Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
No Limits with ABilly S. Jones-Hennin & Cris Hennin-Jones
1.5k Plays4 years ago
In this special two-part episode, I had the privilege of chatting with ABilly S. Jones-Hennin, a civil rights and LGBT+ activist for over six decades, and his husband Cris Hennin-Jones, who has been by his side for over forty years. In this oral-history-esque interview, we talked about their journey toward a bisexual identity at a time when the queer community was even more binary than today, what it was like organizing pre-Internet, how ABilly's civil rights and anti-racist activism intersected with his queer activism, how ABilly and Cris met and navigated a relationship in the midst of other relationships, their experience as an interracial couple, the importance of getting in touch with our authentic sexual selves, how to support a partner while giving them space to explore themselves, and how to live life without limits.
Stay tuned for more with ABilly and Cris in our season three finale!
Two Bi Guys is produced and edited by Rob Cohen
Created by Rob Cohen and Alex Boyd
Logo art by Kaitlin Weinman
Music by Ross Mintzer
We are supported by The Gotham (formerly IFP)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Highlights
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, welcome to Two Bye Guys. Before we get into it today, I wanted to say that we have a very special episode, and it's a little different. I had the privilege of speaking to some elder members of the bye community, which was a rare treat. A. Billy S. Jones Hennen has been a queer activist since the 70s and a civil rights activist even longer than that,
00:00:22
Speaker
and his husband, Chris Hennon Jones, has been biocide for over 40 years.
Topics and Interview Approach
00:00:28
Speaker
I feel very lucky that I got to speak with both of them and that we made it happen. And going into this interview, I wanted to ask A. Billy and Chris about their experiences with bisexuality, their activism, how the LGBT community has changed over time, how A. Billy helped create multiple advocacy organizations for minority rights,
00:00:49
Speaker
what it was like organizing pre-internet and much more and you'll notice I didn't actually ask all of those questions directly but the conversation did end up covering all those topics as many of you know I've been working on a side project
00:01:06
Speaker
interviewing bi-married men to compile an oral history of that experience. And without realizing it, this episode ended up looking more like one of those sessions. I ended up mostly listening and letting A. Billy and Chris talk about whatever they felt was important, and I learned so much as a result.
Personal Histories and Relationship Dynamics
00:01:26
Speaker
Both A. Billy and Chris were in marriages or relationships with women before they married each other.
00:01:32
Speaker
They've navigated their bisexuality in tandem with openness and polyamory. And so no matter your experience with queerness and relationships, I am sure you'll enjoy listening to their story and hearing the bits of wisdom they've acquired along the way. The conversation went over time, so I split it into two. Here is part one of my interview with A. Billy and Chris, and stay tuned for part two next time. Enjoy.
00:02:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Two Bye Guys. I'm here today with a couple of bye activists, bye elders who have done some great work in the community. I'm joined by A. Billy S. Jones Hennen and his husband, Chris Hennen Jones. A. Billy has been an LGBT activist for over four decades. He co-founded the DC coalition in 1978
00:02:34
Speaker
which led to the formation of the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, the first national advocacy organization for African American LGBT people. In 1979, he helped mobilize the first national march on Washington for LGBT civil rights. He is a founding member of Gay Married Men's Association and the National Association of Black and White Men Together, which I want to ask you about.
00:03:00
Speaker
A. Billy has been active in AIDS education since the 80s, serving as Director of Minority AIDS Programs for the National AIDS Network, among multiple other initiatives. He recently chaired the DC Mayor's LGBT Advisory Committee, and I'm sure there's much more that we will get into.
Evolution of Labels and Identity Exploration
00:03:18
Speaker
And he is joined by his husband of over 40 years, Chris Hennen-Jones, who is also involved with a lot of that advocacy work that I just mentioned and possibly more that we'll get into.
00:03:29
Speaker
Thank you both so much for joining me. Welcome to Two Bye Guys, A. Billy and Chris. I would like to note for the record that Gamma, the Gay Married Men Association, now refers to themselves as the Gay Bye. Ah, amazing. Gay slash Bye Married Men Association, which has been a lot of work for it to come that way, but it's a reality.
00:03:59
Speaker
That's awesome because one of my side projects of this podcast has been interviewing by married men. And I think they're very underrepresented. Many are in straight appearing marriages and don't have resources. And so that's awesome. I definitely want to talk to you more about how the advocacy has changed because I use the word gay a lot in that intro, but I know that
00:04:28
Speaker
you identify as bi and the work has shifted over the years. So before we get to that, let's just start with both of you. How do you identify what pronouns do you use? How would you like to identify yourselves? Christopher? Well, my sense is that
00:04:50
Speaker
I guess it's controversial, but my sense is that we start out by, we're exploring our sexuality, and then we encounter some bumps along the way that will make us shift in one direction or another. I look at it more as the challenge of not only being bisexual, but being bi-emotional, bi-spiritual, bi-intellectual.
00:05:21
Speaker
and trying to keep an equilibrium of relationships with men and women over the course of my life.
Challenges and Communication in Open Relationships
00:05:28
Speaker
When it comes to exclusively the bisexual part, I know that before meeting Billy, I was married for eight years. And before being married, I made sure that my ex-wife was also bisexual because I didn't want things to get
00:05:49
Speaker
complicated. I think I was lucky. I'm a generation before my partner in the sense that I think that after my after. Right. I'm sorry. I'm not older than me. Right. You know, by the time I came around to to relating and marrying and dealing with those issues, I think I was already aware of bigger bumps along the road as far as relating to people.
00:06:20
Speaker
And I definitely didn't want to get into a marriage that was going to be a closed marriage. I made sure that before we got married that we were both acknowledging that we were bisexual and that we were going to have an open relationship. And I think that when I met Billy, at least intellectually, we were on the same plane.
00:06:43
Speaker
I met Medbilly through two organizations. One was the bi group in Washington DC at the time, and the other was the Gay Merrymen's Association. And he also had started an organization called Growth and Support. And for me, that was a real opening to being able to at least foresee how I was going to negotiate this whole business of being sexual.
00:07:12
Speaker
And interestingly enough, I was 28 when I met Billy, and I was definitely deeply conflicted because I'd had an open relationship that had in effect been closed. And because it had been closed, I was definitely really beginning to feel a bit psychotic. It was sort of pushing the parameters of my sense of equilibrium.
00:07:40
Speaker
And when I actually called him the first time, I asked him, is this organization an organization of men who are married to men, or is it an organization of men who are married to women who are also gay? And I was definitely ready for the latter, you know, as far as balancing things out. I think that, you know, I didn't really think, well, I think we did. I think we both felt at the time that we could continue being married and continue
00:08:10
Speaker
and have a relationship with at least one man that would include being sexual with him. That's where we were at at the time. Interesting. We have probably tested many labels from being poly to being pansexual, but have always had an open relationship and honest relationship. I identify
00:08:36
Speaker
as a queer bisexual in a same gender loving relationship. So that's embracing a lot of it. And it's an open relationship remains an open relationship. We both have had female companions along the way and male companions along the way. I'm usually the one to get jealous and tell them, okay, your time is up. Time to go now.
00:09:09
Speaker
And I'm saying that because having an open relationship does bring about as challenges. It doesn't mean that you won't get jealous. It's exploring, okay, what's this jealousy coming from? And users just feeling insecure. I try to make sure that friends know that my commitment is to Christopher.
00:09:36
Speaker
And yes, it's an open relationship, but the glue that holds us together is commitment. And unfortunately,
Activism and Community Building
00:09:46
Speaker
some companions that I have decide to push that button and change the dynamics of it. And often I have to end the relationship. They would start off saying, oh, I'm fine. Not an issue.
00:10:04
Speaker
but it turns out that it is. In my era, when I became an activist, you were either straight or gay. No one talked about being bisexual. So my coming out, I defined myself as a gay man, and it took a lot of reading and interacting with others
00:10:33
Speaker
before I evolved to defining myself as bisexual. And what's interesting is in the communities and groups that I was with, that everyone knew that I was married. Everyone knew that I had kids. I often had my kids with me at LGBTQ events. So I wasn't in the closet about being married. I was married
00:11:02
Speaker
for 14 years, but my wife clearly wanted a monogamous relationship. We remained friends, but the open relationship just did not work for her. So that's how, you know, it's actually just evolving. I start off saying I was straight. And they bob and say, no, I'm gay. And then they bob and then say,
00:11:32
Speaker
Well, I do believe in bisexual. And I was more closeted about being bisexual than I was about being gay because I would get all sorts of pushback from members of the gay community who would poo-poo bisexuality. And I still get that.
00:11:58
Speaker
open jokes about it, or you're just being fashionable. Come on, when's the last time you've been in a relationship with a woman? All sorts of, I mean, it's an ongoing effort to educate our friends. Yeah, I think a lot of it is part of evolution. I think that just learning how to be fully
00:12:28
Speaker
sexual on an emotional intellectual and spiritual level, it really almost requires you to be bisexual in a lot of ways. And I really appreciate the journey of having found people over, you know, from college on that, that have actually taught me, you know, given me their perspectives of exploring, trying to figure out how to
00:12:56
Speaker
be fully sexual in healthy ways. Can you explain a little more what that means and does it relate to what you said before about by spiritual and by intellectual or the other terms you used?
Meeting and Relationship Beginnings
00:13:11
Speaker
What do you mean by that? Absolutely. It's the difference between having sex with a man in the alley
00:13:19
Speaker
and having sex with your emotional, spiritual and intellectual capacity to really explore what's going on. What are these feelings? What do they mean? Where are we going with them? And I think it's important to be able to do that with women as well. Can you have sex with that man in the bathhouse instead of the alley?
00:13:46
Speaker
One of our biggest fights was that, you know, I'm a farm boy on a certain level. And when we first met, he had a motorcycle taking me to New York City. And I kept on wanting him to stop somewhere so that we could make love in the forest. And in those days, he took me right to New York City and took me to a St. Christopher's Street bar and wanted to make love in the toilet. But it stopped.
00:14:16
Speaker
different strokes for different folks. Exactly. And it was, you know, it was really hard to know, you know, is this love? Or do you really have to love someone to do make love in a toilet stall? I mean, it was, you know, but it's all, you know, it's all part of doing the work and deciding that your commitment is more than than, you know, basically jerking off and really exploring
00:14:45
Speaker
exploring how another person functions and what motivates them, what their traumas are, what their blockages are, and how you can function in a more healthy way together and support one another. And it's quite a journey. There's no doubt. And whether it's been relating to women or to Billy or to different lovers that I've had, it's definitely been a central theme
00:15:14
Speaker
of just getting to know one another better and being more honest with one another. My bisexuality can also be expressed in terms of fantasies that I might have. I have
00:15:33
Speaker
a friend of mine that we had sex just once, a long time ago, but we're still good friends. And somehow she decided to get into a discussion about pussies. And she was talking about her pussy. And then that night, I just had dreams about all the different kinds of pussies and what they looked like. And I was like, what is going on here?
00:16:06
Speaker
But that's a part of being bisectors. I can have dreams about vaginas and pussies, or I can have dreams about penises. Certainly a lot of different kinds of penises, right? Yeah.
00:16:35
Speaker
identify with what both of you are saying so much because when I came out as bi and explored it, it really led to so many other levels of sexual health and well-being and exploration beyond just a gender binary and a new comfort level with sexuality. But I'm curious because you guys were activists and
00:17:00
Speaker
decades ago, for four decades, even now, there's not that much by representation, maybe a little more lately. But back then, it was very binary gay and straight even more than now. How did you realize you might be bi? And like, did you have role models or other people you look to? Or did you figure it out
Activism and Communication Pre-Internet
00:17:23
Speaker
some other way? And what was it like to come out back then? Did you come out as bi or not really?
00:17:30
Speaker
Well, let me just note one thing. My activism did not start in the 70s with LGBTQ community. I was active, very active in the civil rights movement during the 50s and 60s, and eventually became involved in the LGBT community, primarily because of racism in the community as a whole.
00:18:01
Speaker
and being frustrated with that and not finding, at the time, any black persons that were active, at least in the district. And I had moved there from California to Maryland. And I was like, this is supposed to be Chocolate City. Where are my folks? And put an appeal up. But, you know, so I grew up with activists
00:18:30
Speaker
family that were very involved in the civil rights movement. Activism then was very different. We didn't have internet and we didn't have telephones. We weren't looking for Wi-Fi. We had old fashioned telephones that you called people and you put flyers up. And a lot was word of mouth.
00:18:59
Speaker
of contacting. I initially reached out by simply placing an ad in the Washington Blade, the gay newspaper here, and called for a meeting that convened where I was working. I was then a counselor at Special Approaches with Juvenile Systems.
00:19:26
Speaker
NDC working with youth that have been homeless or otherwise displayed runaway and homeless youth. People came, showed up, and it just grew from there with the National Coalition having chapters all across the country from the East Coast to the West Coast, North and South. It was pretty
00:19:55
Speaker
amazing. I certainly didn't make an announcement. I just started defining myself as bisexual. And I did have a role model of a woman, ironically, Lorraine, who was identifying herself as bisexual. And
Expression and Influence of Bisexual Identity
00:20:23
Speaker
we were friends.
00:20:25
Speaker
and by reading what was available and eventually meeting others. And I think gamma also was an eye-opener because the men that came
00:20:39
Speaker
Many of them did identify themselves as bisexual and of course they were in marriages and many were open to their wives. Some were not open to their wives and having all sorts of different models of how they expressed their bisexuality. And it was also a reality that you could be, even if you had not related
00:21:10
Speaker
to the same gender or another gender, you could still define yourself as bisexual because of your feelings, your emotion, and your fantasies, whatever. However way you decided or came to that conclusion that you were bisexual and you come to that conclusion in many, many different ways. So when I met
00:21:40
Speaker
Christopher, he was already defining himself as bisexual and I was definitely in a marriage and, you know, he actually helped me evolve to defining myself as bisexual. Interesting. The difference between Billy and I is that he is the activist.
00:22:08
Speaker
He's the one who's done the political work, the lobbying, the footwork of organizing and finding all these different people who've had experiences and have wanted to share them. I'm basically kind of a combination of a city boy and a country boy. And having grown on a farm, one has, I think, more
00:22:39
Speaker
what I would call spontaneous or maybe natural experiences actually. I mean, I still remember at the age of five with a bunch of my brother's friends and we'd go up into the dunes and get all naked and suck each other off.
Impact of Upbringing and Education on Identity
00:22:55
Speaker
It was, you know, something that was possible that God knows if it would ever be possible nowadays, but in those days it was possible. And, you know, we had,
00:23:08
Speaker
serious relationships, not sexual but affection, what I would call relationships with our animals. I mean, my horse or horses, my dogs, my cats, they were all members of my family. And being on a farm and all the toughness that one goes through on being on a farm, our family, my parents were fairly stoic and they were not terribly affectionate.
00:23:34
Speaker
So between my brothers and my sisters and our animals, that's where we found our affection. And when I began to realize that sex was good and that I really enjoyed it and wanted to know more about it, I confronted my church with it to begin with. And then the Catholic Academy that I was in, and I realized that
00:24:03
Speaker
For God knows what reason, sexuality was never really something that was deeply and profoundly addressed by the church. And I was deeply, fanatically religious until I was about 11 or 12. And then I just had to throw it all away. I just didn't make any sense. It just seemed to be a huge contradiction that I had learned all of these acts of love and acts of
00:24:32
Speaker
of humility and all these beautiful acts. But when it came to sex, it was like you threw it all out the window and became the devil or whatever. And I was fortunate that the Academy that I went to was advanced enough that they basically came to my parents and basically said that I was much too precocious for what they had to offer and that they should find another place to send me.
00:24:59
Speaker
And then my parents were able to send me to a much more challenging school as far as helping me find literature. I remember reading books like D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and just slowly but surely finding those little bits and pieces of literature that actually were addressing a more integrated
00:25:28
Speaker
male, female, male, male, female, female, ability to be bisexual, by emotional, by intellectual, et cetera. So when I met Billy, I was definitely going through a really deep depression and here was somebody that was actually basically telling me, well, that's just the beginning of dealing with all of this that you've gone through. What you really need to do is
00:25:55
Speaker
Get out there, share your experiences, and learn from other people who have similar experiences, and let's get on with it. And one of the really beautiful things that I experienced with him was that it was a time where there were all these regional gay and lesbian meetings at different universities up and down the East Coast. And for me, it was just thrilling to listen to people who were cleaning up bars, falling in love with
00:26:25
Speaker
university professors or there was this couple that was one was a god knows upper navy guy who fell in love with with one of his cadets and just talking about all the challenges of inside personal you know just working working through it together and making it happen and and then protecting themselves from all the prejudices and the
00:26:52
Speaker
that existed in the status quo and tended to make things extremely difficult and dangerous. It is one of the joys, I think, of being bisexual or any part of the LGBTQ community is that we seem to have no problem crossing class lines, racial lines.
Media Portrayal and Relationship Dynamics
00:27:22
Speaker
And I find that to be the richness of our community. We seem more readily to cross the class line than we are the racial line. There's still folks who, even within the African American community, that have problems with interracial couples. And I think a big part of it is
00:27:46
Speaker
The media is more likely to show an African-American in an interracial relationship than they do show African-American in relationship with another African-American. So that's how the media presents us, which is unfortunate.
00:28:11
Speaker
Actually, I want to ask about that, but I also, since it came up, can you guys tell us the story of how you met and fell in love? It was over the phone. Really? We were pretty modern, but no, I was basically trying to figure out what these different organizations were about. And it just happened that Billy was on the phone hotline for the Gay and Married Men's Association.
00:28:41
Speaker
And so we had a nice little talk. I loved his voice. I had a very sexy voice. He did. He had a very seductive type of voice and calming. And also he seemed to be knowledgeable and very positive. And so I made an appointment and went to the first meeting
00:29:11
Speaker
And he actually had a man in his arms, and I had a man in mine. But he suggested in that meeting that we should have a weekend retreat and wanted some volunteers. And I immediately volunteered. And we ended up about a week later having a six-hour intense planning session for this weekend retreat of a group of men with, at the time, an eminent
00:29:39
Speaker
medical sexologist. And Billy went on and on because he continues to have this all inclusive vision of if we're going to be different, we're going to have to be all embracing to diversity, something that I have had immense respect for him for. But in this planning meeting, I was getting a little bit annoyed because I was hoping that we could get into something intimate.
00:30:10
Speaker
So we go through six hours of discussing every parameter from what at that time was transvestites to transsexuals to almost everything that's now way out in the open, but wasn't then. And at the 10 minutes before he had to get back to his wife, he looked at me and he said, well, maybe we still have time for a 10 minute quickie.
00:30:37
Speaker
It was 20 minutes. It was 10 minutes. 20 minutes. Well, you made it. And the rest is history. After the 20 minutes, I basically told him, you know, we definitely need to revisit this in a more... He scheduled me about two weeks later. No, he actually scheduled me probably in the same week, but rescheduled like
00:31:06
Speaker
twice. And by the time he rescheduled, I didn't believe he was actually going to come. So I had already made some other arrangements. And suddenly he appears, all ready to spend the night. And I told him I was really sorry, but he hadn't confirmed. And so I had him stay in my apartment, and I locked the doors. He locked me in the apartment with the cat. It was me and the cat.
00:31:36
Speaker
The cats staring at me and I'm staring at the cat. Oh my God. So yeah, our initial years were very bumpy. I mean, we're both very different people. We both come from pretty different backgrounds so that we really did need to really work on figuring out, you know, how we were going to make our relationship practical.
00:32:05
Speaker
The funniest part about relationship, there are many, but one of them was when his wife came. She lived in Mexico and I knew she was coming, but I wasn't quite sure the date. And so when I came to the apartment, I realized he and his wife were in the bedroom.
00:32:31
Speaker
sleeping. So I said, what do I do? And I sit on the sofa and I start fuming. My boyfriend is in there with his wife. Of course, I had just come from my girlfriend. I went to the wife at the time. No, that was from Lorraine's. But anyway, so I'm fuming.
00:33:01
Speaker
And then the cat decides it has to use the little box, and it annoyed me. And so I jump up, go in the room, grab the little box, and I run with the little box into that bedroom, and I dump the cat litter with fresh poop and pee on top of both of them. And then I run out of the bedroom, and he chases me with no clothes on, and I'm out in the hall.
00:33:31
Speaker
I'm running away into the elevator. It was high drama, so I come back, we sit on the sofa, he's talking, and meanwhile his wife comes up and she said, well, I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I thought this is something gay men do. So we'd get everything all cleaned up and then the three of us went to bed.
00:34:01
Speaker
I was kind of in a place thinking, well, he must really love me to do something like that. I was gonna say, how'd you get from that? That was an example of jealousy. Sometimes you have to deal with jealousy. Well, it was definitely for me,
00:34:28
Speaker
a really good example of the contradictions that you have when you're exploring diversity, in the sense that Billy had always talked about open relationships and all the possibilities and everything. But it's one thing to have a theory about it, and it's something altogether different at times to actually putting it into practice. And that takes discipline. It really takes putting your emotions and your
00:34:56
Speaker
your intellect and your spirit and applying it to figuring out, okay, am I jealous because I'm insecure or because I don't know this person or because I don't know myself and are these things untouchable? Or are these things really important to explore and to find solutions to? And the truth of the matter is that we basically grow through our relationships with other people.
00:35:26
Speaker
But if we can't take it back to ourselves and relate better to ourselves, I mean, actually get our emotions in sync with our intellect and our body and make sure that we're going in positive directions rather than being self-destructive, then we're evolving. And if not, we're stagnating. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:54
Speaker
The reality is that bisexuality can be very complicated. It can be very challenging and at the same time very rewarding. I think the fact that we can be open to relationships with transgender persons, with women, as well as with men is rewarding.
Race and Activism within LGBTQ Context
00:36:21
Speaker
I couldn't agree more.
00:36:28
Speaker
I want to get back to what you mentioned, A. Billy, which is sort of the intersection of race and the queer community and diversity within it. So you founded the group Black and White Men Together. So I'm curious, what was the need that you saw that you wanted to fill by creating that? And then I also heard that you and Chris co-facilitated a session recently that I'm
00:36:57
Speaker
heard through the grapevine went very well. So I'm curious of just about that group and how it's evolved and why you think it's successful. Just for the record, I am not the founder of Black and White Men Together. Michael Smith, who is now deceased, is the founder.
00:37:18
Speaker
but I was one of the founding members of the National Association of Black and White Men Together that now has chapters and individuals and it was a wonderful and still is wonderful way for persons who are in interracial relationship, not exclusively black and white, it can be
00:37:47
Speaker
with any race other than one's own race or ethnicity. And so the organization brings together folks on a social level and very strongly also a political level as a way to identify
00:38:11
Speaker
and take action as it relates to issues of discrimination. The committee that I happen to be working with now through BWMT is the voter suppression group trying to address work as it relates to fighting voter suppression, which is just about in every state almost.
00:38:38
Speaker
some sort of regulation has been passed to limit democracy in regards to voting as opposed to expanding the right to vote. So Chris and I were on a panel that had couples of three different varieties. He and I were there as
00:39:06
Speaker
black and white couple that had been together for an extended period of time and then an open relationship. Another couple was there because of the intersexuality of age. There was quite a bit, very wide range of age between them, something like 20 years. And another couple was there because
00:39:35
Speaker
Intercontinental. Where did Jerry live? One was from Virginia, I think, and the other one was from Czechoslovakia. A small town in Czechoslovakia. So it was three interesting couples, and we were sharing our experiences on all three of us, of course, and this happened to have been a black and white
00:40:01
Speaker
couples, but with very different experience that we had. So, again, we're not a homogeneous group by means, but we... We're homogeneous, I think, in a way, in a sense, that we're breaking ground. We're all breaking ground in some form or another.
00:40:27
Speaker
And, uh, and I think one of the, the exciting things for me in relating to Billy is that, that, um, there's no, there's no, um, there are no limits to the ground that we could break. I mean, we, we, uh, he, he really helped me. And because when I first met him, I really thought, okay, I'm going to be gay with you and, uh, I'm not going to have any more kids. I'm not going to have kids. And, and, you know, I'm going to, you know, I had a narrow view.
00:40:55
Speaker
of what was possible in a relationship with a man. And he quickly made me realize there are no limits.
Family Dynamics and Open-minded Upbringing
00:41:02
Speaker
You really have to figure out what you want and go for it. And again, being pretty much of my roots are somewhat a combination of being a country and city boy. And I was trying to
00:41:23
Speaker
to create roots in my own way. And actually Billy introduced me to a lesbian couple and through a lot of work with this couple, we ended up having two incredible kids. In addition to the incredible kids that Billy already had and just the dialogue and the growth and having a multifaceted family like that, I think ended up being a huge contribution to the next generation.
00:41:53
Speaker
And we now have, together we have five kids. I came into the relationship with three kids, two adopted, my former wife and I had adopted two kids.
00:42:07
Speaker
one biological kid, and then with Chris, two kids do alternative fertilization. So whoever thinks we can't have children take notes, we can be very creative about it. And what I notice, at least in Washington, D.C., where we live, it's not unusual to see two men
00:42:36
Speaker
with small kids or two women with small kids. And a lot of the men that came to Gamma that still comes, because Gamma's still going, often remained in their marriage because they had children, but still could be orphan and bisexual, at least with their spouse. But it's an education.
00:43:04
Speaker
I mean, you know, I think our kids are much more open-minded than most kids because we've been open about who we are. And they're probably more open even than we were in the sense that for them, conceptually, it's given. While for us, we had to break ground and make it happen. I'm often asked a question, well,
00:43:34
Speaker
At what age should you let your kids know that you're bisexual, gay, or lesbian? And I say right from the beginning. You start from the beginning. Yeah, because that's where prejudices begin. Yeah.
00:43:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's beautiful. Everything you all just said in your large family and the idea of no limits when it comes to having kids or anything about a relationship is such a bi thing. And I think that's the title of this episode. Let me get back to the race thing. Well, let me just make one point before you get into the race. No, I want to make my book. I know you do. I'll let you two decide who goes first.
00:44:21
Speaker
I think that one of the things that was helpful in being bisexual and having an open relationship with my partner, Billy, was that it also entailed how we can relate and be accountable for everything that's going on. And I felt pretty much that as far as vision and as far as context,
00:44:50
Speaker
He definitely gave me that freedom to live without limits.
Interracial Relationship Challenges and Growth
00:44:58
Speaker
On the other hand, I'm the type of person that really needs to put everything into practice in order for it to make any sense to me. And I found very often that when I would put something into practice, suddenly he would find some objections. And for me, that was really interesting because we were beginning to learn that
00:45:20
Speaker
making oneself accountable to exploration is the work and you definitely have to have one another's back when you're going through these types of things so that you're actually processing them instead of going blindly forward and
00:45:43
Speaker
not being accountable to consequences. I'll let you go on that. I just want the intersectionality of race has been an interesting component for both of us. But for me, a large part of my activism did start with having to deal with the issue of racism back in the
00:46:12
Speaker
early days when you couldn't enter places because they would find a reason for you not to be able to. When there was carding for age, there was also carding along racial lines. It's an interesting challenge that we deal with. I find
00:46:41
Speaker
I think the LGBTQ community has become more accepting of interracial couples, but I find that I still have to deal with the fact that I am in an interracial relationship
00:47:03
Speaker
within the African American community. I still, I'm told, given lines that you're sleeping with the enemy. And while I acknowledge that white supremacy is definitely real, but your heart is your heart and you fall in love. You don't tell your heart who to fall in love with. And Chris and I,
00:47:33
Speaker
Well enough, we went from 20 minutes quickly, not 10. So, you know. CP time. It's been together 44 years. I'm 79 now, and folks used to tell me that I was rocking the cradle, but now we continue to meet people that
00:47:58
Speaker
The age gap is even wider than what we were. Of course, I'm 71, I'm 79. But like I said, with this couple, they were like 20 years or more of age difference apart. I would also say that one of the things about being in a relationship with no limits is that you definitely go through being one another's lover,
00:48:25
Speaker
brother, sister, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather over the years. And it's almost like everything that you've previously experienced, you apply to what you need to be in the moment relating to one another.
Balancing Independence and Career Demands
00:48:45
Speaker
And one of the things that I like about being with Chris is that he's open to changes and he's a good listener. So he's open, as much open as I am in terms of addressing, confronting prejudice along racial lines, sexual line, age line. And he really,
00:49:14
Speaker
is the wind beneath my wings that in that a lot of my friends have never met him. And they are when they meet, they're still I still have friends that have never met him. They think I'm making them up. And it's funny, we had that experience recently with when we went to the senior event that someone said, oh,
00:49:42
Speaker
You really do have a partner. One thing that I think we learned along the way was not to get in each other's way. It gives me my space. I have my space. He has his space. He has friends and I have my friends. Some of my friends don't care for him. Some of his friends don't care for me, but we don't push it. I mean,
00:50:11
Speaker
Vice versa. He has friends I don't care for. I have friends he don't care for. So we have friends that we can interact with together and others. It doesn't mean we should not have friends that the other person doesn't like. And the other thing that I think is really important is that I've learned over the years that
00:50:38
Speaker
We each need very often different kinds of people to address different challenges that we have in life. And I feel that when I first met Billy, Billy was an incredible, he was a charismatic leader. I mean, he could handle a crowd and deliver really deep, serious issues and have people really listen to them. But I felt like on a personal intimacy level, he never made time for it.
00:51:08
Speaker
And for a number of years, I really almost pushed him to have more intimate relations with people that he wanted to have relationships with in order for him to learn to be more intimate. And he also, thankfully, gave me the same freedom. I mean, I had one lover that I had over 30 years, and the first time Billy met him,
00:51:36
Speaker
Billy sat him down and asked him, what are your intentions? It's like, when, why are you here? Like dad on a prom date or something. Right. And my father, my friend basically said, you know, I'm basically here to figure out what my intentions are. Which was a good answer. Yeah, which was a really good answer. But you know, at the time,
00:52:05
Speaker
At the time, Billy was so busy that literally he and I only had like one evening or one night a month where we were actually able to be intimate. And we both had really heavy duty careers. So and I traveled a lot and he traveled a lot. So, you know, managing a relationship under those stresses. He was responsible for three kids and the next wife and
00:52:35
Speaker
And I was responsible for him and my career and trying to get the basics down, getting a house together and deciding to have kids myself. It's pretty intense. I mean, it's a lot of work. One of the things that we realized, we actually have more female friends.
00:53:02
Speaker
Then we do male friends. I'm not sure how that's happened, but we actually have a very close relationship with women, but it's not a but. It's just interesting that it has turned out to be
00:53:18
Speaker
that way. Chris is much more of an introvert than I am. I'm much more of an extrovert. He likes very small, intimate, get-togethers, and I like to invite the whole world, everybody. When we first met, we would have little socials and his friends would come early and my friends would start coming in at 10 or 11.
00:53:49
Speaker
And I would be chasing them out by three or four. I still have the reputation of chasing them out in my dirty underwear. They were three or four o'clock in the morning. They were holy and holy. I don't know why he had them on.
Life Post-Retirement and Community Engagement
00:54:09
Speaker
One thought, chases everybody out. I still get to remind them. I met you all. You're all really nice. But time to go home.
00:54:20
Speaker
Well, a lot of it had to do with intimacy issues. I definitely needed somebody that in those days I needed somebody to hug at night. I needed my bear. And he was often too busy writing speeches and going to God knows where, giving those speeches.
00:54:46
Speaker
And now I spend most of my time mediating conflicts. People call me up and ask me, would you mind help kind of mediate this and mediate that? I spend a lot of my time doing that, active with Black Lives Matter locally.
00:55:08
Speaker
here with the disability community and the senior community. And so even though I'm retired, I find myself sometime as busy as ever. And the body surgery also keeps me active.
00:55:28
Speaker
Thanks for listening to part one of my chat with A. Billy and Chris. Stay tuned for more next time on the season three finale of Two Bye Guys. Can you believe it? In the meantime, I'm also hosting a new interactive talkback show on Fireside, which is a live audio chat app.
00:55:48
Speaker
The show is called Ask a Buy Guy, and it's an opportunity to get involved in this conversation, build some buy community, ask me questions directly if you want, and share some of your story if you feel comfortable. So if you're listening to this on Monday, November 8th, the day it comes out, I'm doing a show tonight at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific. There will be another show in two weeks,
00:56:12
Speaker
on Monday, November 22nd, and I will continue doing these shows in December while Two Buy Guys is on brief hiatus before Season 4. So go download Fireside, it's only available on Apple at the moment, but hopefully in more places soon. Search for Ask a Buy Guy or Robert Cohen, and subscribe to be notified about future shows. See you there!
00:56:38
Speaker
Two Bye Guys is edited and produced by me, Rob Cohen, and it was created by me and Alex Boyd. Our music is by Ross Mincer, our logo art is by Caitlin Weinman, and we are supported by The Gotham, formerly IFP. Thanks for listening to Two Bye Guys.