Jones was born in West Lafayette, Indiana. He moved with his family to Scottsdale, Arizona, when he was 14 and was a student at Arizona State University for a time. Jones claimed, however, he never really accepted the Phoenix area as his home. His father was a psychologist and his mother was a Quaker, a faith she held at least in part to benefit her son in the era of the draft for the Vietnam War. He did not reveal his sexual orientation to his parents until he was 18.
