STRAIGHT TALK!

Back in the day when I would peruse the personals, I always found it a little humorous and not a little ironic the number of ads that featured themselves as "straight acting."  These ads were in the gay section or a gay paper altogether, promoting this characteristic as if it were a badge of honor or some desired quality that was short in supply and demand.  It points to a deep psychological schizm in the gay psyche, one that is at odds with itself causing sensational tension in the personality.  On the one hand gay men's sexuality is a statement and testament to their identity.  On the other hand this self-same identity is a source of shame and guilt, one which they cover up or mask by appearing "straight acting."    When one acts straight the entire premise is to prevent folks from perceiving, picking up on or figuring out you are a homosexual so that you can "pass".

These are the folks we call "closeted".  They have consigned themselves to hiding their sexuality as gay men by appearing to act straight.  Some of them succeed, some of them do not.  An entire culture and language has sprung up around acting straight for gay men.  It is all too obvious the reasons for this behavior.  Society too often breeds contempt for the minority, for those who differ from the majority. It seeks conformity with the mass and will use whatever means necessary to break down the minority so that it may be absorbed into the majority.  This is assimilation.  Society says, "you will be assimilated".  The consequences for refusing assimilation can be severe from being branded an outcast to death itself.  Hence we find communities or groups of outcasts who come together  for commerce, comfort and transaction and safety.  The gay community is one such community.  But there are those for whom the price of maintaining their individuality and identity is too steep a price to pay.  They opt in to the assimilation program, the price tag being their integrity (and sanity).  Society can be none too forgiving when it comes to its demands of conformity.

The straight acting phenomena goes to the heart and soul of what it is to be gay.  It defines acceptance and rejection in our psyches.  It projects our authentication or our falsehood into the world.  This projection, whichever it may be teaches the world about who we are, to respect us or to mock us.  I am not naive enough to believe every gay person should be an out and proud gay person. I recognize there are situations and places where an out spirit is a dead spirit.  Those brothers and sisters of ours in those positions deserve nothing but our prayers, encouragement and assistance wherever possible.  What I speak of here is a cultural identity which has become so powerful it is a behemoth, it has taken on a life all its own and become a vacuum that is sucking so many of us into it.  I, myself was a member of the straight acting clan until I decided I wanted to pay the price for individuation.  To be truthful the costs rise and fall according to the situation.  The majority of my friends have accepted me.  My parents did not.  They cast me out.  It is all too clear that should I foreswear my sexuality in a born again household, we can move on as if the pages of that chapter had been torn out never to be seen again.  But I want to keep my history.  I want to read every dark, ugly chapter that was full of struggle, angst and depression to remind myself of how far I have come and how sweet the nectar of individuality is.

Individuality is not for everyone.  But because the gay community is a small community relative to the heterosexual community, there is more scrutiny, more expection and demand from us to stand and be counted or to continue to be scattered like the four winds.  The problem with being scattered is our power as group is severely diminished.  A house divided against itself cannot stand. The more of us that close our books the more society laughs at us and mocks us because it does not understand us.  And it is a truism that people fear what they do not understand.  That fear leads peopleto express all kinds of ugliness and depravity.  The more of us who become open books, the more society will understand and the less fear they will nurture.

It is up to us to show the world who we are.  We can declare our authenticity or declare our falsehood.  Feeding into the straight acting culture weakens the authenticity of the gay community.  If we cannot express our own authenticity in the world what right do we have to expect the world to honor us?  Authenticity is a journey, though.  It can take a while to get there. But as the road stretches out before you it gets easier the further along you travel. You eventually come to a difficult intersection to cross, which can seem impossible to cross but having crossed it, a whole new world opens up before you.  The road from then on will be smooth sailing and an open book.