Being Fat and Unwanted Kept me Alive!

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ม.ค. 2025

ความคิดเห็น • 107

  • @lgbtqarchives
    @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

    More from Karel Bouley:
    Blink and you'll get old: th-cam.com/video/aVAndTBAVSE/w-d-xo.html
    Coming Out After Gaining Fame: th-cam.com/video/AJK3Ao8k1OY/w-d-xo.html
    To Please or to Be: th-cam.com/video/LFJYBaoAG8E/w-d-xo.html

  • @geovanniinusa5973
    @geovanniinusa5973 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +18

    Coming from another husky guy, I agree. Grew up during Aids and those chance encounters were definitely limited. Nothing is by chance. We are still here for a reason.

  • @billzero7274
    @billzero7274 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +23

    68 yo survivor here, i was not fat, but my husband and i have been together for 40 years, that saved us from AIDS

    • @Philip-ll3ds
      @Philip-ll3ds 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      Congratulations on your successful marriage....❤

    • @thedemonnemo
      @thedemonnemo 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      You mean monogamy?

    • @billzero7274
      @billzero7274 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      @@thedemonnemo yep

  • @richarddamico5639
    @richarddamico5639 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +20

    I’m of the age; everything you said was spot on. We survived, and I never forget those we lost that should be here with me now…getting old with me. ❤️🙏

    • @ReallyKarel
      @ReallyKarel 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Isn't that the truth. I should have so many more friends right now.

  • @Planetcharr
    @Planetcharr 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +15

    so true. still is a TV Dinner: taters in one slot, the main course in another slot, dessert in another slot, the peas in another slot. I didn't have (still don't) the Sixpack abs and Mother Nature took over as my hair dresser in my early 20's. So that did wonders for my self esteem. Now In my 50's, I'm completely fine being a Stanley Zbornack.

  • @kevinhawk9790
    @kevinhawk9790 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +9

    Thank you for being honest and telling it like it is :)

  • @araucaria5173
    @araucaria5173 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +20

    We have to be so glad to be survivors. Live life and be happy .

    • @roberthurley6860
      @roberthurley6860 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      Sadly is survival story may be true for many of us.

    • @tomvalveede6808
      @tomvalveede6808 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      ​@@roberthurley6860
      He talks about being too big for anyone to want him same goes for being too small down there!
      That's what saved me! And having some common sense when I did hook up!

  • @vanj5988
    @vanj5988 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +12

    Rejection was for my protection...I am thankful

  • @TheRavendearest
    @TheRavendearest 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +10

    I came out in 1974 at the age of 16. I had a fake ID I looked and acted older and got into all the gay LA clubs. I was slim and pretty so they assumed I was a bottom, but the truth was that I was just young and totally inexperienced. I ended up getting forced a couple times and I got hurt so after that I flat out refused to bottom, wouldn’t even consider it. That saved my life, later, all of my dearest friends died in the 80’s and 90’s I’m the only one left, I’m 67.

  • @SeanScot36
    @SeanScot36 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    Thank you for this video, it hurts being very unwanted but I guess it also saved me from HIV/AIDS.

  • @davidrobertson2700
    @davidrobertson2700 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    I will add to this interview that; I had a friend who died from AIDS who had only been with two people.
    I have other friends who continually slept around and somehow escaped the virus. To say all those who died from and/or have AIDS have been promiscuous would not be true.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Absolutely! In one of the interviews, Mark Goldberg said that some people who were HIV-positive thought they were going to die, so they burned through their savings and did all kinds of things, believing they wouldn’t live long - and yet, they’re still alive.

  • @williammcghee863
    @williammcghee863 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

    I'm 61 years old, gay and African American. I think my Evangelical Christian period, coming out late, being overweight (somewhat), being Black and having erotic tastes that went against the grain, mainly being attracted to the men who were like the guys I went to college with (imagine guys from rural Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and South Dakota), but yet being rejected by them in the gay context/scene, "saved" me from the scourge. When I was shocked by the instances and degree of the rejection I experienced by such a 'warm' community just because of my color and my body-type, I just stepped away from trying for a while. But it probably saved me, and it helps mellow the bitterness that wells up when I remember my 20's and coming out.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      I need to find and interview you!

    • @Viracocha88
      @Viracocha88 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Did you have sex with other overweight Black men at least?

  • @MightyMight15
    @MightyMight15 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    WEAR A CONDOM and practice safe sex guys! Monogamy also is a good thing.

  • @Sandye-s6r
    @Sandye-s6r หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I was rejected by my boyfriend in the early 80;s and he actually saved my life. As the old song played "If I can't have you I don't want nobody baby" rang true with me. I tried to find others, but it was no use. When I heard a young man screaming and crying to his partner in the gay bar I was in one night asking him "Why did you give me AIDS" that was almost enough to scare me. Then my best friend died of the disease and that stopped me cold. No I am not the young blond boy any more and time haas taken it's toll, but the HIV crisis passed me by, and so did much of life.

  • @getshorty7549
    @getshorty7549 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Being autistic and strange saved me.

  • @Shane542
    @Shane542 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    Enjoyed your video! I’m 58 from Indiana and I remember that too..most bars wouldn’t let drag queens in. That was their loss and not yours! 😁👌😁👌

  • @johnnybeckwith2754
    @johnnybeckwith2754 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    I am a good looking guy. Never had problems picking up someone. But everything you are saying is absolutely true. There were people I wanted to sleep with and some I didn’t. I think that is normal across the board. But I loved my let’s just say bigger friends very much. That is one of the things that made me well liked. I long for the day when we actually practice what we preach. What a wonderful day that will be.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      It would be nice to document that type of story as well - from the perspective of someone who didn’t struggle with that aspect of gay life.

  • @alienzardsketter.9076
    @alienzardsketter.9076 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +9

    The first gay bar I went to was Gold Coast 1981 in Detroit Michigan and I never knew what a drag show was ,, all men just a pool table and go go boy dancers ,,,when I went to Knoxville and seen the first Drag Queen ,, I was a nice young man and was very Kind but they were like clowns to me I never understood at all over the years I met different kinds of people and learned to Love and except many different people ,,,and yes being FAT i like this way you say FAT without the Political Correctness

  • @Viracocha88
    @Viracocha88 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    I was born in 1963, and was above-average in looks in my youth, 6'2", and had (still have) a "straight" sounding and acting personality, which was all to my advantage but what was to my disadvantage was severe insecurity coupled with almost non-existent social skills which decades later turned out to be my being on the autism spectrum. I suffered enormous loneliness back then, but now I can claim (to quote from Sondheim's "Follies"), "I´m still here!"

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Sorry to hear of your struggle but glad you're here. Did it get any easier over time?

    • @Viracocha88
      @Viracocha88 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      @@lgbtqarchives yes, but the learning curve - involving many painfully embarrassing social gaffes - was brutal.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      @@Viracocha88 "I understand. Someone else with the same condition told me that it wasn’t something people talked about much back then. He felt like he was the only one, which made it even harder for him.

  • @joewright6455
    @joewright6455 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

    Wow you are telling my story!!!! I've thought the same thing.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      I've heard similar testimonies from many others. One person even said having a 10% body fat kind of hot look was pretty much a death sentence during those times.

    • @ReallyKarel
      @ReallyKarel 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      It seems we all experienced the same thing! I thought I was so alone

  • @strafrag1
    @strafrag1 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    1978 & '79 were what I call, my sowing my wild oats years. So, what saved me from AIDS after that, was having a loyal, loving partner. He's right. An honest guy. Good video.

  • @louisdewit4429
    @louisdewit4429 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    I’m Dutch and had an American NY friend tell me once how he and his teacher, both Gay, once had a late afternoon drink
    in one of the leather bars that were then, 1980, lining the waterfront in the west Village. The teacher, coming from work, was wearing a polo shirt and some of the leather clientele didn’t take a liking to that. They literally beat him out of that bar. I still see the pain on that young man’s face, we were both 21 at the time, telling me about this and how disappointed he was that discriminated Gay people could actually turn on other Gays in such a vicious way and not stand up for each other. I myself once experienced something like that when being harassed by a group of homophobic straight guys and ‘friends’ i had spend the evening with stood in a safe distance watching what would happen. Just in time i had my iron bicycle lock in my hands and after some spitting they went off. I then lost every trust in anything ever called ‘Gay community’. It means nothing when it comes to it.

    • @stache1954
      @stache1954 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Sorry you don't like butch culture.

    • @guyafrica7894
      @guyafrica7894 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Wow this is so seriously heartbreaking to hear. Thank you for sharing this important story. It's so ironic how hateful queers are to each other. It breaks my heart more than just homophobia from society.

  • @HobbyOrganist
    @HobbyOrganist 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Wow a surprise by Karel! just happened to click on the video and there he was!
    I used to run his web site forum and live chat room when he was with KGO and had "Producer J" in the studio.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Nice! Website forums are pretty much gone these days, right?

  • @peterdevereaux384
    @peterdevereaux384 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    100% - I feel this

  • @xzygy
    @xzygy 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I feel like asking someone to "settle," but being unwilling to do so yourself is really sad. I bet there are a lot of people who do this.

  • @Carl-x8y3c
    @Carl-x8y3c 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    Totally agree with this guy. It's BS that the gay community is all accepting of differences in looks . I am not attractive, and i was excluded and treated like an outcast.

  • @ChicagoAllen
    @ChicagoAllen 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    Loved his sharing.

  • @TargetedWestShow
    @TargetedWestShow 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    I remember you from KGO days nice to see you again.

  • @Tmhen
    @Tmhen 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

    LOL YEP, I was painfully average all around and that's what saved me also. I'd go to bars and bathhouses and get ignored ALL THE TIME! Oh every now and then it worked out but for the most part it saved me or I'd be dead yrs ago. WHat a shame we get discriminated against in our own community. Nowadays it's even worse with online apps like Grinder, no social skills whatsoever just emojis and caveman like grunts. SAD

    • @Viracocha88
      @Viracocha88 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Sorry, Tmhen, but do you eagerly sleep with literally ANYBODY who wants to have sex with you? Back in the 80s, I didn't score with everybody I was attracted to either, and while I was disappointed, I never felt that I was ENTITLED to have sex with these guys.

  • @SpuktasticAudio
    @SpuktasticAudio 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Always fascinating. Thank you. x

  • @KnijMagz
    @KnijMagz 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Ur telling me the guy at 2:04 isn't hot?
    He looked attractive, had a nice style, love the piercing...like gurl wutt? Crazyy.

  • @Guy-lo3ld
    @Guy-lo3ld 13 วันที่ผ่านมา

    I'm in my mid-fifties and always lived in NYC. What saved me was limiting my sex partners, always using condoms, and never agreeing to do anything considered risky behavior.
    I'm also single at this time, and what surprises me is the number of millennials who won't use condoms at all. That has been my experience from guys just looking to hook up.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  13 วันที่ผ่านมา

      This is another reason why these stories are important. History CAN repeat itself.

  • @josephsmall4270
    @josephsmall4270 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    He's right about what he said.

  • @Pisti846
    @Pisti846 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Oh dear, I never heard of the gay community being 'vivisected'!

    • @jackdavis8111
      @jackdavis8111 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      me neither but i wholeheartedly approve of its use here

  • @jerrymunroe5593
    @jerrymunroe5593 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    At 25 in 1981 all I wanted was a boyfriend. I fell in love with a Puerto Rican sailor and had a romance of my dreams. Why he picked me I never knew as he was gorgeous and knew it, but I looked like a nerd. He even wrote love letters to me. While he was away on his ship on a temporary assignment, (no email) I decided to write my own love letter to him. When he returned, he dumped me like a piece of garbage and told me he just used me for sex. I found out later, my letter was opened and read and it nearly cost my so-called friend his career. Never knowing that I was Devastated and suicidal and eventually became a recluse thus avoiding much of the upcoming AIDS crisis. I watched as friends died and further retreated into seclusion. Checking forty years later I learned my ex-boyfriend (who was a sex addict with many young pretty boys) had married had a wife and many children avoiding the HIV crisis as well.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I'm so sorry that you had to go through those type of experiences.

    • @jerrymunroe5593
      @jerrymunroe5593 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@lgbtqarchives Thank you. It was literally the best and worst time of my entire life to this day. When my lover returned, I was so happy when I saw him in the nightclub, that I ran through the bar to hug him with open arms, he then turned around to stop me and punched me away from him. As he told me he wanted nothing more to do with me. I was absolutely shocked. I kept asking him what is going on, why and what has happened over and over again. with no answers except he was just using me. When I asked him if he had received my letter and he said he had, that was it; He left me standing there alone. That kind of searing pain of a breaking heart is one that I have never forgotten.

  • @johnf1121
    @johnf1121 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    and I thought I was the only one who is abnormally abnormal !!

  • @BTURNER1961
    @BTURNER1961 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I was gay, out but painfully shy, and terrified of most everything. My solution to the HIV threat was to marry a young woman and have three kids. Best decision I ever made. Instead of dying with AIDS, I have those kids to keep me young

  • @Iamnobody88884
    @Iamnobody88884 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    funny because he was (and still is) gorgeous

  • @pdunn1871
    @pdunn1871 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    Dear oh dear !

  • @user89076
    @user89076 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I love hearing these stories.
    But what about being uncircumcised in the gay scene? I feel like having a foreskin can be a major insecurity and make things harder as a gay man in America, but doesn't get talked about enough.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Even though I knew that is an issue, but never crossed my mind to have a conversation about that. Adding this to my to do list. Thanks!

  • @wordscapes5690
    @wordscapes5690 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I never felt the need to feel attractive. I am very average looking. Sex is not and has never been the center of my life. The “gay community”? Never felt the need to take part. Been together with my partner for twenty years. Both of us have little to do with the so-called gay community. We support gay people 100 percent in all endeavors, but we choose to live in our own queer world and invite others in… on our terms (which is based on your niceness to others. Point).

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  หลายเดือนก่อน

      Everyone leads a unique life, so as long as you’re content with your choices, anything goes.

  • @tavisking3326
    @tavisking3326 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Very insightful.

  • @Scorchy666
    @Scorchy666 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    Edge magazine! How I loved trashy bar rags.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Your comment reminded me of this video. Apparently, bar rags are an important part of gay bar history... and more.
      th-cam.com/video/26KOScr4PZs/w-d-xo.html

  • @BG-sl9lv
    @BG-sl9lv 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    funny how things changed. Pre-aids skinny, boney, ribs showing-emaciated was in. Now 2:05 is one hot sexy dude.

  • @kznte
    @kznte 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    Every single word this man said is 100% truth. No offense, but I'll do you one better. I have a skin condition that I've had all my life. The only way anyone can get it is if I had children, then there's the chance on of them might get it. But nobody wanted to believe that. Meeting guys that can't or don't want to see the forest for the trees is bad enough. However, when you meet guys that have the balls to stand there and say, "Oh yuck!!! No!!! No!!! No!!! I'm not sleeping with you!!! I don't even want you to so much as touch me!!! I don't want to wake up tomorrow looking like you!!!!", is even worse. I'm 61 years old and that's why I gave up trying to find Mr. Right in 2001 because, sadly, for people like me, there is no such creature.

    • @Viracocha88
      @Viracocha88 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      You have not been able to find other gay men with the same dermatological problem? Not even on the Internet?

    • @kznte
      @kznte หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@Viracocha88 No. To make matters worse, after my last disaster of a relationship ended in 2001, I have almost completely lost interest in finding anyone

  • @delcodave
    @delcodave 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

    i agree with whata you said. I never had a boyfriend, wsa bullemic foir 16 years, and mainly because all the personal ads said "must be in shape and height weight proportionate". its been a long, lonely gay life

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I read your comment and realized I need to work on stories related to this topic. This isn’t something most people talk about, and naturally, I had never thought to explore these situations. I truly appreciate you sharing your personal experience with us.

    • @Viracocha88
      @Viracocha88 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      you didn't date other gay bulemics?

  • @seanmartinez8415
    @seanmartinez8415 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    He speaks about the gay community having strict beauty standards as if to criticize from a distance. If you find yourself thinking or saying "The guys I was after didn't want me" then you are no different from them. It sounds like he wasn't interested in guys who looked like himself, but was disappointed that the "beautiful people" felt the same way. It may be that he does realize his participation in this adherence to such strict or unrealistic beauty standards, but it wasn't clearly expressed if that's the case.

    • @Viracocha88
      @Viracocha88 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      I am with you; whining guys like this guy are always blind to their own hypocrisy and double-standards,

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      To be fair, he never mentioned anything about pursuing "beautiful people." In other words, you don't even know what his type was or anything about the men he was interested in. You don't have enough information to make that kind of judgment.

    • @stache1954
      @stache1954 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      @@lgbtqarchives Rewatch the video. He plainly says guys he wanted didn't want him so he refused to settle. He's expressing bitterness.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@stache1954I’m the one who recorded and edited this interview so I know what was said. Just because he’s talking about his experience, it doesn’t automatically mean that you know what his type was. Read the comment and response again. You totally missed the point.

    • @stache1954
      @stache1954 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@lgbtqarchives I don't think so.

  • @bobperricone2216
    @bobperricone2216 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    Very true..what saved me back then i think was because i was a top......so we all had our ideas of how we escaped HIV...despite the fact that I fucked around alot back then the top thing "saved me" i think......all my sex partners had died off..i had a pretty big rotating group of regulars....all dead back then...i kind of felt somewhat guilty that it was me who survived.......but...Im still here and glad that I am.

    • @vishalhanumegowda6791
      @vishalhanumegowda6791 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Damn, to think that those who were gleefully having sex could just die off such an horrible death.😨😨😞

    • @bobperricone2216
      @bobperricone2216 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Correct all my buddies were dead in a matter of a year or two....very sad and straight people never could imagine something like that ..we lived through something that they could never imagine..but we pulled through...Most straight people have no clue what us gays had to endure and Reagan despised us which made it worse..I never thought Reagan was a good prez..and all the GOP always think he was their god.......now look at how much further the GOP has fallen...a weak and racist party from the get go..stilll.

  • @markwrede8878
    @markwrede8878 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

    The problem is with capitalism because everyone is comfortable with extortion, planning on becoming an extortionist themselves.

  • @auto_math
    @auto_math 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    He's just as vain as the hunks and twinks, as he says he wanted the gorgeous guys who didn't want him. I know some guys who would totally be into him.

    • @stache1954
      @stache1954 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      This was before bear culture. Everybody was thin back then. No high fructose corn syrup at that time.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      That’s true. I look at photos from that period and everyone looks thin.

    • @stache1954
      @stache1954 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@lgbtqarchives Of course people gained weight as they aged. That's to be expected.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@stache1954 This is ridiculous. Gaining weight has consistently become a recent problem. There are way more overweight people now than back when Karel was dating. You would look more out of place then that you would now. You're making some strange comments and I'm not sure why that is! People gaining weight as they age is a completely separate issue.

  • @josephgalla8562
    @josephgalla8562 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Hi there Karel How are you Today? Look I think you are very Handsome Man and I just wanted to tell Today I wish all the best please be safe and Have a Great weekend and when you did this your even Handsome How about that.

  • @Dimi374
    @Dimi374 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    This reminds me of the party scene in the 1986 film ‘Parting Glances’ where a party goer stated that his cardinal sin is gluttony which saved him from the virus.

  • @orangecat5036
    @orangecat5036 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Coming out is very overrated for my type.

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      What do you mean?

  • @nightwind67
    @nightwind67 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    Growing up fat I too feel it saved me from getting AIDS. BUT to go to a leather bar not dressed appropriately, Gurl please!

    • @lgbtqarchives
      @lgbtqarchives  2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      "BUT to go to a leather bar not dressed appropriately, Gurl please!" .... I laughed real hard. I would've loved to witness this conversation between you and Karel in person. 😜

    • @davidhennen7045
      @davidhennen7045 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      It's a fetish bar they have a right to have a dress code.

    • @stache1954
      @stache1954 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@davidhennen7045 So many people don't understand that.