Anonymous Posts (1.17.12-1.22.12)

Every week, we collect anonymous entries sent in using the link on our sidebar and post them all on Monday. We post anything as long as it doesn't contain personal attacks, hate speech, or express or insinuate that one is at risk for hurting themselves or someone else. Please read this for an explanation of this policy and seek help if your or a friend find yourself in that position. With those exceptions aside, please feel free to submit your thoughts and questions. :)

The Bar held a welcome back night for students on Friday, and I hear it was poppin. This week is also going to be POPPIN on campus. Are you ready!?

Hudson Taylor, founder of Athlete Ally, is speaking TODAY at 5:30pm. Women Loving Women (Tu, 6-8pm) and Spectrum (TH, 6-7pm) are also meeting this week!

ALSO BDU is working on an awesome new campaign that aims to bring visibility to and correct misconceptions around bisexuality and questioning. If you're interested in being pictured in a poster (you'll get to choose what it says), sign up here. We need people who identify as bi, questioning and ally!

Now, notes from OC!

#1
Respond!

#2
The last time I made the mistake of telling a straight girl I liked her, things got horrible. I will always have the story of how _____, that one straight girl, broke my heart. This time I was afraid of the same thing happening if a straight girl at Duke finds out I like her. Recently I told her I liked her and then came out to her a couple days later. She essentially rejected me, but it was probably the most awesome rejection I've ever gotten. She didn't flat out say no to me, she just told me about how she's dated girls before and it just wasn't for her and then told me how she's sorry she flirts with me a lot but that's her personality. It feels good to finally be out to one person at Duke. Now I have someone to talk to, but I just wish I'd stop falling for these dang straight girls all the time!

#3
I saw "Pariah" last week. I'll give a quick, reductionist summary: a withdrawn black teenage girl named Alike battles the obstacles that surround her as she explores her sexuality. She has a sister who knows she's a lesbian and constantly threatens to "tell" on Alike to their parents. Her mother is generally oppressive and suspicious of both Alike's fashion sense and choice of friends, including an out lesbian friend Laura who squires her to lesbian night clubs and was herself kicked out of the house upon coming out. Alike's father is mostly absent, avoiding his own marital problems and seemingly preferring to deny his daughters sexual orientation even if he recognizes it. I'm hesitant to call it a "coming out" movie because for Alike that milestone is pockmarked with uncertainty. She allows her dad to brush off his suspicions rather than reveal herself and break the spell. She refuses to wear the feminine clothes her mother buys her but avoids confrontation by changing into more tomboyish fare in a bathroom stall before school starts. And she desperately wants to feel the touch and love of another woman but whenever the opportunity arises, even if the attraction is mutual, Alike still refuses to act, scared of some invisible threshold, getting cold feet and retreating back into herself. It was that last emotion of ambivalence that resonated so strongly. For the longest time, I was unable to reconcile clearheaded knowledge of my homosexual preferences and actually acting on those desires, whether out of immaturity or fear. I know what it's like to look at a boy and feel pangs of love, or at least lust, and fail to act because you're too afraid of what even attempting the kiss symbolizes as a psychological milestone. I know what it's like to be in the closet, enamored with someone who is equally attracted to you, and just bury the feeling to go home with a girl because it means less questions and you can avoid yourself for at least another weekend. I know what it's like to be dating a girl and want nothing more than to lean the opposite way and kiss her male best friend. I know what it's like to kiss a boy for the first time in an alcoholic haze and shame yourself by forcibly separating every time someone else comes into the hallway. And I know what it's like to fall hard for a boy, make out in the middle of party, to finally feel free to hold hands in public and express yourself, only to have the same boy dump you for being "too straight." Still with me? Good. In "Pariah," Alike meets the daughter of one of her mothers co-workers. Bina turns Alike on to new music, smiles and laughs with her. When Bina plants a kiss on Alike, Alike freaks out, unsure whether to expose herself by kissing back and accepting gladly what she wants. Bina seduces Alike during a sleepover, and things move beyond kissing. But the next day Bina is frosty, to Alike's confusion. What she thought was a beautiful, genuinely tender moment is shattered when Bina says, "You didn't think I was actually all-gay, did you? I'm just doing me." Alike is, unsurprisingly, crushed and inconsolable. When I first began the process of coming out to my friends and family, I realized that what I thought of as just being me was a disadvantage when it came to meeting guys as potential romantic partners. My physical characteristics, how I dressed and spoke, what I enjoyed: nearly every gay man I met immediately assumed I was straight, was shocked even, when I would tell them otherwise. Clearly, stereotyping is not limited to just the heterosexual community. I initially took all this confusion as a point of pride. I never thought of my sexual preferences as a dominant part of my personality, so I refused to blatantly define myself as such, stereotypes be damned. Talking about sexual preference was simply out of step with my idea of decorum, straight or gay, so I would blanche at prying questions and purposely maintain the confusion in most cases as a matter of principle for my privacy. Straight boys don't have to tell their parents that they like girls in some big, cathartic exposure; why should I feel the need to announce to the world I like boys? I figured, "Why can't people just find out when they see me holding hands with or kissing another guy?" The selfish personal problem, I realized, was that by refusing to constantly out myself and make my sexuality common knowledge I seemed to be pruning the pool of potential mates. Why go after a "straight-looking, straight-acting" (UGH) guy if all you'll get is heartbreak? I found it necessary to reveal more of myself just to open the door for suitors to not avoid me for risk of embarrassing rejection. I was sacrificing a principle but gaining more of what I actually craved: attention and intense, albeit brief, romantic relationships with other men. Another digression, this time to another movie. "Weekend" is about a one night stand between tow gay men that turns into something more. My main reason for bringing it up is a scene showing the morning after Russ and Glen first spend the night together. Glen interrogates Russ for an art project about why Russ refused passive anal sex the night before. Without hearing a response, Glen settles on his own answer: "That would be too gay?" At the end of the movie they do consummate the relationship with penetrative sex, and it's beautiful. But as they kiss each other goodbye outside a train station, Russ in all likelihood publicly displaying his passion for another man for the first time, what he always feared in such a situation crystallizes when teens scream at the couple, "Faggots!" I don't really know where I'm going with all this, but: the first time I experienced passive anal sex was an incredible personal milestone. It initially felt like a culmination of my being and living a happily-out lifestyle as a gay man. With hindsight I realized the sexual experience itself was not the true impetus behind that sense of contentment. Rather, it was simply the physical manifestation of a deeper emotional revelation, that of my true desire for and capacity to, in the face of all sorts of societal disapproval and social pressure, to enter into an intense, loving, long-term relationship with another man. And what a wonderful feeling that was.


Please remember that there are a number of resources available on campus and in the local community. These resources are available over breaks and throughout the school year. If you or a friend are experiencing thoughts or urges to harm yourself or somebody else, please reach out to the following resources: In an emergency, please don't hesitate to call CAPS at any time, including "after hours" at (919) 966-3820. Ask to speak to the advice nurse and tell them you are a Duke student. You may also call the Trevor Project, a national hotline specifically for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and questioning youth (college students included). Their number is 866-4-U-TREVOR (866-488-7386).