1977–1983 Manuscript Diaries of a Bisexual Ohio Father Confronting Addiction, Desire, Stigma and Disillusionment in Working-Class America

On offer are two intimate and unflinchingly honest diaries kept between 1977 and 1983 by a man living in the Akron, Ohio area who signs himself “R.” but is identified through a note in another hand as Robert. Across six years of scattered yet compelling entries, Robert documents his private life as a bisexual father, a heavy drinker and recreational substance user, and a man searching for connection amid the economic and emotional instability of working-class Ohio.

Robert begins his first entry in October, 1977 with the resolve of someone trying to turn his life around:

“I bought this book today in another attempt to keep a journal… Today was pay day and since my rent is paid I decided to treat myself to some new books.” [Oct. 19, 1977].

He also writes with relief about belonging to a local art studio community:“The people there, Drew, Linda, Pam Jean and other[s] accept me. They let me into their world. How good it feels to belong.” [Oct. 19, 1977].

But even in these hopeful early pages, his inner conflict is plain. He writes of a one of his friends from the studio named Pam, whom he loves deeply but cannot fully have:

“We love each other yet we may never have sex. She needs women and I need men. I think my sexuality is more open than hers. I prefer women but am also interested in men.” [Oct. 19, 1977].

The following day, he attends his first appointment at Portage Path Mental Health Clinic (now Portage Path Behavioral Health) in Akron. In this entry, exposes both institutional misunderstanding of his sexuality and his refusal to internalize shame:

“My visit to the clinic was amusing. It was apparently another evaluation visit. They want to determine who will be the best therapist for me. The doctor who interviewed me asked a number of questions about my sex life. At the end he said he thought someone could help me with my problems including my sexual identity. I told him I wasn’t there to be cured and that I didn’t feel it was an important problem.” [Oct. 21, 1977].

Robert is also unusually frank about his thoughts, even when they disturb him. Once in each of his diaries, he acknowledges attraction toward minors, yet makes clear moral boundaries: he records these thoughts as intrusive and emphasizes that he would not cross the line between fantasizing and realizing those fantasies.

The honesty of these confessions (uncommon for the period) underscores the diary’s psychological depth and its documentary value in understanding mid-century male sexual self-examination.

Robert’s early entries swing between reflection and self-destruction. “I’m trying to read Sartre while drunk on my ass… why?” [Oct. 21, 1977], he writes, chronicling nights of alcohol and amphetamines.

In 1978 he grows close to a woman named Gina, whose son becomes a surrogate for the fatherly devotion that steadies him:

“Actually I’m getting bored and if it weren’t for [Gina’s son] Nickie, whom I love almost as if he were my own, I’d stop seeing her altogether” [Apr. 24, 1978].

Soon after, his affections shift again—first to a co-worker, then to Debbie, the woman he marries the following year.

By 1979 Robert is remarried and father to a five-month-old daughter, Robin, alongside Sarah, his daughter from his first marriage. His writing oscillates between tenderness and guilt:

“We have a five month old daughter and Sarah who’s six now, loves her and we love both of them. They are our girls and we have a beautiful family. I’m happy and I think Deborah is happy too.” [Dec. 29, 1979]. But within the same entry, he admits, “I drink a quart or two or a six pack a day… Debbie always covered for me [at work] and never said a word but I know she was getting more and more unhappy…now I drink a quart or two or a six pack a day.”

He clings to his daughters as his redemption:

“When Sarah is here all three of the girls sleep together in one bed and I sleep on the couch… I often come in and look at them… smiles on their faces… I’m a lucky man to have a beautiful family.” [Dec. 29, 1979].

In 1980, his focus widens beyond the personal to the political and existential. Moved by global unrest and John Lennon’s death, he writes:

“With the impending conflicts in the world and the death of John Lennon, I am suddenly rudely reminded of the nonsense of violence, hate and war… I must find a way to contribute to the world… What can I do? How can I as one man work to stop the horror that threatens to engulf us?” [Dec. 18, 1980].

Days later, optimism gives way to fatigue—lawyers, unpaid bills, frozen water pumps, and the decision to work through Christmas.

In the summer of 1981, Robert seems to have a greater need to express himself through poetry on diverse subjects ranging from Sarah getting her ears pierced to his own mortality, dreams, and faith. The writing grows increasingly fragmented yet more revealing. In December, a long and disorganized entry drifts through dream and memory: he imagines moving to his deceased father’s farm to live with (and have relations with) his father’s widow, muses on a “coming war” in which “the governments of US and USSR talk of a limited war in Europe, of dropping A-bomb there to prove a point. How rude” [Dec. 5, 1981],

The first diary ends with a letter written in another hand, almost certainly his wife’s:

“Dear Robert, I know this is your book exclusively and I didn’t read anything… I just can’t talk about the way I feel. It just never comes out right.” [Apr. 27, 1982].

The second volume opens with domestic warmth—“the smell of my wife’s cooking”—then turns sharply to a sexually graphic poem about his lust for an unnamed “Boy”, followed by reflections on the demolition of a “hotel and porno theater” where he describes his introduction to male-for-male sexual exchange. Context suggests that by mid-1982 his marriage to Deborah has quietly ended; the tone shifts from domesticity to transience, loneliness, and wandering.

The final entry, written in November 1983 during a trip to Florida following his grandfather’s death, closes on a note of exhaustion and moral ambiguity. Robert travels south with his mother, stepfather, and brother to settle family affairs, grieving but restless. He admits to rifling through his grandfather’s belongings “for prescription drugs [he] could use recreationally.” After finding nothing of use in the deceased man’s belongings, he confesses that he “borrowed about seven or eight” 5 mg Valiums from his grandfather’s widow’s bathroom..”

The diary ends with Robert fixated on yet another woman: “Depressed. Lonely. My new lover of four months left behind… from a distance I notice how much I love her…” [April 11, 1983]. His final paragraph sees him alone in Florida, off his diet, and eating ice cream.

Some longer excerpts give a flavour for Robert’s writing throughout his diaries:

“I may have overcome…my addiction to cough syrup, if not to codeine in general. The idea of drinking syrup makes me sick…I’m trying to read Sartre while drunk on my ass…why?” [Oct 21, 1977].

“I love the night. Tonight I’m going to speed all night. The night world is so quiet. I feel sometimes as if I am the only person left or maybe the only person who ever was. Once in a while I turn on the radio just to know that someone else is alive and awake…Little blue and clean capsules with blue and white balls inside. I keep getting rushes from it…My head is in a good place tonight…must now go back to work. Almost 9:15pm….” [Oct 26, 1977]

“…[Gina] had gained weight, her hair was longer. She was not as beautiful as I had thought she would be. But we sat in her apartment and talked…I took some liberties with her, caressing her breasts and kissing her…she told me about her son…his father had been black….we have been sleeping together for two months [here he explicitly describes his sex life with Gina]…I met a woman at work named Penny Breen to whom I am attracted…I’m already scheming how her daughter and my daughter will get along…It’s 1:00am. I’m tired of not making any money” [April 24, 1978].

“I gave up my switch board job and went back to driving cab again. I work during the day now…Debbie never webt back to the swtich board…We make more money than ever but we just spend it faster. We’re behind on the rent and utilities and [they] shut off our television cable yesterday, but we’re happy…”[Dec 29, 1979] 

“Can’t say enough about my daughter Sarah. She is growing up and becoming more beautiful every day…She’s been losing her teeth and growing new ones…She is learning to write and can make up her own sentences…The first one I saw was ‘You will not go’…I’m a lucky man to have a beautiful family. For next year I’m going to try to quit drinking and using other drugs I want to…” [Dec 29, 1979].

“…I am suddenly rudely reminded of the nonsense of violence, hate and war. I have again been made aware of the need for each of us and specifically for me to become active in…the ideals of non violence. I must find a way to contribute to the world…What can I do? How can I as one man work to stop the horror that threatens to engulf us?”[December 18, 1980].

“Boy…I want you/Boy…I want to [explicit] you/Boy…I want you to bend over before me [explicit]…And boy…when it’s over I want to kiss your lips and leave without knowing your name…” [carefully excerpted from a longer poem to avoid sexually explicit content in this write-up, April 9, 1982].  

Taken together, these diaries offer a rare working-class portrait of bisexual identity, addiction, and mental-health struggle during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Robert’s writing—by turns erotic, remorseful, and self-aware—reveals a man negotiating authenticity in a time and place that offered few models for it. His introspection, however flawed, stands as an unfiltered record of human contradiction: love, shame, devotion, and survival on the margins of social acceptance.

Both diaries are hardcover volumes, together containing 97 pages of manuscript entries spanning from October 19, 1977 through April 11, 1983. The first, measuring approximately 7.75 x 4.5 inches, comprises about 71 pages of writing, a tipped-in poem, and an explicit Polaroid photograph (presumably of the author) with entries made sporadically between 1977 and 1982. The second, smaller volume (6 x 3.5 inches), continues Robert’s reflections from April 2, 1982 to April 11, 1983, filling about 26 pages. Both diaries are well preserved, showing only minor external wear, with tight spines, intact pages, and legible handwriting throughout. Overall Very Good condition.