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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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I was reading M's recent post about telling people you're gay and I was thinking about my own experiences.
If anyone asks I'm "out". That is my friends know I'm gay. my family (including most of my extended family) know I'm gay. My boyfriend's family know. His friends know. We're registered as being in a relationship for my student payment. I'm not afraid to tell new people I meet that I'm gay or have a boyfriend. Everyone I've met through Uni knows.
But sometimes I still feel like I've got something to hide. I get paranoid about holding Ryan's hand in public, when ordering food I feel like we should pay separately. I don't mind telling friendly acquaintances about my sexuality, but I feel weird around strangers or people I'll only see once. It feels like the details of my relationship and sexuality are too intimate and I don't want to reveal it to everyone I deal with on a day-to-day basis. I know I won't be refused service in a store if people find out I'm gay. I know that 99% of the time it'd be safe to hold hands during daylight hours in Melbourne. But I feel that seeming like a couple with Ryan is automatically implying all kinds of things about me as a person that I don't want a stranger that I've only met in passing to think. I guess I don't want to be defined as "gay" but I'm scared of homophobia, even though I haven't really had any major traumatic homophobic experiences.
Then with friendly acquaintances I also feel like I can't properly "come out" and be myself. Take for example friends I've met through politics. They are people of a classical liberal or libertarian persuasion. They are progressive on issues like gay marriage, or even where they are personally against gay marriage they believe that the government shouldn't regulate morality. They are people I've felt entirely comfortable and safe coming out to, people I've told I'm gay within 10 minutes of conversation. Yet I find it hard to go any further. To talk about Ryan in any depth. Or when it comes to peers on campus- to talk about my sex life like they do theirs. They can be open about their heterosexual behaviour and maybe I can about my homosexual behaviour, but I don't feel like I can. I don't mind telling people clinically "I'm gay" or "I have a boyfriend". That's a political statement, really. But beyond that, on the personal or sexual level, when I actually start talking about my boyfriend, my sex life, my sexuality the fact that I'm gay scares me from saying much.
I wonder if straight people would feel uncomfortable if I was as open with them as they are with me... or maybe I'm just paranoid? Or maybe my fear is less about sexuality and comes more from the fact that Ryan was underage when we first started dating- I told very few people that I was in a relationship when I first met him, so I could just have trained habits of shame.
Gay shame. The opposite of pride, I guess. I seems to sum up my experiences. I'm out but I still feel shame to the point where I'm less open than I think I would be were I straight. I'm generally the type of person that doesn't mind intimacy in public. So why am I scared to show gay intimacy around people I know won't or can't bash my head in? I don't normally care much about the opinions of others and strangers (I am happy to be socially inappropriate should the mood take me), but I care about their opinions on this.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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