About three weeks ago, I got the e-mail below in my inbox. Apologies to the reader who sent it to me because I usually manage to answer Dear GB emails quicker than this.
Dear GB,
I am not a regular reader of your blog, rather I came upon it by accident while searching for something gay to do on a Monday night in Singapore. I am a student in Boston, but I am visiting Singapore because I studied here a year ago and was on a trip to China and figured I couldn't pass up the chance to see the place again. Life can be quite a coincidence at times, can't it?
I am writing you because next summer, I too will become a gay investment banker as I enter the analyst training program for a major investment bank. I will eventually work as an analyst in origination in NYC, and am graduating from my university in May with my undergraduate degree. None of this is particularly relevant to my question, so I won't continue boring you with the details.
You have written about the difficulties of being out to your co-workers, and I started thinking about many things as I read your entries. Coming out wasn't a difficult process for me, I had always admitted personally to myself that I was gay but it just wasn't the "right time" for me to come out. When I got to college, within a month I just decided to start living "gay" and have been out ever since. I am in a fraternity (I hope you know what this is, think the movie "Animal House"), which is the most heterosexually charged environment you can find short of the American military, and all my fraternity brothers knew I was gay from the day I came out. The universal acceptance (and the occasional curiosity...hehe) I received was overwhelming. The one difficulty was the relationship with my family, and this is what encouraged me to write to you today.
My family has been unbelievably loving and accepting of me since I came out to them, but I didn't come out to my family until more that 2 years after I first did it at my university. I just couldn't face their (potential) rejection, so I held it in. For the first two and a half years of my college experience, I lived a dual life. I spent weekends partying in West Hollywood with friends and spent weekdays dodging questions about girlfriends from my parents. I really didn't enjoy this kind of lifestyle; it felt so contrived and made me upset and unhappy with myself. The problem is, I can see this happening again as I enter i-banking.
Granted, one situation dealt with the rejection of people I loved and the other is with my co-workers. It isn't the rejection that scares me, rather the aspect of potentially reliving the whole "dual-life" scenario. I am curious about your feelings on this, and perhaps you can elaborate on some of your experiences of being gay while working in an i-bank.
I apologize if my email was too long and ultimately somewhat open ended, but I would greatly appreciate any comments or insight you can give.
All the best to you, and I look forward to your future entries.
I've said various things about this before, including a few comments in one of my earliest postings. Also, as I said in my relatively recent posting about conversational evasion techniques, I think one of the most important things is to avoid telling lies. However as a general statement, I don't think it's necessary for a gay guy to pretend that he's straight in investment banking these days.
In that posting about Conversational evasion techniques, I tell a short story about when I was asked whether I was married at a bank Christmas party in the early 1990's. What I didn't put in that posting was the fact that the following year, I came out to my boss when I was asked to work in Singapore for a few months. And the view that my boss took then would be even more appropriate in today's litigious world.
I was deeply worried about whether I was damaging my career, but my boss had other concerns. He didn't care at all about my sexuality, instead he was worried about what his responsibilities were, and what the legal situation was in terms of how I should be treated. That was all in the early 1990's, and although I didn't have any problems, some banks were known for their homophobia.
I heard of cases in the 1990's where banks did sack employees who worked on the trading floor and who came out as gay. And I have to say that there is one sense in which I think that sacking such an employee could be appropriate. To succeed in that kind of high-energy fast-moving environment one has to focus on the financial markets, and what one's role is. So coming out as gay and making a big thing about it shows that you've got other things at the front of your mind. Banks always want the best, most business focussed people working on their trading floors, so almost by definition if someone is putting their sexuality before their job when they're at work, then someone else may be capable of doing their job better.
However I'm sure that in the 1990's some guys were sacked because the news that there was a gay employee on the trading floor was causing other people to lose focus on their jobs, and sacking someone in that situation is unacceptable homophobia. In the UK and the European Union these days, I believe there are laws in place to prevent this kind of action, however I'm not sure what the legal situation is in the USA. Another encouraging fact, of course, is that these days banks have networks that encourage social contact between gay employees.
Whatever the legal situation, it's now 2007, and my advice these days is simply to be completely relaxed and honest about being gay. Don't publicly come out to everyone, it's not what you're there for, just behave in exactly the same kind of way that your straight colleagues do. Actually a good idea can be to work out who the people are who like gossiping and make sure that one of them finds out that you're gay. In that way everyone else will quickly find out without you having to tell everyone, and then you can really relax and focus on your job.
A lot of the business scancals in recent years, such as accounting fraud and banks being sued for over-hyping tech stocks, all relate to a lack of honesty. As a result bankers need to be painfully honest in their business dealings these days, so matching that with equivalent honesty relating to one's private life seems highly appropriate.
Anyway, I wish the reader good luck with his career. Do any other readers have any other thoughts on this matter?
Monday, April 9, 2007
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Why can't spa hotels employ more male therapists?
It was boyfriend number 2 who first introduced me to the pleasures of massage therapy. Now, before any of you lot out there start thinking that I mean "pleasures", I should make it clear that I am just talking about massage! Not massage with extras, or massage with a happy ending, or whatever else you want to call paying for sex with a masseur. [I should also point out that I started having fun with my gorgeous Japanese masseur before I ever paid for his massage expertise!]My problem, though, is that high quality spa hotels don't tend to employ many (if any) male masseurs. Take any good spa hotel, e.g. one from the Leading Spas association of hotels although there are loads of examples. When you walk into the spa reception of such a hotel, hopefully in some exotic holiday destination, the conversation is very likely to be along the following lines:
"Good morning sir :-)". The receptionist sitting behind the counter is always a pretty young girl."Hi :-). I'm staying here for a couple of nights, do you have any male massage therapists?"
"Errr ...?" she replies with a look of confusion, after all English isn't her first language. But then suddenly she thinks she understands, "yes, we can do massage for men, no problem :-)"
"But do you have any male masseurs? I prefer to have a man massage me!"
"Errr, hang on sir," she says looking confused again, "let me check."
She'll disappear into an office or something, before coming back to say that unfortunately a male masseur 'isn't available at the moment'.
I guess I prefer having male masseurs for the same reason that heterosexual guys prefer female masseurs. It's not because I want 'extras' or anything, it's simply that I much prefer the company and the touch of another guy, in the same way that straight guys like to have women around them. I think my preference is quite natural for a gay man.
Actually I'm the same with doctors, dentists, physiotherapists, and anything where there's the possibility of physical contact. For some reason I just can't relax when a woman needs to touch me, so I'm not going to pay for a massage from a female therapist. Of course some gay guys have loads of female friends, but I'm not that type of gay man.
Surely it's not only gay guys who'll prefer male therapists though, what about all the affluent straight women out there? Surely with the two groups combined, there's enough demand to make it worth catering for? Money talks, so if enough straight women and gay guys keep asking for male therapists when we go traveling, maybe one day we'll eventually be able to get the services we want!
Monday, April 2, 2007
An email from a young gay woman
Observant readers may have noticed that I've started keeping a list of 'Pending Dear GB postings' in the right hand column, just underneath my e-mail address. Part of the reason for this is to reassure the people who've emailed me that I haven't forgotten them, as well as to remind me the order to respond to them in. However when I got home last Saturday night, there was a new 'Dear GB' email waiting for me which seems more urgent that the others waiting in my inbox, so I'm going to allow a bit of 'queue jumping'. Although I sent back a reply, I'm not sure I was much help, so this is another case where comments on this posting could be very valuable.
The email was as follows:
Dear GB,
Hi there, i think! I've read your blog on and off for a while now and its brilliant to have someone as educated as you trying to eloquently describe (without graphic details) what its like living in a non-monogamous relationship.
But...i'm emailing for a bit of advice and unlike many of your readers, i'm a young gay woman. It's about homophobia in the workplace and given that you seem to have risen very high in your profession and having a PhD, i thought you might have experienced something which might help me.
I'm 17, and i attend a sixth form in the UK, although my base school (where i attend the majority of my lessons) is a catholic convent school for girls. I've attended this school since i was 11 and as i've grown up i've realised that i'm gay. Recently i wrote a piece for a publishing committee about coming out, how hard it is and what troubles you face when you do. The brief was "dispelling teenage myths" and i think it fitted it perfectly.
On Wednesday i was called into a meeting with the head of sixth and head of year where they told me that they would not be permitting my piece to be published as it was the "incorrect forum" owing to the fact that it would be published in conjunction with my catholic school. I argued my point, saying that what they were saying was discrimination on the basis of sexuality i.e. homophobia as they were not allowing it to be published because it was about being gay. The conversation further continued and the stance they took was that i had to "tow the line" as it was a catholic institution. The committee which are in charge of the book have raised their concerns and the completion date of the book has been put back.
It's not just the book though, the head of sixth wants to tell my mother that i am gay. I tried to explain that she had no basis to break confidentiality as my sexuality has not detrimental to my welfare but she replied and said she had a "moral obligation."
I'm a bit lost and don't really know what to do as i can't go to anyone higher in the school as the head teacher is a nun and i doubt she would sympathise. She has no grounds to do this but i can't stop her. I need to put together some sort of defence but i don't know what. Which is why i'm emailing you, in the hope that you could suggest somewhere to go or an organisation which would help.
Attached to this email was her article about coming out, so I've posted that separately in my Reader's stories category. Before I went to bed last Saturday, I emailed her the following reply:
Dear reader,
Very sorry to hear about your situation.
I'm wondering whether you've tried phoning the London Lesbian and Gay switchboard (020-7837-7324) for advice on this one. I used to know a few people who worked for them, and I know that they've got a long list of useful organisations to hand.
This also sounds exactly like the kind of case that interests Stonewall, who are meant to stand for "equality and justice for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals". I know they campaign for equality everywhere including schools, but they'd also be interested in the issue relating to the threat of outing you to your mother which is outrageous. I doubt that they'd be able to do anything immediately, but they may well find the case useful in their campaigns.
It could well be that the threat of outing you to your mother is just intended to try and get you to drop the whole subject of publishing your (well written) article about coming out. I have no idea what the legal situation is on them outing you to your mother, but there may be one, e.g. perhaps it could be regarded as an "abuse of human rights".
In terms of publishing the article, my guess is that they can choose to publish exactly what they want, and there's precious little you can do about it. The only way forward there I can think of is getting enough other students behind you to try and show them that their attitude is wrong. But can you face being outed to your family?
Given the strength of your article, I'm actually surprised that you're not out to your family yet. My guess is that even if this situation hadn't arisen, it wouldn't be too long before you did come out to your mother. If you choose not to let the issue drop as your teachers want, unfortunately I think you do need to come out to her, because it's better for her to hear it from you than from someone else.
GB xxx
Yesterday I got a further email from her saying that "The lesbian & gay switchboard is forever engaged ...", and acknowledging that stonewall may be a good idea. But can any other readers offer any further advice?
The email was as follows:
Dear GB,
Hi there, i think! I've read your blog on and off for a while now and its brilliant to have someone as educated as you trying to eloquently describe (without graphic details) what its like living in a non-monogamous relationship.
But...i'm emailing for a bit of advice and unlike many of your readers, i'm a young gay woman. It's about homophobia in the workplace and given that you seem to have risen very high in your profession and having a PhD, i thought you might have experienced something which might help me.
I'm 17, and i attend a sixth form in the UK, although my base school (where i attend the majority of my lessons) is a catholic convent school for girls. I've attended this school since i was 11 and as i've grown up i've realised that i'm gay. Recently i wrote a piece for a publishing committee about coming out, how hard it is and what troubles you face when you do. The brief was "dispelling teenage myths" and i think it fitted it perfectly.
On Wednesday i was called into a meeting with the head of sixth and head of year where they told me that they would not be permitting my piece to be published as it was the "incorrect forum" owing to the fact that it would be published in conjunction with my catholic school. I argued my point, saying that what they were saying was discrimination on the basis of sexuality i.e. homophobia as they were not allowing it to be published because it was about being gay. The conversation further continued and the stance they took was that i had to "tow the line" as it was a catholic institution. The committee which are in charge of the book have raised their concerns and the completion date of the book has been put back.
It's not just the book though, the head of sixth wants to tell my mother that i am gay. I tried to explain that she had no basis to break confidentiality as my sexuality has not detrimental to my welfare but she replied and said she had a "moral obligation."
I'm a bit lost and don't really know what to do as i can't go to anyone higher in the school as the head teacher is a nun and i doubt she would sympathise. She has no grounds to do this but i can't stop her. I need to put together some sort of defence but i don't know what. Which is why i'm emailing you, in the hope that you could suggest somewhere to go or an organisation which would help.
Attached to this email was her article about coming out, so I've posted that separately in my Reader's stories category. Before I went to bed last Saturday, I emailed her the following reply:
Dear reader,
Very sorry to hear about your situation.
I'm wondering whether you've tried phoning the London Lesbian and Gay switchboard (020-7837-7324) for advice on this one. I used to know a few people who worked for them, and I know that they've got a long list of useful organisations to hand.This also sounds exactly like the kind of case that interests Stonewall, who are meant to stand for "equality and justice for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals". I know they campaign for equality everywhere including schools, but they'd also be interested in the issue relating to the threat of outing you to your mother which is outrageous. I doubt that they'd be able to do anything immediately, but they may well find the case useful in their campaigns.It could well be that the threat of outing you to your mother is just intended to try and get you to drop the whole subject of publishing your (well written) article about coming out. I have no idea what the legal situation is on them outing you to your mother, but there may be one, e.g. perhaps it could be regarded as an "abuse of human rights".
In terms of publishing the article, my guess is that they can choose to publish exactly what they want, and there's precious little you can do about it. The only way forward there I can think of is getting enough other students behind you to try and show them that their attitude is wrong. But can you face being outed to your family?
Given the strength of your article, I'm actually surprised that you're not out to your family yet. My guess is that even if this situation hadn't arisen, it wouldn't be too long before you did come out to your mother. If you choose not to let the issue drop as your teachers want, unfortunately I think you do need to come out to her, because it's better for her to hear it from you than from someone else.
GB xxx
Yesterday I got a further email from her saying that "The lesbian & gay switchboard is forever engaged ...", and acknowledging that stonewall may be a good idea. But can any other readers offer any further advice?
A 'Coming out' article, written by a young gay woman
In connection with today's 'Dear GB' posting, below is the 'Coming out' article that the reader wrote, which her school don't want to publish.
I'm usually a very logical and rational person, but before I properly came out I used to believe two contradictory statements about myself, namely "I'm not gay" and "I like guys". These are exactly the sentiments expressed in the article below, in the paragraph which starts "ME?! One of those FREAKS?! ... ", so even though she's a young gay woman and I'm a gay guy I strongly identify with a lot of what she says.
How many gay people do you know? Two or three perhaps, if you live in a relatively cosmopolitan area, maybe less if you live in a small town or village. Now imagine what it must be like being that gay person. The one people think of when they want to remind themselves that they are "in-touch" with modern issues, that they posses that hint of new labour which puts them a fraction to the left on the political compass, wrapping them up in their PC blanket.
You almost certainly will have encountered gay people in your life but, as with the blank faces of commuters we see daily on public transport, many do not appreciate the journey that they have had to endure. Contrary to popular thought, you don't just "come out" and have that be the end of it. Coming out is a huge process and the end result, the actual words "I'm gay" that you hear and gradually come to accept, are just the tip of the iceberg. Inside there has been a huge and incredibly painful inner battle of realisation and acceptance so hard many choose to repress their feelings and desires totally.
I'm gay. I've been there, done the coming out business, had the verbal (but thankfully never physical) abuse because of it and I'd hope it has made me a stronger person. This piece is to trigger a thought next time you see a gay person, to think of the path they've walked to get a point in their lives where they are comfortable letting others know who they wish to spend the rest of their lives with. However, this can be true of all who are a little different, who don't fit the mould precisely, so perhaps the lesson is applicable to more than just us queers.
If I think hard, with an objective head on my shoulders, I can recall having a fascination with women at about 10 or 11. The most prominent example, and the only one I actually remember, is a teacher who taught at my primary school. She was pretty (or my 10 year old self thought so) with silky straight blonde hair. That's about all I remember of her, no name, nothing of her being in the playground supervising at playtime, just that she was a pretty blonde. Prophetic? In hindsight I now know that it might have been called a crush although here were most certainly no sexual feelings, just an inexplicably strong desire to be around her.
Feelings like this carried on; crushes on teachers, best friends (the cause of much emotional turmoil) and youth leaders were not uncommon. Secretly I hoped that everybody else felt this way but deep down I knew they didn't, that I was a little strange in that respect. I tried to write it off as normal and ignored all feelings, throwing myself into a very unsuccessful relationship with a boy when I was about 13.
It was ghastly from the first kiss; my first kiss, which I had to get ridiculously drunk to go through with, to when we eventually broke up, via text message, after no contact for almost a week. After the break-up all I felt was a deep disgust in myself, I felt as though by doing what it seemed everyone else was doing I had somehow done it wrong. In my quest to prove to myself that I was normal I had proved to myself indefinitely that I wasn't. You could say my plan backfired. I'd shot myself in the foot instead of the gay gland.
After that time I knew. The actual word "G-A-Y" or, in my case "L-E-S-B-I-A-N" (a word which I still loath) had been rooted in my head and would not leave. I had finally connected the feelings I had for other women with the word. The actual word. Lesbian. It may seem completely ridiculous but I did not put me liking women together with the word, it was just an impossibility that would never happen. A ridiculous suggestion; I, a lesbian, or elesbian as I had thought it was until I saw it spelt correctly in the dictionary.
My thought process was as follows;
ME?! One of those FREAKS?! Err, no, sorry mate, you've got the wrong girl here. Sure, I have these strange feelings of attraction to people of the same sex as me but doesn't everyone feel that? I'm normal. I'm straight. I like men. And I will get married, have children, those children will be red blooded, horny, heterosexuals and they will have me some grand kiddies. Those grand kiddies will be hetero's and have me some great-grand kiddies and I will live the big fat heterosexual lifestyle with the nice Volvo estate car, a 5 bed house in the suburbs and a chocolate brown Labrador for my heterosexual children to play with. There is no way, I repeat, no way, that I am one of those. No. Thank. You.
Summarised, it was complete denial. And I perpetuated this falsity both internally and externally. I stuck posters of my favourite rock stars up on my bedroom walls and said/wanted-to-believe/pretended-in-complete-denial that I had crushes on them. I told all my friends that they were stupid for fancying X from boy band "xxxxx"; it was all about Mr Y. He had the cutest smile. I day dreamed non-stop about my dream hetero lifestyle, the wedding, how he would propose, where we would be, what I would say, I even went as far as imagining my expression when he popped the question. But I couldn't kiss the man of my dreams in my fantasy, not even at the alter where we would inevitably end up. We'd hug instead.
It's easy to make light of the situation I was in but I genuinely wanted to believe I was straight when the simple fact was, I wasn't, I was gay and there was nothing I could do about it. This caused me much pain. The only parallel I can draw is that of a black person wanting to be white. It's obvious they are black, they just don't want to accept it for various reasons but, whether or not they do, they are still black and will never be white no matter how hard they try. Just as you can't change your skin colour you can't change your sexuality.
The only thoughts I had of lesbians were that they were fat, ugly and looked like/wanted to be men. Sometimes they had facial hair, sometimes they were Russian and lifted weights. Occasionally they looked like Ellen Degeneres but even she wasn't the most feminine of women. I could not reconcile the fact that because I had these feelings I was a lesbian. It made me hate myself. I couldn't look in the mirror and when I did I was disgusted with my reflection. I loathed the part of me that liked women and wanted to cut it out, make it disappear and leave me alone to have my heterosexual children.
I used to pray to God to make me straight. I'd become so anxious I'd cry, begging him to change me. I prayed every night and it never happened, I stayed gay and it felt like god had made me this way as a punishment. He'd created me gay and deliberately written church teaching, through divine inspiration, to prohibit it, to ensure that everyone in the church knew that it was wrong. Yet, I was this way and it was not changing no matter how much I grovelled. How could a god create someone only to have them excommunicated from his family for being the way he wanted? I lost my faith completely.
Imagine a plug hole at the bottom of a bath with a stream of water flowing down it into the drain. Constantly, I felt like that. My stomach was a bath which had just been emptied and all contents were being continually poured down the plughole with no end in sight, it felt as though every positive thought I had about myself was being sucked down that hole, into the drain, along with my hopes of being straight.
After just over a year of mental torment I managed to convince myself that I was bisexual as, in my mind, it was not as bad as being gay. It was a halfway house, not a diesel dyke but not the straight person I desperately wanted, but knew I could never, be. I would look in the mirror and think to myself that it was ok to be bi, it wasn't as bad as lesbian, there was still some femininity left in it. I wasn't a complete man and I still had a shot at my dream life with horny hetero kids, a dog and a husband.
Six months after I'd admitted to myself that I was bisexual I "came out". I now know and knew then that if I didn't tell someone at that time I would have gone mad. The pressure of living a lie combined with the disgust I felt towards myself was immense, ever present and unrelenting.
We were standing under a bridge waiting for the bus to go to school and there was a lull in conversation. I looked down at my school kilt (a green, knee length, tartan number - very fetching) and then over to my friend who was standing a little to my left, level with my shoulder as she was very small and I have always been rather tall. A train rumbled past on the bridge above making the pigeons nested in its awnings flap and fly needlessly.
"I've got something to tell you. (Pause) I'm gay"
"Is that it? I knew that already, I always knew you was a lesbian," she said, disappointed, as if she'd been cheated of a juicy piece of gossip.
"What?!" I screeched, exasperated.
"I knew that ages ago but you always got upset about it when I asked you," she replied matter-of-factly.
We continued our conversation as though nothing had been said.
I came out (as bisexual) to other close friends several weeks later and got a similar reaction from one; "Oh, I always knew that though". I don't look like a typical gay person so perhaps they were such close friends that they could tell by instinct. Whatever the reason, just the fact that they knew was relieving, as though I'd taken a small but hugely significant step on the way to fully accepting who I was.
Since then I've come out as gay and all but my mother knows. I'll tell her in my own time or perhaps, like my friends, she already knows as she's asked the odd question or two which have been ambiguously answered. All friends know I'm gay, the rumour mill has meant that most people in the college I attend know (despite me not having told them) and I've recently found out that several of my teachers also know which was a little unnerving but not unexpected.
Coming out was one of the hardest experiences of my life. It's saddening to think of the anguish many experience until they finally realise that being gay is not taboo; perhaps an obvious observation from an outsiders perspective but, when immersed in the situation, this is not so.
Accepting who you are and the implications of this can be hard but it will not change so it could be looked at as a case of "like it or lump it". Life is so much better if you choose to like it, as hard as it may seem.
I'm usually a very logical and rational person, but before I properly came out I used to believe two contradictory statements about myself, namely "I'm not gay" and "I like guys". These are exactly the sentiments expressed in the article below, in the paragraph which starts "ME?! One of those FREAKS?! ... ", so even though she's a young gay woman and I'm a gay guy I strongly identify with a lot of what she says.
Coming out
How many gay people do you know? Two or three perhaps, if you live in a relatively cosmopolitan area, maybe less if you live in a small town or village. Now imagine what it must be like being that gay person. The one people think of when they want to remind themselves that they are "in-touch" with modern issues, that they posses that hint of new labour which puts them a fraction to the left on the political compass, wrapping them up in their PC blanket.
You almost certainly will have encountered gay people in your life but, as with the blank faces of commuters we see daily on public transport, many do not appreciate the journey that they have had to endure. Contrary to popular thought, you don't just "come out" and have that be the end of it. Coming out is a huge process and the end result, the actual words "I'm gay" that you hear and gradually come to accept, are just the tip of the iceberg. Inside there has been a huge and incredibly painful inner battle of realisation and acceptance so hard many choose to repress their feelings and desires totally.
I'm gay. I've been there, done the coming out business, had the verbal (but thankfully never physical) abuse because of it and I'd hope it has made me a stronger person. This piece is to trigger a thought next time you see a gay person, to think of the path they've walked to get a point in their lives where they are comfortable letting others know who they wish to spend the rest of their lives with. However, this can be true of all who are a little different, who don't fit the mould precisely, so perhaps the lesson is applicable to more than just us queers.
If I think hard, with an objective head on my shoulders, I can recall having a fascination with women at about 10 or 11. The most prominent example, and the only one I actually remember, is a teacher who taught at my primary school. She was pretty (or my 10 year old self thought so) with silky straight blonde hair. That's about all I remember of her, no name, nothing of her being in the playground supervising at playtime, just that she was a pretty blonde. Prophetic? In hindsight I now know that it might have been called a crush although here were most certainly no sexual feelings, just an inexplicably strong desire to be around her.
Feelings like this carried on; crushes on teachers, best friends (the cause of much emotional turmoil) and youth leaders were not uncommon. Secretly I hoped that everybody else felt this way but deep down I knew they didn't, that I was a little strange in that respect. I tried to write it off as normal and ignored all feelings, throwing myself into a very unsuccessful relationship with a boy when I was about 13.
It was ghastly from the first kiss; my first kiss, which I had to get ridiculously drunk to go through with, to when we eventually broke up, via text message, after no contact for almost a week. After the break-up all I felt was a deep disgust in myself, I felt as though by doing what it seemed everyone else was doing I had somehow done it wrong. In my quest to prove to myself that I was normal I had proved to myself indefinitely that I wasn't. You could say my plan backfired. I'd shot myself in the foot instead of the gay gland.
After that time I knew. The actual word "G-A-Y" or, in my case "L-E-S-B-I-A-N" (a word which I still loath) had been rooted in my head and would not leave. I had finally connected the feelings I had for other women with the word. The actual word. Lesbian. It may seem completely ridiculous but I did not put me liking women together with the word, it was just an impossibility that would never happen. A ridiculous suggestion; I, a lesbian, or elesbian as I had thought it was until I saw it spelt correctly in the dictionary.
My thought process was as follows;
ME?! One of those FREAKS?! Err, no, sorry mate, you've got the wrong girl here. Sure, I have these strange feelings of attraction to people of the same sex as me but doesn't everyone feel that? I'm normal. I'm straight. I like men. And I will get married, have children, those children will be red blooded, horny, heterosexuals and they will have me some grand kiddies. Those grand kiddies will be hetero's and have me some great-grand kiddies and I will live the big fat heterosexual lifestyle with the nice Volvo estate car, a 5 bed house in the suburbs and a chocolate brown Labrador for my heterosexual children to play with. There is no way, I repeat, no way, that I am one of those. No. Thank. You.
Summarised, it was complete denial. And I perpetuated this falsity both internally and externally. I stuck posters of my favourite rock stars up on my bedroom walls and said/wanted-to-believe/pretended-in-complete-denial that I had crushes on them. I told all my friends that they were stupid for fancying X from boy band "xxxxx"; it was all about Mr Y. He had the cutest smile. I day dreamed non-stop about my dream hetero lifestyle, the wedding, how he would propose, where we would be, what I would say, I even went as far as imagining my expression when he popped the question. But I couldn't kiss the man of my dreams in my fantasy, not even at the alter where we would inevitably end up. We'd hug instead.
It's easy to make light of the situation I was in but I genuinely wanted to believe I was straight when the simple fact was, I wasn't, I was gay and there was nothing I could do about it. This caused me much pain. The only parallel I can draw is that of a black person wanting to be white. It's obvious they are black, they just don't want to accept it for various reasons but, whether or not they do, they are still black and will never be white no matter how hard they try. Just as you can't change your skin colour you can't change your sexuality.
The only thoughts I had of lesbians were that they were fat, ugly and looked like/wanted to be men. Sometimes they had facial hair, sometimes they were Russian and lifted weights. Occasionally they looked like Ellen Degeneres but even she wasn't the most feminine of women. I could not reconcile the fact that because I had these feelings I was a lesbian. It made me hate myself. I couldn't look in the mirror and when I did I was disgusted with my reflection. I loathed the part of me that liked women and wanted to cut it out, make it disappear and leave me alone to have my heterosexual children.
I used to pray to God to make me straight. I'd become so anxious I'd cry, begging him to change me. I prayed every night and it never happened, I stayed gay and it felt like god had made me this way as a punishment. He'd created me gay and deliberately written church teaching, through divine inspiration, to prohibit it, to ensure that everyone in the church knew that it was wrong. Yet, I was this way and it was not changing no matter how much I grovelled. How could a god create someone only to have them excommunicated from his family for being the way he wanted? I lost my faith completely.
Imagine a plug hole at the bottom of a bath with a stream of water flowing down it into the drain. Constantly, I felt like that. My stomach was a bath which had just been emptied and all contents were being continually poured down the plughole with no end in sight, it felt as though every positive thought I had about myself was being sucked down that hole, into the drain, along with my hopes of being straight.
After just over a year of mental torment I managed to convince myself that I was bisexual as, in my mind, it was not as bad as being gay. It was a halfway house, not a diesel dyke but not the straight person I desperately wanted, but knew I could never, be. I would look in the mirror and think to myself that it was ok to be bi, it wasn't as bad as lesbian, there was still some femininity left in it. I wasn't a complete man and I still had a shot at my dream life with horny hetero kids, a dog and a husband.
Six months after I'd admitted to myself that I was bisexual I "came out". I now know and knew then that if I didn't tell someone at that time I would have gone mad. The pressure of living a lie combined with the disgust I felt towards myself was immense, ever present and unrelenting.
We were standing under a bridge waiting for the bus to go to school and there was a lull in conversation. I looked down at my school kilt (a green, knee length, tartan number - very fetching) and then over to my friend who was standing a little to my left, level with my shoulder as she was very small and I have always been rather tall. A train rumbled past on the bridge above making the pigeons nested in its awnings flap and fly needlessly.
"I've got something to tell you. (Pause) I'm gay"
"Is that it? I knew that already, I always knew you was a lesbian," she said, disappointed, as if she'd been cheated of a juicy piece of gossip.
"What?!" I screeched, exasperated.
"I knew that ages ago but you always got upset about it when I asked you," she replied matter-of-factly.
We continued our conversation as though nothing had been said.
I came out (as bisexual) to other close friends several weeks later and got a similar reaction from one; "Oh, I always knew that though". I don't look like a typical gay person so perhaps they were such close friends that they could tell by instinct. Whatever the reason, just the fact that they knew was relieving, as though I'd taken a small but hugely significant step on the way to fully accepting who I was.
Since then I've come out as gay and all but my mother knows. I'll tell her in my own time or perhaps, like my friends, she already knows as she's asked the odd question or two which have been ambiguously answered. All friends know I'm gay, the rumour mill has meant that most people in the college I attend know (despite me not having told them) and I've recently found out that several of my teachers also know which was a little unnerving but not unexpected.
Coming out was one of the hardest experiences of my life. It's saddening to think of the anguish many experience until they finally realise that being gay is not taboo; perhaps an obvious observation from an outsiders perspective but, when immersed in the situation, this is not so.
Accepting who you are and the implications of this can be hard but it will not change so it could be looked at as a case of "like it or lump it". Life is so much better if you choose to like it, as hard as it may seem.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Zonealarm
I don't usually moan about things but I downloaded the new version of Zonealarm yesterday and its really f***** up my computer. I'm going to have to uninstall it and try sort things out.
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