Living in the Closet

[RisiaSkye]

While "the Closet" would be an apt name for my dinky little apartment, it's not really what I mean.

I realize more and more that a huge part of the reason I spend so much time (usually lurking ) on lit is that there's a big gap between my interests and personal lifestyle and what's acceptable in polite company. I realize more and more that I live in the closet.

I always thought of being closeted as a queer phenomenon, a term coined specifically to express the keeping up of hetero appearances for the sake of convenience and even safety. I'm only now starting to realize that the closet is a whole lot bigger than I ever thought, and an awfully lot of "deviant" types seem to live here. Nice company, but it's strange.

With so many of the homosexuals, bi-men (and some bi-women), BDSM lifestylers, pagans, porn and erotica creators and audiences, and Air Supply fans in here, who's left "out" in the bigger world? Please don't tell me that Pat Roberston gets the rest of the house. It's just too depressing.

Should people stay in the closet? (Okay, Air Supply fans probably should) What are the advantages to being out about something other than queer identity? And what are the risks?

Are you in the closet? If so, what part of your life and identity do you choose to keep hidden and why?

 

[Problem Child]

Pat Robertson should be gang-raped by midgets and forced to tongue Jerry Falwell's dook as Jerry gives head to Marilyn Manson in Times Square at noon.

If Marilyn really has a dick, otherwise forget the whole thing.

 

[lavender]

 

[Never]

Am I in the Closet? Nope.
And before you start using that word for your own you should know that being 'in the Closet' is typically said with more and more derision in the 'queer community'.
If you can't be true to yourself then how can you expect others to respect you?

 

[RisiaSkye]

dusty house...

PC--Believe me, I'm on board with your plans for Robertson, et al. If you need someone to hold the digital cam, let me know. That shit's going out on the 700 Club, if I have anything to say about it.

Lav--I haven't read it. Care to expand?

 

[cymbidia]

I'm fully in the closet in my professional life. Many teacher's contracts still morality clauses, believe it or not, and parents - even way liberal and tolerant parents - still don't want little Brianna and Matthew being taught science by a sexual freak. I accept the closet in order to do the work i love. Maybe it'll change sometime but i'm not that concerned; i tend to keep my sexuality to myself and only show it to those who i am relaxed with in that way. I'm not the flaunting-it-in-your-face type, believe it or not. Not irl, anyway.

I'm in the closet, too, to many (most?) of my regular rl friends, though most of them know i'm somewhat sexually "adventurous", or moreso than them, anyway. My predilictions would only make them uncomfy and i don't want that. I value my friends and some of the friendships go back more than 20 years now. There's a peace and easiness between people that have been friends for that long, and i don't want to shatter it. Again, my sexuality doesn't really have a centerstage place in those friendships; why deliberately upset the apple cart?

I'm out of the closet to my mother, to many lifestyle friends, some of whom are only (and will only ever be, though not because we choose it to be so) online. It feels good to be out of the closet. I'd like to be further out and may well come creeping out bit by bit in my everyday life, too, after... well... after my current situation is all straightened out.

Thanks for the book ref, Lavender. I'll go take a look for it at amazon. (Instant gratification book junkies unite!)

 

[Azwed]

You know Liberty university is only a hour and a half away from my school. I mean come on the security around Falwell cannot be that tight. Anyone up for a little Falwellnaping followed by digital video of him getting fucked in the ass?????

Come on it will be fun. We can make it a road trip.

Anyway I know how Skye feels. I keep some of my kinks away from most of the world. I mean my gf knows most of them because she has similar kinks, but she does not know all of them.

 

[RisiaSkye]

Sorry for the double, but...

...Never posted while I was typing, and I wanted to respond.

Am I in the Closet? Nope.
And before you start using that word for your own you should know that being 'in the Closet' is typically said with more and more derision in the 'queer community'.
If you can't be true to yourself then how can you expect others to respect you?

I'm well aware of the valences of the term, as I tried to express above. I'm not trying to co-opt someone's term, and I'm not trying to draw a circle around those I'll include as part of "my own." Hell, isn't that half the problem in the first place? Instead, I'm trying to examine the issue. I'm not proud of my situation, but I'm not ashamed of it either, nor do I think I should be. I'm still trying to figure my life out, one little bit at a time. What better place to talk about hidden identities than a blind BB forum?

And I think the fact that it's increasingly derided by the 'queer community' is actually a good sign--it suggests that there's more honestly and acceptance going around about sexual orientation--at least in terms of the rainbow variants.

I think, though, that being true to yourself means different things to different people. Some queer folks still look at Brandon Teena and Matthew Sheppard and weigh the risks, and not everyone falls on the side of being "out." Far from it.

Also, that's still limiting consideration of the question to LBGT terms. There are plenty of things to be in the closet about. I'm in a similar situation to cym. I teach, and even in the university setting, there's tremendous skittishness about "alternative lifestyles." In fact, there's a real double standard: queer's great, even fashionable. Mild body modification is the order of the day as well. But things I participate in like branding and bondage are signs of a diseased mind to many of the same crew.

 

[lavender]

 

[lavender]

 

[cymbidia]

oh gods-
i'm dust.
just...insignificant... dust.

maybe i'd better go to bed before this gets any worse!



Lavender? Thank you for that thought-provoking look at how the legal world sees the issue of in-the-closetism. I'm going to have to think it over, see if and how it applies to my brand of hiding who i am. Very interesting reading.

You did *not* bore the board at all, least not my part of the board. Late nights are so good fro this kinda stuff. It's just too frenetic during the day, you know? One can hardly keep up with posts, let alone think about what's been said. I honestly like stuff like this.

 

[RisiaSkye]

Lav

Toys are only a tiny part of the problem. In AZ where I went to undergrad school, most sex that isn't missionary pos between married people is illegal. Cohabitation, out. (My aunt & uncle were actually run out of a small AZ town for living together while unmarried.) Sodomy, out. Oral sex, out.

But you can buy a gun at Wal-Mart.


I understand what you're saying about queer identity. But, the 'queer community' as it's laughingly called is hardly a group of like minded open hearted souls either. As a bisexual woman, I've had plenty of "you're just being trendy" and "why don't you just admit you're a lesbian" to contend with. As a married woman exploring BDSM with her husband, I'm persona non grata. It would be nice if we could all "just get along" as Rodney King would have us do, but it's not a one-sided problem. Exclusion and social isolation cuts in all directions.

 

[nasty]

My OWN MOM doesn't even know I'm bi. I keep TONS of woman pics around the house to disguise the fact that I like men, too. Although, I tend to swing towards woman.

 

[Azwed]

These crazy laws have come up a couple of times before.

Virginia has many that are just as bad as AZ.


Only sex in the missonary position is legal.(Broke that a 1000 times)

Sex before marriage illegal (oops)
Fratinization(sp?) or living with a person of the oppisite sex before marriage illegal (does two weeks count?)

They actually prosecuted a woman on this earlier this year. She was protesting something and threw some Tofu or something like that at a governmnet official. They started just creating charges in order to send her to jail. One of them was fratinization. She had been living with her fiance for a couple of years. They ordered her to either get married or move out. I am not sure what happend to that case though.

There are a ton of other ones too. Pretty much anything sexual that is not missonary position between a man and woman that are married is illegal.

Me and my gf probably brake a 100 laws every weekend.

Damn it feels good to be bad

 

[lavender]