I never got an apology from this troll of a man, not even a personal one, let alone a public one. Of course, he wouldn't actually humble himself and ask me as a brother to stop doing this thing he claimed bothered him so much. No, this was about jealousy, power, control and ego, pure and simple.
After a week or so, I realized he couldn't touch me. The way he looked at me after that, it slowly dawned on me that I now actually had something on him. I think he thought long and hard how bad he'd look for saying what he said to me if we did go to another more mature brother about this. However, I also knew that after that, he had his eye on me, always looking for just one mistake...
My body has since aged, gotten a bit thicker and sagged some, and is certainly not as good as it was back then, but guess what kind of underwear I still sport? At least my wife thinks I look good and she's now the only one that sees me in them and we're the only two people on the planet that care either way.
LivingTheDream
................. 