Someone who might either be lesbian or not, but must definitely be accommodating, who may want to raise the child with you as a couple or who might just hand the baby over with nary a blink, or who would be willing to let you be a single parent while maintaining visitation rights and voting shares in the big decisions (choice of name, school, place of residence).Finding that special woman is not easy. But they at least, plunging sperm count aside, operate from a (missionary) position of advantage. Not only do they begin the biological race wanting to be fathers, they also want to have sex with women, usually women who want, at some point, to be mothers. Gay men might share the single heterosexual male’s first desire, but after that everything conspires against execution of that wish.Obstacle one: gay men don’t have sex with women Not a lot, anyhow. Yes, the person at the back who mumbled “turkey baster” and “syringe” is right; there are various DIY ways around the actual act of procreation.
Even though in the past couple of years I haven’t been able to settle my gaze without realising that the things that you plan to do – say, have children – somewhere along the line become things you know you’ll never do, that options you imagined would always be there have evaporated; and it apparently happened when your back was turned, when your eye wasn’t on the ball, while you were out of the room.
Hearing a gay man complain about being childless might seem odd. My desk at home is cluttered with photo frames and all of them contain children’s faces. Nieces, nephews, godchildren in school uniform, looking strained in staged poses (“How long am I supposed to keep smiling?”) or at their most casual, caught unawares at a party – birthday parties, usually. Or they’re just messing about in the garden on a blazingly bright summer’s day, being silly, being young, grinning confidently, as if tomorrow were simply a nasty rumour, cocooned in the knowledge thattoday is all that matters.
“And the emus need spraying once a week, which pulls the crowds. The tapir can be seen lying in its pool; some people think it’s dead but it’s just keeping cool.”There’s wallowing of a different kind at the Osprey pub, where lunchtime trade is brisk. “People are getting hot and bothered,” says landlady Sandra Brown tensely “This heat is lasting a long time.”. “I’ve only seen one case of a chap with bad sunburn, and he’d been to the seaside.
Most people are very sensible.” Wasps have presented the biggest health scare – in July local environmental health officers received a record 330 call-outs.At the nearby Cotswold Wildlife Park, rhinos are short of mud. “They stay cool by mud wallowing, so we keep hosing to make mud,” says assistant curactor Simon Blackwell. Gentlemen are given formal permission to remove jackets.Lester Giles, manager of the family business, Giles’ Toy Shop, is clean out of paddling pools “As soon as they come in, they get sold Children want anything they can get their hands on. Power Soakers, water pistols that fire two gallons of water, are very popular – though mostly with young adults.”A laudable level-headedness in the heat is reported by the local doctor, Nicholas Jones. “The tubs and baskets of flowers are still looking very good, though, and I think that reflects the care taken by the local contractors.” Protocol at council meetings, Mr Fox admits, has had to slip.