When there’s a Wil, there’s a way

by Jeff Walsh

I remember the first time I saw Wil Wheaton in his underwear. I think I was 18, and he was 15.

He stood across the room from me — quickly stripping off his clothes, and looking at me with his puppy-dog eyes and awkward smile. God, he was cute.

When he was down to his briefs, he just stood there running his hands over his smooth slim body, teasing me.

My pulse quickened as he slowly sunk one hand into the front of his white briefs. It seemed to be taking him forever down there, but then he finally pulled out … a leech.

Okay, I’ll fess up. I was in a movie theater watching “Stand By Me” in 1986, in which Wil starred, when this exchange occurred. Wil and three friends were looking for a dead body when they crossed a leech-infested pond. They all had to take off their clothes to remove the blood-suckers. Wil had a leech hanging from his balls and had to remove it, and his hand exited his underwear bloody and holding a dead leech.

Obviously, it was not meant to be a sexual scene, but I think it will always remind me of the first time I acknowledged my gay feelings. I saw teens in their underwear before in the movies, but there was always the stench of heterosexuality clouding the image. It really ruined a good scene to see a hot young guy start to undress, but only because a hot young girl was in the room.

Truth be known, the girl being there always allowed me to justify why I was getting turned on. In Stand By Me, there were no girls undressing at the same time. It was four guys, three of which were quite hot, taking off their clothes and I knew I liked watching it.

A few years earlier, I used to say I liked Molly Ringwald of Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club fame. In retrospect, I think I envied Molly because she had all these cute young guys chasing her. But since Molly was there, I didn’t have to think that Anthony Michael Mall or Andrew McCarthy were the ones turning me on.

There was little choice but to admit that I liked seeing the guys in Stand By Me undress, although being overweight I tried to justify some of my feelings by thinking that I wanted to have a body like Wil or River Phoenix. I didn’t want either of the two sexually, I would tell myself. I probably tried to unsuccessfully convince myself of that each of the nine times I ventured in the theater to see Wil.

Shortly after seeing the movie, I saw a picture of Wil on a teen magazine and a reference to Stand By Me. I quickly bought the magazine and was surprised to find a whole market devoted to young male actors, although the target market for the magazines was obviously teenaged girls.

I was already interested in writing at that time, so I started wondering how I could write for a teeny-bopper magazine. I also became a voracious looker (there wasn’t much to read) of such magazines. I was the entertainment editor of my college’s newspaper shortly thereafter, and much of my coverage tended to focus on the same boys I read about in Teen Beat, Splice, 16 and Tiger Beat.

While it shouldn’t have been difficult to figure out why I kept buying these magazines, I didn’t give it a second thought, consciously at least.

Another clue was my bedroom wall, adorned with a full-sized Stand By Me poster, surrounded by lobby cards and publicity photos from the movie. A guy in his late teens with a bedroom wall dedicated to other male teens should have been a major gay tip off, but it wasn’t to me. Other such posters followed, including other teen stars of the day like Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, affectionately known as “The Coreys” in most teenybopper magazines at the time. They were called that because they did a string of movies together and were off-screen friends.

Aside from my mounting shrine (no pun intended) to male teen stars, I wasn’t doing anything else to consciously deal with my sexuality. I would spend hours writing screenplays that paired off two male actors I liked, but mostly the scripts would be excuses for me to write about male intimacy, as they would invariably contain emotional scenes where Wil and other male stars would touch, cry, hug one another and just have a friendship that surpassed any I had known. But the characters were always heterosexual. I wasn’t ready to go that far yet.

I wrote scenes of friendship and intimacy, the kind I deep down knew I wanted, but didn’t know where they existed or how to find them. I also wrote masked sexual fantasies in scripts, because I couldn’t just think of Wil sexually at that point. I could, however, think of a character played by Wil in a sexual setting, such as this opening segment of “Getting By,” the script that would eventually aid my coming out a few years later:

A teenaged boy stands in front of a full-length mirror, wearing only his underwear. His hands feel his body, as he studies his chest, shoulders, arms and ass.

The boy is trim, lean — sculpted — a hunk.

We finally see Brian’s face, pensive and sullen, as he feels himself.

He looks like the classic “boy next door” as he runs his hands over his toned chest and abdomen once more. Even he must smile, thinking what this must look like.

In the script, Brian/Wil’s best friend turned out to be gay, and (surprise!) was attracted to Brian. It was my first openly gay character, which allowed me to look into the mysterious world of homosexuality from a safe distance. Wil’s character was accepting of the other character’s (read: my) homosexuality.

One day, I finally decided it was time to contact Wil, the boy who put these feelings in my head. I had already learned how to contact publicists through writing for the college newspaper, so I called his and asked if Wil was available for an interview. She said he was, and then asked in which magazine it would appear. I thought quickly and said I was freelancing the piece for Splice, my then-favorite teen mag. She said she’d get back to me.

I then called Splice and got the editor on the phone. I told her I wanted to write a piece on Wil, and that I was already working with his publicist to secure an interview. I didn’t mention the publicist thought it was already approved by Splice. She agreed to a brief “Spotlight” on Wil, but not a major feature.

Within a week, I had Wil’s home phone number and a time to call him. I was in heaven. At the given time, I dialed the number. The boy I had a crush on was talking to me on the phone!

Of course, doing an interview was business as usual for Wil, but he was very cordial. I didn’t ask about his sexuality, or mention my own during the interview — I wouldn’t have been able to at that point, regardless.

I steered the conversation from what it was like shooting the underwear scene to River Phoenix reportedly losing his virginity on the set. We also took care of his other acting projects at the time, and I went to write the story. We also discussed the phrase he always mentioned when interviewed in teen magazines, “Follow your dreams.” He didn’t know it, but I had taken his advice, and it paid off. Big time.

I was surprised at some of the quotes I got from Wil, considering the kind of stuff usually written in teen mags. I figured he really opened up to me, so I wrote all this information about Wil that I had never read before, such as his railing against another teen actor for on-set drug use.

My editor was, to put it lightly, not amused. She quickly trashed the piece, saying that Splice was meant to be somewhat lighter in content. She added that she had talked to Wil’s publicist, who said Wil was uncomfortable with my asking questions about drugs on the set. I didn’t mention the fact that Wil had been the one who brought this topic to the conversation. So, I finally interviewed Wil, but there would be no story.

Shortly after this time, I started writing obituaries for the local newspaper. While the job itself was boring, it gave me the opportunity to write more features, and the parade of teenaged boys I was subconsciously attracted to began: Chris Young, Jay R. Ferguson, Corin “Corky” Nemec and, of course, Wil, this time scoring an in-person luncheon interview.

Looking back, the stories weren’t bad, but it seems silly to think that I couldn’t admit a sexual attraction for these guys.

Eventually, I stopped writing stories about teen actors because I was writing more for the school newspaper. The year before I had transferred to the university for my junior year, a gay student group had been formed there, which led to quite an uproar on campus.

I, once again being just an objective journalist, decided that perhaps I should just go and interview some of its members now that their group was officially recognized. But they weren’t ready to be interviewed, especially considering my request was to interview someone just starting to accept their sexuality. They wrote back saying no one at that level would be willing to talk to the newspaper. I wasn’t ready to go there yet, unless it was on the pretense of being a journalist writing a story.

However, the following year I accepted myself through using a computer and online services. The following semester I served as the co-chair of the gay student group and was out to family, friends and co-workers.

My acceptance of being gay would have happened regardless of writing those stories. But they were definitely an integral part of my coming to terms with myself.

I have since interviewed other rock singers and movie stars, many of whom are generally considered hot. But it’s not the same, because I know what’s going on now.

I still follow Wil’s career, too, from his underwear scenes in “The Curse” and “Toy Soldiers” to his just being adorable in “The Liars Club,” “December” and “The Last Prostitute.” And while he wore those scrumptious tight outfits on Star Trek: The Next Generation, I was even convinced that I was a Trekker for a few years. Oddly enough, when Wil left the show, my interest waned.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression, though; I think Wil is a very talented actor. His talent, however, happens to be contained inside the personification of my sexual desires.

Wil has shaped what I find attractive in a man, and when I see a guy with short-cropped hair and a slender frame, he has an immediate advantage. Everyone else can have their Brad Pitts and Tom Cruises, I’d still want Wil over them in a heartbeat.

You know, it’s true what people say — you never forget your first.

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Appeared in XY Magazine, Issue #6, the “Love” issue, as “My First Love”

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 22nd, 2003 at 11:35 pm and is filed under writings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.