Being In the Closet Can Ruin Your Life

I’ve been meaning to write for awhile now, but this last week has been the week from hell at work. New projects, new deadlines, some exciting new things to learn and do. But, it has left little time for anything else.

I was going to talk about the Larry Craig issue in Idaho -- the Senator caught trying to solicit for sex in an airport men’s room. Actually, I wasn’t going to write about him per se, but more on the condition of why men like him do what they do. Let me start out with this. This is from Idaho history dating back to 1955.

The arrested men were no strangers to Boiseans. They were the salesman at the leading men’s clothier, the shoeshine man on Main Street and a warehouseman from a local family. Boise’s newspaper, The Idaho Statesman, responded to the arrests with a series of editorials demanding that prosecutors, the police and the community take action. The newspaper printed lines like “Crush the monster” and “This mess must be removed.”

“It did not seem possible that this community ever harbored homosexuals to ravage our youth,” the paper’s editorial page declared. The newspaper helped to ignite a witch hunt, in which many in Boise sought to rid the community of all of its gay men.

More arrests followed: a lawyer, a teacher, and most sensational, the vice president of the city’s largest bank. The roundup snared consenting adults as well as men who dallied with teens.

By the time snow fell, scores of men had been questioned. Sixteen were charged, including one who was hauled back from San Francisco, where he had fled when the scandal broke.

Of the 16 men who were formally charged, only one, the one who denied it all, who fought the case through a brutal trial, beat the charges. His steadfast denials, coupled with questions about the evidence against him, persuaded the jury to let him go.

The lesson of the 1955 scandal was clear: sexual misconduct — or even the mere perception that one is gay — could ruin a man’s reputation. (source)

In my childhood, my family would talk often about the “Boys of Boise” (John Gerassi’s book), as it came to be called. They always talked about it with such disgust. But being found out (as a homosexual) in Idaho could do more than ruin your life. Being found out in Idaho (and many other states I’m sure), could land you on the other end of a beating, police harassment/arrest, or death. I left Idaho because I had no choice. If I had stayed, I would have most likely ended up like Larry Craig, a self loathing, lying homosexual trying to pass for straight and, as part of that facade, doing everything in my power to show just how disgusting people like that are -- all the while saying over and over again, “I’m not gay!”

My family didn’t accept me. I was studying music. No one knew about my sexuality and the very thought of them finding out was more terrifying to me than death itself.

I was thinking about that this last week as I read about a new study out that states that the suicide rate for teenagers is up by 8% from just a few years ago. As a teenager who was struggling with the awful truth of my sexuality in a very conservative part of the country, the only real comfort I had was knowing that if things got really bad, I had a way out. In other words, I could end my life. How terrible is that, that I would take comfort in something like that?

I chose life instead, but it meant leaving Idaho behind, and finding that life elsewhere. I was fortunate enough to be able to leave Idaho with Kent as we made our way to the San Francisco Bay Area. It was a good place to be away from the fear of Idaho, but presented it’s own set of pressures as well.

The fear that gay people face truly eludes most straight people. And why shouldn’t it? You really do have to experience the fact that some people would rather just take you out behind the barn and use you for target practice. This is truly how I feel and this is why I feel that my country, to me, only consists of about five states -- five states that I feel I can go to and and feel relatively safe. The rest of the states, for gay people, have not found freedom. Sad, isn’t it? But it’s not as sad as living your entire life behind a lie.

So why do some gay men take the chances that Larry Craig took?

True, straight people don’t typically seek sex in public restrooms. But that’s partly because (1) public restrooms are mostly segregated by sex and (2) “quickie” sex is anatomically less convenient for women--which still hasn’t prevented some from joining the “mile high club” in cramped airplane lavatories.

The bigger reason is (3) straight people don’t feel the desperate need to conceal their erotic interests in the way closeted gay people do.

And that’s where gay-rights advocates make a decisive point: the culture of the closet is unhealthy for everyone involved. Lying about one’s sex life makes it easier to lie about other things; it also precludes the counsel of friends in an area where such counsel is desperately needed. (source) Highlighting my own.

The third point is the big one. Straight people everywhere are free to openly show their affection for each other. I don’t have that. I never will. I’ve accepted that. Life is full of things that I’ve come to accept. I’ve come to accept that my nation will never honor a marriage I would have with Kent. I’ve come to accept that in most of the country, I would not be all that safe, so I pay attention to where I go. To me, the thought of driving my car across the nation is unthinkable and dangerous. That would mean that I would have to cross states like Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas. To me, it is exactly how I would feel traveling around the Outback in a Mad Max movie.

But last night, when I was trying to decide if I should write this entry, versus just taking and posting more photos (which I’m sure I’ll do later), a reality came to me. None of this is all that important to me. Not like it used to be. I’m changing. I can see that now. The Larry Craig’s of the world have their life to live (such as it is), and I have mine.

And ultimately, it all comes down to how you live your life and if you are enjoying your life in the here and now. There are many things that a person can do to insure that happens. A lot of that comes with accepting the things that you will never acquire, as I mentioned above, and being ok with that.

The older I get, the more unimportant politics, other people’s flaws, etc. mean to me. I’m more focused on my life. And the whole marriage issue... yeah, I still want to get married to my partner, but I’m not going to lose sleep over the fact that most of society can’t bring themselves to let that happen because the sky might fall. It’s really only my problem to the extent that I let it in. I suppose that’s my way of saying, “Fuck you” to society, and moving on with my life.

Do what you will to me, but you can’t give me a reality as bad as living a lie. And I haven’t done that! I never will.

And right now, I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. LIFE IS GOOD!