Jon-Erik Hexum – Sidelineland

With three days left in 2009, I have three more favorite moments in blogging to document as I look back over 2009. Unquestionably, a series of favorite moments for me has been my ongoing series “What Turned Me Gay.” My WTMG posts have generated the most comments, by far. I sort of stumbled into the recurring theme of a retrospective on my youthful development into a Mo with a wrestling kink. Little did I know that what turned me gay turned so, so many of you gay as well.

I’ve lost track of my first entry for What Turned Me Gay… I’ll have to dig around in my archives to see what happened to my fond memories of seeing bodybuilder Bob Paris on the cover of a muscle magazine when I was an adolescent. From Bob to Billy Jack Haynes to Robert Conrad, what I’ve rediscovered about myself is that my past is littered with objects of lust who confirmed and reconfirmed for me that whatever else I was to become, I was, without a doubt, a gay boy who got off on seeing hard bodies hammering on one another.

From Jon-Erik Hexum to Miles O’Keeffe to Steve Reeves, in my youth I was delighted by a steady stream of gorgeous men with big muscles showing plenty of skin.

From the 1984 mens gymnastics Olympic champions to Greg Louganis, the athletes, the actors, the characters and grapplers all enflamed my imagination and engorged my… lust for gorgeous men. And frankly, there’s something liberating about the realization that some of these guys would probably resent being named on a list of things that turned me gay. Just like me being gay, it doesn’t matter what they think or believe or want. It just is.

I realize that text is not the most effective avenue for communicating sarcasm, but I sincerely hope that readers have been able to detect my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. In fact, I don’t believe any of these fine, fine men get credit for turning me gay, because I don’t believe that I ever made a “turn.” I believe I have always been gay, so there was nothing to be changed, and there’s most certainly nothing for me to be changed back into. If “What Turned Me Gay” tells me anything, it’s that I have always lived in a world filled with beautiful men catching my eye, arousing my erotic imagination, and getting me in touch with the joys of passionate lust.

I don’t know how many more objects of lust from my youth I’ll be able to scare up in the coming year. What Turned Me Gay may have to get retired soon. But as I look back at all the studly stars and hardbody wrestlers who “turned me gay,” I lift my glass in a toast: for every moment that they made my pulse quicken, for every flash of muscled beauty that made me light-headed, I’m a better man today for it. Ching, ching…

Jon-Erik Hexum made me gay. Well, not personally. I never met him. And, frankly, I was already consciously attracted to guys by the time I first saw him on television. But he’s got to take some of the credit for sparking the sexual imaginations of many of us gay boys at that time.

I was just about the age of young Meeno Peluce when he starred opposite Hexum in the very short-run television show Voyagers. So I was the target audience (in more than one way, I’m sure). Peluce’s character was the nerdy kid who Jon-Erik’s character came to rely on as he traveled through time, getting the both of them into all sorts of adventures. Jon-Erik didn’t really know how to use that little pocket-watch/time traveling device, so Meeno had to operate it for him. Meeno was the brains and Jon-Erik was the brawn (and I mean brawn!).

Jon-Erik protected the kid and clearly grew to love him. A notorious womanizer, Jon-Erik’s character had to forgo his sexual conquests to hang out with his dependent ward. He ALWAYS had his shirt open, showing his beautifully hairy chest, and not infrequently he appeared shirtless and sweaty (mmmm….). Those eyes… that smile… that BODY! Oh, how I wanted a hunky time-traveler to stumble into my bedroom and carry me off to accompany him on his shirtless adventures!

After Voyagers went off the air, I kept my eyes peeled for more of Jon-Erik. When he landed a new series, Cover Up, I was tuned in eagerly anticipating more of his thrilling hotness. I remember when I heard the news that he had died in a freak accident on the set of Cover Up. I actively grieved. It was like someone I knew and loved had died. My family had no idea what I was experiencing, but I had so identified with the kid from Voyagers, so pictured myself with Jon-Erik as my companion, protector, and I his loving ward – I was devastated.

There are a lot of fan sites devoted to Jon-Erik, with more than a few of us gay boys testifying to our adoration of the magnetic hunk. The tribute group to Jon-Erik Hexum has a stunningly large catalogue of images of him. His life was tragically cut far too short, but he remains always and lovingly in my memory as the gorgeous, sexy, bright blue-eyed, 27 year old hunk that made me very happy to be a gay boy.