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National Coming out day is more then a step out of the closet by Aongus Burke |
Hermes probably isn't the most appropriate forum for me to make this sort of declaration. Invoking a personal voice, however, serves my purposes well for what is to come. I hope to use this article to give an account of how I have come to arrive at my current sense of what needs to happen culturally and politically in our society before anything resembling equality or liberation for queers could be said to have been achieved. By writing from an avowedly personal perspective, I wish to make clear that I do not represent the queer "community" as a whole. Indeed, since I have not been out to myself for very long, I usually view myself as someone still at the margins of both queer and straight identities. I suppose this might lend some authority to what I have to say to in the eyes of some heterosexuals- perhaps they will conclude that my politics, as yet not thoroughly reoriented by prolonged exposure to gay culture, will still be relevant to mainstream society. While I think there are problems with such a line of reasoning, I just hope people will listen to what I have to say for whatever reason.
Although I had toyed with the idea several times in the past, I only came to realize that I was gay towards the end of my frosh year (I am now a junior). When I first came out to myself, my reaction was largely one of ecstasy. I apologize for using a cliche, but suddenly it all made sense. It's hard for me to adequately explain the power of suddenly tapping into your sexual nature, especially at that late of an age. I realized that I had had sexual feelings for men for a long time, but that I never actually interpreted those feelings as ones of sexual arousal. Over the years I had become pretty good at suppressing most of them. As for the strongest feelings...well, I merely thought they were bizarre- but, again, I rarely even considered the possibility that they were sexual in nature.
Some people may find this hard to believe. In fact, looking back, so do I. I suppose the fact that, prior to Wesleyan, I had gone to Catholic school all my life is of some relevance here. But the importance of my Catholic background would be easy to overemphasize. I did, after all, have sex education in both grammar school and high school. In any event, by the time I was in high school, I had largely rejected Catholicism anyway and by the time I was senior I was an agnostic. My political attitudes, including towards gays, had for a long time been quite liberal. Besides, I was not raised by the Catholic Church alone. The impact of the dominant mass-culture, the same mass-culture that raised just about all of us, was far greater. It is that culture, I believe, that must change.
It wasn't long before my initial ecstasy about coming out to myself gave way to anxious concern. Suddenly I came to realize how difficult it can be to meet people when you're interested in members of the same sex. You can't just flirt with anyone you're attracted to when you're gay. Unless you know the sexuality of the person you are attracted to, coming on to him is, needless to say, rather risky - whether that be the risk of alienating a colleague or getting beat up by a stranger and his friends. When youÕre straight, you simply don't have to worry about this sort of thing. Therefore, it's very easy for me to understand why many gay people are so flamboyant about their sexuality - they don't want potential partners to have to wonder about their sexuality or to be too scared to ask. It's also easy for me to understand why so many gay men are obsessed with sex. Because it's so difficult to meet people, when you do, it's easy to forego the getting acquainted part of the relationship. And, when youÕre that desperate, it's also all too easy to forego being safe.
And I won't hesitate to blame mass-culture for that. I'm normally very reluctant to claim that my values should be everyone's values, to claim that I know what our culture should be. But not this time. Most people accept the basic principle that unless someone's actions are harming others against the latter's will, you them be and you treat them equally. The gay marriage issue aside, I am optimistic that Americans are gradually extending this principle to the activities of gays and lesbians. But the issue doesn't stop at a political level with anti-discrimination laws and legalized gay marriages. Because until the day that gay teenagers interpret their desires for what they are as naturally and fearlessly as straight teenagers do, we won't be treating them equally. Until the day that anyone of any gender can flirt with anyone of any gender, until the day that gays and lesbians don't feel compelled to act according to stereotypes, until the day that gays and lesbians can have the same sorts of choices as heterosexuals do about how they want their relationships to be, gays and lesbians will not be free. And this is why the changes that need to be made must be more than political but cultural too.
Of course, the political and the cultural aren't wholly distinct spheres of the social world. Public schools, for example, are a key site of cultural transmission. Gays and lesbians will have to fight to change reading lists that normalize heterosexual family life at the exclusion of queer lifestyles and we must promote informative, candid, and comprehensive sex education programs. The larger cultural terrain is the real battleground, however. The victories here consist in being out, being visible, and being proud. Unfortunately, the cultural repercussions here may not be as great as those that come with a victory at the local school board and the risks are often much greater. But this makes no mention of the rewards of living out one's life true to oneself, unashamed of the things that matter most.
Those are rewards I'm ready to reap.