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So I thought I should tell you...

10.9.17


So I thought I should tell you:

So when I was about 15, I was pretty sure I was gay. It only really lasted a month. I remember exactly when the thought occurred to me. I was sitting on the bus, just about to get off and I saw an Italian-looking guy with curly brown hair. Tall, slim, raincoat, walking with his bike. I thought to myself ‘He’s really hot.’ And then a moment or two later, ‘Maybe I find guys attractive’.

So obviously this didn’t last. I’m not gay. And this experience doesn’t necessarily mean that I was gay. That’s just what my 15 year old head told me. ‘You find guys attractive. So you’re gay’. It wasn’t a scary, or particularly surprising possibility. I’d heard of gay people, and they seemed fine. No problems there. I wasn’t particularly bothered about the possibility that I might like guys rather than girls. Or at least as well as girls.

I think the factors leading to this moment were not uncommon. It was probably just that most men don’t dress very well, so when you see a man dress well, it’s a surprise and they stand out. I also think that as a 15 year old boy, having grown up in a household in which sexuality wasn’t a big deal, it was definitely something I’d consider at some point. I’d known that Freddie Mercury wasn’t heterosexual, and I loved him, so homosexuality wasn’t a distant unknown idea. And probably I thought that if Freddie Mercury was an artist, and not heterosexual, then since I wanted to be an artist, then maybe it would help if I wasn’t heterosexual. So thought my 15 year old head.

But I want to emphasise that I don’t think my experience is uncommon. I don’t come from an exceptional liberal background: my grandparents on both sides hold extremely conservative views- my paternal grandfather still uses ‘queer’ in the derogatory sense, for instance. So the progressive and the marginal were somewhat distant. And it’s not as though my thought process was particularly odd- even if the assumption that homosexuality somehow gives you a headstart was a little far from the truth.

I think the thoughts coming together in my head were- ‘I am able to appreciate beauty in men’ and ‘Most of my best friends are male’. These don’t mean that I’m gay. What it really meant was that I was re-understanding the meaning of ‘friendship’ in terms of ‘companionship’, rather than who I talk to in break. So when I thought I was asking myself ‘Do I fancy Will?’ what I was really asking was ‘Is Will a person I see as a good companion, someone to spend time with?’.

But I think that the male childhood is not one which is conducive to thinking such thoughts through. The male upbringing panics when ‘gay’ becomes a possibility- because boys are supposed to like girls and that’s the end of it. The male upbringing cancels the thought process when ‘gay’ comes up, and shuts down. No consideration of emotional connection to other men. It must stop at that friendship level- men don’t share emotions, talk about their feelings. That’s embarrassing. So you don’t consider the possibility of being gay.

So the reason I decided I was gay was that I wasn’t scared of the idea of being gay, and so it wasn’t a problem. But my 15 year old head didn’t recognise that there’s a midline place between being gay and being ‘a man’, where it’s ok to share your feelings, where it’s ok to feel upset, where it’s ok to say ‘I don’t feel comfortable’, where it’s ok to be scared. But the male upbringing is scared of these thoughts. Men don’t talk much, and certainly not about their feelings. That wasn’t my experience of men. So if I wanted to talk about my feelings (and plus I’d seen an attractive Italian guy), I must be gay- or at least bisexual.

So, men. It’s good to ask if you’re gay. It’s good to share your feelings. Do both. You’re guaranteed to enjoy at least one of them.


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