Oat and a boat
Sep. 13th, 2003 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jawnbc"So when did you come out?"
It's a common question bantered been queer folks doing the "getting 2 know u" cha-cha. Sometimes with the horizontal cha-cha, sometimes not. Still it's a thread that weaves through most of our lives (I don't count Gore Vidal or Quentin Crisp, both of whom are/were too venial in their ignorance of the politics of identity) among "us." So very nearly every single one of us has a story to tell of this sort. Here's some snapshots from mine...
Making Love: I was already quite adept in the sex-between-guys thing by age 18. Though I'd not yet tried (nor was I interested) in taking it Up the Hershey Highway--a toll road if ever there was one. But as denial would have it, I didn't really think of myself as gay. Today epidemiologists would call me an MSM--a man who has sex with other men, but doesn't self-identify as gay or bi. It was, you know, just fun. I still dated girls (they thought I was such a gentleman, heh). No big whoop. Then I saw the filmMaking Love on cable, the story of a married guy who comes out--and creates a mess for everyone involved.
Shit, maybe this isn't just about "fun." D'oh!
Be it resolved: In 1986, after graduated with my BA and backpacking around Europe, I found myself trapped in Rockaway, chez parents. I was working in the City and had made a couple of reconaissance flights to gay bars after work, but felt trapped. New Year's Eve was a quiet one (family tradition: stay home on 'amateur night'), and asI watched Dick Clark I resolved to come out in 1987. The next arvo I got on the subway, and went to Uncle Charlie's Downtown on Greenwich Avenue. "Open Your Heart" by Madonna was the video. I found the back bar, and started drinking. Rapidly. I came to the next morning with 2 very nice and very gay guys ("we must brunch! to Kiev! It's fabulous!). I panicked, excused myself, got home and said, "Mom, Dad, there's something I have to tell you..." Ma saved her tears until the next day ("you sonofabitch, it was yaw grankids I wanned, not ya brotha's and not ya sistah's!." Ouch); Da didn't speak to me for nearly a year.
Today: Mostly I try to be out instead of coming out.
It's a common question bantered been queer folks doing the "getting 2 know u" cha-cha. Sometimes with the horizontal cha-cha, sometimes not. Still it's a thread that weaves through most of our lives (I don't count Gore Vidal or Quentin Crisp, both of whom are/were too venial in their ignorance of the politics of identity) among "us." So very nearly every single one of us has a story to tell of this sort. Here's some snapshots from mine...
Making Love: I was already quite adept in the sex-between-guys thing by age 18. Though I'd not yet tried (nor was I interested) in taking it Up the Hershey Highway--a toll road if ever there was one. But as denial would have it, I didn't really think of myself as gay. Today epidemiologists would call me an MSM--a man who has sex with other men, but doesn't self-identify as gay or bi. It was, you know, just fun. I still dated girls (they thought I was such a gentleman, heh). No big whoop. Then I saw the filmMaking Love on cable, the story of a married guy who comes out--and creates a mess for everyone involved.
Shit, maybe this isn't just about "fun." D'oh!
Be it resolved: In 1986, after graduated with my BA and backpacking around Europe, I found myself trapped in Rockaway, chez parents. I was working in the City and had made a couple of reconaissance flights to gay bars after work, but felt trapped. New Year's Eve was a quiet one (family tradition: stay home on 'amateur night'), and asI watched Dick Clark I resolved to come out in 1987. The next arvo I got on the subway, and went to Uncle Charlie's Downtown on Greenwich Avenue. "Open Your Heart" by Madonna was the video. I found the back bar, and started drinking. Rapidly. I came to the next morning with 2 very nice and very gay guys ("we must brunch! to Kiev! It's fabulous!). I panicked, excused myself, got home and said, "Mom, Dad, there's something I have to tell you..." Ma saved her tears until the next day ("you sonofabitch, it was yaw grankids I wanned, not ya brotha's and not ya sistah's!." Ouch); Da didn't speak to me for nearly a year.
Today: Mostly I try to be out instead of coming out.
