Confessions of a Mormon Boy

LGBT meets LDS (Latter-day Saints) in this autobiographical tale of a Mormon man’s struggles with his own sexuality.

Written, produced and starring Steven Fales, a sixth-generation Mormon from Salt Lake City, Confessions of a Mormon Boy details his battle to control his homosexual desires. Despite falling for another brother during his compulsory missionary service in Portugal (like a gap year for Mormons but with added proselytising), Fales returns to Utah, marries and has two kids. "We were the Tom and Nicole of Mormondom," he proclaims in his high-pitched timbre, flashing one of the wide, white-toothed smiles that seem to be his stock in trade.

Marriage, rather inevitably, wasn’t for Fales: he continued studying musical theatre and, after years of repression and Church-funded hypnotherapy to "cure" him, eventually he came out. Next stop New York City where, penniless, he started a new life as a high-class male escort: "the job Mary Magdalene had before she met Jesus Christ."

Fales is a curious character, his delivery enthusiastic bordering on effusive, but his stage school persona is hard to really warm to. Confessions works best when describing his experience growing up as a gay man in the Mormon faith, which denies the very existence of homosexuality. The final half hour, when Fales flits between prostitution and the promiscuity and drugs of the gay scene, is less compelling. Nevertheless Confessions of a Mormon Boy is still an unusual and engaging coming of age tale.