Peeking out of the Closet · The Unlikely Son

FROM NEVRBORN

Prologue

Ever thought your life needs a soundtrack? A mix-tape of well-chosen songs to accompany everyday non-events. Something classical while reading the newspaper in the morning? Or minimal techno while ironing the slim-fit white shirt just before hitting the bars?

Well, this is the soundtrack of my life. I'm twenty-nine, male, gay and no, my soundtrack will not be ABBA or Beyonce!

Don't worry, I don't have high hopes of it going platinum!

Chapter 1
Song: The Gabe Dixon Band - All will be well

So, in many gay-fiction/non-fiction novels there is a chapter about the struggle of coming out, to start living the life you have ignored, even though it has been screaming at you. To stop fooling yourself that deleting the gay porn sites from the internet browser history will somehow make you normal and straight. That once you find that one special girl the desires will go away. That the Calvin Klein underwear ads don't get you hard! Those abs....!

But I digress.

I wanted to start with this. Sort of get it out of the way! Because this is not a happy-go-lucky I'm-gay-and-I´m-loving-it kinda book. At least I don't think so, but I've just started writing it afterall and I don't really know where it will lead me. For all I know this book might be in the closet still, not ready to come out yet. (Yes, I saw the tackiness of the analogue as well after I had written it down and re-read it. But I'm keeping it!)

Let's just see where it takes us.

I first came out to one of my best friends during university. "I think I might be bi!" was drunkenly confessed on some stairs outside of a student bar, but nothing changed after that. I lived another six years before I came out again and finally did something about it. Even though I had girlfriends whom I oved and cared for, there was always something missing. I tried to convince myself that I could do this, I could be normal and be together with a girl.

But I think there are certain signs that should have convinced me relatively early that it was not meant to be. For example, I always used to get the "wow, you give great head" from the girls I went home with. Well, when you can´t really seem to get it up, then you learn to get by and hide it by focusing elsewhere. They say that gay men gives the best blow jobs. I don´t think I would be far off if I would say that closeted men give girls the best head.

When I eventually decided that enough was enough, I started coming out to all my friends. In the beginning it was easier to do when I was drunk. I would wake up with a hangover and a mental tick-in-the-box the next day, and eventually it would be easier and easier and I would´t need alcohol to do it. I did not have a single bad experience telling my friends which I am forever grateful for. I´m not the stereotypical gay with a kink in the hand or being immaculately well dressed, so for some it came as a surprise., but many also had guessed.

At least I don´t think there were any money changing hands when I came out. "Told you!"….

So all in all it was pretty painless for me coming out. Late, I know, but it can take a while to accept who you are. A part of me wish that I would have done it sooner, thinking "what kind of person would I have been today if I would have come out earlier?". But I am also very happy where I am in my life right now. I love my friends and family, and I would hate it if I would not have been where I am today, not having the friends I have, because I would been out my whole life. Would I have been happier? Maybe. But being closeted never really brought me down. I think it has made me a bit insecure as a person because I have had to hide something that was a part of whom I was. But unhappy? Not really. Being as happy as I could have been? Definitely not.

I think the only advice I could give to others in the same situation would be - All will be well!

It might hurt, it might take time and it will most likely change your life. But in the end, all will be well!

CRITIQUE

This piece would attract a very limited audience. Not many people want to read about your sex life. Typically, this kind of writing repulses me - not because of the homosexuality, but because of the one-dimensional focus and the public airing of what should be private. It is common among the gay community to make their sexuality their identity. That mentality is always opaque to me. I’m probably as heterosexual as they come, nuclear heterosexual, lol, yet I feel I could lose my sexuality and still be me. I’d still live and love and think. I don’t feel the need to discuss my sex life with anyone (aside from my wife, lol) let alone write it down. Heterosexuality is not who I am, it’s just an aspect of my physical existence.

Not so with homosexuals, at least many of the ones I know. Their sexuality is literally their life. It pervades their thinking, their talk, their activity. It’s a really important revelation that closeted men give the best head. It disgusts me, but no more than a heterosexual who does the same thing. In reading this, my attitude is pretty much just go away and leave me alone. Go be gay. Go sleep with as many women as you want. I don’t want to hear or read about your sexual interests gay or straight any more than I want to tell you about mine. To me, sexuality is meant to be mostly private and personal, not public, and I believe those are hardly uncommon sentiments.

That said, I think you’re not really ready to write this story. Twice you describe heterosexuality as “normal”. What do you think that implies about how you view your homosexuality? You think it’s abnormal. Your piece is one big block of ambivalence from beginning to end. I don’t know about anyone else, but ambivalence plays only so long for me before it becomes wearisome. Have you come to terms with your homosexuality or not? If you’re wavering, I don’t think you can write very effectively about it, because ambivalence makes you lie constantly. You can’t write honestly and truthfully about what you really don’t believe. There’s no way you “ignored” this life and no way coming out was “pretty painless”.

If you feel you really have accepted your homosexuality, then there’s three things I think you can do to make your writing more palatable to a larger audience. First, jettison the overt sex stuff. For any but the sex-oriented, it comes off as adolescent, inappropriate, and one-dimensional. Second, as much as possible, remove yourself as the focus of your writing, and replace yourself with more of an objective, philosophical examination of your sexuality. Search your piece for “I”. I bet you use it forty or fifty times in this short piece. You sound like a narcissistic little twerp, and I’m certain that’s not your intention, and almost certainly (since I don’t know you) not the kind of person you are. You have BIG emotions, BIG feelings, BIG thoughts. Write about those, not yourself. Replace yourself with contemplation. Third, use better verbs. Empty verbs cripple your meaning.

Look at this paragraph (where, incidentally, you use “I” 17 times and “me” 4 times):

Now read it with “you” toned way down, with more of a detached, contemplative view:

With my friends and family, coming out later in life was as painless as it could be, but what if it happened earlier? How would it have affected my personal development and relationships? Certainly life holds a great deal of happiness and contentment now…such good friends and family - but would an earlier exit from the closet have prevented some relationships I now enjoyed? Perhaps as younger people, some current friends would be less accepting and end the relationship - a terrible thought. And what of myself? Would life have been happier? Maybe. The closet was never too uncomfortable, though a bit insecure because the door kept cracking open, and who knew who thought they saw me peeping behind it? But was it less happy in the closet than now? Not really. Life is wonderful.

You see? You can attract a larger audience if you step back from yourself, put on your lab coat, and record observations, because people often observe the same things or identify the observations with similar occurrences in their own lives. People like validation, the thought that “Yeah! I know what he must’ve felt because thus and so happened to me!” But when you attach your thoughts exclusively to yourself…well, you better be a very interesting and unique sort of person, because talking about yourself all the time usually gets old pretty darn fast.