Often times I am in conversation with someone, and inevitably, the subject of whether or not so-in-so is gay, comes up. (Seriously, it happens a lot) While the person and I talk it over, and “check for the signs”, something else inevitable happens: the person, 9 times out of 10, says something like, “but he’s married” or “but he is engaged”, and then writes it off as a done decision. The conclusion is then: he must not be gay because of X. Well, I guess I want to know why that is always the first response of most people? He can’t be gay, at least not because of X. It is like X is a qualifier for non-gayness. It is almost like the person is looking for something to ?prevent? that other person from being gay. But why? I honestly want to know why this is so.
See, I bring this up mainly because I encounter this so very often. I wouldn?t say that I have this conversation daily, but I definitely have it at least once a week. See, when you are gay, people tend to ask you questions about other people that may be gay (in order to gain your “perspective”), and you tend to talk about the possibility of their having at least some level of gayness. It isn’t pretty, but it just happens. And like clockwork, I am always waiting for X to show up in the conversation. And it almost always does.
Now, it doesn?t really affect me whether the person is actually gay or not, that is not the point, what affects me here, is why it is necessary to use X to qualify that person as hetero.
I, for one, definitely think that sexuality is something that is pretty fluid, and people don’t necessarily know where they fall on the continuum; or there is at least a possibility they haven’t fully figured it out yet. With that being said, keep in mind for this conversation, I am not talking about bisexuals. I feel the need to say that I am not a big fan of so-called bisexuals (cause most people tend to lean heartily one way or another), mostly out of sheer jealousy that they get the best of both worlds; as most bisexuals tend to be truly able to blend in most environments (I have met many, and they never “seem gay”). I don’t think of myself as flaming, but I know that it is not a surprise when people hear that I am indeed gay. For the conversations where we mull over the person’s X’s, we are not referring to whether someone is bisexual or not, but simply, whether they are gay or not. (Maybe bisexuality should be the focus, but it isn’t; humor me.)
What I am talking about, is that guy that works in your office, that has 3 kids, and is so 100% homosexual, that it takes everything in you not to yell out “fag” or “girlfriend” every time he walks by; but is always classified as hetero because of his X’s. Now, as many know, it takes a while to figure out who we are in life. I know people that came out in the 30’s, 40’s, etc. Many of them were married. Many of them have kids. For whatever reason. And these people prove that X was not enough to hold them back from who they truly are; homo, not hetero (or in some cases bisexual).
So I guess what I want to know is this: why is it, that as a society, we have to look for some “get of jail free” card that will classify someone as one thing and not another. Does it really matter? (Now, I know what you are thinking? we were the ones talking about whether him or her are gay; but remember, we are gluttons for the same classification, be it right or wrong) And, I know that by trying to assess their gayness, we are looking for the “characteristics” to define this person as gay (for better or worse, many of them are true? and you know it), and in a way, it is the flipside of this equation, but like I said, I don?t care if the person is gay or not; it is just the topic of our little conversation.
So let me know what you think. Why do you think that we, as a society try so hard to classify people, first of all, and then create X’s to prevent them from falling into one category or another. Let’s look at this as our own mini-anthropological study: no one is wrong, I just want to know what you think.
And with that being said, my response to “he isn’t gay, he is engaged”, is always: “honey, being engaged isn’t anything but an obstacle. It can be overcome.”
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