GenQ - For the not so straight individual

I recall the time I saw a good friend of mine that I hadn't seen in a while. Afterwards I received an e-mail from her about how I had changed. One of the points that was made by her was how I was too focussed on girls and how I was totally engrossed in the queer community. Basically, she was telling me that I had become ?too gay?. Of course, my reaction was a shocked one. It had only been a year or so since I had come out, so surely taking the appropriate steps to explore my sexuality and all that the community had to offer was a reasonable thing for me to do, right? Not by my ?friends? definition it wasn't. And so it got me thinking, how gay is too gay? And why don't we ever hear heterosexual people being told they are acting too straight? When was the last time you told your heterosexual friend that she went to too many straight pubs/clubs?

One of the effects of growing up in a society that promotes the inherent development of heterosexuality over any other sexual orientation is that most children grow up thinking that they are heterosexual. I think that the majority of research in the area would point in that direction and it would be a fair statement to make. Therefore, during the teenage years and/or through puberty, a child experiments with heterosexuality and this is treated as normal. Perhaps children of the same age who are queer but don't know it yet, have subconscious reservations with this process and experiment less, if at all, with heterosexuality. However, because of the pressures placed upon them from society, they put off experimenting with homosexuality, attributing their awkwardness to a passing phase. But time passes, and yet the feeling doesn't. I concede that yes, it is becoming more and more common that girl friends end up ?making out? at a party, but this is mostly for fun and hardly amounts to anything. By the time the queer kid realises there may be more to their awkwardness then a passing phase, they find themselves in their 20s or older. And so if they are brave enough, they begin to embark on a similar sexual exploration process that heterosexual kids began years back, when it was culturally expected. Hence, when someone like me tries to discover and express herself, she is told that she has gone overboard. But you see, there is no such thing as ?too gay?, only a societies? heterosexist viewpoint of homosexuality!

I guess the point is, queer people go through a discovery process just as heterosexuals do, only at a predominantly different stage of their lives. This somehow makes it more obvious to heterosexuals and therefore impacts badly on their viewpoint of the process. However, queer people are JUST as entitled to this process as heterosexuals are. And part of this process is sexual exploration and cultural exploration. The person may express themselves by talking about women a lot (in the case of a woman) or hot guys (in the case of a queer guy). Or they may go out and get with people of the same gender. Or go out to a lot of queer friendly places and meet a lot of new queer friends. Yes, in a sense they are changing, but really, it is no different to when you were doing the same. So please, if you are one that tends to judge, have a think about what the person is going through. And if you are a queer person who is currently exploring their sexuality, GO FOR IT!!! For anyone who has experienced trouble similar to what I did, know that there is nothing wrong with getting to know yourself, and there is definitely nothing wrong with being as gay as you like!!

Love, Live, Learn?

JustNat xx