I’d just turned eighteen and was coasting toward graduation in our tiny, conservative Kentucky town—population under 13,000. A few months earlier, my mom had outed me after finding a dodgy, dot-matrix printout of a naked Tom Cruise in my room (thanks, AOL dial-up). She yanked me out of class on the spot, clutching her pearls, fully expecting my dad and her to unleash holy fire once we got home. My dad’s only reaction: “Yo...