I skipped writing on October 11th, which is something I slightly regret. It was National Coming Out Day, a very important day for queer people. It coincidently is the anniversary of my coming out. Please note this is merely a coincidence and I would not do anything as cliché as come out on NCOD. I have a bit more taste than that.
Allow me to continue. There is no doubt that I am fighter for queer rights and specifically queer liberation. I think we have allowed straight people to run every aspect of the world for far too long, and well, the world is not in the best place right now. Let us queers have a few hundred years at the helm, and I think things may turn out to be a lot better.
But what is queer vs. straight? I, admittedly, identify as gay man, rather than queer. I love men, have been in love with them, have sex with them and generally envision some sort of future with one. However, I have been in love with women, have had sex with them, and rather enjoyed it. Does this make me bisexual? Or maybe I really am more queer than gay? No, at the end of the day I am still a gay man. And anyone who has met me, can attest to that.
I have been out and proud since 2000, when I first walked into coming out self help group at the University of Pittsburgh. To this day, it is one of the scariest things I have ever done. It took me weeks to actually gather up enough steam to go and do it. If you ever meet me in a bar, I am more than willing to share my coming out story. The story is so dramatic that it would make Bette Davis proud (rest her soul).
On this Yom Kippur, I wish you all a happy NCOD. I challenge the straights to think about their sexuality and wonder if the world really is just gay & straight. And to all of you queers, can you be a lesbian and love a man? Or a gay man in love with a woman? Does this nullify our sexuality, and return us to the base presumption that we are all heterosexual by default?
I think we should take National Coming Out Day and talk about a more open sexuality, where it is not so much about who is in our bed, but who we are deep down. I know that sounds frilly and crystal like, but there must be something more than this dichotomy. Sexuality is just too complicated for the simple nature is has been broken down into.
Unfortunately, that is the way society is set up. “Gay” or “Straight” is thought to be the true nature of sexualities. Bisexuals are often looked down upon or classified as “confused.” For example, gay television shows often glorify this taboo and exemplify bisexual characters as crazy. Two characters that I can think of are Lindsay from “Queer as Folk” and the girl with the black hair from the “L Word.” Both characters are forced to identify by their partners. Lindsay is yelled at by her partner, who now believes L is “straight” because she was attracted to one man. Furthermore, it is also mostly lesbians that are portrayed as “bisexual” and most quickly to be called not really gay. This is I attribute to two faults that our society places on women. Women are generally not recognized as “sexual” beings, so when they fall in love with both sexes it is seen as funny. Secondly, if you are a “straight” looking lesbian you are just going through a phase, so when you fall in love with a man you hear “See I told you so.” Trust me I know firsthand what this is like as a woman who identifies as lesbian, but loves everything feminine or girly. Unfortunately, not everything is “black and white” like society wants it to be.
There is black, and there is white, and the liminal space in between is a Michael Cunningham novel.
Re: “Please note this is merely a coincidence and I would not do anything as cliché as come out on NCOD.”
But that is exactly what you did, Josh, by your own admission! Ha, ha. 🙂
How can we find out who someone is “deep down”? Specifically, how can we find out whether someone is gay, straight or in between “deep down”? One way is just to ask him. But that is not always reliable, because sometimes people don’t know themselves well enough to tell the truth, and sometimes people lie because they are afraid to tell the truth, or just don’t want the questioner to know the truth. Asking is only reliable if you have good reason to believe that the person is likely to understand the question in the sense you intend it, is likely to be willing to tell the truth, insofar as they know it, and is sufficiently knowledgeable about himself to know the truth. That’s a lot of assumptions.
An interesting aspect of this is that it doesn’t require a second party. How can a person find out if he is gay “deep down”? Can he just ask himself the question? That assumes that he knows the answer and is willing face up to the truth, even it makes him uncomfortable. We know that people are not always willing to do that. We call it “being in denial”.
Sometimes people don’t realize that they don’t know the answer. They just assume it’s one thing (perhaps because they have been raised to think that there really is only one answer) and don’t realize that they haven’t been paying enough attention to themselves to know that they are wrong.
Suppose someone is paying attention. What sign(s) must he look for “within himself” to tell if he’s gay, straight, or otherwise? I think the answer is “none”, but I’m willing to consider proposals for such signs if someone wants to suggest some.
I think sexual orientation is all about who one is having sex with and other things like that. It’s all about overt behavior, some of which may not be very “overt” unless someone is watching very carefully. But I don’t think a person is necessarily in the best position to pick up on the behavioral clues about himself. For example, he might be “in denial” and simply not recognize what his behavior means.
I should make it clear that I’m using “behavior” in a very broad sense. If a guy tracks another guy with his eyes longer than usual and for no particular reason (the guy is a stranger, there is no non-sexual reason to want to meet him, he’s not theatening, he’s not looking at you, etc.), that’s a behavior which may have an explanation in terms of sexual orientation. But it may be a very subtle behavior, not noticed by anyone, not even the person exhibiting it, unless he’s very self-conscious. Even more subtle “behavior” would be changes in the activation of groups of neurons in the brain in the presence of another person, or simply when thinking about another person. Some such changes might be explained in terms of sexual orientation. Unless a person is having a brain scan, no one is going to detect such “behaviors”. We do not have biological sensors that tell us the state of neurons in our brains. Introspection doesn’t go that far.
More common forms of overt behavior like who someone has sex with, whose presence gives a person an erection, who someone stares at, who someone dates, and, of course, what people say, are usually the best evidence we have for what someone’s sexual orientation is. And it’s usually the best sort of evidence a person has about himself. A male who only dates men, but claims to be bisexual or straight, is probably either very confused about what sexual orientation is or else is not facing the truth about himself, because the overt behavior is stronger evidence than anything the person claims about himself. It’s real. It’s not subject to “denial” or confusion, unlike a claim a person may make about himself.
Sometimes other people can know more about a person’s sexual orientation than one knows about oneself. They may not be “in denial” about you and may thus be better able to understand your behavior for what it really means. Or, perhaps you have participated in a psychological profile study which reveals things about your sexual orientation to the psychologist that you don’t know about yourself. Or, perhaps sometime in the future a doctor will be able to read a brain scan and simply see that you are gay and “in denial” or simply in ignorance.
In the absence of such exotic tests we make do with overt behavior and we would do well to trust it more than anything a person says he’s devined by introspection, whatever that means.