Why does secrecy fascinate me?
It must be to do with my decade of closeted-ness followed by years of cringingly and embarrassedly coming out to friends, family and work colleagues.
From the age of 9 or 10 my 'dirty little secret' gradually became my whole sexual identity and lies came like reflexes to protect me from the condemnation and rejection I had been trained to believe would result from its discovery. Ten years of leading a double life. Ten developmentally significant years of keeping the biggest secret ever. What you saw was not what you got! Ten years of blatant lying. Portraying myself not as I was but as I believed others expected me to be. Ten years of damped down spontaneity, growing a false self, a hard crust to defend my true inner core. Ten years of homophobically driven self imposed social sexual isolation. Inured against authenticity and deprived of sexual and emotional intimacy. Despising those who purported to like the sham person I pretended to be. Drawn to those who disliked me. They at least seemed to have a better perspective on what I was all about. What did that 10 years of duplicity and dissimulation do to my sense of integrity? By the age of 20 I’d certainly developed the capacity to be a totally deceitful lying bastard!
Well, not totally-as a good catholic boy I tried my best to be honest about everything else but when it came to my sexuality the truth was nowhere to be seen. And because my lying was all about my sexuality, it meant that not only was lying a deeply central feature of my personality but it also became powerfully eroticised. Lying and being queer had strong associations with each other and were therefore both charged with sexiness and danger.
I’m now in my Thirtieth year of coming out. Being honest with myself and bearing witness to others in various shapes and forms that I will not allow homophobia to intimidate my nature into pretending it is anything other than it is.
However I’ve recently been toying with the idea of redeveloping a secret self (regular readers will know about my totally anonymous blog www.gaysocrates.blogspot.com)
The way I see it is that generally sexuality is a mysterious and private aspect of an individual's personality. If you’re heterosexual you aren’t expected to be explicit and specify to others what your sexual likes, kinks and preferences are. So when we come out we sacrifice a significant aspect of this secrecy, which is the birthright of our straight peers.
I’m not advocating going back into the closet, but if you’ve had years of secrecy sculpting and shaping your identity then the coming out process may have forced some of your private aspects to have been more public than they ought to have been. People shouldn’t be able to access all areas of who you are and it’s really worth discovering your private secret self in a fully conscious way.
Start writing a secret journal or create an anonymous blog where only you have influence over what you write or post.
The danger we all face is that unless we own up to our ignored secret side it has a nasty habit of inhabiting our lives anyway.
This is my column for the November Issue of GSCENE-Secrets and Lies
Excellent post GS. I've always wondered about 'coming out as straight' and why no such thing exists! Do my straight friends go and tell their parents that they like to penetrate girls? Do they disclose their fetishes to them? No.
ReplyDeleteComing out as gay, to me, implies one thing... I take it up the ass! And although this is not necessarily true, that is the association that most straight people make with 'gayness'. Saying "i'm gay" is so deep, and as you've mentioned, those few words disclose so much personal and intimate detail about one's life. This is why I, like many others, find it hard.
Thanks GS. Really great post.
I started a blog to help me come out and talk about all the things people may not want to hear; and to get my thoughts in order too. But one of the nice things about coming out is the ability to be freer about sex and sexuality. I agree there are limits and it’s part of the learning or growing process to discern what can be shared and what can't. Yet I do think it’s good to get things out in the open.
ReplyDeletePreston
ReplyDeleteThanks for your very positive comment! And Mike thanks for yours too.
I came across a great quote yesterday regarding the buggery assumption/obsession which is often in the minds of those you're coming out to:
Most homophobia has absolutely nothing to do with sex. Buggery is far less prevalent in the gay world than people suppose. Anal Sex is probably not much more common in homosexual encounters than it is in heterosexual. Buggery is not at the end of the yellow brick road somewhere over the homosexual rainbow. 'Tis not the prise, the purpose, the goal or the fulfillment of homosexual encounters. Buggery is not the achievement which sees homosexuality moving from becoming into being. Buggery is not homosexuality's realisation or destiny. Buggery is as much a necessary condition of homosexuality as the ownership of a Volvo estate car is a necessary condition of middle class family life linked irretrievable only in the minds of the witless and the cheap. The performance of buggery is no more inevitable a part of homosexuality than an orange syllabub is an inevitable part of a dinner. Some may clamour for it and instantly demand a second helping. Some are not interested. Some will decide that they will try it once and then instantly vomit. There are plenty of other things to be got up to inside the homosexual world outside the orbit of the anal ring. But the concept that really gets the goat of the gay hater, the idea that really spins their melon and sickens their stomach is that most terrible and terrifying of all human notions: LOVE. That one can love another of the same gender. That is what the homophobe really cannot stand.
Stephen Fry
Mike-I'm not really condoning NOT having things out in the open. I'm just acknowledging that coming out kind of bares your soul and puts you in the spotlight in a way our straight brothers and sisters don't have to contend with. Reminds me of the 'Are you STRAIGHT!?' clip you pointed me towards a few month ago.
Maybe one fine day people won't make assumptions about us all being straight -making the uncomfortable need to correct people's assumptions unnecessary
:-)
Love
x
On a more practical note, what are we really expecting other people to whom we supposedly 'come out' to do or say about it? Is there anything reasonable at all for them to say or do about it.
ReplyDeleteIf a person you are coming out to is straight, frankly, he is not really interested. What you do in your bedroom is really your own business. If he is gay, he may be happy that there is someone of his kind around, but again, hardly anyone is actually being helped in any way by such a disclosure.
A guy who finds you attractive will signal his interest, and one thing will lead to another or not as the case may be. In reality, I could not care less, if a guy I am interested in is gay or not. The only thing I would like to know is, if he is interested in me or not.
Last but not least, a significant number of people strongly oppose the idea of wearing your sexuality on your sleeve. Being openly gay for them tends to be a huge turn off. No doubt, there is a big commercial interest vested in promoting the issue of being openly gay. A carefully profiled consumer group is a major marketing resource.
On a more down-to-earth note, no one really cares beyond the superficial gossip, and no one should really care.
GS--You bring up a good point. Do straight kids not conceal their early sexual explorations from their parents?
ReplyDeleteWhat straight kid comes home at the end of the evening to announce to his parents that he's felt up Mary Ann and gotten a finger up her twat? Or announces that he's gotten to third base?--or even that he's finally scored?
Yes his orientation will be taken more or less for granted as straight unless there is an admission or obvious proof to the contrary (and that is a huge difference than for gay boys), but straight boys conceal their early hetero experiences just as carefully as gay ones do from their parents. And depending on family and/or religious taboos, here may be every bit as much guilt involved for the straight teen as for the gay one. Just a thought.
Will
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughtful comment!
What you say about straight kids developing an appropriate sense of discretion about disclosing their sexual encounters to their parents is very true.
But as queer boy who has batted for both sides in the past, I remember the great sense of social inclusion as I worked my way through the bases with my various girlfriends and revealed my exploits to my mates. Quite a contrast to the extreme fear and isolation I felt at the possibility of being discovered sneaking a peek at the guys when we were showering. No shared camaraderie there! The only other possible gay guys I might have shared my proclivities with were more obviously gay then me and were having the shit beaten out of them by my straight mates!
:-)
The straight acting experience felt so very different from if I'd tried to do the same with boys hence the engendered deceit to friends and self.
All the best!
Love
GS