The 300th Post (Observed): Going farther away from the closet

Last night, I found myself watching a bit of Larry King Live. I normally avoid it (primarily because I don't care for Larry), but his guest was Tab Hunter who has recently come out publicly a la Richard Chamberlain--which is a way of saying that he's plugging his autobiography. Still, it was somewhat appropriate, considering that it's National Coming Out Day today.

On one hand, yes, it's a good thing that he's now admitting to the world that Confidential had it right. (I'm reading Richard Hofler's The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson which discusses how his former agent gave the infamous tabloid the story about Tab's arrest for attending an all-male, all-gay party--apparently male-bonding wasn't popular in the 1950's.) On the other hand, he made a point of saying that he doesn't like gays who are "in your face" and "out there." I have a problem with that.

Some will say that Tab is a product of his generation and time in 1950's Hollywood. Well, so what? I see no pride in admitting that you're an anachronism. Harry Hay and the Mattachine Society was around at that time as well.

We live in interesting times. Technology today allows free access to information, support groups, and obviously, hook-ups as well. You can, in most locales in this country, go into a gay bar and not have any fear of being arrested.

The bizarre thing is this, it's also allowed the closet cases to take from us and never give back.

Somewhere right now, there's a businessman in a for-show marriage on a business trip that is waking up after kicking his male one-night stand out of bed. Somewhere right now, there is a celebrity proclaiming general support for gay rights but still staging photo-op dates with starlets, despite having a boyfriend at home. Somewhere right now, there's a politician who refuses to support gay marriages, while keeping his male lover squirreled away out of town. Somewhere right now, there is somebody planning to harass an openly gay student because he doesn't want to deal with his own homosexuality.

The closet leaves me with conflicted feelings to be honest. Personally, I feel that a life lived duplicitly leads to a tortured soul. Yet, I had a painless coming out, and have never, for the most part, dealt with severe reprecussions. I wasn't coerced into a marriage or exiled from my family and their emotional support. I've had it easy, to be blunt. Not everybody is fortunate. I start to think about how it is when children are involved. You see, I grew up in a household where my parents were not that deeply fulfilled emotionally, but stayed together because of me. (Without veering this too much into my family history, they come/came from the generation that believes in sticking together "'till death do us part" and they did.) So I can understand, to some extent, why some men and women chose to remain closeted with children involved. I most definitely do not support it, but I understand.

That's about as far as my tolerance goes. I truly believe that most problems in life start when you live your life for appearances and to serve others, as opposed to yourself. Now, there's a difference between living your life for yourself and living self-centered. Living for yourself means being willing to take on responsibility for your actions and managing them effectively. Being self-centered means doing what you want and then consistently putting the blame on someone else when things go pear-shaped. Call me a curmudgeon, but there's too much of the latter and too little of the former these days.

Recent articles I've come across have suggested that the gay teen is at risk of disappearing. Homosexuality is not going away, but publicly identifying as a gay teen might become more rare. The "bi phase" reigns supreme. I'll cop to it, I certainly took that route for 3 years. It was the path of least resistance, but the thing is that it never rung true. It was like a way to be semi-honest with myself without feeling like I was alienating the rest of the world.

(Disclaimer: I am not the New York Times. I do believe there are real honest-to-goodness male bisexuals out there, but I'm also aware that for many--not all--it's a stepping stone towards homosexuality. I mean I'm hypnotised by Shakira's breasts in the video for "La Tortura," but I'd rather do Alejandro Sanz.)

You see this frequently in places like Myspace, which seems to be full of these early twenties Adonis looking male bisexuals that ape this almost cartoonish version of heterosexual posturing. I think this group isn't bisexual. Their true orientation is narcissism. They just want to be desired by everyone. This is the group that revels in the art of rejection. It'll be interesting to see if they turn all Jonestown once 30 hits.

But I digress...The fact of the matter is that it takes guts to admit to yourself who you are and that who you are does not gel completely with the mainstream. Listen, I'm black and that's a group that includes Condoleeza Rice, that gay man who works for Santorum (I am in no mood to hunt down his name), and Alan Keyes in addition to Coretta Scott King, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes. We don't get to choose the members of our group, because if I could I'd kick that first group of three out. The same applies to being gay. We have to accept that we do have James West, Leopold & Loeb, and the LCR just as much as we have Matt Foreman, Fenton & Barbato, and Christine Vachon.

So often people say, well "I'm not like them." No, you aren't. You're yourself, so why are you afraid of what others will think? When those who would disapprove start paying your bills, then you can pay them some attention, otherwise, fuck 'em. Who has the right to your body? To your mind? Only you.

It's somewhat appropriate that I'm off to Philadelphia today. (Post-Mortem will be filed tomorrow.) It was the site--according to the literature--of some of the earliest gay rights protests in the US. My reasons for going aren't quite as high-minded. I'm just going because I've never set foot in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (barring airports) and all the ads have finally gotten to me.