I have a question to toss out to all of you. I think all of us at some point have been, and some might currently be in that stage of trying to root out the gay. By root out the gay, I mean trying to eliminate it or change it into a heterosexual attraction. This probably includes trying to reform or change or eliminate activities or behaviors or relationships that we think might be contributing to the gay. This process might be an effort to change orientation or it might be just to eliminate stuff from your life that might give away the fact that you're gay. Anyway, I think you are all aware of this degayifying process of which I speak, to some degree or another.
So here's the question, what things do you or have you tried to eliminate from your life in order to eliminate or hide the gay? For example, like probably many of you, I've always gotten along famously with the ladies. We are like best friends. I went through a phase in which I believed that my relationship to women was contributing to my inability to be attracted to them. Kind of like I was going in the back door and becoming one of them, eliminating the possiblity of becoming attracted to them. So I thought that I needed to not get along so well with the women in my life, go in the front door and interact with them in a way that would encourage an attraction to them. It seemed fool proof and made total sense to me at the time. It resulted in me not having very many friends and feeling a little dead inside.
So what about you? Other things eliminated at an attempt to degayify might include not wearing certain things that might be "too gay", not participating in certain activities (dance, fashion design, etc.), not associating with openly gay people, you get the idea. Please don't be embarrassed about sharing, no matter how ridiculous you might think it is now. This is a safe space. :)
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I am confident in the fact I am fully fledged card carrying Fag!
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting question...
ReplyDeleteI honestly can't think of anything I ever did to try to hide the gay.
I've always been stubbornly confident in my own manhood. I remember being aware that I engaged in gender non-conformist behavior. Like enjoying art and not being particularly into sports; talking very precisely -- kids always made fun of the way I talked; walking and moving and holding myself a certain way -- one friend used to get really frustrated with me because he thought my wrists were too "limp." When I observed my own gender non-conformity or others observed and made fun of it, my response was basically: that's not what being a man is about. Being a man is about being honest, brave, and caring. That's really what I thought. I think my dad was a great role model to me that way. So I figured that if people thought a "real man" was someone who had to be into sports and be physically rough or crude, I always just figured these were people who were sadly mistaken.
So I don't think I ever really tried to censor myself in any way to fit in.
Later on, after I came out of the closet, there were actually ways in which I tried to be more "in your face" about being gay... For a while I used to wear brightly colored finger nail polish and dangly ear-rings. Yep, for real.
That's interesting, John. You were much more confident in your manhood than I was. I remember being careful about crossing my legs a certain way and just trying to make sure I conformed in general. I was afraid to let it be known I had no interest in sports, so if the conversation ever went there with other guys I'd pretend to be interested and toss in a comment here or there to make it seem like I was totally into sports. For some reason, in my mind I had to be into sports to fit in as a man.
ReplyDeleteI love that you wore bright finger nail polish and dangly earrings! That's fantastic!
Yeah, crossed legs. I remember catching flak for it and not caring. It was the most comfortable way to sit!
ReplyDeleteI gave up the ear-rings and the nail polish once I became more confident in my gay. :-)
I think a lot of times we worry about it more than we need too. As for me, I accept it for what it is and try my best to live life to the fullest. I don't think I have many stereotypical mannerisms...prbably some, but it doesn't bother me.
ReplyDeleteBefore I came out I did several different things. I always hid my real music tastes. I couldn't like certain types of music, I couldn't enjoy going to Disneyland too much, and I couldn't obsess about musicals. I tried to avoid siting cross-legged. And I was really worried about how I sounded when I said hello or hi to people, so I created a ridiculous monotone hello that became my trademark.
ReplyDeleteThanks for causing me to think about this Jon.
ReplyDeleteOther than trying (and most likely failing) to look nonchalant about checking out a guy I thought was cute, I can't remember consciously changing or avoiding specific mannerisms or associations to hide being gay. However, looking back, I can see where I probably did and said a lot of subconscious things to avoid the appearance of The Gay. Examples that come to mind: mimicking the "guy" accent in conversations with male peers, telling conservative church folk I had gay friends because of my liberal political views, telling people I wasn't interested in sports because I preferred following politics and that politics was just another kind of sport. It was the series of destructive lies I told myself over so many years that made me feel dead inside.
John G-W: I appreciate your perspective and love this sentence the most: "Being a man is about being honest, brave, and caring." Although I don't know you personally, everything I've ever read on your blog or in the comments you make on posts by others, you qualify as all three.
Well you know about my dabbling with fashion design in my teen years and being obsessed with Elsa Clench (she was so damn patrician!) on CNN's Saturday morning style and fashion show and you know about my dancing (yes, modern dancing) days. I also remember loving the movie Clueless (yes I know that is clue #1) and hearing the moment when the dude used "...Barbara Streisand ticket holding..." to describe the gay guy. I immediately went to my room and tossed out all my BS cassette tapes. It was sad cause she did keep me company in my basement room, but alas, she was too gay and she had to go.
ReplyDeleteI really don't think that I consciously tried to stop doing anything. While some of my actions/interests have become more "masculine" as I've grown older (whatever that means...), I feel like I've always chosen what I like to do by what I want to do. And my mannerisms have always been the same. Old friends never saw them as gay, just Romulus. Newer friends understood better ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't remember ever trying to scrub it out. I always thought of myself as masculine. I just thought of myself as better than straight guys, poor them. The only thing I remember trying to do differently out of fear someone would catch on was to change how I look at my fingernails. There was this joke boys played on each other when I was a kid. Someone will say, "Look at your fingernails."
ReplyDeleteIf you turn your palm to you and bend your fingers toward you, you were straight. If you open up your hand, turn it around and look at your outstretched fingers, you were a homo. I remember practicing looking at my fingernails the straight man way.
Oh Rex, you've always had a superiority complex.
ReplyDeleteI remember sitting around with maybe six guys when I worked as a river guide and all of us had our legs crossed. One of them made the comment that only a bunch of river guides could get away with that, and nobody question it. I had observed this "behavior" before and wondered why none of these men worried about it. I guess that's one reason I liked that work, not much pretense.
ReplyDeleteI also remeber that to carry my books home from school I had to carry them down to my side, and not on my hip like girls did. We didn't have backpacks back then I guess...
The only thing I can really remember was that I desperately separated myself from my first major crush, literally changing schools to not have to see them anymore.
ReplyDeleteThere is a guy at work though... he makes one's gaydar go off times one hundred. He is very stereotypical gay man, except when he talks to other guys. When he talks with girls, he sounds gay as ever, but when this white-mormon-boy talks to guys it is "Well bro, I see what you mean dude, and that sports team is rad but bro, I just can't agree"--it is like some form of hyper-masculine cover up that really isn't working at all.
With good reason. :)
ReplyDeleteha! KPW
ReplyDelete