Gay and Bisexual Coming-out thread |OT|

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FoneBone said:
I have yet to see a remotely coherent defintion of a person who "is defined by their sexuality".
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Really? Because I've seen it frequently. It's also historical fact. People who act camp not because they genuinely are but because they feel they have to. People who would do things so stereotypical because it's a gay thing, like they were on Jersey Shore or something. People define themselves over the stupidest of things that are outside of their control; it's not limited to homosexuals but it's so overblown in our community.

It was for good reason, originally. The whole 'gay movement' thing, the big coming out party in the 70s and 80s - people had to define themselves by their sexuality to make a visible impact. But we don't need to make that impact anymore. People are aware of homosexuals/bisexuals. Now everyone can go back to being who they are, be that camp, queen, macho, nerdy or whatever 'regular' is these days, whilst still raising awareness more politely and campaigning for homosexual equal rights.

It's just a strawman for people insecure in others' perceptions to criticize anyone who is more upfront about their sexuality than themselves.
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I'm very upfront about my sexuality. New friends and work colleagues typically find out day one because such things happen to come up in conversation. Doesn't mean I have to advertise it on a figurative neon sign.

You know what? The best way to challenge stereotypes is to be out and proud while being non-stereotypical.
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I agree entirely.

And I have little sympathy for those who are so afraid of those stereotypes as to stay wholly or partially in the closet because of them.
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I'm yet to meet a person who fits this definition. Again, I think you're misunderstanding what I've been saying.

ZephyrFate said:
I think being gay is precisely what you personally define it as, not what someone else tells you.
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Dude, being gay is being attracted to members of the same sex. There's a whole lot more social and political ideas buzzing around being gay, yes, but don't make being gay out to be some state-of-mind bullshit because it isn't. If you're gay, you like your own sex. Where you take that is ultimately up to you, I suppose.
 
once again, you're preaching to the choir.

but to pretend it isn't an issue for the not already converted is entirely selfish, as far as I'm concerned.
 
Rez said:
when your sexuality is the thing you outwardly flaunt, be it in the way you dress, to the conversations you start, to the mannerisms you intentionally project, to the scenes you partake in... when it is the the thing you project more than anything else, be it an the stereotypically dudebro male, to the female wearing disgustingly over the top bright red lipstick and a gigantic classless tramp stamp, to the short shorts and tight pink tshirt on a gay man, all of these things project one clear fact first and foremost, before any other engagement with the other party can begin, be it verbally or otherwise.
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How do these people affect you? How do they make your life harder?
 
Suairyu said:
Really? Because I've seen it frequently. It's also historical fact. People who act camp not because they genuinely are but because they feel they have to. People who would do things so stereotypical because it's a gay thing, like they were on Jersey Shore or something. People define themselves over the stupidest of things that are outside of their control; it's not limited to homosexuals but it's so overblown in our community.

It was for good reason, originally. The whole 'gay movement' thing, the big coming out party in the 70s and 80s - people had to define themselves by their sexuality to make a visible impact. But we don't need to make that impact anymore. People are aware of homosexuals/bisexuals. Now everyone can go back to being who they are, be that camp, queen, macho, nerdy or whatever 'regular' is these days, whilst still raising awareness more politely and campaigning for homosexual equal rights.

I'm very upfront about my sexuality. New friends and work colleagues typically find out day one because such things happen to come up in conversation. Doesn't mean I have to advertise it on a figurative neon sign.

I agree entirely.

I'm yet to meet a person who fits this definition. Again, I think you're misunderstanding what I've been saying.

Dude, being gay is being attracted to members of the same sex. There's a whole lot more social and political ideas buzzing around being gay, yes, but don't make being gay out to be some state-of-mind bullshit because it isn't. If you're gay, you like your own sex. Where you take that is ultimately up to you, I suppose.
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Uhh, I was not disputing the "attraction" part. That's inherent in being gay, that's impossible to change. How you express your homosexuality is entirely on your own. Blending into stereotypes because you feel like you should shows your cultural butterfly nature, and is not an inherent fault of the mainstream take on being gay.
 
Everything you described can be and is part of Gay Culture now. I think you are too hung up on the 70s/80s aspects of this. and of what the general public thinks.

Part of coming out should be a fuck you attitude for what the general public thinks.
 
it's not about how they make my life harder, it's about how they make people coming to terms with their sexuality harder. it's not entirely their fault, it has a lot to do with mainstream media exposure.
 
Rez said:
it's not about how they make my life harder, it's about how they make people coming to terms with their sexuality harder. it's not entirely their fault, it has a lot to do with mainstream media exposure.
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But mainstream media has done a lot of stories on bears, middle aged gays, gay parents, etc etc

I haven't seen screaming queens, as an earlier posters said, on mainstream media in years.
 
krypt0nian said:
Everything you described can be and is part of Gay Culture now. I think you are too hung up on the 70s/80s aspects of this. and of what the general public thinks.
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I'm only hung up on it because the 70s/80s aspect is what happens when you slap a term like 'culture' onto something. If everything can be a part of that culture, why even call it a culture? Why not just call it 'gay and bisexual going-ons and stuff', or nothing at all?

Part of coming out should be a fuck you attitude for what the general public thinks.
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Absolutely, to a degree. If you disagree with what the general public thinks you should work to educate them.
 
krypt0nian said:
But mainstream media has done a lot of stories on bears, middle aged gays, gay parents, etc etc

I haven't seen screaming queens, as an earlier posters said, on mainstream media in years.
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Isn't the gay kid from Glee pretty flaming? (honest question, don't watch the show)
 
Souldriver said:
Isn't the gay kid from Glee pretty flaming? (honest question, don't watch the show)
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Sure is and proud to be so. Are you saying that they should not be on tv at all?

I'm not sure where you're going with this. Are all the gays on tv raging queers? Not anymore.

Edit: not sure where I was coming from with some of that. I'm upset that people are playing the flaming queen media card again as an excuse to knock gay culture, parades, etc. Things that have been extremely important to me in my life.
 
ZephyrFate said:
VERY flaming. But it's not his flaming nature that bugs me, he's also a gigantic fucking asshole.
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I think that sums up it.

Someone described it in the old thread, even if you dislike the stereotype, Queen-like Gay. It's just one slice of the community. It's disingenuous to hold it against them since it is who they are, not what society deems them to be. Holding it against them, just damages the community all around, since it creates another divide.
 
krypt0nian said:
Sure is and proud to be so. Are you saying that they should not be on tv at all?

I'm not sure where you're going with this. Are all the gays on tv raging queers? Not anymore.
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The only gays I've seen portrayed as non-stereotypical were Kyle Lewis and Oliver Fish on One Life to Live, a fucking soap opera. :lol
 
krypt0nian said:
Are all the gays on tv raging queers? Not anymore.
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In Britain there has been a resurgence of the flaming queen negative stereotype in recent years on television, unfortunately propagated by gay writers and comedians trying to be ironic. The camp=gay paradigm is the media norm right now. It sucks. Especially because in my life the social norm has been people who you couldn't tell either way unless they told you.
 
ZephyrFate said:
The only gays I've seen portrayed as non-stereotypical were Kyle Lewis and Oliver Fish on One Life to Live, a fucking soap opera. :lol
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There is a much better mix now.
One of the couple on Desperate Housewives...the other is still fairly baseline varying some shopping tendencies. The couple on Modern Family. Six Feet Under. Brothers and Sisters.

Etc etc.


Mercury Fred said:
Hello Gayming-Age.

Is anyone here picking up DCU Online for PS3?
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I am I am! But probably not until next week as I'm swamped.
 
krypt0nian said:
Sure is and proud to be so. Are you saying that they should not be on tv at all?

I'm not sure where you're going with this. Are all the gays on tv raging queers? Not anymore.

Edit: not sure where I was coming from with some of that. I'm upset that people are playing the flaming queen media card again as an excuse to knock gay culture, parades, etc. Things that have been extremely important to me in my life.
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I'm not going anywhere with this. I was already afraid that I would have to include a bunch of footnotes in order to not offend anyone. :P

You said...
I haven't seen screaming queens, as an earlier posters said, on mainstream media in years.
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To which I asked the question if there isn't a "screaming queen" in the Glee show. You should be happy about that too, so you can include it in this list, and make it even more diverse...
But mainstream media has done a lot of stories on bears, middle aged gays, gay parents, etc etc
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Edit: I'm not sure if your post edit has been there the whole time, but I hadn't read it till now. It's just a misunderstanding between us. ;)
 
krypt0nian said:
But mainstream media has done a lot of stories on bears, middle aged gays, gay parents, etc etc

I haven't seen screaming queens, as an earlier posters said, on mainstream media in years.
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I don't know what you define as mainstream, but if it's the same I consider mainstream, you are completely, totally wrong. I don't think I've ever seen bears as characters, no matter how small, in a single mainstream movie or tv series at all now that I think about it.

I don't see much TV or movies these days so I can be wrong, but the big "gay"shows this moment that I know are Modern Family and Glee, and they have pretty stereotypical, "flaming" gay characters.

edit: Oh I remember that soap, one life to live, but well thats more the exception than the rule, the story and the characters got canned fast too.
 
mantidor said:
I don't know what you define as mainstream, but if it's the same I consider mainstream, you are completely, totally wrong. I don't think I've ever seen bears as characters, no matter how small, in a single mainstream movie or tv series at all now that I think about it.

I don't see much TV or movies these days so I can be wrong, but the big "gay"shows this moment that I know are Modern Family and Glee, and they have pretty stereotypical, "flaming" gay characters.
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I was talking about news features more than sitcoms. And I'm not completely, totally wrong. ;)

And the couple from Modern Family lives down my street so they may not be football stars, but they are very much based in reality.
 
krypt0nian said:
There is a much better mix now.
One of the couple on Desperate Housewives...the other is still fairly baseline varying some shopping tendencies. The couple on Modern Family. Six Feet Under. Brothers and Sisters.

Etc etc.





I am I am! But probably not until next week as I'm swamped.
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Despite being gay parents, the couple on Modern Family are incredibly stereotypical gay men.
 
Oh shit. By indulging our bickering we created what was cast out in the dark times:
a megathread.
We're so fucking off topic now.
 
ZephyrFate said:
Despite being gay parents, the couple on Modern Family are incredibly stereotypical gay men.
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Answered above. Part of a nice mix now. Stereotypical couples still belong on tv. Because they are real.
 
Suairyu said:
Oh shit. By indulging our bickering we created what was cast out in the dark times:
a megathread.
We're so fucking off topic now.
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How, exactly? This is definitely a part of the 'coming out' issue of being gay -- what do you ACT like that now that you're out?

I just thought of some non-stereotypical gay men -- there was a couple only revealed at the end of an episode of Party Down Season 2, both men were college jock football stars.
 
ZephyrFate said:
How, exactly? This is definitely a part of the 'coming out' issue of being gay -- what do you ACT like that now that you're out?
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Saved!

I act like I acted before I was out.

ZephyrFate said:
I just thought of some non-stereotypical gay men -- there was a couple only revealed at the end of an episode of Party Down Season 2, both men were college jock football stars.
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Was there a punchline of them being homophobic throughout the episode before the reveal?

EDIT - When did your avatar break regulations anyway? Was it because of the rotation script?
 
Suairyu said:
Saved!

I act like I acted before I was out.
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Then you've answered your own issues about coming out as gay. Discussion over?

As for Party Down, one of the men in the relationship was staunchly putting up a front of being straight for the entire episode, but then completely comes out right at the end.

Yeah, it might have been the rotation script, or one of my GIFs was too big in size.
 
I recently came out to my brother to protect a gay friend of his who also came out to my brother and he was giving him shit about it all the time. Does it make any sense what I just typed? :lol
 
DarkUSS said:
I recently came out to my brother to protect a gay friend of his who also came out to my brother and he was giving him shit about it all the time. Does it make any sense what I just typed? :lol
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It's just like that movie Loose Cannons (Mine Vaganti in Italian). Brother comes out to protect his younger brother from coming out, then it turns out both are gay. :lol
 
Roto13 said:
If you think I'm an asshole because stereotypical bullshit gets on my nerves, well, you're nuts.
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How in the fuck is a gay megathread 'stereotypical bullshit'? Of course, I remember you, you get pissed off at a lot of gay things.
 
ZephyrFate said:
Then you've answered your own issues about coming out as gay. Discussion over?
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But I never had any issues about coming out : /

As for Party Down, one of the men in the relationship was staunchly putting up a front of being straight for the entire episode, but then completely comes out right at the end.
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Sigh. Very, very rarely I watch a drama or something that has a character/characters that at one point are revealed to be gay and its entirely irrelevant to everything that has gone on before or after except in deciding who their love interest might be.

Funnily enough, Doctor Who has lots of this and it makes me very, very happy in that it gives kids the message that gay and bisexual people are just like everyone else. Why a popular family science fiction show watched all over the world is better at doing this than adult drama I can't quite comprehend.

EDIT - the megathread was awful in that it was messy and unfocussed. The current setup is too far the other-way. One day all homosexuals, bisexuals and variations there on will unite and demand a happy medium from the powers that be.
 
Suairyu said:
But I never had any issues about coming out : /

Sigh. Very, very rarely I watch a drama or something that has a character/characters that at one point are revealed to be gay and its entirely irrelevant to everything that has gone on before or after except in deciding who their love interest might be. Funnily enough, Doctor Who has lots of this and it makes me very, very happy in that it gives kids the message that gay and bisexual people are just like everyone else.
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Party Down is a comedy... but it treated the gay characters pretty well.
 
ZephyrFate said:
It's just like that movie Loose Cannons (Mine Vaganti in Italian). Brother comes out to protect his younger brother from coming out, then it turns out both are gay. :lol
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Shit, I still haven't got the time to watch this movie.

What's even worse, I went out with the gay friend of my brother I was trying to "protect". (see how coming out leads to dating/relationship thus *hint hint* threads need to be merged).
 
DarkUSS said:
Shit, I still haven't got the time to watch this movie.

What's even worse, I went out with the gay friend of my brother I was trying to "protect". (see how coming out leads to dating/relationship thus *hint hint* threads need to be merged).
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What happened? Why did you guys stop dating?
 
ZephyrFate said:
I just thought of some non-stereotypical gay men -- (snip)
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I can think of:
Officer John Cooper on Southland.
Lieutenant Rawls on The Wire.
Omar Little on The Wire.
Jesus on True Blood.
Calvin Owens on Greek.
 
Are there a lot of shows that just feature a gay/lesbian character, and there's no fuss about it at all. Like: The son comes how with a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend sometimes. Or the guy talks to his coworkers about his husband instead of wife... It seems all too often that a character being gay becomes a storyline in on itself, instead of being simply a given. As if it is super-duper interesting that the guy has a boyfriend instead of girlfriend, or that the girl has a wife instead of husband.

But that might be expecting too much. You can't deny that when it comes to LGBT sexualities, the media is taking baby steps. They're progressing, but "two boys kissing each other in primetime" still is a big deal so to speak. Just in the same way as society as a whole is taking baby steps.
 
krypt0nian said:
You may still be a little self hating IMO.
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Okay this bullshit has got to stop. It's every bit as bad as what he is saying, perhaps a little worse. He hates a certain type of personality that falls in line with negative stereotypes. Fine. Makes him a dick, but it is what it is.

You're suggestion that such hatred is rooted in the fact he hates what he is because of I don't know what? Because he's gay and hates himself for it? That's fucking insidious, guy.
 
krypt0nian said:
I was talking about news features more than sitcoms. And I'm not completely, totally wrong. ;)

And the couple from Modern Family lives down my street so they may not be football stars, but they are very much based in reality.
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I don't argue against this, the stereotypical gay person is very real, otherwise there would be no stereotype, I am just saying groups like bears are still very rare in mainstream media.

Maybe is just reality, bears aren't exactly common to begin with, small groups will get small representation on the media. Also we as gay people look a lot for gay characters unconsciously and naturally, sometimes I feel like now there are way too many gay characters on TV, but if one looks objectively that's not really the case.
 
robidomask said:
I can think of:
Officer John Cooper on Southland.
Lieutenant Rawls on The Wire.
Omar Little on The Wire.
Jesus on True Blood.
Calvin Owens on Greek.
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Ian on Shameless (US version)
Kevin on Brother and Sister (Kevin... sigh)
 
Self-hating because I'm tired of flaming princess men representing me on television time and time again? Please. I don't hate my homosexuality, or homosexuality. I hate annoying, loud stereotypes that corner people into expecting that behavior out of me.
 
mantidor said:
I don't argue against this, the stereotypical gay person is very real, otherwise there would be no stereotype, I am just saying groups like bears are still very rare in mainstream media.

Maybe is just reality, bears aren't exactly common to begin with, small groups will get small representation on the media. Also we as gay people look a lot for gay characters unconsciously and naturally, sometimes I feel like now there are way too many gay characters on TV, but if one looks objectively that's not really the case.
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Is bear just a hairy dude who is stocky? I'm kinda a bigger guy who holds it well (well people have told me) Would that count?
 
Delio said:
Is bear just a hairy dude who is stocky? I'm kinda a bigger guy who holds it well (well people have told me) Would that count?
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Bears are hairy men who are beefy or stocky. You would be a bear, Del. :P
 
Alright I just bit the bullet and PM'd a mod about merging these two threads. I promised it wouldn't create a new megathread but just ease conversation of the two topics (which in reality is just one) at hand.
 
Just kind of came out... I wrote a note to someone I was almost sure was gay explaining that I liked him and it was best for me to just let that knowledge out instead of it driving me crazy all semester (as it has the last couple weeks).

Well, turns out he isn't gay.. so the accompanying mix I made for him was all the creepier :lol But he was really cool about it, said he still wants to be friends and has gay friends who he accepts etc, etc.

I know there's an element of gentility that is required by someone to deal with this situation if they are a decent human being. Which is why I kinda don't trust the whole 'I'm cool with your sexuality, let's be friends still' bit. Also, I was almost positive we was gay, so this could be just letting me down gently, which I'm cool with.

Just wish it was easier for people to be honest with each other, and that honesty didn't sting so hard.

I was going to come out to my best friend last Saturday cause this attraction and feeling 'so close' to a relationship I thought was attainable was tearing me apart. But in an unfortunate turn of events he invited another friend, so I guess my apologies and need for understanding will have to wait.

But then again, I can always siphon encouragement from you gays. This thread has been great, thank you everyone.
 
Magnus said:
Self-hating because I'm tired of flaming princess men representing me on television time and time again? Please. I don't hate my homosexuality, or homosexuality. I hate annoying, loud stereotypes that corner people into expecting that behavior out of me.
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Oh please guys. They don't corner anyone, that's just ridiculous.
 
krypt0nian said:
You may still be a little self hating IMO.
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Just no. The term "self hating gay" is very heavy loaded. It's rarely used correctly and it simply becomes an insult. For example, I was once called a "self hating gay" by someone on this board, because I don't see a reason to ban scientific research related to sexuality.

Sometimes it just means people can be petty, assholes, with lack of empathy and tolerance. Gaf demonstrates all to often that they are eager to hate on people for listening to certain music or wearing a certain style of clothes. They don't want to be associated with those "hipster losers" and whatnot. You don't call those people "self hating hipsters" either, right? I think that maybe some gays don't want to be associated with certain subcultures of the gay community, simply because they don't consider themselves part of it. And that has little to do with sexuality, but is similar to the hating on hipsters. "They're different from me, their music sucks, their clothing sucks, their lifestyle sucks. I don't want anything to do with it."

At least, that's my take on it.
 
ZephyrFate said:
What happened? Why did you guys stop dating?
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In the last 4 days so many things have happened to me that normally wouldn't have happened in a whole year. Don't know if that's a good or bad thing. :lol

Zephyr, it's more complicated than that. We weren't exactly dating either, actually we went out together for the first time yesterday.
 
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