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INTRODUCTION:
As a gay man, I've often wondered why it seems so difficult for straights to understand what we mean by having a "gay identity" that to me is a perfectly natural, keen sense of being; an abiding tune if you like, a humming in me at all times.
The almost universal reaction from straights is that we mean something like having explicit sexual fantasies about members of our own sex, i.e, that we are referring to our specific mode of arousal.
By this reaction, straights have totally missed the mark, or at least, deeply misconstrued the whole issue.
Another typical reaction is that perhaps we gays go about with a sense of being different, i.e, that we have a sort of perpetual outcast feeling within us that drives us into each others arms to huddle together for some time and gain respite from a hostile world around us.
This last attempt from (usually sympathetic, but pitying) straights to understand us is however, utterly false:
Rather than being an ever-present sense of inadequacy, my "gayness" is a sense akin to that of achieved wholeness and self-sufficiency, that is, intimately and irrevocably entwined with my sense of independent adulthood, and yes, pride and self-confidence.
I am as utterly and totally gay when I inhale a fresh batch of cool morning air as when I am deeply intimate with another man.
Such a statement will most usually be met with headshakes and stares of blank incomprehension from straights.
To me, at least, it has been very puzzling that there doesn't seem to exist a similar sense of "straightness".
Lately, however, as I've pondered these various issues again, I think I've found a way to describe this, and I hope you'll join me and read on since I think I've also figured out a few bits about you straights which might be of interest to yourselves.
I have headed the thread with a reference to the moment when you REALIZE you're gay, perhaps the most defining moment in a gay man's life, and that should not be confused with the moments you start having sexual fantasies about or encounters with boys/men, nor about coming out as gay.
As I see it now, gays and straights go through totally different maturation processes towards adulthood leading to quite strongly divergent mentalities, which makes "understanding" very hard, and probably can't ever be achieved fully.
So, in the spirit of attempting the impossible anyway, my next post will involve describing these maturation processes as I see it now.
I will, of course, be delighted if someone actually reads this thread and posts intelligent comments, even if it should happen that those comments reduces my beautiful theory about distinct maturation processes to shambles..
(Perhaps this thread ought to be moved from GD to "Social Sciences", or possibly, the philosophy forums)
As a gay man, I've often wondered why it seems so difficult for straights to understand what we mean by having a "gay identity" that to me is a perfectly natural, keen sense of being; an abiding tune if you like, a humming in me at all times.
The almost universal reaction from straights is that we mean something like having explicit sexual fantasies about members of our own sex, i.e, that we are referring to our specific mode of arousal.
By this reaction, straights have totally missed the mark, or at least, deeply misconstrued the whole issue.
Another typical reaction is that perhaps we gays go about with a sense of being different, i.e, that we have a sort of perpetual outcast feeling within us that drives us into each others arms to huddle together for some time and gain respite from a hostile world around us.
This last attempt from (usually sympathetic, but pitying) straights to understand us is however, utterly false:
Rather than being an ever-present sense of inadequacy, my "gayness" is a sense akin to that of achieved wholeness and self-sufficiency, that is, intimately and irrevocably entwined with my sense of independent adulthood, and yes, pride and self-confidence.
I am as utterly and totally gay when I inhale a fresh batch of cool morning air as when I am deeply intimate with another man.
Such a statement will most usually be met with headshakes and stares of blank incomprehension from straights.
To me, at least, it has been very puzzling that there doesn't seem to exist a similar sense of "straightness".
Lately, however, as I've pondered these various issues again, I think I've found a way to describe this, and I hope you'll join me and read on since I think I've also figured out a few bits about you straights which might be of interest to yourselves.
I have headed the thread with a reference to the moment when you REALIZE you're gay, perhaps the most defining moment in a gay man's life, and that should not be confused with the moments you start having sexual fantasies about or encounters with boys/men, nor about coming out as gay.
As I see it now, gays and straights go through totally different maturation processes towards adulthood leading to quite strongly divergent mentalities, which makes "understanding" very hard, and probably can't ever be achieved fully.
So, in the spirit of attempting the impossible anyway, my next post will involve describing these maturation processes as I see it now.
I will, of course, be delighted if someone actually reads this thread and posts intelligent comments, even if it should happen that those comments reduces my beautiful theory about distinct maturation processes to shambles..
(Perhaps this thread ought to be moved from GD to "Social Sciences", or possibly, the philosophy forums)
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