From One Closet to Another

Strange but true, I am starting to realize I might have to lie even when I actually finally come out to my parents.

You see, I am and have always been and shall always continue to be bisexual.  I find both men and women attractive.  I have had long term relationships with either.  I have considered being in a lifetime relationship with either.  To be more brutally frank (at the risk of being rude) I like cock as much as I love pussy.

And I am starting to realize when the time finally comes when I get to come out to my parents, I will have to lie to them and say I am simply, "gay."

Don't get me wrong, though.  I am gay.  I am gay cause gay does, for me, mean a person who is not straight.  Gay is  a person who does get attracted to, and would be willing to have a long term relationship with someone of the same sex.

So yes, I am gay.

Too.

Cause I also am, using that narrow definition "straight."
Cause straight is a person who gets attracted to the opposite sex, and would be willing to have a long term relationship with one.

So yes, I am straight.

Too.

If one were to be more honest, however.  Both implies a "but not with" clause that would then force me to embrace a more honest but grossly misused and abused term, "bisexual."  It is a sad but true fact that most of the time, people who call themselves bisexual are either:  too afraid to admit they are gay, just confused and still experimenting both sides, or simple misunderstanding the term to mean being masculine and gay.

But it isn't.  

A bisexual is someone who gets attracted to either sex, and would be willing to have a long term relationship with either sex as well.  Or in my case, someone who doesn't really care what the sex of the person is -- if I like the person, then I do.  Dipping in, being dipped into, or doing both at the same time are all just additional perks and ways to manifest your love for the person further.

I am bisexual.

But yes, sadly, come the day I come out I will have to lie.  On the day I finally see that my parents are ready (and healthy enough) to hear the truth, I will stand up before them and tell them, "Mom.  Dad.  I need you to know your son.   I am gay."  And on this day when I face the music and threat of being disowned, and hopefully not risk their health and mental stability in the same process, I will have to hurt them with this much more acceptable lie.

Much more acceptable?

Why?

Because if I were to tell them I what I am really - if I were to admit to them I am bisexual - then they would never ever accept the fact that I have chosen a man to become my partner for life.  They would always (and rightly have the idea) that I can still someday end up with a woman.  It isn't a wrong thing to think, after all, strictly speaking as definitions go, I can end up with a man or a woman.  But it would not be something I think healthy for them to live with for the rest of their lives.

I can't leave them holding on to a real, though extremely unlikely, hope.

To tell them I am just gay will still, yes, have them wish I could choose a woman still.  Stories about of the many parents who know of their gay sons or daughters and secretly (or in some cases, still openly) nurse the idea that their non-straight child will "break from the phase" or miraculously fall in love with the "right" gender.  Deep down, no matter how they hope however, such parents know they are lying to themselves and merely in denial of what their child has admitted themselves to be.

But to actually know and understand the child CAN still choose the gender they desire the child to have... that would be far more torturous.

No, I will have to lie to them.
I will have to let them believe I could never love women.
I will have to become a closeted bisexual, who will come out to them as gay, after years of being in the closet and letting them continue to believe I am straight.

It is the only way to make it easier for them to accept that I have found who I want to spend the rest of my life with, and he's not going to be someone they can ask me to replace.

Bisexual Pride will have to wait.

Gay Shows Must Go On

There is a guilty pleasure in watching Ru Paul's Drag Race. 

While I don't have fantasies of being a woman (and yes, to you naysayers who might throw me a "Don't diss it until you try it" line, I have dressed in drag for the fun of it for my best friend's birthday, as well as for theater.) I do admire the contestants in the show for being fierce, creative and very proud of who they are.



Season one was fun, with comparisons to Project Runway and America's Next Top Model constantly visible.  I tried to enjoy the show more as its own thing, but I couldn't help but feel they were just taking from the two and calling it something new.

Season two, however, found more of its own voice.  The challenges were very entertaining, drawing inspiration from old movies, grand divas and real issues which affect gay men.  

Lipsynching for your life, which is how the show finally challenges contestants who are leaving, is a fun and creative touch which I feel could have been better utilized in the show if they were to have less cuts away from the contestants and more screen time to show how they present themselves.

Then there is the Big Gay Sketch Show which I love watching for its campy fun and its hilarious skits.  While Saturday Night Live used to rule as the funniest show on the tube (with Whose Line Is It, Anyway? on a close second), SNL has progressively been getting more and more boring with nonsense skits such as "What's Up With That?".   The Big Gay Sketch Show has funny recurring characters and concepts with the young boy Fitzwilliam  winning my heart.  Fitzwilliam is a young transgendered boy desperately seeking to find a way to have what he always wanted in life: a vagina.  Amusingly, the role is played by Kate McKinnon, a woman, who carries the role so well it just works!  Other recurring characters are Svetlana, an ex-KGB agent and chorus dancer, Naldo the package guy, Maya Angelou who reads sexually explicit Craigslist postings and many others.


Other than these two shows, I don't really know of any other gay shows that I do like watching.  I have never been into the supposedly best gayest show, Queer as Folk.  I never got interested in  Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.  I don't think I'm interested in Dante's Cove.  I, however, must confess I am anxious to catch up on Will and Grace.


Ultimately, I wish more gay oriented shows come out, with less focus on sex and more on being gay.   The ongoing series Modern Family has a gay couple who have adopted a child and has wonderfully touched on gay topics and issues (and interestingly enough, presented them in a revealing way that shows they aren't issues only gay men face) without having to fall back on the idea that gay has to always equal wanting to grab someone's ass.  Other shows like Flash Foward and Caprica have been showing non-stereotypical gay characters as well.  But sadly such shows aren't exactly gay shows are they?


Local films and television seem to still be hung up in the idea that gay has to equal effeminate.  A gay character, in local productions, has to have a twangy voice, an interest in cross dressing (or at least having overly exaggerated hand motions) and find every hot man irresistible.)  Local productions push the idea that all gay men have to be sex-craving man eaters.  THAT image I can have much less of.


Or am I getting myself too hung up on the idea that a gay show has to be a show that caters 90% of the time to a gay audience alone?   Does this mean I view all OTHER shows to be straight shows?  Is it a question of whether or not the cast is predominantly heterosexual or not?  Or is it just a question of whether or not the show has a non-straight lead character?

Hmm... now that I'm thinking about it, what about Torchwood?