Yeah, but it IS about sex.

There’s something that’s been bothering me for a while about homophobia.

It gets mentioned here and there in writings—someone notices how inappropriate it is that as soon as people think of same-sex couples, they picture two guys getting in on and are immediately disgusted, whereas with straight people, that’s not the case.

I’ve always been careful to make a distinction between homosexuality itself and any particular sex act. Being Catholic, I have a hard time with the “love the sinner, hate the sin” mantra, but it helps me keep the two apart—something I think more people need to do.

See, it shouldn’t matter, but there’s a huge difference between being gay and having sex with people of the same gender. They can’t be the same thing because they’re not even in the same category. Gay is an adjective, a descriptor, something that people might happen to be. And sexual activity is none of anyone’s business. That’s it. Case closed.

The video posted on the blog a few weeks ago about homophobia and anti-gay violence in Uganda was deeply disturbing. But it bothered me primarily because the tactics being used by these politicians and religious leaders are awfully misleading. Whether or not the activities like “eating poo-poo” in gross-out videos are common among the community is none of anyone’s business. The problem is, Uganda is debating sex when it thinks it’s debating homosexuality. If the law is against homosexuals, then they need to be talking about homosexuality, not sex, and those videos have no place in such an argument.

Now let’s talk about progress. Stateside, the issue of whether homosexuality is moral or immoral, largely, doesn’t matter. All reasonably reasonable people agree that there’s no issue there (I mean, sure, this is contentious, but my point assumes this, so if you have issues here, let me know, but I’m moving on). But if people don’t find being gay problematic, then what they really find problematic is gay sex—and it strikes me as though if people find this problematic, it tells me two things about them: [one], that they’re really breaching the privacy of gay couples every time they think about the issue (weird, isn’t it?) and/or [two], that there’s really an unhealthy level of obsession with gay sex, even among the homophobes. People say that homosexuality is the issue, not sex. But I don’t agree. If you have a problem with The Gays (and Lesbians and Bisexuals and the Queer and Transgendered communities), it’s because you’re violating our privacy by picturing us in bed together (or, God forgive your dirty mind, in bed with you).

If you don’t like it, don’t think about it. Pretty simple solution. If you can’t do that, then figure out what makes you so obsessed with gay sex and get past it. Homosexuality != (does not equal!) gay sex. It’s a fact. It’s no business of anyone’s whether I’m sexually active or not. If I have a boyfriend, is it reasonable to assume we’re having sex? Well, no, but we don’t think about these things with straight couples. Why should we for gay ones? It just doesn’t matter, folks! Move along!

Everyone agrees that friendship, intimacy, and love are all pretty good things, regardless of gender. So, homophobes (especially the ones in my extended family), just honor me this request. When you fondle, kiss, or otherwise show affection in public, I think it’s great. I am an enormous fan of PDA and, generally, seeing examples of love in the world. But I do not, and will not, picture you having sex. It doesn’t (and shouldn’t) happen. When I see your babies, I don’t picture you conceiving them. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

If you find yourself disgusted by thoughts of gay couples, then get your prying mind out of the bedroom and expand your definitions of love.

(note: I just realized I posted this as BDU, rather than my account. I’ve already multi-linked here, so I can’t change that now, but know that this post comes from/represents Matt Lyons and not Blue Devils United)

Flamboyance, Visibility

It’s been a long time since I’ve written, and for that I apologize. I’ve been busy working with RENT (which everyone should see, by the way! visit rentatduke.com for details), but that’s not a sufficient excuse.

I write today on the same topic I began writing on in January (and never completed): the dark, strange, and often counterintuitive world of “visibility.”

What exactly do I mean by that? What do we even have to gain from visibility?

Let’s call visibility, for now, “the extent to which an average person who is making no deliberate efforts to encounter nor avoid exposure to unambiguously LGBTQ individuals or information.” Blegh, that's a mouthful.

I’m trying to say that being LGBTQ isn’t like being, say, female. Or east Asian. Or anything else that’s usually, though not always nor exclusively, visibly determined. You can’t look at someone and just know that s/he is gay or queer or a 2 on the Kinsey scale or however else a person might identify. And even the fact that I have to word it that way hints at some of the additional complexities, because there isn’t any definitive test to tell people (or yourself, or your parents) exactly what it is you are (trust me, I wish there were). Plenty of people identify as something either misleading or not entirely straightforward—whether the typically ambiguous queer or the closeted folks who still list themselves as “Interested In” the opposite gender—not to say that most of them don’t have excellent reasons, because they usually do.

But it would be a mistake to pretend that everything is suddenly simple as soon as a person has made the crucial (and bold, and terrifying, and wonderful, and everything else) step of saying, “Hello, world! I’m gay!” Sexuality can change. Situations change. Maybe you’ve just moved to Florida and suddenly realize you can be fired for being gay, which can and does happen all the time, so you decide to go back into the closet until the world suddenly becomes a better, warmer, more loving place (hah, I wish).

This… freedom of self-identification, however, is at least a little bit troubling. Maybe it’s just me, but I think sexuality is a pretty fundamental thing. And knowing that how you fundamentally understand yourself—not only how you tell others whom and what you are but also what exactly you tell you about yourself—can change… that’s terrifying to me.

A while back I went through a phase where I really admired individuals who were, say, flamboyantly gay, who made sure there was no doubt in anyone’s mind just exactly how they identified. To some extents, I still do. While it seems like so many of us do our best to blend in, these people put it all on the line and show the world a side of things it probably doesn’t often get to see, unless we’re talking about NYC or Portland or Seattle or San Francisco or some other gay mecca. One of the big talking points at our last BDU meeting was that people don’t feel like the LGBTQ community at Duke is visible.

Are we? Aren’t we? How do we get there? Do we turn ourselves into monuments of fabulousness? It’s certainly a possibility. Do we alter our hairstyles, our clothing, our speech? Do we put up posters saying, “Hey! The gays are here, even if you can’t see them. Don’t put us down?” All of this just seems unfair. Why should I have to make myself visibly gay? How is this still an issue?

What this boils down to for me is this: I don’t necessarily want to fit in, but I don’t want to have to stand out. This week is our Anti-Hate Speech Campaign here at Duke. Earlier in the week we had given out rainbow ribbons until we ran out of them. The next day, I repinned my ribbon to my shirt and went about my business. First stop of the day, coffee. My barista says, “What’s that for? Is it Pride day or something?” I explained the campaign to him, but being the only one wearing a ribbon that day, I felt like I stuck out terribly. I suppose the purpose of the ribbon is to open dialogue. It just feels… uncomfortable to stand out so boldly.

But what am I afraid of? Am I afraid of being perceived as gay? I mean, not really, because I am. All the same, there’s a huge fear of appearing too flamboyant and I can’t even convey exactly why that is.

I’m not trying to blend in, but I don’t think I should have to stand out to be recognized. For now, I suppose the only way to get where I’d like to get is to stand out. If some people don’t want to view the LGBTQ community as full people, then I guess I’m willing to make sacrifices until they will. But it’s a thin line to tread—it seems like I’m expected to show that that I’m gay, but I’m also “cool” or “normal” or maybe even just “not weird…” whatever it is I need to seem like to win that person over. But I don’t believe in that either!

There can be little doubt that I’m actually quite weird. I’m an eccentric, strange, sometimes difficult-to-tolerate person. I’m also exceptional in a number of ways. But none of that has anything to do with the fact that I’m gay, and it just seems silly to me by now that anyone would think it would.

So… standing out? I’ll do it, I guess. Through rainbow ribbons and involvement and posters if not through clothing. It just doesn’t feel fair. Here I am, little old Matt, winning over the world one person at a time. At least I can say that, here at Duke, I know I’m not doing it alone. But for what it’s worth, I’ll say that I think if you’re not fighting, you’re wasting your time. Do it. Fight. From the protection of your closet if need be. Just do it.

Looking back, looking forward.

I need to start being honest about something. This last year’s been pretty rough. As long as I’ve been the me I remember, I’ve told myself that I could make it through anything, alone if need be—that no matter what happened, I could always remain stable and centered, grounded by logic and rationalism. I didn’t need help because I had to be there for people for when they struggled. On most fronts, I succeeded. But I lost a few things along the way.

For example, the ability to ably express emotion to others (caffeine-fueled excitement doesn’t count). Gone. I’m sure an event or two has slipped my mind, but since the middle of May or so, the most I could do in the presence of others was look mildly distraught and deep in thought. Whatever the cause, it resulted in me just kind of having an excess of sadness I needed to deal with whenever others weren’t around, which was unfortunate and, in a word, inconvenient. But that’s just kind of how emotions are.

My ex and I broke up in January—he was my first—and since then I’ve been even more self-indulgent with my introspection than usual. I’ve experimented a lot with the various friendships in my life—admittedly, and shamefully, sometimes to the detriment of kindness, friendship, and my better judgment. I wanted to foster true connections and conversations and, well, love. But I’ve been so focused on the process I’ve forgotten the purpose.

Merry Christmas! Have some judgment.

Yayayayay it’s Christmas! Almost. It’s a time of homecoming: families and friends are reunited and we show our love for each other with gifts. It’s also a religious holiday, which is a mixed bag for me. I put on a nice face and sing at church and wonder what people would think if they knew.

Ugh. You’d think I'd be past that by now. But no.

It's not entirely surprising. I’m out to all of my immediate family, and slowly to some of the less immediate ones, but it’s always hard to know what you can and can’t say (or wear—I brought all of my Love=Love shirts home, if only to annoy my sister. I wore it a few times last year while tutoring at an elementary school and was somewhat uncomfortable, but the school didn’t have a problem with it, so neither did I). My mother told me that she had recently told her sister(-in-law) and that her reaction had been something along the line of, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear he’s made that choice.” Which I’m not even for a moment going to pretend isn’t hugely offensive. It isn’t as though this particular woman doesn’t know me. I’ve stayed at her house probably a dozen times now and our family often spent Thanksgiving with hers.

I don’t know exactly what happened after that; hopefully my parents stood up for me, as they apparently did in another similar incident in which the folks said “love the sinner, hate the sin.” To which I simply respond with incredulity: I mean, you’ve already implicated yourselves in prejudice. You’re on a roll. Why not keep going?

Rainbows, Buttons, Flags, and Umbrellas

It's been a rainy semester here at Duke. As a result, I've become quite the connoisseur of umbrellas. I have one for light, daily use (black), one for heavy rain and heavy wind (blue and white), and a recent acquisition: one for everything in between (rainbow-colored). And while the heavy blue-and-white umbrella is by far the most durable choice, I've tended to choose to tout the rainbow umbrella. First, because it's pretty (there's a pic farther down!). Second, because, well, I want to be visible.

When I came out, it really took a while for me to decide how big a part of my identity it was--it's a daily process, really--okay, so I'm gay--what's next? Following the bridge incident this year, Blue Devils United ordered rainbow flags for students to put up outside their windows to show support for and solidarity with the LGBT community. I put mine in the window itself, so when I have my lights on it looks kind of like stained glass from the outside (photo: Oli Wilson). I think it's really important to show people that this is campus that's affirming of LGBT individuals (or even if that's not entirely the case, I think that if we give off that image, it will gradually become a self-fulfilling thing). It's the same with the Love=Love shirts.

Oh, him? He's gay.

I am a 21-year-old gay, Catholic, analytical, somewhat musical male. I'm also confused as hell about life right now, but I imagine that will pass someday (maybe not!).

While I'm not a big fan of such attempts to describe people, reductive analysis does tend to reveal certain underlying features (structural details, one might say). Which parts of your you-ness are most important to you?

The unofficial Duke motto is "Work hard, play hard." And it's a fitting one, I think. The fact is, there's simply not enough time in the week to devote yourself to all too many activities. Additionally, there are too many people to know everyone all too well. As a result, this sort of quick reduction is almost a necessary mode of functioning. Who's he? Oh, he's in band. She sings in Chorale. These two write for the Chronicle. She does Vespers. He's in the Pitchforks. (note: these are far from representative :P)

This being the case, it seems that many students fight tooth and nail for even a second identifier. She's in [sorority] and she's premed. Speaking from my perspective, it's definitely a somewhat frightening notion that people will see me as one thing and one thing only.

A lot of people complain about self-segregation at Duke. They're usually talking about racial self-segregation, but it goes way beyond that. People self-segregate by major, religion, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic status, social standing, and a whole host of other things. Why is this? I certainly think one reason for it is that we want to spend time with people who understand what it's like to be [adjective]. Simultaneously, I also imagine that if I'm hanging out with people who are also [adjective], I'm going to be seen as more than just that. It's like those little travel games or hidden message things where you put on the red glasses and it lets you see what's under all the red ink--when your primary descriptor is nullified, you're required to look beyond it.