Well, for a while… how can I put this? I knew, but I didn’t know I knew. I thought about “what it would be like to be gay” and asked people if they had a girlfriend or a boyfriend and things. Looking back, I realize I had sexual thoughts about men, and looked at gay porno on the net, and was attracted to other boys at school. But I didn’t know I was gay; didn’t put two and two together, so to speak.
I finally realized that I’m gay around Christmas of 1996. I had a dream where I saved a classmate from a bully, and when I woke up things finally clicked. Matt = gay.
With few exceptions, most of the reactions have been really good. My mom in fact said, Well, I kind of figured. She took it well when I came out to her, with a little obligatory Mom-style handwringing (oh, I worry about you in such an intolerant world, etc., etc.) but hey, worrying about me is her job.
My dad took a little while to wrap his head around the concept (“Gee, I wish I had a boyfriend.” “Or girlfriend! Remember to leave your options open.”)
I came out to my aunt and her family on Thanksgiving of 1998. My aunt was kvelling about how it was my cousin’s amd her husband’s first Thanksgiving with the family as a married couple, so I said, “Speaking of long-term relationships, I’m going out with a guy called Tom.” Everyone went quiet, then Aunt Dianne said, “OK! Who wants pie?” Later, she came to me and told me that she thought I was very brave to have said that. And I had a long talk with my other cousin explaining it. And then when I went to visit Aunt Dianne and Uncle Rod around New Year’s when I was in Toronto visiting my then-boyfriend Matt, we stayed up until midnight talking about it, me doing that little education bit. It was really good.
WB: What Hastur means is that mainstream/straight society often characterizes homosexuals – esp. men – as amoral, slutty, loose people who will do “it” anywhere, anytime, anyway with anybody of the same persuasion. Sure, there are gay men who act this way; and there are plenty more straight men who do, too.
So Hastur meant (I think) that the perception of a man as masculine/feminine has no more to do with his sexuality than the perception of “sluttiness” has to do with homosexuality.
I know more femme gay men than femme straight men, but I think it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. My guess is that there are similar numbers of gay and straight femme guys; it’s just that once a femme gay man comes out, he enters a space where it’s allowed (or at least safer) to express his femmeness, whereas the same is less true for straight men. For example, one femme straight guy I know is a gamer nerd who hangs out with gay men all the time, and the other one runs in an alternative subculture (semi-punk-Pagan), so that femmeness is the least of his worries. In other words, they were in environments that didn’t compel them as much as others to be macho, so they got to express their femmeness. If straight guys weren’t as expected as they are to be butch, more of them would be femme.
I’m one of those people who’s always known they’re gay. My very earliest sexual feelings were about boys; I was much more fascinated by a naked Ken doll than naked Barbie doll. My dad played pro sports and as a kid I would occasionally get sent into the locker room to get the car keys or something (I’m the only other male in the family) and the nudity of the men would just absolutely freak me the hell out. It was a very visceral, instinctive thing. Female nudity (sisters, my dad’s Playboys, the time I accidentally saw my mom, etc.) never had the same effect on me.
Then my parents sent me, at 11, to an all-boys boarding school. This was how I learned that I was different, and that the world had a name for people like me. As you can imagine, the pejorative use of words like “gay” and “fag” was an everyday thing in such a place. And being an all-male environment, a certain defensiveness, I believe, made the other boys’ protestations a persecutions all the more vehement and virulent.
The boarding school I went to for highschool was co-ed. In this environment, I developed close friendships with girls; relationships in which I was able to honest about myself. But I still dormed with boys, and was therefore forced to continue to “live a lie.” I came out to only one male in highschool, my (surprise) drama teacher, who later disappeared in the night after being accused of fondling the custest boy on campus.
I didn’t “come out” until I was living on my own in Chicago, at 19.
[More than you asked for, but the span between realization and announcement is somehow relevant, I think, to the question.]
Correct. The gender stereotyping also has been pissing me off big time lately. I’m getting married to the excellent and intelligent man in my life. We’ve had waaaay too many people(non-gay) saying: which one of you is the bride? Dorks.
Neither of us are the damn bride. Gay people, for the most part, do not role play masculine feminine roles in their relationships in this day and age. While there was a different dichotomy in the pre-Stonewall era, gay men no longer have to fulfill a copy of a heterosexual relationship model.
Though this did irk me at Target that for their wedding registry that they have bride and groom… not groom and groom or bride and bride. So, my wonderful soon to be husband is now listed as the bride. Damn good of him.
Hmmm. I understand what you’re saying: a gay men who has come out is likely be more comfortable behaving in a “feminine” way if he is so inclined; whereas a straight man (or a closeted gay man) who is inclined to behave in a “feminine” way might tend to suppress it. And if society didn’t look down on “feminine” characteristics in men, more men, gay or straight, might become more comfortable with themselves and less suppressed – in many ways.
For the most part I think this is probably true (though not universally so), because our society does tend to stereotype feminine-acting men as gay, whether or not they are, and this is perceived as a detriment. But you’re right; there is an conundrum here. There are a lot of gay men (out or not) who are not inclined to behave in a “feminine” way – and if they aren’t openly gay, then they don’t stand out as non-stereotypical because the stereotype makes them invisible.
This can be an advantage if you’re closeted; and frustrating as hell if you’re out because you’re constantly challenging people’s expectations of how you “should be”. (Hastur’s last post frames this nicely.) Hastur Congratulations on your impending nuptials. And condolences on the stupidity and insensitivity of the straight people around you who just don’t get it. I think a lot of straight couples might do better if they stopped worrying about filling gender roles and started supporting one another in whatever way was needed. That, in my opinion, is what people who love one another do.
I had crushes on other boys in grade school all the time. I remember them as far back as grade 2 or so. When I was about 11, I had this big honking epiphany–“That’s what’s going on! I’m gay!”–and then promptly stomped on it as hard as I could. When you’re a middle-school boy in the suburbs ‘gay’ is a notch or two below, um, everything else.
I spent the next 10 years or so trying to convince myself that it was a phase, that I just hadn’t met the right girl, et cetera. During college I even sustained a 4-year, deeply furtive and unhealthy affair with another closet case without shaking my fundamental desire to be ‘normal.’ I was convinced that family and friends would hate me and I’d end up–what? I don’t know, but it would have been somehow unhappier than I already was.
And then I got tired of waking up and wishing I had died in my sleep, so I came out.
Mom cried at first because she thought it meant I’d be dead of AIDS within a week. But later she said that she had known deep down all along, and now she marches with PFLAG. Dad revealed that he had secretly been a Zen master all his life and scarcely batted an eyelash. He says that he hadn’t had a clue. My friends, whether or not they had figured it out ages and ages before (the affair wasn’t as furtive as we had thought), all still love me.
Yay! Happy ending. I count my blessings all the time because we all know others who weren’t so fortunate. And now I’m on Ask the Gay Guy!
[Clearly, this is how to bring the lurkers out of the woodwork. Get 'em to blab about themselves. Nice to be here…]
I guess I fit into the “non-stereotypical gay male” (as society as a whole sees gay men) role. I remember my friend Mike saying that because I am hardly feminine at all, he feels that i’m going to have a harder time with people when they find out i’m gay than I would have if I were feminine. I’m not sure if I agree fully or not, but I can see what he’s talking about. His reasoning was, because I am hardly feminine or stereotypical, it was a bigger shock for him when I came out than it was for him when he heard about our friend Dave. It is somewhat amusing to me when dopers tell me they can hardly tell i’m gay just by meeting me.
It’s probably a good thing, however, because it helps people to see that the steretypes are just that, stereotypes. But I hate to think that some in the gay community might accuse me of trying to be “straight acting” or what not.
From the second Gay Guy thread:
Well, Esprix, I think I agree here with you. If I were forced to choose, i’d pick masculine over “straight acting”. To me, the term “straight acting” implies to people that you’re trying to not look “gay”. But yes, “masculine” smacks of our male-dominated society. But, what do the labels really mean anyway? I know many very feminine women who are less of a sissy than some “masculine” guys I know. So, even masculine men can be big wusses.
Well, thing is, he never replied to anyone except privately, and he kept up his stupid opinion. So, basically everyone pounded their heads repeatedly against a nail studded wall :). So, i think the only thing he learned was, if he didnt want to get flamed for his lame opinions, he had better not post to the school’s message board.
Anyway, I think I underestimated my school’s student body acceptance of gays and lesbians. It makes me quite happy to think that for such a small school, there’s a large pool of support (even if online) by students.
The whole butch/femme thing is a minefield in our society. One understands that stereotyped sexual roles are confining, and that boys can be nurturing and women can be warriors. I heartily endorse everyone’s inclinations to be who they need to be. Zeus knows that’s what i want for myself.
However, I don’t think it’s interalzing homophobia to describe myself as straight-acting or masculine. I’m as gay and as out as it is possible to be, but I have always thought of myself as a manly guy. I am only attracted to manly, butch men. I mean, if I wanted to sleep with women, I’d be straight.
So, I support and applaud the courage of Radical Faeris to be open, but I would ask that Esprix and the PC gay folk do not bust on me because I dig lumberjacks.
Well, if someone does, it’s his own insecurity at work, nothing to do with you. Some people can’t be happy with themselves even after they come out; and so they resent someone who seems well-adjusted.
I am not particularly sterotypical either, so it comes as a surprise to some when they learn that I am gay but not in any bad way. It doesn’t really make it harder for me to be accepted. If anything, my friends (old and newer) just think of me as a guy who happens to like other guys instead of women. It is harder for me in one sense: because I don’t stand out as obviously gay, it is more difficult to meet someone in a (presumably) mixed, non-exclusively-gay environment, like my neighborhood bar and so on. But that’s a different issue.
To answer vanilla’s question: I knew since I was a teenager (maybe earlier) that I liked boys, but never really gave it much thought. As another poster mentioned, I realized in middle school that the last thing one wanted was to be labelled “gay”, “fag”, “fairy” etc. Boys use these as insults even before they really know or think about what they mean. With environmental reinforcements like that, it’s hardly surprising that I never dwelled on why I found myself “drawn” to certain boys/young men, and not to girls. Eventually it began to dawn on me that this was something real, not going to go away; so at some point I stopped being in “denial” and was just “closeted”. And hadn’t done anything to explore this.
It was only after I finished college and grad school and was living entirely on my own (age 25!) that I finally worked up the nerve to go out and meet someone. After a time I had a few gay friends, and a series of short relationships – all the while still keeping this separate from the “rest of my life”.
Then gradually I came out to my close friends, one by one. The first step was the hardest, but as I went along I discovered something interesting: it was a bigger deal to me than to them. Some weren’t surprised, others were but not in a negative way; and they were all quite supportive and recognized how hard it must have been for me to “come out” to them. It was like this huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders; I realized how much energy I had expended trying to keep my secrets, and how tiring that was. Finally I told my parents – and I committed one of the cardinal sins of coming out: I told them on Easter Sunday. I had just had a bad break-up that Friday; there was no way I could pretend that I was OK – not to my mother – and if I didn’t tell her the truth, I knew she would think of something much, much worse to worry about.
Strangely enough, my parents reactions were the opposite of what I would have guessed: Mom was visibly upset, crying, saying “Don’t tell your father, he won’t understand”. Then she went and told him herself, later; his response was, “Well, I don’t understand this sort of thing, but as long as you’re happy and healthy, that’s all that matters to me.” Not that Mom felt differently, but it took her longer to come to terms with it, for two reasons: (1) I wasn’t (she thought) going to have the kind of life she had envisioned for me (not because it disappointed her, but because she was wondering, “Who will take care of you when you’re older?”); and (2) she knew that being gay wasn’t a choice, that it was innate, and she felt that somehow she was to blame for it. I responded in this way: (1) my life wasn’t going to be so different, I told her; I don’t intend to spend it alone, I plan to settle down with someone. And (2): nobody is to blame. “It’s not about blame; it’s not even about you, Mom. I’m not unhappy with myself, and part of the reason I can say that is because you and Dad raised me to be that way, not to care what other people think or how they want me to be.”
I feel badly for all the men out there who come out and don’t have such a supportive environment. Or those whose environments taught them self-loathing long before they came out. It doesn’t necessarily get easier once you come out.
The only friend who had an issue with my coming out was my longest-term friend. Apparently, other people had often thought he was gay because of his somewhat effeminate mannerisms – including his wife, when she first met him. And here I was, his friend of 15+ years, whom no one ever suspected was gay. I think he felt it was… unfair, somehow. But that was less about me personally and more about his own insecurities.
Now I don’t bother to hide it. I don’t make a point of telling people either, because I generally don’t share personal information about myself with casual acquaintances, but I don’t care who figures it out. I know who my real friends are, and that’s all that matters. My yardstick for is: “If I were straight, would I do/talk about this-or-that?” If the answer is “yes”, then I speak/act accordingly and don’t apologize for being myself. This is my way of making sure I’m not holding back just because I’m gay.
Dear gay guys
I was told by some church people that the schools are now required to teach about homosexuality, starting in grade school (which is a good thing, since folks who don’t understand something only know of what they hear from prejudiced people).
These “church people” say that this is a form of “indoctrination”, as if the teachers are teaching these kids that you might want to try to be gay.
This is ridiculous!
But I am curious, do they even mention homosexuality in school (say health class?)
Not in “my day”. I graduated high school in 1984, so I don’t know if there have been any changes.
This whole idea of “indoctrination” is so damned frustrating. I don’t understand why it is so hard to grasp that homosexuality is innate, not learned. The perception that homosexuality is something that people “choose” stems from the fact that society forces us to suppress who we are until we can handle coming out, at whatever age that happens to be. Or never. Another Catch-22… so why on earth would someone choose to put him/herself through this if s/he didn’t have to?
I can understand, if not agree with, objections to sexuality education in general, but not specific objections to education about homosexuality. Indoctrination? God forbid we should teach tolerance, acceptance and self-awareness. Where would our society be then?
It DOES seem that religion has a problem with homosexuality.
MAybe they are so intent on breeding, or the belief that man+woman is somehow godlier than otherwise.
I think we need Less breeeding for this crowded world myself.
No, no, no - we’re not talking about somehow curbing your likes or dislikes, we’re merely talking semantics - “straight-acting” vs. “masculine” vs. “butch.” “Straight-acting” has a homophobic edge to it; “masculine” has a sexist bent to it; and “butch” is just, well… butch. In fact, given matt’s dissertation on it, I’m leaning towards using that even over “masculine.”
So, hey, like what you like (I mean, I even like cowboys). But ask yourself, do you like men who are “straight-acting,” “masculine,” or “butch?” Why? Do you see a difference between them?
The attempt to differentiate “straight-acting,” “masculine,” and “butch” mystifies me. I don’t want a man who is pretending to be something he’s not. I also think the hyper-masculinity of the leather subculture is silly; I mean, what sane person walks around in a leather harness?
I prefer men who are themselves, not effeminate, not hyper-butch, but just regular guys. I often feel that I have a lot more in common with straight guys than I do with most gay men. I hate disco and freakin’ Madonna, I don’t know or care about fashion, I prefer a good book and a cup of tea over nightclubbing, I don’t smoke or do drugs, and I like sports.
