Confessions of our community

Have you had sex in a church? Are you gay, but hate rainbows? Have you accomplished something you never thought you would – like using a double-ended dildo?
Three folks can say "yes," and they're telling us through a postcard they sent to Affirmations for a month-long exhibit opening with a reception from 7 to 9 p.m. Oct. 16 at Ferndale's LGBT community center.
"It speaks to the voyeur in all of us," says Maureen Jones, the social and enrichment coordinator for the organization. "We would love to know these things about people, but the way you find out sometimes can be kind of shady or illegal. So we don't go snooping for people's secrets, but we wish we did."
You can – legally – peek at people's down-low dish in the gallery, which will feature, in honor of National Coming Out Day Oct. 11, a menagerie of secrets hanging from the ceiling and mounted on the walls. Some are heartbreaking, some hilarious, others are silly or gross, and then – like, "As long as I can remember, I've wanted to fuck a woman with a two-headed dildo. Now I have, and I love it." – there are the totally X-rated. Those, Jones says, will be part of an adult-only section or hidden with flipable covers.
Postcards, which were sent via postal mail or designed at an Affirmations workshop, are either elaborately collaged – or just let the words speak for themselves. So far about 100 have been received, and the secrets range from issues concerning body image, gender identity, sexual orientation to home life and school.
"Some of them kind of make you sad, and you never know who sent it and what they're going through – and some of them are a little bit more hopeful," Jones says. "It's nice to see we have some of them that are very LGBT positive about identity and some from our youth program that are very positive as well."
Sparked from Frank Warren's hit PostSecret project, which began in 2004, spawning four books and his regularly-updated Web site http://www.PostSecret.com, the idea of sending in anonymous confession-scribed postcards was brought up during a staff meeting – and immediately green-lit by the art gallery committee. Like Warren, who's been adamant about offering support to those whose secrets are hopeless or depressing, Affirmations will do the same, tying in local resources for those who need help. Their goal: To allow our secrets to link us together.
"We hope that this is kind of a cathartic experience for people to get it off their chest, but also to maybe see (that) some of their things that they hold inside (are) something that other people are experiencing.
"Maybe they won't feel so alone in that – or so shameful about that."
Right – because who hasn't used a dildo?