36. Secrets and Lies

Before I begin this post, I want to mention that my apartment smells like a Christmas Ham.  If you don’t know what that is, or have never tasted a Christmas ham, I am so sorry for you!  This website has an example, but I would point out that the recipe is wrong… at least, it is not my recipe (or more accurately, it is not my Nanny’s recipe).  It is the only thing I will willingly and happily cook, because if I don’t, then it doesn’t get made (my mom is too busy making the turkey and the Cassava Pie – a Bermudian Christmas tradition).  The thing is, I haven’t cooked a Christmas Ham today, and it is nowhere near Christmas yet.  It’s been driving me nuts ever since I woke up.  I have such a craving I have seriously thought about going to the store to buy myself a ham.  But I live alone, and it would be kind of weird.  Maybe I’ll go knocking on doors on my floor to find out who is making it and get myself some free home cooked food!  Then again, I probably won’t.

I’ve had the idea behind this post mulling around in my head for a few weeks now, but it was brought to the forefront by this article which I was directed to by a comment someone left me.  The point of the article was basically that much of the gay rights movement has been the result of deception and propaganda.  But that’s not the part that got me thinking – if you want to hear my thoughts on that you can read this post, or this comment.  What got me thinking was the story at the beginning of the gay guy who was married to a woman, but was ‘driven’ by something he couldn’t control to have anonymous sexual encounters with men behind his wife’s back.  Now, if you have read any of this blog you will know that this story really doesn’t apply to me.  I am a virgin – I haven’t had sex with a man or a woman…  I haven’t even come close (good Christian girl that I am).  But I do sort of relate to the story at a more basic level.  Let me explain.

Before I was ‘out’ (just to myself, of course), I was trying desperately to cling to the pretense that I was straight.  (This, despite the fact that I had asked people to pray for my healing, and had gone to various counselors and professional therapists thinking that if I could deal with certain issues in my life I would be cured).  I didn’t do anything really extreme (like marry or even date anyone to hide my secret), but it was a secret nonetheless.  Even from myself.  I would shut the door on the part of me that was gay, and then declare that it didn’t exist.  And to continue the use of this metaphor (because I am oh so fond of metaphors), because I was pretending that this ‘gay room’ didn’t exist, I couldn’t acknowledge what was going on in there.  I had to turn a blind eye to it, because to acknowledge that I was having lustful thoughts about girls would be to acknowledge my ‘gayness’, and I refused to do that.  My lust issues diminished so dramatically when I came out to myself, it was actually kind of a shock.  I would be aware of the sexual thoughts forming in my mind and would be able to stop them because I was no longer pretending that they didn’t exist.  

I realize that the situations are not that similar, but I do see a parallel.  When something is kept secret, even from ourselves, then there is a tendency for it to grow beyond our control.  I have wondered if these ‘anonymous sexual encounters’ that the Side B and Side X people keep talking about weren’t actually the result of this secrecy.  When you can’t openly date, then maybe anonymous sexual encounters are the outcome.  I look at the gay people who I count among my friends, and the gay people I have merely met in passing, and none of them seem to be having these encounters, and maybe that’s because they have not been forced to keep their sexuality a secret, they have not felt shame about it.  Their relationships have progressed in pretty much the same way that most of my straight friends’ relationships have progressed – they meet at a social function, they get to know each other in a group, they flirt, they date for a while, then there is some form of commitment (whether through moving in together, or a proposal).  

This is, of course, all conjecture, because I have never met a gay person who has conformed to the stereotypes that I keep hearing and reading about, so I don’t know what would motivate that sort of behavior.  I would like to point out that I have met straight people who behave in the way that these books describe (with the anonymous and weird and kinky sex), which just makes me really annoyed when I hear that sort of behavior ascribed exclusively to gay people.  

Anyway, these are my thoughts today.  I think I am going to order a ham and pineapple pizza, maybe that will satisfy my craving.