“I thought, he was going to get the shit beaten out of him, so I wanted him to toughen up. When Riyadh was in his early teens, in addition to hiking or fishing, his dad took him to karate. “I was worried he was too gentle, I needed to toughen him up,” Sam says now. I loved running around the house in my mother’s pink silk nightgown, black stilettos and anything I could find that sparkled.” At seven, his father told him to start acting like a boy. In his book, he writes that, “I was king of the sissy boys, growing up. Riyadh, 28, recalls that he was flamboyant as a child. Both men are as candid as the book, particularly with each other. There is also a necessary chapter written from the parents’ perspective, by Sam and Riyadh’s mother, Lorraine. The coming-out drama forms part of a new book by Riyadh, an Irish YouTuber and broadcaster, whose bright, conversational guide to being a young gay man – Yay! You’re Gay! Now What? – offers salient advice on topics from gender identity to anal sex. He was right: it took him another year, and when Riyadh came out to his dad, Sam says it “came like a fast train, it hit me very hard. Riyadh had stopped hanging out with his dad because he realised he was gay – a revelation he did not think his Muslim father, a garage owner with a passion for football and cars, would take well.
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