I don’t understand why. Whether he has a (or many) partner(s) or not, and what gender this or those partner(s) might be is indeed nobody’s business. The fact that he’s willing to share memories of his childhood (or say what is his prefered drink, or whatever) in no way means that he has any sort of obligation to say anything about his sex life.
Some people put a lot of value in their privacy, especially wrt to their romantic/sex life. There’s no reason a celebrity couldn’t feel the same. Maybe he also hope that if he doesn’t discuss it himself, journalists will respect his attitude and will avoid disclosing informations about his private life. He doesn’t need to be ashamed to feel that way. He just has to be irritated by the idea that Joe Public thinks he has a right to know what happens in his bedroom or to want his private life and his public life to be as strictly separated as possible.
Maybe. And he can expect too that if he answers “it’s none of your business” they’ll stop asking.
Knowing someone in real life isn’t at all the same as having read someone’s book. Besides, do you often ask people you know in real life what is their marital status or their sexual preferences? I typically don’t. that’s the kind of thing that generally end coming up in a conversation, when you’ve known someone for some time. And if I asked, I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if the other person wasn’t willing to tell.
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Can I ask what makes you think this? Does it mean for instance that all posters who ever shared something about their life on the dope should be willing to say everythingabout their life too? If I write about rearing my kid, am I expected to tell on request whether I prefer to fuck blonde guys of red-haired chicks and how much money there is on my bank account? (good example, by the way : do you think he should also tell how much he makes? And if he doesn’t want to tell would you find it surprising too? Why or why not?)
Frankly, that’s a weird expectation.
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Call it whatever you want. Discussing one’s sexuality, discussing one’s romantic life, discussing one’s private life. It doesn’t matter. Some people don’t think it’s any of their neighbors/coworkers business. Some celebrities thinks that whether they have a partner or not and who he is isn’t any of the public’s business either. No difference.
You stated yourself that you have no clue about whether he is gay or not. So, why would you assume this to be relevant?
And even if he actually didn’t want to discuss his romantic life out of misplaced sense of guilt, it still wouldn’t be any of the public’s business.
And for all you, maybe he isn’t telling for family-related reason, as another poster stated, or he is solely into shoe fetichism and never had any partner, or he’s into a decadent lifestyle and change partner every other day. Or maybe he’s always been living in perfect bliss with his high school love and just don’t want the medias and the public to enter his happy romantic bubble. Doesn’t matter. It’s his choice and there’s nothing weird about it.
There is also the factor of affecting the income of others who count on you for their jobs.
Lance Bass of N’Sync mentioned that one thing holding him back from coming out publicly was his worry about how it would affect the group, and possibly hurt the other guys in the band. Plus all of the other employees who were employed by them on tours, recordings, etc.
Why do you get to define what areas are part of his personal life? Shouldn’t he define that? Isn’t he defining that? If he shared the name of the town he grew up in or his mother’s meatloaf recipe (haven’t paid any attention to the man, so I have no idea what he’s said/written) then that is, by logic, no longer his “personal” life. It’s now part of his “public” life because he’s shared it with the public, and his “professional” life, if he used the information to sell something (including his persona). If it is something he refuses to share, it’s not part of his “public” or “professional” lives; it’s part of his personal life.
Do we have any evidence he doesn’t expect people to feel like they can ask about other things? Has he gone berserk or sued someone for asking him if he’s gay? (I have no idea, honestly, that’s a real question.)
Well, no, because Ellen is a terrible, terrible actress. She’s a lovely talk show host, and comes across as a genuinely nice person…but she’s a horrible actress. I mean, in hindsight, it was obvious this moviewas her trying to tell us something, because it wasn’t about showcasing her talents as a thespian.
Rupert Everett could romance a street lamp and I’d believe it. The man just oozes sens/sexuality, with no particular vibe one way or the other for me. He’s invisible on my gaydar.
So, to be clear, you think it’s perfectly normal for someone to be so private they won’t even state whether they’re dating someone or what their sex is? This isn’t a rhetorical or snarky question, I genuinely would like you to clarify that you think that’s a reasonable and normal response from a person. I’ve made clear that I don’t, and why, but I have also said someone is entirely entitled to use it. My analogy of the fifth amendment stands: if someone gives that in court do you think anything other than “hiding something”?
That’s incorrect. He has done this enough times and it not be successful to show it’s not a strategy that will work.
My point wasn’t that we knew Cooper personally, or any celebrity, I was saying in the context of a real life interaction with a person that YOU know, would that response be normal?
I don’t agree with this - I think, and my own personal experiences have shown, it’s a very basic and perfectly normal question to ask when getting to know someone. Your other comparison about asking how much money he earns is a false analogy, unless you can credibly argue that in our (western) culture asking someone outright how much they earn is a normal and reasonable question that you would ask to a celebrity in the same was as a regular person. I contend it isn’t for the UK or the US, but in Sweden it’s something people would probably not think is a personal question do to their culture of openness regarding personal information.
Again, non-rhetorically, I ask whether you don’t ask someone who you’re getting to know if they have a partner or family? Or, alternatively, if they don’t volunteer the information readily (particularly around children which for parents is a bonding conversation). You can continue to insist that it’s a question that should be considered personal enough for someone not to want to answer at all, but I would respond by saying that the fact we’re even having this discussion shows how uncommon a position it is to take.
This is another false analogy: we are not celebrities; we are posting anonymously; the medium we are posting in means we can only ever say what we want to say (to the point of our existence as posters might not even be known if we don’t post anything) and; we’re not making any money out of our posts. My point was about how celebrities will trade off their public position, and if they do that they have to expect that people will ask them about things that they don’t want necessarily to talk about. If you have sold your personal life you can’t then say others don’t own a piece.
To take another example of someone who attempted to do this that I think illustrates my point, Madonna gained a huge amount of fame and consequently money from being very open about her private life in the 80s and 90s. Talking explicitly about sex, her sexual orientation, her partners etc as well as making big displays in public that underscored all of these. This changed when she had children, and she attempted to invoke a right to family privacy for their sake. As much as I understand why she did that, I can’t see how she could given what she had done before. As much as you don’t seem to like the idea, her private life had been publicly traded for years and this new information was as much in the public domain as the other things she had set through precedent. Again, she was under no obligation to tell anyone anything about her children, but to not expect people to want to know or seek information (like pictures, gossip) is naive and pretty hypocritical. Had she decided to withdraw from public life entirely for her children’s sake then that would have been a better application of the desire to keep her life private, but given only a few years later she was doing magazine interviews in the UK with pictures of her smiling family (again for money and her profile) I think she undermined her own position.
Do you see the point I’m making here? Do you agree with it?
I’ve made clear above why I think celebrities and a regular person are not equivalent in this respect. The difference is if someone is famous for something (say as a singer) but consistently never discusses their personal life at all, in which case it would be understandable for them to use that line. Someone who is a celebrity, that is in the public eye for what we know about them as much as anything else (Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton) has zero right to privacy in the same way that a model can’t suddenly decide they don’t like the idea of being in all these pictures and everyone who owns an image of them must destroy it because it belongs to them.
Again, do you see my point and do you agree?
I didn’t say I have no clue, I said I didn’t know. The balance of probabilities is towards gay for me simply by virtue of how he is so evasive and secretive on this topic which, as I’ve said, I’ve never encountered from straight men. With regard to it being relevant - I don’t know quite what you mean. It makes no difference to me either way if Cooper is straight or gay unless he’s in a relationship with me. I’m not proposing that for “the good of the cause” all gay people come out, I’m simply trying to illustrate how the approach that someone like Cooper has taken isn’t helping him and it’s less good than simply being open. In the case of Luke Evans who was openly gay before he started getting bigger roles but then went back into the closet and now refers to that openness as a mistake, it is of course completely his choice. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that that is a horrific life to have to live for him and it sets an awful precedent for all the other gay people out there. Again, this would never be expected of a straight person. I personally am not willing to brush that aside saying it’s his choice when the evolution of his position shows that it clearly isn’t, at some point he’s been told he has to do this to be successful and so it’s not entirely his own choice so much as a Hobson’s choice.
I agree with that, but it doesn’t change anything else I’ve said. A celebrity might feel guilty about an affair they’ve had, it doesn’t mean people won’t ask them about it.
For the final time, yes it’s his choice, but no it is weird, despite you insisting otherwise.
I think I’ve answered this in my response to clairobscur, but your question about who am I to define what is or isn’t person: in short I’m not anyone, I’m simply opining. However if I think this there must be other people who do as well, so it’s not so much that I must be satisfied by what he does rather than I represent one view point which is not satisfied.
Not that I’m aware of and I don’t care enough to research it. If he had this would be an entirely different discussion. Again, it remains his choice as long as he accepts people are increasingly :rolleyes: every time he gives his response to those questions.
And I don’t have a problem with opining. I don’t agree with your logic trap that if he discussed his mother, he has discussed his personal life, and therefore to say he doesn’t discuss his personal life is incorrect. I think if he discusses something with the public, it is not his personal life, by definition.
He discussed his mother. His mother is part of his public life. He does not discuss his partner(s). His partner(s) are part of his personal life. No contradiction.
It seems like we’re not defining things the same way - I would consider someone’s parents/family as part of their personal life, not their public life. Therefore I do see a contradiction.
Can you explain your reasoning as to why someone’s parents are public but their partner/children are not?
Because the someone in question has made the choice to define it that way. Because I’m being something of a stubborn pedant over the words “personal” and “public”.
Look, I do see what you’re saying, I just don’t think we have any right to any information an entertainer doesn’t want to share. And I think if they choose to keep it personal, then it’s ipso facto personal. Whatever he’s said about his mom isn’t personal, because he’s made it public. If there are other things about his mom he won’t talk about, those things are personal. It’s not all or nothing, and the only workable system I can think of is to let people define their boundaries for themselves. I just can’t fathom any reason why any of us need to know whether Anderson Cooper likes cock or cunt or his right hand best. Absent a reason to know, and present his obvious reluctance to talk about it, it’s rude to push the issue.
And to answer your other question to clairobscur, “So, to be clear, you think it’s perfectly normal for someone to be so private they won’t even state whether they’re dating someone or what their sex is?”: Yes, I think it’s within the realm of normal human behavior to not share information about one’s dating or sex life with people who don’t need to know it. I don’t know the sexual orientation of every person I talk to. I don’t know the sexual orientation of some of my clients, even, and I have a few actual friends I’m uncertain of. Unless I want to date them, it’s irrelevant whether they’re gay, straight, bi or asexual.
I believe you’re gay, right? If I’m not confusing you with another poster, I’m pretty sure you’re the gay British guy who wants to be an adult movie actor…that’s pretty much 1000X more open about your sexuality than most people are. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that (I’m pretty open about my own sexuality on this board too), but don’t mistake your own preference for the default preference. Most people are a bit more private, and some of them are indeed a lot more private.
And I’m being a stubborn pedant demanding objective reasoning for your definitions
I see what you’re saying too, and I want to be clear that I’m NOT saying that people are obliged to information about celebrities in the same way that someone who buys something is now its legal owner (which would be ridiculous). Of course ANYONE can refuse to discuss ANYTHING, it’s entirely up to them. But, ANYONE can ask ANYONE to tell them ANYTHING should they so wish, and if that person does so in a way that seems secretive it throws up further questions. It’s utterly Cooper’s choice in this case, or whoever else’s in theirs.
Phew - I think we’ve tangented too much here, the original question was if coming out would kill your career or not, not whether people should come out for their own credibility (which is where we seem to have ended up). My debating society would be ashamed of me. Well, they would be if they were real of course.
Yes you’re right on the button about me, you pagan hippie wiccan lady type (I think I need to abandon the dreams of being in adult movies though, just planning to direct them now.) However you have stretched a little what I was proposing from what it was intended to be - it’s a regular and normal thing for people to ask about marital/romantic/family relationships in real life - to a seeming position of “everyone should disclose a lot of information about themselves up front”.
To context, I work with someone who never talks about his private life and in the few times when there has ever been a reference to some kind of person at all it has always been in completely gender neutral terms. The guy had a baby and didn’t tell anyone, and disappeared for two weeks whilst we wondered what had happened to him and if he was okay. Whilst it’s his right to do that it’s fucking weird. Add to that the fact that everyone who meets him thinks he’s a seriously repressed 'mo and I’m left with my original point above which is that only people who feel they need to hide something seem to think there’s a problem with discussing what the vast majority of us think is unremarkable information.
Whilst I am happy to be upfront about my sexuality, I would myself be a bit surprised if someone volunteered straight after you met them about their relationship status (we’ve discussed on this board the phenomenon of women seeming to need to mention their husband/boyfriend to men they meet even when it’s not relevant to the conversation, suggesting some kind of hang up about it or to point out they’re off limits). But then, again, it is a normal question - I was out with friends a few weeks ago and was introduced to someone who was talking to me about my plans to relocate countries in the near future, and he asked if I had a girlfriend that I was moving to or leaving behind. That seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to ask, it would after all be why a lot of people move to another country, or a reason why they might want not to if they were leaving someone. I didn’t consider it outing myself to say “no I don’t, I’m gay”, because it’s a well known fact by anyone who knows me (single though I am).
There is a point in all this, and it’s what I said above about the best approach to being gay in Hollywood is not to explode out of the closet waving a rainbow flag but simply to mention the gender pro-noun of your partner when discussing them in exactly the same way as if you’re heterosexual, they don’t need to be any different.
I’ve gotten the impression that she could see herself with him, too. Lots of people have exceptions to their usual preferences. Hell, I might make an exception for 1983 Tom Selleck, and he’s a Republican! :eek:
I’m bored to death and unimpressed by ‘pussy hounds’ and constant news of their ability to score with the lalllllddeeeeez - ‘Joe Blow spotted with new bikini babe in Malibu!’. Yawn. That’s so…trying too hard, announcing to the world how hetero he is. If, say, George Clooney announced he swings both ways, it only makes him more interesting and wouldn’t affect my feelings for him as a romantic lead at all. Because, after all, his car ain’t gonna be pulling up in my driveway anytime soon. No use mooning over what theoretically could be, I’m not naive enough to fantasize about GC gettin’ with me as his latest arm candy.
(I think I need to abandon the dreams of being in adult movies though, just planning to direct them now.) However you have stretched a little what I was proposing from what it was intended to be - it’s a regular and normal thing for people to ask about marital/romantic/family relationships in real life - to a seeming position of “everyone should disclose a lot of information about themselves up front”.