OUR Experiences in Sexuality

What is “Gay?”

Although I’ve had same-sex attractions all my life, I first realized I was “gay” when I was 13 in 7^th grade.  The realization came in the middle of math class. It will probably prove to be the most fundamental event of my life, but it certainly wasn’t a positive one. As a child, the people who were most important in my life were my family and peers, and they weren’t exactly straight allies.

My family explained to me what that world meant. When I asked my mother, her response was “gay is when men want to have sex with other men. It’s a hard life.” Hardly supporting words. I decided that this was surely a negative judgment of gays by my mother and I didn’t discuss the matter with her for another 8 years. My other family members were very dedicated Evangelical Christians.  I have distinct memories of attending church services that equaled the gay rights movement with Satan himself, and prayer services where concerned parents prayed for God’s mercy on their gay children.  I had an uncle who point-blank compared gay sex to bestiality, and indicated that it carried the same cosmic punishment as murder.

Little did my family actually know that I really found out what “gay” meant only that past summer. I asked my mother in the first place because I had been repeatedly harassed verbally and physically by the other kids in my summer camp. Lacking any outside support or role models, I believed all of them, internalized everything they had to say about gay people and surrounded myself with religion and religious people. I created my closet based on their opinions of what the word “gay” meant.

It took nearly 10 years for me to come out, and the final motivation to do it came not from without, where I had no support, but from within. I was just too miserable to continue going on closeted.  I came to realize that as a “gay” person, I possessed none of the bad connotations that these people in my life assigned to the word. So I had to choose whether living in the closet was worth a life of shame and misery-all to be suffered in unceasing silence until the day I die.

The only outside help at the time came from two relatively new friends who taught me that true friendship has no basis in negative emotions, and no need for a closet. Perhaps they proved to be the catalyst because they offered the possibility that there could be a different world for me simply through their kind words and actions. To them, the word “gay” meant none of things I had been previously told.

The lesson I learned from this is that you cannot let outside definitions decide how you are going to live your life. You need to construct a lifestyle that will make you happy and satisfied. You have a right to your own core individuality, and others are unworthy of dictating what course that individuality ought to take.   What is gay? I’m still not completely sure because so many people have so many opinions about it. They say who gay people are, how they should act, not act, speak, wear, and which company they should keep. They should not matter because they are all outside forces creating your identity for you. When it comes to your identity as a human being, the chief critic-the only worthy critic-is you.

Contributed August 24, 2010 by the author of Better Than Today

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I Made it Through the Wilderness

The mind is way more important to me than the body.  We have so many unofficial rites of passage in our culture where too much is placed on some bodily function. Losing your virginity is probably the clearest example.  Whether it is openly acknowledged or not, the greatest rite of passage for young adults in America is to lose their virginity.  It is a clear benchmark to manhood or womanhood-to some the only one.

The fact that I could not reconcile concepts of self-integrity to a life in the closet significantly delayed my sexual exploration, so I eventually lost my virginity later. But that taught me very important lessons about what makes a person sexual.

First of all, who are virgins in our society? If we consider virginity a state where a person has not experienced heterosexual penetrative sex, then we must put lesbians who have never had sex with men in the same category as Mary, Mother of God. We must consider gay men who exclusively have had male partners virgins as we consider newborn infants to be. So this artificial label is simply not applicable in a realistic sense to a big chunk of people. Then why should we put a specific kind of heterosexual behavior up on a pedestal and hold everyone to this standard? Surely human sexuality is too diverse and beautiful for such a narrow-minded (and frankly, boring) viewpoint.

By placing such importance on losing your virginity in the heterosexual way, a great part of the transition to adulthood is reduced to a mere bodily act. However, true adulthood is a state of mind. It’s about responsibility, accountability and individuality. These qualities come to you regardless of whether you are a virgin or not.  These are also the very qualities that really matter in the world at large. Therefore, these are the true qualities by which you should be valued by your peers and, more importantly, yourself. From this perspective, virginity is totally irrelevant.

If the labels of virginity or non-virginity don’t fit the experiences of millions of people, and don’t really matter in the larger world, then the verdict is that “virginity” is not worthy of all the attention we assign to it.

Finally I want to add that you are either ready to have sexual activity in your mind or not. Like any other activity, if you feel like you aren’t ready-just don’t do it. On the other hand, If you feel in your mind that you are ready, then consider your options in a safe and positive way. Peers, pressure from romantic interests and meaningless cultural expectations won’t really tell your heart that you’re ready. You must take ownership of who you are as a person and ask yourself, “Am I ready?” Only your own answer to that question must matter, no one else’s. Don’t squander your life by acting according to what others expect.

Contributed August 24, 2010 by the author of Better Than Today

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Finally…Personhood!

So I am a total lesbian, and I’ve known it since I was 10. But at the age of 13 I FINALLY CAME OUT…as bisexual. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking bisexuality…it’s a fitting identity for many people, but it was never true for me, and I always knew it. When I came out at bisexual it was something that I had to prove more so to myself than to my friends and family

High school was the time that all of my friends, of which the majority was straight, began to date and/or lose their virginity. We would all share our stories as sort of badges of womanhood. I wanted desperately to be like everyone else, to not feel so different. So between the ages of 13 and 19 I continued to hold onto my bisexual identity. In all actuality, I dated both men and women, but I only have ever fallen in love with women.

This is ultimately how I figured out I was a lesbian, though now I do own a queer identity to be more inclusive of gender fluidity. What’s frustrating is how my mind still holds onto the heterosexual standard of virginity. I suppose technically I lost my virginity with my second girlfriend, but it wasn’t until I slept with a man that I considered myself de-virginized, and hence a real woman. HOW MESSED UP IS THAT? I couldn’t call myself a woman based on my academic accomplishments or my emotional growth, but because of what I can offer sexually.

I wish I had known then what I knew now. I’m allowed to have ownership over my own sexuality. My love for women is legitimate and true and beautiful. Virginity is a trite concept used to keep women under control or to shame them. There are other struggling lesbians out there that feel the same way I did. I was not alone. I AM not alone. Screw the sexist constraints of “womanhood,” I’m a person!

I have a message for everyone: Write your own definitions. It’s the only way you can truly be you.

Contributed August 24, 2010 from the writer of Not Your Average Feminist

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Contributed August 21, 2010 by The Masakhane Center