Modern Family star Jesse Tyler Ferguson admitted to being a sticky-fingered teen this week, revealing that his penchant for stealing gay porn in his early teen years is what forced him to come out to his father.
Ferguson told the story of how he came out to his father the first time (and the three times after that) in an interview with Aisha Tyler this week on her podcast, Girl On Guy:
“I was caught stealing gay porn when I was 14, I always consider that my coming out. It was so humiliating. I had been stealing porn for a while, I had quite a little a collection.
…
I had been stealing porn and I had three magazines underneath my shirt. I guess the certain magazine that I picked up had a sensor in it, and I set off the alarm. I had to go back to the woman who asked me if I had anything in my backpack – she was giving me the benefit of the doubt.
I couldn’t be like, ‘some porn fell inside my pants’ – I lifted up my shirt and I had tears in my eyes. She took me to the back room and they brought my dad in, showed him the nature of the material that I was stealing. It was really, really humiliating.”
Go ahead and give your laptop a kiss, kids. And next time you complain about not having passwords for gay porn websites, remember the trailblazers before you — the young gay men who stole, hid, and lied in the name of gay porn.
Modern Family season 6 premiere Wednesday, September 24. Check it out Wednesdays at 9pm on ABC through fall.
h/t Gay Star News
Brian
This story is amazing. I want to cheer for the cashier woman who didn’t turn the situation into an crime with prison terms. Glad she knew what was up.
Billy Budd
When I was a boy, I used to BUY porn together with my friends. The guy at the newsstand would sell the magazines to us. Here in Brazil it is considered normal for a kid to have interest in porn, even though it is theoretically illegal.
.
I have always been gay, so I would focus on the bodies and dicks of the straight men on the pictures, and jackoff thinking of them.
Spike
With all the porn online these days, I’m guessing future gay’s of America don’t even bother with buying/stealing porn mags.
Stache99
There was something special about it back then. When I was young finding good porn magazines was like finding treasure. You had to go find it in sleazy places and it was kind of forbidden. Now a days were saturated with it so I guess those days are gone.
throwslikeagirl
It’s really nice of this famous actor to humble himself by telling this obviously painful story. We all have them and can relate to what he went through. It gets better.
redcarpet30
I had a similar experience back when all people had were the shared family computer with internet (1999/2000 for context). Needless to say, to this day I insist on having my own equipment that is heavily protected with passwords and encryption. It all worked out in the end but it did instill some deep tech paranoia in me.
Xzami
@Billy Budd: We all did… it’s why certain straight male porn stars have as big a gay following — if not bigger — a certain gay male porn stars. Of course, making people who have sex for money celebrities is sad in of itself, but yessir… we have all had to make due with the straight porn and trying to drown out loud female moaning while getting it off quietly.
Or if you were as bad off as I was, jack off to Ken Griffey, Jr. highlights on Sportcenter… that man made me appreciate a big round firm ass on a guy.
Xzami
*SportsCenter
Bob LaBlah
Thanks for the article. It sure left me wondering what city, state and year all of this took place.
tazz602
We have something in common – I too stole gay porn and hustlers and others, anything with a nude guy in it, but at least I never got caught. (Yes, this was WAY pre-internet, more the age of barely scrambled cable channels that you could kind of see if you opened the converter box and played with the tuner just right.)
ait10101
Boston, 1967, I was 17 and the age to buy the stuff was 21. I was so relieved when I saw my first gay magazine — there were enough people like me that they made magazines for us! Before that I had only seen crime reports. Not a good introduction.
hudson
i grew up in a small saskatchewan town. while i was in my teens, we had a news store and in the early 80’s i could get all the gay mags i wanted- blueboy, numbers, mandate, special editions, you name it. at one time there were at least 7 titles on the local shelves. i’d wrap them around my legs and pull my tube socks up over them till i got home. after that, it was bliss. lol I’ve always wondered who else was buying this stuff. i suspect they didn’t bring it in just for me.
Len John
@hudson:
Chhers…
Len John
@Len John
Oopps: Cheers!