"All right!!! Did everyone do their homework from last night? Remember? We all agreed we would go back to our bungalows, put the stereo on, take off our clothes and

explore -- we were going to EXPLORE ourselves, get back in touch with ourselves, our bodies, our nakedness, our sexuality... how'd we do?"

Eric and I were at the "Sexual Reidentification Seminar" at The Rainbow retreat.

It was Day 2 and things were going well.

Our Supervisor was this very enthusiastic, very exciting, very sexy man. His name was Dane Leader and he was brilliant. No threat, no intimidation, all on our own time. I felt wonderful. We'd done the sexual exploration exercises last night and wound up having sex for almost two hours. Eric hadn't... well, he never really... well, I guess he was nervous. Eric was always so bent on having mutual orgasms that when it didn't happen, he tended to just give up.

But Dane said, "That's okay! Eric, you have to learn that that's OKAY!"

Eric didn't like being singled out-- at all! He felt everyone in the room was staring, judging. But they weren't. We were all trying to help. A nice couple that shared the bungalow next to us, Dave and Dave -- leaned up from behind and spoke to Eric.

"Dave always has this problem."

"Yes, I do. And Dave taught me not to beat myself up about it."

"That's right, Dave. Now, we never have mutual orgasms -- and that's OKAY."

Eric rolled his eyes and leaned forward to get away from Dave and Dave. I caught his disdain and reminded him that they were just trying to help. Eric agreed but nothing was getting him out of his mood.

Suddenly, Dane Leader was standing in front of us with a cordless mike.

"Eric, you seem very upset. Share."

Eric was terrified, "Uh... no, no I'm fine... I'm just, I have a splitting headache."

Dane look around the room and asked, "Everyone! What is going on here?"

"COP-OUT," everyone yelled. Eric looked at me and hissed, "Are you happy, Andrew? Is this what you wanted? For me to be tortured like this?"

Dane lifted Eric up by taking his arm, "Folks, this is a prime candidate for this seminar. Eric is handsome, successful and charming -- but Eric needs attention, he needs love, he needs acceptance and he feels like the only way he can get this is by sleeping with men. So, what does he do? He hurts his partnership with Andrew-- the one man he has a relationship with. Eric only came here because Andrew forced him to. Eric doesn't want to be here at all. Isn't that right, Eric?"

"That's right," he said. "You got it exactly right."

Dane chuckled. "Everyone?"

"COP-OUT!" they yelled again.

Dane continued, "That's why we're here, to uncover the cop-outs. You know, Eric... " He started to choke up. "There was a time when I was like you... this is kind of hard to talk about, but I never used to be able to touch myself-- or anyone else, for that matter. You know how strong I look on the outside-- well, inside I was just a scared, self-loathing, self-deluded, self-ish little boy!

A few people started crying.

"And I lost the only man I ever loved," he whispered. "And then I saw an ad in a gay magazine for this silly seminar and I thought, 'what the hell?' Maybe there's some other people I can relate with... and here, I am running the damn thing. Here I am! 'I'm still here,' as Steven Sondheim would say!"

Applause.

"There's hope, Eric. Whether you want to admit that or not, 'You're Still Here!'"