GenQ - For the not so straight individual

To Ask Aaron a question, send it to asilver@wmis.net.

My name is Aaron Silver.   I grew up in a middle class family of 4 boys, 3 girls born of a Russian Jewish father and a German Catholic mother.  Therefore if any of my readers have any guilt issues I consider myself an expert in the area.  My home town of about 5000 people is about 20 minutes from one of the largest gay resorts in the country called, Saugatuck Michigan. It’s a very quaint and picturesque little resort town along the shores of Lake Michigan .  In fact it has been a gay resort for around 80 years because of its long standing connection with the Chicago Art Institute.  Chicago is an easy two hour drive and therefore attracts many tourists from there whether gay or straight.  I now live on a small horse farm/dog kennel a few miles outside of Saugatuck where I also write books and op-ed/ed ads for newspapers all over the English speaking world. 

 

After graduating from high school I went on to Western Michigan University and studied Spanish and Sociology however still remaining closeted.  Although I was very sexually active it would not be until I was 24 before having my first gay experience.  It was because of my first experience that everything felt so right on so many levels I knew immediately that this was who I was and I would not be able to go back to putting on the heterosexual charade any longer.  The experience was so powerful that it was a feeling of coming home after being lost for so many years in loneliness, shame and fear.  Of course I knew very early on as most of us did, who we were at our very core.  However, we young gay boys and girls at a very early age would begin to understand society’s very narrow view of what feelings and behaviors were considered normal and healthy.  It is at this point that the closet door goes shut on that very important part of whom we are, and for many of us, it stays shut for many many years to come.

 

For any readers that may not know or understand what the term, “the closet� means, it is the emotional place that gay children and many gay adults recoil into out of fear of appearing different or abnormal. “The closet� is a behavior born out of fear of the dominant heterosexual culture which images we are bombarded with daily starting as early as one can remember.

 

Straight culture needs to understand that all minorities to a certain extent live in fear of the dominant white heterosexual culture and that is the reason they generally establish their own urban enclaves born out of fear and emotional necessity.  There is however one very important difference within the minority experience.  Black children at least go home to their black families and don’t wish their children were white.  Hispanic children go home to Hispanic families that don’t wish that they were Caucasian. Jewish Children go home to Jewish families that don’t wish that their children were Christian.  However gay children go home to heterosexual families that do wish they were straight.  That is if they knew the truth which is rare.  Gay children therefore make an understandable and rational choice to play a role of being “straight�.  They fear that if their families that are expected to love and care for them unconditionally may not if the knew the truth.  It’s a chance few of us dare to take.  Therefore gay children are overwhelmed with the fear of being discovered and the fear of what the fallout may be if somehow they were.   Many closeted individuals become so fearful of being “outed� or considered somehow under suspicion that they will often go to the extent of practicing what they consider heterosexual behaviors.  They believe that by doing so it will hopefully thwart any suspicion of being considered otherwise.  Many of these closeted individuals will try so hard to change who they are innately attracted to.  Many therefore will often marry in hopes that perhaps that will change them.  Many will even choose the clergy.  We’ve all read about many of their failings at trying to change their innate desires of same sex attractions and often with horrible public humiliations as a result.  Many of the luckier ones will come out shortly after high school and while in college meet others like themselves.  Many of us didn’t even know that there were others just like us that had been experiencing the same private hell.

 

It becomes such  a relief for many of these formerly closeted individuals that they will often then bury themselves deeply  within the gay culture because they finally feel a sense of security and camaraderie that they likely have never in their lives before felt.   The desire to fit in and feel finally accepted can be so powerful that many formerly closeted individuals will therefore simply acquiesce to the pre-established norms and ways of life of the gay culture which isn’t necessarily healthy either.  However it is important to understand that other members of gay culture also have their own emotional baggage that they have brought with them from their closeted experiences as well.  There are many pitfalls within gay culture that we need to be ever vigilant about avoiding.  Don’t become just another gay cliché.  I believe if you demonstrate originality and express your own uniqueness you will therefore attract the healthier members of gay culture into your lives.

 

“The closet� is a very emotionally damaging place to those that are in it or have experienced it. The damage of the closet starts very early in a gay child’s life and the damage done does not simply vanish after we come out. Those emotional scars run deep and most go unhealed unless one has the courage to seek counseling in regards to the accumulated damage.  It is a form of post traumatic stress syndrome I believe.  The coping mechanisms for the damage of the closet and for those experiencing post traumatic stress syndrome are nearly identical.  Addictions of all sorts are quite common for both as a means of coping with those unhealed wounds in an attempt to dull or avoid the very real pain.    It is even more damaging to those that stay in the closet for longer periods of time and therefore unwittingly victimize others because of our closeted issues.   Living in the closet is very understandable given societies dispassionate attitude when it comes to homosexuality.  These victims of the closet may be our wives, husbands, our children, friends, brother and sisters etc. all feeling like they have been victims of our deception. They may be very angry especially at first when they find out the truth which further victimizes us causing even greater guilt than we already have lived with our entire lives.  For many the pain, shame and guilt become too great and therefore many choose suicide as a way out of their internal struggles.

 

My greatest hope for this column is to help in a variety of ways.  I can be a sounding board, an objective friend or someone that has been through most of the experiences that most gay people experience and have come out the other side and into a healthy attitude and perspective on many issues.   I understand the damage very well that the closet can cause and I want to help others understand it as well.  I want to help educate those that may have some emotional issues that they don’t understand that very well may be residual damage caused by years in the closet.  I have in my over 30 years of being an out gay man helped countless friends come out to their friends, husbands wives etc, so they didn’t have to do it alone.  It is an often terrifying experience however it can be done and done in a way that can minimize the damage to those relationships that are important to the closeted individual.

 

I believe that by helping everyone understand the terror, loneliness and feelings of isolation that gays go through throughout their lives is essential in helping facilitate the “coming out� process, and believe me, it is a process.  It is not necessarily something one can or even should try and do overnight.   I am here however for whatever reasons any of the readers may have, whether they are relationship issues, issues of addictions, infidelity, HIV infections, etc.  If I don’t have the answers I will find someone that does.   I hope that many of you will share your life stories and experiences if you feel that you can relate to an individual in whatever their life struggle happens to be at any given time.  Thank you and I do hope to hear from many of you.  Always remember that you are not alone and whatever the issue is that is troubling you there is a way to deal with it and you will survive, I promise.  You will not only survive you will thrive because you will no longer feel the need to continually expend your energy on editing your life for the comfort of others.  Your life and your life experiences matters as much as anyone’s. 

  

Thank you, Sincerely,

Aaron Jason Silver   

Author of Why Gay Men Do What They Do, an inside look at gay culture, and also soon to be released, The Banana Leaf.   

http://www.aaronjasonsilver.com/

To Ask Aaron a question, send it to asilver@wmis.net.