Queer

Part One: My Lifestyle

I've danced around this topic numerous times, and while I don't want this blog go the way of the Ellen sitcom, (as I mentioned in a previous entry), I think it's time I tackle this one head on, and then be done with it. I was inspired by a fellow blogger I follow. You should really pay him a visit, his blog is both interesting and entertaining, as well as insightful and well-written. I intend this to be my part of a conversation I would like to start with him.

To some, and especially to those who don't know me, this might sound like a pity-party, a woe-is-me, my-life-is-harder-than-yours sorrow piece. It's not. I had a hard time growing up, but many children have had far harder. I experienced pain, but I also had a loving family who tried to help. Not everyone has that much. I also know be grateful for running water, heat, air conditioning, and a roof over my head. I didn't want for much, so I'm not looking for anybody to feel sorry for me. I sure has hell don't. So as I write about whatever struggles I may have had, please know that I realize how much better I had it than the majority of the world.

I'm not doing this to prove a point, but rather to disprove a few. I'm probably not going to say anything you haven't heard before, but maybe I will. I hope just to say it from the perspective of someone who grew up gay, and who spent the majority of his adult life convincing himself that it was not an affliction, not a curse, and not a thing over which I should feel guilty.

I'm going to write this in three parts. This first entry is about the notion that homosexuality is a lifestyle - or worse, a lifestyle choice. In my second part I'll discuss my thoughts on gay marriage, and lastly I'll discuss my stance on homosexuals raising children. I feel that each of these topics lends itself to the next. I intend to point out how in the desires to live a productive life, get married, and finally to pass on one's knowledge and experience on to offspring are not desires that exist solely within those who find the opposite sex attractive. To think otherwise is nothing short of dehumanizing.

With that said, let's begin with this lifestyle I've chosen.

Let's begin with the assumption this was my choice, my decision to make. I was a male growing up in the South, who spent two years in a Southern Baptist school, and heard derogatory gay jokes from my closest family and friends on a regular basis. What would my reaction be? Logically, I would chose a gay lifestyle, right? Surely this wouldn't affect (or cause me to fear an effect on) my relationships with everyone I love. No, of course not - I could expect this thing happening to me that doesn't appear to be happening to anyone else around me to be understood and accepted immediately and universally. Why not chose this? It's fun to be different!

Unfortunately, no. I was years and years away from discovering that my being gay was for no one else to accept but me. The desire to fit in to society and be accepted is a basic human need. For some of us, the painful illusion is that acceptance will be denied us by everyone we hold dear. We believe our family may disown us and our friends may disappear. Sadly enough, for many it's not at all an illusion. I've known more than one gay person who has lost nearly everyone he or she has loved because they did not approve of their "lifestyle choice." For them, the unimaginably difficult, noble act of self-acceptance and honesty earned them the pain and isolation of late-onset orphanage.

I've lived with depression my entire life, and have learned to not let it interfere, not let it drag me back into those dark places I knew growing up. I've learned to stay above the water, and I've become an adept swimmer. But I wasn't born with those skills. As a teenager, I had no idea how to cope. I was learning to live with that nagging fear and doubt that seems to infest everything you do or think, that doubt that anyone who has lived with depression truly understands. I also had to struggle with the dread of one day telling my family that I would never get married, I would never have children, that I was a faggot. (While I believe marriage and children are a possibility, I didn't believe so at the time). I wondered for many years if I would simply remain single, let the truth remain unspoken, even though most would suspect. I thought that might just be easier and less painful for all involved.

At the age of 13 I was hospitalized for depression. I knew at this point that I was attracted to members of the same sex. I knew I was queer. And while wrestling with wondering why I was even put on this earth, I had the added weight of knowing that the basic animal function of reproduction was denied me. I can't fully describe here the feeling of believing you are a walking aberration, an accident, a flamboyant lispy "oops" of nature.

I was asked in the hospital if I was gay. Of course I said no. I was trying to learn to be happy, and if that meant putting this struggle on a shelf in the back of a dank closet somewhere, I was more than willing to do so.

Part of my learning to be happy was learning to embrace the inner freak. This was part of what lead me to self-acceptance later in life. I pierced my face, I dyed my hair, I sought out music that was different than everyone else's. Had I known swishing gay man during those formative years, I may have become one of the walking stereotypes I strain not to loathe. (As I know they're people too - and while I take no issue with effeminate men, if that is truly who they are, I do take issue with those who have adopted a persona in order to fit in to something - anything - while alienating others and making life more difficult for the quiet minority). I want to stress that people should be who they are, that gender and sexual preference are often mutually exclusive - but to pretend you're someone you're not helps no one - isn't that the point? I digress.

Embracing other subcultures and casting out anything top-40 or carrying the label as trendy enabled me to feel better about being different. I met other gay friends, I even helped a few come out, though I was not out to my family and lived under the flimsy but common guise of "bisexual." Bisexuality is easier to claim, because those who know you as bisexual believe that one day you may settle into a more mainstream life - marriage, with children. Through their eyes, you find comfort in that idea, you experience vicariously the possibility of normalcy. But it's just another lie.

In my late teens became a far left-wing liberal. (I'm a liberal still, but with a marked conservative streak). I embraced anything that would embrace me, and discarded anything that wouldn't. I avoided the church. I laughed at the notion of 2.3 kids and a lawn. Secretly, it was a thing that I wanted, but didn't think I could ever have, and therefore cast aside.

As I got older I was exposed to the gay clubs, drag shows and pink culture that for a while threatened to send me back into the closet with a baseball bat and an NRA membership. I once again wore the badge of "bi" as a defense mechanism. I didn't know who I was, but I was pretty sure by then I knew what I didn't want to be.

While I was in England I found a people who were far more accepting of gays and lesbians. It was simply a non-issue. It was then that I began to find peace with my - "lifestyle choice." When I came back to the U.S. I was on the road to not only accepting, but embracing who I was. No, I did not choose this. I fought it most of my life. And now I'm paying for it, in years lost and wasted in denying myself the experience of living life openly and freely. No one denied it for me but me. I wish I'd learned that when I was younger, but I was too busy wallowing in self-pity to realize I was wallowing in self-pity.

So this entry was supposed to be about my lifestyle. Why was that not the focus? Because there is no gay lifestyle. It does not exist. Just as there is no lifestyle for blonde people, or a lifestyle for people who like pork shops. There is no more gay lifetsyle than there is a single gay community or some clandestine gay agenda I keep hearing about. If there is one, I've been excluded. Maybe I should check my secret decoder ring.

We have those, you know.