He called a crisis line for gay teenagers, where a counselor suggested he attend a gay support group in a city an hour and a half away. But being 15, he was too young to drive and afraid to enlist his parents' help in what would surely seem a bizarre and suspicious errand. It was around this time that Jeffrey first typed the words ''gay'' and ''teen'' into a search engine on the computer he'd gotten several months before and was staggered to find himself aswirl in a teeming online gay world, replete with resource centers, articles, advice columns, personals, chat rooms, message boards, porn sites and - most crucially - thousands of closeted and anxious kids like himself. ''The Internet is the thing that has kept me sane,'' he told me. You're always spending time on the computer.' But the Internet is my refuge.'' My mom complains: 'I can see you becoming more detached from us. Jeffrey and I met when he responded to an online message I posted, seeking gay teenagers willing to discuss their online lives. When we were first getting to know each other, he made it clear that he could allow no overlap between his online gay life and the life he led in the ''real world.'' He explained, ''In our town, everybody knows everybody, and everybody knows everybody's business.'' He feared that if word of his sexual orientation were to reach his parents, they might refuse to support him or pay for college. From his peers at school he dreaded violence, and with good reason: according to a 1996 study of the Seattle public schools, one in six gay teenagers is beaten so badly during adolescence that he requires medical attention. Jeffrey's computer is in his bedroom, garrisoned inside a thicket of codes and passwords. While he uses the Internet to communicate with high-school friends - Jeffrey is now 16 and a junior in high school - and to pursue his avid fandom of the group 'N Sync, he has separate screen names and ''instant messaging'' services for these activities. (An instant message, or I.M., allows two or more people to engage in a real-time dialogue on screen.) This way, no one from his ''straight life'' can track his forays into the online gay world using the ''locate'' feature on America Online, for example, which allows subscribers to find online ''buddies'' in whatever public chat room or other AOL area they happen to be visiting - a potential disaster for gay teenagers. A brainy, ebullient kid, Jeffrey is an excellent student, active in high-school government, with a number of close friends. He took a girl as his date to homecoming earlier this fall.
REAL PHOTOS THIN 40YROLD GAY MEN MASTURBATING FREEÄ«ut his free time belongs largely to the disembodied gay life he pursues online - from 8:30 p.m. REAL PHOTOS THIN 40YROLD GAY MEN MASTURBATING FREE.