Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site decwrl.DEC.COM
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-dssdev!fisher
From: fisher@dssdev.DEC (Gerry Fisher --- Terminally Inane)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Parents, children, and sexuality.
Message-ID: <526@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Fri, 17-Jan-86 18:53:11 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.526
Posted: Fri Jan 17 18:53:11 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Jan-86 04:41:56 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 51


Fathers, Mothers, "Love," and Coming Out:
----------------------------------------

I forgot who posted the original piece, but that person mentioned 
something that interested me.  The posted presented a case where a 
father used "love" as a reason for trying to "change" the son's 
sexuality.  

Although I have not experienced this from my own parents, the story 
brought to mind difficulties involved with coming out to my parents.

I have been "out" to my parents for about 2 1/2 years now (I have been 
out for 3 years; I am 24 years old).  It took my mother a year to be 
able to talk about homosexuality, and just now are we able to talk 
about men I am dating.  My father and I don't talk much, but that is not 
related to my sexuality.

One thing struck me about the letters/speeches I received from them 
after coming out.  They both had radically different reactions, but 
they both handed me the same line, "Well...I kinda knew all along!"

I can't describe how hurt I was hearing this.  Suddenly the truth was 
obscured ("I was struggling with my sexuality with no one to whom I 
could turn"), and I was being accused of being a liar ("You kept your 
sexuality from us, even though we suspected all along!  Not a single 
girlfriend for all those years!")  Months after I had figured out my 
sexuality for myself, I came out to them.  How dare they accuse me of 
keeping a secret from them.

Three years later, I still feel bitterness about this.  I can't help 
feeling that life *could* have been so much easier for me if my 
parents had initiated conversations with me about sexuality.  I know 
that they couldn't have said, "Gee, Gerry.  Are you gay?"  But, if I 
didn't have a girlfriend for all those years, couldn't they have shown 
some concern about that instead of ignoring it?  I imitated their 
example by ignoring the fact that I never had girlfriends.  There was 
an implicit assumption that it would "just happen" someday.

I don't hold a grudge against my parents for saying what they did.  I
guess that I am dreaming of the day when parents can explain the
spectrum of human sexuality to their adolescent children, and instill
faith in them that their sexuality, whatever it may be, is beautiful,
unique, and most important of all, "ok" to them. 

Any thoughts?

			Gerry Fisher
                        ...decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-dssdev!fisher
***************************************************************************
Nashua, NH: Where the men are men, and the sheep are nervous.