The problem? He's my straight best friend and he's been lying next to me this entire time.
Oops.
I didn't come out of my closet with a beauty queen wave to the happy chant of thousands of people cheering me on, I pretty much just fell out, landing right onto the asphalt. At that point, I thought my closeted days were very much over.
However, despite this less than elegant event, most of my fellow peers said surprisingly little of it. Of course it was the talk of the town in the Band Hall, but my peers in class kept it very hush-hush. No one brought up the situation unless I said something to the effect of referencing it, but then it was quickly put away. I couldn't figure it out. Why was I not the laughing stock of my local high school? Shouldn't everyone know?
I had literally fallen out of the closet with a bang, thinking my life was over, and no one noticed? In fact, while a few people helped me off the ground to pick up some pieces, it seemed like no one really cared about the "debacle" in the first place.
This isn't what I'd seen on Glee. I was supposed to be slandered, bullied, pushed up against walls, and finally sing "Defying Gravity" to show how much I don't care about what people think of me, but that never happened. All of my fellow students just went on with their lives, minding their own business, so as the months wore on; I got to quietly slip back into the now-cracked closet to finish high school, where I lived my Senior Year in utter bliss.
So why should I tell this tale? Eve Sedgwick claims in her "Epistemology Of The Closet" that "closets" are still daily features of the gay lifestyle and entering and remaining in said closets can help avoid scrutiny and insult (Sedgwick 68). It's also not only a feature of the lives of gay people, and it affects anyone and everyone (Sedgwick 68).
Closets can be many things to many different people. For some, it can hold shameful secrets one wants to keep from the public eye, for others it may just hold scrapbooks and memories of days long since passed, but for a few, including me, it was a place where I was safe from public scrutiny. However, my peers let me venture back into my comfort zone, showing me how important closets really are to us all, even if it took me a crazy, love-struck text message to realize it.
Closets can be many things to many different people. For some, it can hold shameful secrets one wants to keep from the public eye, for others it may just hold scrapbooks and memories of days long since passed, but for a few, including me, it was a place where I was safe from public scrutiny. However, my peers let me venture back into my comfort zone, showing me how important closets really are to us all, even if it took me a crazy, love-struck text message to realize it.
It's true--so many coming-out stories are remarkably bland, and I think yours is a prime example. I think spending so much time in the closet allows us to brood over and sensationalize the relevance of our sexualities, expecting our dark secret to prompt some proportionally sensational response when finally disclosed. Sometimes this does happen, but for you, and for me, and for many others, the coming out process, and tangentially the "way of the closet," proves anticlimactic, to say the least. I for one felt my ego a bit bruised that nobody cared more about who I wanted in my bed--wasn't I supposed to have to stand up for myself? Express courage and fight for my rights and acceptance? Maybe I had just chosen my friends well, as you seemed to have done. Maybe we're just lucky. We're out. But then again, are we? The point you made about slipping back into the closet is also implicit in our reading, the idea that the "closet" appears again and again, every time we encounter a new person with who's views we are not familiar. At every turn, we might find that our luck runs out and that the negativity we expected upon first coming out is thrown into our face upon the umpteenth time our sexuality becomes evident. The closet is ever present, a gay reality, and it's door will open, close, and open again countless times during the life of he or she who identifies as such.
ReplyDeleteI agree wholeheartedly, Olivia. I felt like I was going to have at least some struggle in my debacle at some point, but no opportunity ever showed it's face. People just ignored it and moved on with a "yeah okay, so?" It's a weird mix of emotions I felt because I was very relieved I didn't have to do anything else and everyone was accepting, but still I felt like I wasn't necessarily out like you mentioned. Definitely agree as well on the part about the negativity coming around sooner or later.
DeleteI feel like you got very lucky with your story and that makes me so happy for you, genuinely. It sounds like that would be followed by a "but" but in fact there is none. I appreciate how you were so flabbergasted about how anti-climactic it all was because I think that's something that a lot of people experience. I think that one of the scariest things about coming out is similar to when you get in trouble with your parents or any authoratative figure. It's the anticipation. Which is typically always worse than the actual result. And that's something people don't really learn until they experience something akin to your coming out.
ReplyDeleteI also agree. I’ve personally spent countless time trying to anticipate people’s reactions to help brace myself to overcome any rejection that may occur when I came out of the closet. Many times I was given very minimal reaction if any reaction at all and that threw me off more than anything. Part of me was glad that I was finally “out the closet” but another part of me felt like I had escaped that given “closet” just to be placed into a walking in closet instead. In this walking closet I knew that others knew I was bisexual but no one ever brought it up and so figuratively speaking, I could walk miles in this new closet but at the end of the day my life revolved around closet to closet.
ReplyDeleteWhat everyone is saying seems to tie back to the idea of the ''glass closet'' (Sedgwick 80), which can cause all sorts of anxiety beyond the initial 'coming out,' and the years of planning leading up to it. Once we are fresh out of the closet and the lynch mob is nowhere in sight, we begin to wonder if people knew all along. If they did already know, is the closet even there at all? Or is it a 'one way mirror' of sorts that only those outside can see through? Perhaps we only even expect such negativity because we have spent so much time dwelling over the possible consequences of coming out, whereas many people we are close to never think twice about having to reveal a huge aspect of who they are to people they already know and don't see why it would be such a huge ordeal. Its just that some people play through these horrifying scenarios in their head and already plot their own demise before even considering that they may have overanalyzed things a bit...
ReplyDeleteI don't want to keep repeating what everyone is already saying, but it holds true for me, as well. I don't think I have a different metaphor to describe what Jessica already has, but I felt the same way.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who still hasn't fully stepped out of their closet (Meaning, I don't flaunt my sexual orientation and not everybody who knows me, knows about it), I understand the movement from a small closet, all by yourself, to perhaps a bigger closet that you might share with some friends. I am constantly in this position of having to let more people and more people know as time goes on, mostly in part because I have yet to have my "big" coming out moment.
Upon reading this weeks story, I thought the author was just going to discuss the process of coming out and as surprising as it was that the story wasn't what I expected, it was very true about the "closets" we all live in, and made me think about my own "closet".
Does anyone remember the creepy spoon kid in the first matrix movie? Neo walks in to see the Oracle and sees the little bald kid bending the spoon with his mind. Neo asks how he does it, to which the kid replies something to the effect of "do no try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon...it is not the spoon that bends, only yourself." Random right? Let's see if I can go anywhere with this.
ReplyDeleteSeveral of the previous comments have referenced the insecurities and other negative feelings associated with struggling to stay in, stay out, come out, etc of the closet, and to be honest (but not to disrespect your opinions), it all seems lost on me. Everyone seems so intent on shaping the perception of how other's see them that in the end it's a wonder you feel like you have any identity at all outside of a relational one in conjunction with other's opinions.
On page 80, the author makes the point that "the inert substance of Assuérus seems to have no definitional involvement with the religious/ethnic identity of Esther", or in other words that Esther's secret Jewish identity has no reciprocal effects on his identity. The author continues to say that this differs from a "homosexual" coming out in that erotic identities are by very nature relational and "never to be perceived or known by anyone outside of a structure of transference and countertransference". To me this seems like a dangerous premise to follow. While I acknowledge that yes, erotic identity is classified in terms of the relation between subject and object, to say that it can never not be relational bothers me like nothing else. In the same way that a straight man won't be attracted to all women, a gay man won't be attracted to all men.
It probably seems like I haven't really gone anywhere with my thoughts here and have just thrown together a couple of random ideas. I guess the point I'm trying to make is the futility of worrying about constantly airing out your closet so to speak. Sex is a private matter - it doesn't happen in the streets (for the most part). Every time I hear someone ask "Are you gay?" my first thought is always, "Why? Are you interested?". It seems like everyone wants to bend the spoon (i.e. see themselves by way of a relation to others). Stop trying to bend the spoon. *In a creepy bald kid's voice* - try to realize the truth...there is no closet...it is not the closet that bends, only yourself.
I actually was wondering why a closet at all? Yes, it has the delicate sense of being the place where people keep their skeletons, but while reading the article and going through the comments, is it really an apt analogy? Like I said in class, (I hadn't realized I could post yet), I like to keep what goes on in my bedroom...well, in my bedroom. I am one of those people who likes to keep my social life separate from my professional life because I was raised on the ideas of professionalism being strictly business. Your personal self doesn't need to bleed into it and, honestly, it gives a certain freedom to your social life. At least for myself, it drops a lot of walls and allows freedom to be me. Sure, I may be 'in a closet' in professional settings, but really, it isn't a closet at all. It's my home. It's where I keep my things to do with as I please, to host parties, to show when I invite people in. It is not a prison, not a place to be stuck, not a detriment for me.
ReplyDeleteFor the Closet, it is a place where secrets are shoved, where people hide, where monsters lurk from our childhoods. I think, perhaps, it would be more liberating to think of it as a home rather than a prison. You can invite people in and kick them out, instead of being shoved in and out yourself by passing crowds.
I feel like I may be babbling, but I have to wonder if introducing a better term (maybe not a house, per say, but something) would be beneficial. 'The Closet' will never go away as an analogy, but offering another could be less damaging. After all, symbols in society have a lot of influence in portrayal.
Sorry if I may be off topic, but it was something that I thought a lot on while reading!
The whole notion of "coming out the closet" is completely and utterly overrated. I apologize to those who feel as though it is and or could be one of the most important things ever but it does not make or break who you are as a person. Relating my feelings and opinions back to the reading, for a closet to be a place of secrecy, proves to not be a positive thing. Either your hiding your true self to people you love and care about, or your hiding your true self to, no one else but yourself.
ReplyDeleteWhen people choose to step out (however they may choose too) it should be something that can be celebrated. Whether that be through a parade or just a simple smile, it should show through some sort of happiness. I know not all "coming out" the closet stories are happy endings but for those whose weren't, its life and sometimes life isn't always our best friend.