tightrope-walking the thresholds
It's apparently Coming Out day according to various parts of cyberspace and since I have a bit of time today, I figure I'll write a piece on it seeing the usual associations with this day (Columbus Day) are odious to say the least.
Note: This is somewhat spontaneous and minimally edited and I'm sure there's a number of points I'd like to flesh out better, but nonetheless, here it is.
The first time anything became very apparent was when I found myself falling for another fellow very hard. I had just turned twenty at the time and I can remember the point when I was writing in a journal about the emotions coalescing until it became very obvious to me consciously and I burst into tears. These were neither tears of joy nor sadness, but the tears that come from some new feeling that was at the time rather undefined. Coming from the background I did, there wasn't that much stigma about telling my family and, quite frankly, I'm quite lucky for that. In another background I probably would've been a militant queer, leaning on one extreme out of a more political bent rather than being allowed to comfortably settle in my current spot of some middle area (which I prefer). Any family members that would have disapproved were either dead or too far away for any of that to matter. I must reiterate that compared to a lot of others, I was and am very, very lucky and I will do well to always keep that in mind.
Initially, I had kept it to myself up until I was twenty-two mostly because I didn't want to mention anything to anyone until I knew more about this previously untouched part of myself that was beginning to spring forth. A lot of my fears were more of stigmatization, that when it emerged I would be expected to become a different person based on that solely and more than anything else, I seek to be accepted as I am without those kinds of presumptions. Maybe that's silly because like most things people hide, certain things appear obvious to others, but still I wanted to comes to grips with it before allowing others to make of it what they would. Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" said it all with the title but it was not depressing; it was moody and contemplative. The album, particularly the track "Disorder," chronicled the awkwardness of now having how to go about the world knowing that this other half of myself was beginning to emerge and what to do in a world that is generally hostile. And from both sides no less. I only get love from the gay community when at Pride events I'm just an additional number to add to their ranks for political statements but within the personal sphere I'm somehow "deluded" or "self-loathing" or worse, "deceiving myself and others." Even with my dating history having been mostly with other men and more than likely I'm going to end up with another man in the long-term, that doesn't deny or invalidate all of my previous crushes or the fact that I still notice and fantasize about women (as well as having a taste for lesbian erotica). I suppose where most bisexuals are straight-leaning, I would be that slightly less common queer-leaning one and I refuse to justify that to anyone, largely because there is absolutely no solid reason why I ought to. It still amazes me that in terms of "community" and "acceptance," I felt more emotionally connected to the music of some straight men (er, I'm ASSUMING they're straight or predominantly straight), but I think that's the key part is that regardless of their experiences or of mine, there was that universal central emotion that those experiences could relate to and I think the closer people move towards that inclusive sentiment, the closer we will be to attaining acceptance and having a more emotionally-stable society.
Not to digress completely, but I'm more interested in the perception of sex and how people go about their sexual roles (and why) and the much of time you find that it's very scripted. It's as if everything really is that simple once you find whichever niche you fit in within the sexual spectrum, so it follows that you're going to match yourself up to the socially-recognized scripts and I do say to hell with that. I think the only reason why people assume this works is because it makes it easier to have sex, that the explanation gets confused with the objective. The question that I have is that while this is not a "choice," what would be the problem if it were? If it were, wouldn't we be free to decide? We can about everything else, even things that others find distasteful or uninteresting so why not this as well? The impression I seem to find from most sides of this is that if we were given the option to choose, most would choose simply to avoid persecution and, as understandable as that would be, it still has the undertone that somehow that this is undesirable and I have to ask why that is. How can we expect to have true acceptance if, and this would naturally follow, when the entire thing is viewed as a sort of destiny that some have the misfortune of being bestowed upon with? I'm not some mass of damaged goods or some kind a priori incomplete creature due to some hormonally-influenced mix-up just because my sexual behavior varies somewhat compared to the rest of the general population. But it almost seems that even in the struggle for acceptance, this is how it's viewed and I don't think we're going to get anywhere if people have that notion in the back of their minds. Is it really that difficult to accept that we're psychosexual creatures and the result of nature's unusual way of having social-sexual creatures maintain a kind of equilibrium? Is it really that difficult to accept because it's just not as common as other sexual behaviors? The thing of it is is that when it comes down to it, I am neither proud nor ashamed because there's no reason for either. I accept this and am comfortable with this. So why can't you?
Contrary to what is generally told to me about how sexuality comes about, I did not always "know." For others I'm sure this has been ingrained into their being from day one but for me, it was something that I'm convinced developed and had to come to understand. For men in particular, there's this bizarre notion that when it comes to sexuality, it's a kind of birthright that we automatically understand. As if sexual functioning, ability, (and ultimately prowess) are natural, ingrained and become available for disposal the moment adolescence is reached. It's a notion that I know to be false, but since an erection is external and doesn't require that much effort to get off, I suppose that's where that leap in thinking stems from (at the risk of sounding Freudian). It's funny because in a lot of women's writing, it's the exact opposite, and while I can't relate to the physical aspects of that (menarche, clitoral orgasms, etc.), I do relate to the fact that it requires a lot of soul-searching to actually understand what it is your body does when it begins to physically desires something (or someone rather). You don't really find this in a lot of when it comes to men describing that aspect of themselves. That knowledge is somehow taken for granted and to be perfectly honest, I think that notion is somewhat poisonous. Maybe it's too "feminine" to view things in that manner (and we are in a society that dislikes "feminine" things) or maybe because it's easier socially to dismiss sexuality as something mechanical because it makes it easier to deal with despite the obvious power it exerts over our natures. Dismissing it as a function makes it easier to deal with rather than a emotional/biological force that we are subject to. A mechanism, after all, gives one the illusion of control and power over nature. A mechanism, also, can be "fixed" and well, I don't need to go into the examples of the failure of that kind of thinking put into practice. I'm thankful that the APA concluded that the very notion of it is wholly unethical and shouldn't leave the door of the ethics boardroom onto the laboratory slab.
So there's a part of it. I'm not sure how this will translate but these are some of my feelings and thoughts on the matter. I'm not sure how to end this but I'll put in two particular quotes that I feel are valid and two that I keep rather close to me anyway.
"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love,"
--Anaïs Nin
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law."
--Aleister Crowley
Note: This is somewhat spontaneous and minimally edited and I'm sure there's a number of points I'd like to flesh out better, but nonetheless, here it is.
The first time anything became very apparent was when I found myself falling for another fellow very hard. I had just turned twenty at the time and I can remember the point when I was writing in a journal about the emotions coalescing until it became very obvious to me consciously and I burst into tears. These were neither tears of joy nor sadness, but the tears that come from some new feeling that was at the time rather undefined. Coming from the background I did, there wasn't that much stigma about telling my family and, quite frankly, I'm quite lucky for that. In another background I probably would've been a militant queer, leaning on one extreme out of a more political bent rather than being allowed to comfortably settle in my current spot of some middle area (which I prefer). Any family members that would have disapproved were either dead or too far away for any of that to matter. I must reiterate that compared to a lot of others, I was and am very, very lucky and I will do well to always keep that in mind.
Initially, I had kept it to myself up until I was twenty-two mostly because I didn't want to mention anything to anyone until I knew more about this previously untouched part of myself that was beginning to spring forth. A lot of my fears were more of stigmatization, that when it emerged I would be expected to become a different person based on that solely and more than anything else, I seek to be accepted as I am without those kinds of presumptions. Maybe that's silly because like most things people hide, certain things appear obvious to others, but still I wanted to comes to grips with it before allowing others to make of it what they would. Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" said it all with the title but it was not depressing; it was moody and contemplative. The album, particularly the track "Disorder," chronicled the awkwardness of now having how to go about the world knowing that this other half of myself was beginning to emerge and what to do in a world that is generally hostile. And from both sides no less. I only get love from the gay community when at Pride events I'm just an additional number to add to their ranks for political statements but within the personal sphere I'm somehow "deluded" or "self-loathing" or worse, "deceiving myself and others." Even with my dating history having been mostly with other men and more than likely I'm going to end up with another man in the long-term, that doesn't deny or invalidate all of my previous crushes or the fact that I still notice and fantasize about women (as well as having a taste for lesbian erotica). I suppose where most bisexuals are straight-leaning, I would be that slightly less common queer-leaning one and I refuse to justify that to anyone, largely because there is absolutely no solid reason why I ought to. It still amazes me that in terms of "community" and "acceptance," I felt more emotionally connected to the music of some straight men (er, I'm ASSUMING they're straight or predominantly straight), but I think that's the key part is that regardless of their experiences or of mine, there was that universal central emotion that those experiences could relate to and I think the closer people move towards that inclusive sentiment, the closer we will be to attaining acceptance and having a more emotionally-stable society.
Not to digress completely, but I'm more interested in the perception of sex and how people go about their sexual roles (and why) and the much of time you find that it's very scripted. It's as if everything really is that simple once you find whichever niche you fit in within the sexual spectrum, so it follows that you're going to match yourself up to the socially-recognized scripts and I do say to hell with that. I think the only reason why people assume this works is because it makes it easier to have sex, that the explanation gets confused with the objective. The question that I have is that while this is not a "choice," what would be the problem if it were? If it were, wouldn't we be free to decide? We can about everything else, even things that others find distasteful or uninteresting so why not this as well? The impression I seem to find from most sides of this is that if we were given the option to choose, most would choose simply to avoid persecution and, as understandable as that would be, it still has the undertone that somehow that this is undesirable and I have to ask why that is. How can we expect to have true acceptance if, and this would naturally follow, when the entire thing is viewed as a sort of destiny that some have the misfortune of being bestowed upon with? I'm not some mass of damaged goods or some kind a priori incomplete creature due to some hormonally-influenced mix-up just because my sexual behavior varies somewhat compared to the rest of the general population. But it almost seems that even in the struggle for acceptance, this is how it's viewed and I don't think we're going to get anywhere if people have that notion in the back of their minds. Is it really that difficult to accept that we're psychosexual creatures and the result of nature's unusual way of having social-sexual creatures maintain a kind of equilibrium? Is it really that difficult to accept because it's just not as common as other sexual behaviors? The thing of it is is that when it comes down to it, I am neither proud nor ashamed because there's no reason for either. I accept this and am comfortable with this. So why can't you?
Contrary to what is generally told to me about how sexuality comes about, I did not always "know." For others I'm sure this has been ingrained into their being from day one but for me, it was something that I'm convinced developed and had to come to understand. For men in particular, there's this bizarre notion that when it comes to sexuality, it's a kind of birthright that we automatically understand. As if sexual functioning, ability, (and ultimately prowess) are natural, ingrained and become available for disposal the moment adolescence is reached. It's a notion that I know to be false, but since an erection is external and doesn't require that much effort to get off, I suppose that's where that leap in thinking stems from (at the risk of sounding Freudian). It's funny because in a lot of women's writing, it's the exact opposite, and while I can't relate to the physical aspects of that (menarche, clitoral orgasms, etc.), I do relate to the fact that it requires a lot of soul-searching to actually understand what it is your body does when it begins to physically desires something (or someone rather). You don't really find this in a lot of when it comes to men describing that aspect of themselves. That knowledge is somehow taken for granted and to be perfectly honest, I think that notion is somewhat poisonous. Maybe it's too "feminine" to view things in that manner (and we are in a society that dislikes "feminine" things) or maybe because it's easier socially to dismiss sexuality as something mechanical because it makes it easier to deal with despite the obvious power it exerts over our natures. Dismissing it as a function makes it easier to deal with rather than a emotional/biological force that we are subject to. A mechanism, after all, gives one the illusion of control and power over nature. A mechanism, also, can be "fixed" and well, I don't need to go into the examples of the failure of that kind of thinking put into practice. I'm thankful that the APA concluded that the very notion of it is wholly unethical and shouldn't leave the door of the ethics boardroom onto the laboratory slab.
So there's a part of it. I'm not sure how this will translate but these are some of my feelings and thoughts on the matter. I'm not sure how to end this but I'll put in two particular quotes that I feel are valid and two that I keep rather close to me anyway.
"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love,"
--Anaïs Nin
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law."
--Aleister Crowley