Our opponents love to compare the physical and emotional health of straights versus gays. Our typical response, when those numbers go against us, is to point out that those very critics are part of the problem. I was raised in a conservative home, and when I left western Pennsylvania for Stanford grad school, just south of San Francisco, my father warned me, “Watch out for the homosexuals” (and I did). I grew up barely knowing there was a culture of men attracted to men — many cultures of men attracted to men — and the little info I had was execrable.
Ultimately, though, comparing straights and gays is meaningless to me because I’m gay. Even if it truly is a harder row to hoe, that doesn’t matter, because I don’t have a choice. We make the best of of what we have, and now that I’m 50 I can see that my character, with its strengths and with its weaknesses, would bring me the same joys and sorrows no matter what my sexuality.
But there is a comparison I would like to see, a comparison that by its nature is impossible to make. I’d like to see a study that takes gay men who accept their sexuality and who find love with other men, and compares them to homosexuals who never even try, who never admit their sexuality, who live alone in the closet, or who drag poor, unsuspecting wives with them. That’s the comparison that matters.
Or perhaps even that’s irrelevant. Even if the best sociologists could prove that closet cases are healthier and happier, I still wouldn’t send my partner Will packing. Would you? But the next time some bigot (or one of their well-meaning sheep) start tossing out statistics on gay vs. straight, I’m going to tell them it doesn’t matter. Because that’s not my choice. My only choice is to be authentic or not, and being my only choice, it’s the only choice that matters.
Here’s a crazy thought: maybe the physical and emotional health of GLBT persons wouldn’t be so bad if the right wing wasn’t so focused on telling us how sick, miserable, depraved and sinful we are.
But, like Rob, I’m perfectly happy with my life and my husband, and if someone were to have a magic wand and tell me “I can make you straight in ten seconds,” I’d politely decline.
This reminds me of conversations I’ve had with closet cases who swear their life would be “easier” if they were straight. I don’t know anyone, straight or gay who thinks their life is “easy” by any means. It ignores the fact that who we are has an affect on what choices we make. If I were straight, there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t be dead in some ditch somewhere having been killed by a crazy girlfriend or something.
Being straight would mean I would have different problems. I would also have different problems if I were a gay man in a world where that is a non-issue and has always been a non-issue.
I wouldn’t change my life, it’s quite good.
@2
Regarding the closet cases who swear their lives would be easier if they were straight: I have been known to point out to them that their lives would be easier if they weren’t in the closet.
Of course, the result of that has usually been that the closet cases “unfriended” me.
JayKingOfGay said, “I don’t know anyone, straight or gay who thinks their life is ‘easy’ by any means.”
I knew someone would beat me to the punch on this one, but let me add that for some people it’s not necessarily about thinking their life would be easy if they were straight (or thin or rich or lived somewhere else), simply that their life would be easier.
And to piggyback on yet another comment, as Clayton said a lot of people have to deal with being told “us how sick, miserable, depraved and sinful we are”.
These things go hand in hand. Many of us began hearing that people with different sexual orientations were sick, miserable, and depraved. And as Rob’s own example of what his father told him illustrates we get bad information from people we trust. It’s hard not to automatically accept that information as true, not only because we often get it when young but because it’s repeated so often. Even when our experience teaches us it’s wrong it’s hard to break that long line of conditioning.
On a linguistic note, Rob, thank you for saying “row to hoe”. You wouldn’t believe the number of people I know who think the expression is “road to tow”. And they’re making it unnecessarily difficult. It may not be easy to hoe a row but at least it’s possible, unlike towing an entire road.
@Clayton: Exactly. I am a bisexual, polyamorous, kinky Wiccan who likes to collect children’s toys. Just because those things are frowned upon by a lot of strangers doesn’t mean I should give up the aspects of myself which make me unique and add richness and enjoyment to my life for the sake of making things “easier.”
Death is easy too, but I’m not ready to take a dirt nap just yet.
I’m glad you said this Rob. Because this is exactly what I’ve confronted members of the ex gay industry with.
That as a het person, the ex gays were overselling what heterosexuality actually was. That living as one my whole life, IT’S not a magic path to happiness or health or superior relationships either. Being het had NOTHING to do with moral character, talent or virtues…that it didn’t matter when it came to all those things.
I’ve told the likes of Alan Chambers, and others that there are qualities to het men that Alan was trying to AFFECT, but to a het woman like me, I couldn’t call it authentic either. Some het women DO know what the signs, signals and important essences of ATTRACTION are. That’s why we’re attracted the way we are.
STRONG self knowledgable women who are equally matured in THEIR sexuality, wouldn’t want to be with a gay man in the folly of ‘changing’ him. But we want to be with het men because of the ferocity of attraction that makes having the relationship what it’s supposed to be in the first place.
I would want gay men to have the gay men of their choice, with that same ferocity and passion. And I want the same for lesbians. And nor would I want to compete WITH lesbians for a het man to satisfy someone else’s ideal of what male/female compatibility is supposed to be in their narrow estimation.
I’ve told I don’t know how many gay men claiming to be ex gay that they weren’t doing the straight male thing right. That at the end of the day, they don’t really give off the right vibe that sexually mature women know how to pick up on. I know a genuine leather purse when I see one. Same for a man that’s a real het too.
Can’t fake it. You really can’t. Same for straight men (if they cared to) faking being gay. THEY wouldn’t get it right either.
Well, Alan Chambers, Chad Thompson and so on, shut me down about THAT.
More fools are they. Rob and Will and my roomie are three of THE hunkiest, movie star fine men I’ve ever met. And even then, these men are my BROTHERS.
I can’t even imagine disrespecting gay men by thinking I SHOULD change them for ANY reason. OUR relationship dynamics wouldn’t have nearly the strength or ease. Sometimes LACK of sexual tension between men and women is a GOOD thing.
That is how I see the gay men who have blessed my life. Not objects that require attempts at seduction on my part. Nor would I touch a gay man twisted around by the myth that he’s better off as a straight man.
No, I see gay and het folks as important cosmic allies in the greater scheme. That seems to be the only, and most important workable and WORKING relationship.
And the CDC statistics of groups have nothing to do with the granting of civil rights. Blacks have much higher incidences of physical and psychological illnesses than do whites. These include the same STDs and anxiety and depressive disorders that LGBTs suffer. And Latinas have astronomically high chances of cervical cancer as opposed to whites. No one suggests that because of elevated CDC statistics these groups should not be allowed to marry or be denied equal protection. And most mental health experts attribute the higher levels of disease and high-risk behavior to the increased stresses which arise from living in a toxic chronically hostile environment which regards you as inferior, and worse.