Homosexuality: What is the philosophical significance of “coming out

[~Sophia~]

So, what role does philosophy play in the minds of those that choose to come out or not?

Well, what role does philosophy play in anyone's life?

[AMERICONORMAN]

So, what role does philosophy play in the minds of those that choose to come out or not?

Philosophy, for one, will provide a man with the courage to come out, and it will help him decide on the reasons to come out?

Logic will help him identify the issues involved.

Sex will still be metaphysical whether he chooses to come out or not?

Ethics will help him put the decision in the right moral perspective?

Politics will tell him that it is his right to be gay, that it is right to have sex with whomever he chooses, and decide whether he lives in a state that will persecute him or not, etc., etc., etc.

And Art?

Jose.

[AMERICONORMAN]

Though I don't think a guy like Richard Chamberlain is immoral for waiting so long, I could not bear it.

I do want to be a famous novelist and screenplay writer, and who knows what else. I'm handsome, though a little chubby at the moment, and would surely attract the girls, well because of that and because I am charming, charismatic, funny, and "masculine", and sensitive, and artistic.

However, I know that I do not have to be famous in order to have a fulfilling writing career. I know that one can find time to write that great novel and still work. Ayn Rand published We The Living at 32.

It is great that I came out at 19. It was better for my career, though that is not the fundamental reason for coming out. I have written several "gay" stories which I am proud of and I think can have a wide appeal. It is good that I've chosen to write those at the beginning of my career, and not have written only straight stories which are not so contraversial. I rather get people used to the idea of my "secret" now, and not have it ruin me if I ever become famous. If the world will not buy me now because of my "gay" stories, so be it; they don't deserve me. In the big picture, it doesn't matter.

The main setback to coming out, is the consideration of who is going to harm you because of it, who is going to stop loving you, who is going to try to keep you down. You got a problem if you feel shame for any other reason. I did fear losing my friends, and I lost some. I did fear losing my family, and we experienced tension. I did fear being hated by co-workers and some have hurt me. But really it is my Objectivist values and ideas that has aroused the most antagonism from people. They are also the real essence of my identity and my burning fuel.

It is not the potential hatred one might encounter from telling people that is the problem. The bigger problem is the intense curiosity that it arouses in people, so that it soon dominates the topics of discussion. For example, in the workplace, men tend to talk mostly about sex and sports, and if one doesn't care to talk about those things, then one is automatically considered strange and ... gay. And then due to the considerations of social justice one is eventually pressured to come out. I think you're better off keeping quiet and simply stating that you are a professional and you don't think sex and such things should be discussed at work, and that you find those people childish or something like that. Again, it depends on the context.

It is certainly not necessary to buy a half hour on a national television station to make a speech to the entire nation. (Actually that would be an interesting premise for a comedy: a man who works decades to buy the time on prime time television to announce to the nation that he is gay).

It is interesting that I found Objectivism just before I fell in love with a guy that made it clear, clear, clear, that I was gay. Objectivism and him were what I wanted most in life at that time. For the first couple of years I thought that I would not be accepted by Objectivists if I was gay ... but I was surely willing to give up Objectivism if that were the case. But then I soon found out that the two things did not necessarily clash.

Even when I came out to myself I would still tell some people that I was bisexual. But that surely wasn't true. The reason was because I had a pattern of having crushes on girls. But it was fake and a result of many years of convincing myself that that was what a boy was supposed to want, and convincing my body to want girls. But really the hunger was for boys. I remember clearly the different boys of my development, those I knew and even famous ones. Like, Leondardo Di Caprio in Growing Pains, Tom Cruise in Cocktail, Joey Lawrence in Blossom, Kirk Cameron in Growing Pains, or Zack in Saved By The Bell, just to give a few of the many, many examples. All those years it was a very pleasant secret that I kept all to myself. This is an illustration of the fact that one has to come out to oneself first. And it is philosophy that helped me.

It is not your duty to tell anyone else but your lover. But it doesn't necessarily hurt telling others. Once you've reached the stage of enjoying your homosexuality honestly and with confidence, the issue ceases to have much philosophical importance. There are more interesting issues, at least in my opinion.

Take care,

Jose Gainza.