Being Gay - Such A Delight (Part 3/3)

In the the third and final post of this triptych, I want to look in a very different direction to that of the first two posts. In the first, I canvassed the idea that being gay was a disappointment to parents and to society because gay people cannot on their own procreate and are ispo facto doomed to experience life in a lesser way, a way that is inferior, second-best, runner-up to straight people. In the second post, I took the idea that being gay is a disappointment further by examining the idea that gay poeple are somewhow broken straight people, heterosexuals whose identity has somehow gone off the rails, that we are deviants, because we deviate from the 'normal' path of being heterosexuals. In both these posts, I reject these ideas as being wrong, harmful and unfair in their characterisation of us; in the first, by suggesting that we are able to thrive and flourish very happily without the ability to procreate together and still live perfectly happy lives ( at least as perfectly happy as any other straight person), and in the second, by reminding us that good scholarship shows that gay people are not sick, ill or disordered and that we are not deviants at all - our sexual identity gifting us with attributes and experiences that can bring great positivity to a struggling world.

Our first two posts examined  rejected notions of disappointment. This one will look at the antithesis of disappointment - this one will look at why being gay is a delight. The etymology of the word delight shows that it comes orignally from the Latin and Middle English and has direct associations with the words: alluring, pleasing, enticing, delicious, delectable, light. All these words, except perhaps the last, describe something quite wonderful, something especially pleasurable or attractive. And the word light offers us the lovely sense of adding luminosity, elucidation, clarity. So let me speak about six factors that attest to why being gay can be a delight.


Gay people have a strong sense of family
If gay people are unconditionally accepted in their families, it is not uncommon to find a particularly strong connection made with parents and siblings. Given that gay people don't generally procreate and bring into the world another generation directly from them, some of this downward energy (to a following generation) goes across sideways and back (to siblings and parents). Where unconditinoal love is offered in a family by parents to all children regardless of sexual orientation, there is often an equality that can be quite wonderful and the envy of others. Gay people will frequently forge adult relationships with their adult parents and often also have the time and inclination to look after them when they grow older. Since gay people don't typically have children, their energy and commitment to family is quite substantial and in some cases can be demonstrably more so than straight siblings. Where does this come from? Probbaly from the years of sexual identity formation where every young gay person who wants to disclose to their parents but is fearful that they will be rejected. When that doesn't occur, there is often a world of discussion opened up a  about not only orientation issues but other issues as well leading to a growth in intimacy.



And for gay people who do have children, well you won't find more committed parents than gay people who more than likely have had to struggle to become parents in the first place. As is not the case for for straight couples sometimes, becoming parents for a gay couple is never an accident.

And finally, gay people have a huge commitment to non-biological family. Friends become resolutely firm supports and such friendships are highly valued in the gay community. Seeing friends, talking to friends, hanging out with friends are all-important to the gay person. The connections made and intimacy established and developed over time is quite something to behold. It is difficult to pinpoint  but most gay people would say that there is a difference they recognsie between the nature of relationships between gay people and straight people. In my own little family, my partner and I have a couple of very dear friends whom we consider family - part of our lives forever.

Gay people can be a challenge and an example to the world
One of the most trying things in the Western world today is the notion that big corporations or big government that has lost its way, both typically run by alpha males, is the way we do things. It has predominated the culture of the twentieth century and does not look like it's about to abate in the twenty-first. The wonderful thing about gay people is that our very lives cut across that gender status quo simply by being who we are. Gay men are not usually alpha males. Gay women are definitely not alpha males. While we can and do flourish in the world of commerce, there is a softer side to the gay guy, an absence of the 'dog eat dog' ethic that runs the world. Money comes first. People come
second. And while of course there are plenty of straight people who differ from these views in their language and action, there is a strong sense that gay people more generally revile these attitudes. Why? Probbaly because we ourselves have suffered under them, either in high school or in university or out in the workforce.

Gay men generally do have a wonderful rapport with women because in some senses, we have suffered some of the same outrages that the patriarchal systems impose on women. You see, homophobia is closely related to sexism.  Both are about a controlling and negative view and treatment of women. We gay men are well connected with our emotional lives and are quite comfortable in being engaged with a softer form of masculinity that eschews machismo, the inability to emote, or the refusal to cry. So no matter how muscled up a gay guy might be, the odds are that he's not an alpha male. Gay men get women.

And lesbians too challenge the gender order that keeps women down, keeps them in positions of subservience and inferiority, because lesbians are not only women themselves, they love women. Ellen DeGeneres is a hero of mine because she has been true to herself from the outset and has been an incredibly positive role model for lesbians (and gay men) around the world. And she is not frightened to speak up if she feels she needs to. She is living proof of gay girl-power where the gender order is turned on its head.

Everyone has suffered because of the gender order - men and women and children. I could tell a thousand stories from my Consulting Rooms of real life people where the gender order dominated by patriarchy has been a destructive force in people's lives. Gay people are a challenge to this order and an example of how life can be lived a different way.

Rufus Wainwright

Gay people are creative
Okay this one might seem like a stereotype, but it is not coincidence that we see so many gay people represented significantly in the arts and humanities. Gay people are generally very attuned to music and rhythm, image and colour. We are laughed at sometimes, these days good-naturedly, by those who need some clothing advice, colour advice, music or movement advice. In the churches, we are generally involved with music and the liturgy because we are so good at it. We have seen gay people thrive in the film and theatre industry, the music industry, the dance industry, in photography, in design, in fashion, in hair, in tourism, in hospitality. But the delightful thing is that although we obviously do do well in those arenas, we also bring the same creativity to the world of education, to medicine, to my own profession of psychology, to commerce and banking, to management and business, to building and architecture and engineering. Gay people tend to be creative people - there is no getting away from it. We can think outside the square and come up with alternatives that can be positive, workable and affirming.

Gay people are often in tune with the great questions
Because gay people by our very nature have to go through a gay sexual identity formation (you can read about it on pp86-90 in BGBC), we have been introduced at a young age to the great questions of life, the ultimate concerns. Now some think these questions are a waste of time. I don't. I think they are the most important questions of all and gay people are faced with struggling with their resolutions from the onset of puberty. Who am I? Where do I fit? What does it all mean? Is this all there is? What will life be like for me? How will I navigate my sexuality in a predominantly straight world? Is there a God? Des my sexuality matter to God? And all the others. There is a certain wisdom that comes from struggling with these great questions. An openness too. An ackowledgment that we don't have all the answers. A humility in life about the human condition. Do gay people have this more than straight people? Perhaps not, but because of our early identity formation, a psychological and behavioural process that takes years, we may in fact be more open to the great questions perhaps because we may in fact be more exposed to them. Many a straight person values the ideas and input of their gay friend. There's just something about what they're saying that rings true.

Gay people are generally people of peace
You won't find many gay people who are into violence or aggression. In fact, some of us in times past, and even occasionally in today's society unfortunately, have been victims of aggression. But gay people more often than not are peace-makers. We abhor violence. We avoid it naturally. It is part of our make-up to solve difficulties without violence and aggression. We avoid hostlity and try to soothe it where we are able. Blessed are the peace makers. They are a delight.




Gay people are in tune with sexuality
Gay people talk about sex. We think about sex and we have sex. After survival, sex is just about the strongest drive in the human make-up and gay people understand this well. Why? Because our lives, on one level, are focused through a prism that holds sexuality as being normal, healthy, satisfying and positive. We tend to have done away with the whole 'sex is dirty, sex is unclean, sex is filthy, sex is not to be talked about, sex is sinful, desire and the body are to be denied' stuff that the church has spat out for two thousand years. These are the messages of the Christian church down through the ages, stemming right from St Paul himself in the 1st century and onwards through other early church fathers like Augustine and Jerome. As these views have filtered into society, they have contaminated even our modern world and have caused untold damage to millions of people. Not all Christian teaching around sexuality is in this category I hasten to mention, but the 'sex is filthy and desire is sinful brigade' are wrong and harmful and need to be challenged. And the lives of we gay people do challenge them. Through the formation of gay sexual identity, from puberty through adolescence and youth, gay people have wrestled with these toxins and won through so that we have a healthier, more postive, more life affirming view of the place of sex, the body and desire in the human life.

What can I say - being gay is a delight. I want to tell our society, its parents and teachers and priests and pastors, its doctors and lawyers and professinals and workers, that being gay is not a disappointment. It is a wonderful way to experience life. I would be happy if any of my own nephews or nieces or their children turned out to be gay. Why? Because it's not a disappointment. I want society to understand this, to change the rhetoric, to undertake the mental shift from disappointment to delight. Every kid, every person has an absolute dignity from just being human. Can we not equally value being gay with being straight? And not place the pall of disappointment on the shoulders of our wonderful gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

Being gay is a delight. It is an attractive, alluring, pleasurable, pleasing, delectable, wonderul, postive way of experiencing life. There is nothing here not to like. Of course I am not saying the absurd, that gay people live only positive pleasing lives. Not at all. But by virtue of their sexuality, they should not be handicapped by a society that looks at their prospects with the heavy burnden of disappointment before they even get started. Gay people can make of their lives what they will, just like straight people can. On pp226-229 of BGBC, I talk about some of the great gifts that gay people can also bring to the church - another reason for delight.

I also stated above that delight embeds the word light. Gay people can bring a light to the world, and yes I am very aware of the Gospel allusion. We can be a force for good in the world and a force for change. I think we do this well. And we can bring a lightness and sense of fun, a light-heartedness too. Time for society to grow up. Time for a better world. Time for all of us to start celebrating the idea that a young person might be gay. Give them the best start in life we can. Accept them. Love them unconditionally. Guide them of course. But let's also celebrate the delight of their lives as being the delight of our lives.



Pax et Amor - Stuart

The Ugly Face of Disappointment - The Flaw in the Carpet (Part 2/3)

This is the second in a triptych of articles on disappointment. On Monday night on Australia's ABC, our national broadcaster, Tony Jones' QandA program had two very special guests on to discuss the vicissitudes of religion and science, or if you prefer, Christianity and atheism. The guests? Biologist Professor Richard Dawkins of 'The God Delusion' fame and Sydney's Catholic archbishop and primate of the Australian RC Church, Cardinal George Pell.

Now as many of my readers will know, I am no great fan of His Eminence regarding a number of matters, but especially his myopic attitudes to the LGBT community, both Catholic and secular alike. Why begin this post with a reference to Dawkins and Pell? Well, it's something the Cardinal said in a throw-away comment that disturbed me, but also led me to link it to our theme that being gay is such a disappointment.

When asked by an audience member about his anti gay marriage views, the Cardinal answered with his usual stump speech. The compere Tony Jones then asked him a general question about his attitude to homosexuality. The Cardinal attempted to make light of the question by using the folllowing well-known musing. He said in reference to "homosexuals" that we're a bit like the intentional flaw in the Oriental carpet which is put there in honour of God becasue God is the only one who is perfect, so the undeniable beauty of the Oriental carpet is deliberately spoiled by the placing in it of a flaw, a mistake.

Now this is not the place for me to enter into a diatribe about the lack of sensitivity or the hurt such a comment would inflict, nor the wisdom of Austrlaia's Catholic primate uttering such words about gay people on national television. That he did, underscores the inadequacy of his theology and highlights the man's ignorance to the truth about LGBT sexuality but also his relentless adherence to a conservative centralist monarchistic wing of the Church that still calls homosexuality "intrinsically disordered." Rather, I want to draw attention to how much this idea, that we gay people are flawed people, is apparent in our societies and why it needs to change.

In Part 1 of this article, I attempted to showcase the cultural notion that gay people are a disappointment - to parents and to society. That we are perceived as second-best, the silver medal, the runner-up to the straight people. And such tragic ideas have their sway in the assumption that we are flawed. That in fact we are flawed heterosexuals, broken straight people, who have had the misadventure or bad luck of growing up on a deviated path, deviated from the right, the true, the healthy, the robust, the good. Now as you can imagine if you have read BGBC or any other of my posts, I utterly repudiate such a thought and show I think convincingly that it is patently wrong.

Gay people are in no way second-best, silver medal, runner-up or any other way of describing people who don't measure up. In fact we do measure up and measure up well. Were we to live in a society free of heterosexism and even worse homophobia, we would not have to go through such an ordeal in our youth in coming to terms with our sexual orientation or accepting the gay or lesbian sexual identity that we gradually develop over time. The problem is not within us, it is within society. It is not we who are sick, it is society which is sick. And the Cardinal's unfortunate remarks, spoken as they are by an authoritative church figure, go a long way to scaffold and perpetuate that illness in society and can even lead to utterly unethical reparative therapy practices in some churches or violence done by antisocial homophobes. Your Eminence, we don't need this sort of talk. We don't need your views. To categorise us as a flaw in the otherwise perfect straight human race is, in the twenty-first century, both ignorant and frankly barbaric. You need to get yourself educated. You need to change this most uncharitable postion.

The view that sees us as the flawed straight undergirds the mums and dads who value their children's lives as elements of an ongoing saga of keeping up or beating the Joneses. When they hear that their young Jason or Rebecca is gay, they are disappointed that their children will not be as good as Stephanie's down the road whose kids have all graduated from University and are all in steady straight relationships, with one of them getting engaged. Harsh? Yes. But you know that this is the truth for some young people. Their parental disapproval and disappointment in them is palpable. Ignorant parents who think of themselves first and who don't understand the damage done to vulnerable young minds and hearts. "Oh this doesn't happen," you might say. Well, tell that to the young gay kid whose parents tell him not to tell anyone in the family. Or "don't say anything to your friends." Or how about the kid whose parents told everyone after he moved out that he was dead. I have heard all this in my Consulting Rooms over the years and a lot more. Disappointment can sometimes have a truly ugly face.

And that face springs from the notion that we are flawed human beings. Never mind that the science of psychology states unequivocally that being gay is not a sickness, not an illness, not a disorder and not a deviation from being straight. We are not contaminated straight people. We are gay people, with all the wonder, dignity, grace and incredible future that living well and living authentically can bring. There is no sense of disappointment here. And so parents and churches and society at large can and should celebrate the coming out of a young person and offer him or her encouragement and reassurance and love and total acceptance. What a wonderful world that changed world would be - a shift in the whole of society.

We gays can thrive. We can flourish. And those of us of Christian faith know that the relational God of love who sent Jesus into the world could never be disappointed in us, no matter how often we make mistakes, no matter how much we stuff up. We are loved and understood by a compassionate God who is for us not against us. And anyway, this same Jesus while he walked the earth chose to live with, travel with, eat with, drink with, sleep with and talk with people just like us - the minorities. So we gay Chrsitans have a tremedndous feel for the Spirit of Jesus because we have lived it and we know it when we see it. We  know that Jesus is into people like us.

If I had the talent to make a wonderful carpet that might symbolise humanity, I wouldn't put a flaw in it. God doesn't make flaws. I'd have the gays and the lesbians and the bi-s and the transgendered and the straights all in together to show that we all make up a unique and valued piece of God's vast beautiful creative act. Your thread would be there and so would mine.

In the final part of this article, we'll leave the examination of disappointment and look at a much brighter side of being gay, hopefully one that will help change old attitudes.


Pax et Amor - Stuart

Being Gay - Such A Disappointment (Part 1/3)

Over the last few weeks, one subject has really taken me by the scruff of the neck and given me a thoroughly good shaking. It has troubled me that so many people think that a gay sexual orientation is disappointing for a human being to have. "Being gay is okay, but really, it would have been better to be straight," so many people believe. In this post, I want to unpack this notion a little to see what is truly there. So let's start with one of the hardest things that most gay people find difficulty in doing.

Why is it that so many gay people, myself included, have found it so immensely difficult to come out to parents? I did it over twenty years ago, but boy oh boy, I certainly put it off for a very long time - wanting to, struggling with the desire, but then backing away from it only to have it return relentlessly until I actually did speak to them and tell them the truth about myself. A massive struggle! In BGBC I did discuss this topic at length and talked about the fear of rejection as being the fundamental reason for the dilemma. And while I do believe that fear of rejection is the crux of the matter, I think now there is perhaps another way of characterising this difficulty. This alternate characterisation is strongly associated with the fear of rejection and I think is actually a part of it. It is this concept of disappointment.

Source

We do not want to be disappointments to our parents. We do not want to feel like we're letting them down. And coming out as gay can have this quality of feeling like we're a real downer on their happiness, a lead balloon in their once blue sky. "Oh Ashley you know told us he is gay. We'll love him of course and support him, but it's such a disappointment for us. Not that we'd tell him that. We're still getting used to the idea." These are the secret words we fear. Recently, on a gay Christian website, a mother of a young man who has just come out to her has written in to ask for some input from the forum. Allow me to quote just one small sentence, actually a question. "Why do I feel so disappointed inside when he's the same person today as he was yesterday?"

I feel dreadfully for this poor mum. She and so many others see being gay as a second-best, a silver medal, a downgrade from the optimal. Her disappointment is actually a form of grief. She is struggling with the loss of an image - the image of the trajectory she always believed her son would take. The sense of disappointment is palpable, but she, like the rest of us to some extent, has bought into believing a fairy tale.

The fairy tale goes like this. You get born. You go to school, you live in a loving family, you pass all your exams, you go to university or get a good job, or both, you meet your opposite sex partner, you fall in love, you get married, you buy a house, you have kids of your own, and finally, you live happily together forever. This is the trajectory that most parents just naturally believe their kids will take. It's all very linear. A moves on to B then on to C, then onwards to the end, each milestone all very 'normal' and even over the course of a lifetime. From the point of view of queer discourse, we might call this a heteronormative myth, that is, a fairy tale-like belief based on the notion that heterosexuality is the assumed norm for everybody and that a nice neat linear trajectory along the lines I just listed will ensue.

But not everyone lives this myth and many people have to deal with all manner of meanderings, twists and turns off this straight and narrow path. Some of the more common ones I hear about in my Consulting Room on a daily basis are: miscarriage or still-birth, developmental disorders, learning difficulties, illness, disease, accidents, misadventure, confusion as to direction, failure at education, tyrannical bosses, harassing colleagues, dislocation, unemployment, teenage pregnancies, affairs, divorce, redundancy and dementia to name but a few.

Of the hundreds of possible twists, one such meandering is when a child turns out to be gay. From that point on, the rest of the fairy tale stops dead and all the dreams and expectations for that child according to the assumed 'normal' trajectory evaporate in the disclosure, "Mum and Dad, I need to tell you something." When you are brought up your whole life to believe in the fairy tale and see other people purportedly living it, then you just come to expect that it will be true for you too.

So what's wrong with the fairy tale? Nothing in itself. Some people do in fact manage it, at least on the surface. But it does tend to corral our thinking and expectations into a very narrow view of how our lives and our kids' lives will turn out. But as any adult knows, life is never this black and white, never this clean-cut and neat, so when the kids deviate from this well-imagined path, there can be a sense of disappointment.

Source

And so to the troubling aspect about this disappointing gay life. Why is it disappointing? It’s the idea or belief that when your child is gay, he or she won’t get to live a life of happiness and fulfilment. This is the essence of parental disappointment. It is played out in society at large too so that there is a cultural sense of disappointment in young people turning out to be gay. “Oh did you hear about Sally and Greg? Their young Jason came out to them as gay. How disappointing for them. Poor Sally.” When my partner was 21 and out, he was seeing a medical specialist who offered him this little pearl of his wisdom for free, "well being gay is okay, but you wouldn't wish it on anyone would you?" Apart from the jaw-dropping insensitivity from a highly educated clinican whom you would expect better from, you cannot hep but notice the distinct notion of disappointment for my partner in his being gay.

I think one of the principal foci of parental disappointment is the idea that the gay son or daughter will not have children of their own. While this is understandable from a heteronormative point of view, it is not the point of view of gay people themselves generally speaking. In fact, some gay people do have children, either from previous relationships or as a step-parent, or with a gay partner through IVF or surrogacy. However, most gay people don’t have children and manage to lead happy lives without them, much in the manner of straight people who do not have children.

This is a very delicate point for people get extremely tetchy when you start talking about children, but I think it needs to be made if there is to be societal change around our topic in question. While the human race depends on sexual reproduction for the perpetuation of our species, and having children is an absolute miracle, having and raising children in the 21st century is not necessarily the only way to have a good life. And at the risk of offending every straight parent reading this, nor is it necessarily the pinnacle of human relationships. While having children is a beautiful act of creation, people can have perfectly fulfilled and happy lives without them. And let's be honest, children do not always bring happiness and joy to their parents nor are they necessarily always an integral part of the family unit. I regularly see people of all ages who are no longer in contact with parents or children for one reason or another and almost every day, I see empty nesters whose children have grown up and moved on and have very little to do with them. I only say this to suggest that having children is not for everybody and that despite its common occurrence, should not necessarily be the criterion by which we judge whether or not someone is going to be happy and lead a fulfilling life.

This is an important point because I think it is integral to the disappointment model of gay sexuality we are are examining. So, the next time you hear someone suggest that being gay is a disappointment, take the time to ask what it is that the speaker really means, what it is that is actually disappointing. For me now, the whole disappointment view is wrong and harmful and causes unnecessary suffering to all, both gay and straight. So a declaration: Being gay is no more disappointing than being straight. Let me elucidate.

Source

Just about anybody over the age of 30 knows that life is a mix. In a wonderful first world country like Australia, for most of us, life has a lot of good, a heck of a lot of neutral and a little bit of bad. We each make our way according to our own lights and for the most part do the best we can. We have enough food to eat, clothes on our back and we make what we do of our educational and employment opportunities. Whether straight or gay, we want to lead happy and fulfilled lives where we can enjoy the fruits of our labours and feel safe and valued by our families, partners and friends. Such a life is deemed a good life.

As far as a gay trajectory goes, there is no real reason why any gay person would not be able to achieve such a life. Yes, there are yobbos out there who in a drunken state might pick on us, but they pick on others as well. No-one is really immune from such sociopathic behaviour. Often it's about being in the wrong place at the wrong time unfortunately. But aside from this kind of thing, which we gays for the most part are pretty good at avoiding, gay people can and do flourish. Not just exist. Flourish!

We have a great fun. We value our friends in a special way. We can establish incredibly loving partnerships that can be kept alive and thriving. We can work in fulfilling jobs and careers, get ourselves well-educated, keep fit, look after our homes, become involved in the community, dance and enjoy ourselves. We adore our music. We can even involve ourselves in personal development to grow spiritually if we are so inclined. We can travel the world to see its marvels and we can act out our lives in compassionate ways by helping others. We build a camaraderie that is second to none and in a country like Australia, we can feel comfortable in our gay skin and confident of being able to flourish. And to top it all off, we put an emphasis on our sex lives that can be rewarding and enriching. This has all the hallmarks of a successful life, a life lived to the full, a life of substance. Such a life is the very antithesis of the disappointment model of being gay. “Oh those poor gay things, will they ever be happy like we straight people are?” And to that the answer is a resounding YES. Our being gay does not preclude us from living well.

There is nothing disappointing about being gay, or having a gay son or daughter, or for that matter, having a gay father or mother. Disappointment doesn’t come into it. When expecting parents are asked which sex they would like, you often hear the formulaic answer, “we don’t care, as long as it’s got ten fingers and ten toes and is healthy, that’s all that matters.” Why not take that thought one extra step. “We don’t care whether he’s straight or gay, as long as he’s happy, has opportunities and gets to live out his life in a meaningful way being loved and valued.”

Source

Wouldn’t it be grand if we lived in a world where being gay was as equally valued as being straight by parents and society? “Mum and Dad, there’s something I want to talk to you about.” “Oh you’re gay, how wonderful for you.” What a world that would be. Let’s try to live that world now. Let’s try to make that world the reality, so that in the end, there is no difference in how we are all treated, no difference in how we are all thought of. Let’s discard the old disappointment model of being gay that sees our orientation as being inferior and second-rate and accept the idea that being gay is a wonderful gift, a fantastic different way to live life and experience it, just as much the gold medal as being straight. After years of self-rejection over my sexuality, I can now think how blessed I am to be gay and how lucky I am to get to live this kind of life. You know, if I had been straight, I wouldn't be the man I am today. I would be somebody else. And I'm pretty happy with the man I am today.

So parents and friends, if your loved one tells you that he or she is gay, rejoice with them and don't be disappointed. They've just begun a new adventure.