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Diaryland
Being gay (1) 2004-02-22 @ 9:42 a.m.
Today I'm going to talk about probably the most difficult challenge that I have faced in my life: being gay. My intention is not to whine, so much as to sort things together for myself so that I can make sense of them. And perhaps, in doing so, I might educate someone else along the way. This isn't really a "coming-out story" in that I'm not totally out or totally 100% comfortable with being gay yet. Part of this also is a review of all the research that's been done on sexual orientation.
If you asked me when I started being gay, I couldn't really pin it down for you. I'm not really sure to tell you the truth. Science has determined that sexual orientation is pretty much fixed by age 5 at the latest, if not at birth or in the womb. Not in the sense that 5 year olds experience sexuality, but the hardware or software is in place, and kids begin to exhibit traits and admirations that are correlated with their sexuality. One of the things that has been found again and again is that children who will grow up to be gay or lesbian tend to engage in play that is more typical for the opposite gender and tend to have friends of the other sex instead of their own. I can tell you this was true for me. I really despised sports and aggressive exercise with a passion. It was not only difficult, but unenjoyable. I had friends who were guys, but as I got older I tended to have more friends that were girls, who I also related to easier. I got lonely often on the playground, because I loved to play pretend or jump rope but I was very aversive to sports so the guys kind of avoided me. I've always wanted to spend more time with the guys, but I've always felt so different from them as far as attitudes, behavior, interests, etc.
Central to the big controversy over gay rights and such is a belief about whether being gay is a choice or not. Alongside this, the two sides in the debate similarly tend to look at it as being either an identity or a behavior. To me, it is and is not a choice. Being queer is fixed in the sense that you don't choose who you are or are not attracted to. Whether you are attracted to men, women, or both, is a part of your biological, mental, emotional, and perhaps even spiritual makeup. The choice lies in whether you choose to accept your sexuality or deny it. Whether you act on the desire or not. Sometimes, I've envied bisexual people because they could theoretically choose to negate one half of their sexuality and still have an outlet for romantic happiness. But if you think about it, that isn't really true, because you fall in love with whoever you fall in love with. And if your perfect match, soulmate, whatever you want to call it, happens to be of your own gender,its not like you can abandon that in hopes that an opposite gendered version will come along. Attraction is general, but I think love is very specific. So this comes back to the question of what happens if a gay guy denies his feelings. The truth is that this does not make him straight - he is merely pretending to be so. If homosexual behavior is all you can see, than perhaps this meets your definition of what is "normal" or "healthy". But if you really care about that person as an individual, you have to look deeper and realize that this person is in a romantic catch-22.
If a guy is really only attracted to men, than he cannot find romantic fulfillment with a woman. Trying to force a romance not only hurts the gay guy, but it hurts the woman he has to be with, because he will not be able to fulfill her. Add marriage and children into the stituation and things become even more heartbreaking. There are a lot of gay men who became convinced that if they could just marry and raise a traditional family, than their sexuality would cease to make itself known. But truth is, as good as friendships can be, physical attraction is required to found a romance.
Now, I will admit that the Kinsey studies show it is rare to find someone who is 100% homosexual or heterosexual in orientation. According to these results, almost everyone is bisexual to a very small degree. You might say that most people are 99% gay or straight, and that 100% either way is as rare as someone who is perfectly 50/50 bisexual. Theoretically, you could have "Kissing Jessica Stein" scenarios(straight person falls in love with someone of their own sex) or "Chasing Amy" scenarios (gay person falls in love with someone of the opposite sex). I would say, though, that such things are based on a rare compatibility of personality that is so strong it trasncends gender and sexuality. They are spontaneous and cannot be forced. And in addition, you have to understand that this doesn't change the person's basic sexual orientation. In fact, of the few relationships like these that you hear about, the person continues to identify as straight even though they are in a gay relationship, or as gay even though they are in a stright relationship. I wonder too if such relationships really do have physical attraction in them, or if the emotional attraction is so strong it kind of substitutes for it.
The thing we should ask is, who are we to put constrictions on who people can or can't fall in love with? Love breaks all the rules - people don't have a choice over who they fall in love with. Its destiny, or probability if you want to be a cynic. Even if someone being "100% gay" is rare, does that mean we should tell all the people who aren't absolutely gay that who they fall in love with is only acceptable 1% of the time? If we have the good fortune to meet someone who fulfills us on every level,who are we to throw them back? Not only have we lost someone wonderful who we could have deeply loved, but the chances of finding someone like that again that is of the opposite gender is slim, or even non-existant.
Its worth mentioning too that many people believe that a certain amount of bias crept into these studies, and that the "everyone is a little bit bi" theorem is just not true. It would make sense, because gay people in particular would have felt an enormous pressure not to identify as 100% gay. Although, alongside that is the fact that straight people are afraid to admit even the slightest bit of homosexual attraction. And of course, people have difficulty seperating behavior from orientation. Because of that, a straight person who had a gay experience or a gay person who had a straight experience might incorporate that into their estimates of their sexuality. Very complex and confusing stuff to say the least!
You can understand then, why there's a good amount of people who just choose not to identify any particular way - no labels. Many people who identify themselves as bisexual are also of this line of thinking. For all practical purposes, they are gay or straight, but they deliberately choose to identify as bi so that, if they ever did fall in love with someone atypical to their orientation, they wouldn't dismiss it for the sake of a label. Most sexologists believe true bisexuality to be very rare; some even believe it doesn't exist. But, as you see, someone who identifies as bisexual could be more free in many respects than someone locked into being straight or gay.
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"Details in the Fabric" - May 31, 2009
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The Morning Stars - Lords of the 15 - April 9, 2009
Sincerity and Faith in Magic - April 10, 2009
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