Come On, Guys

So, do you remember my blog post from a long time ago (this one) where I voiced my concern about not having a space to have open, thoughtful discussions about what it means to be a gay male on this campus with other gay males? Well, it's happening!

Yes, you read that correctly. There will be a new discussion group starting in the very near future just for LGBTQ-identified men to get together and discuss the issues that we face in our lives. Now, I know that there was some controversy over having a men's group but I feel that this a great, necessary step to take in order to pull our community together and maybe even welcome more into it. I'm going to tell you exactly why I feel like this is so necessary just so maybe those of you who are skeptical can understand where I'm coming from.

Guys, we don't talk. We never talk about the important things. We can easily have a 2-hour discussion about Glee or the classic divas of our time (omg don't get me started), but what about the things that matter. What about talking about how we interact with people who don't conform to gender norms? What about having a discussion about trying to break away from those age-old stereotypes of masculinity that concerned so many of us about coming out? Can we discuss how sometimes we can feel pressure from our friends to be more masculine? And how about the way we interact with the women, trans-folk, and those not conforming to either gender? Oh and don't forget about how we just interact with each other in general.

We never talk about any of these things and it's time that we do. It's the only way for us to be an actual community. It takes more than just being visible and social. We have to realize that in order for us to be able to help the greater Community, we have to fix ours first. I know that we are individually close to each other but as a men's community on the whole, we're worlds apart.

I've never gotten a real sense of unity from the men's community. It's always seemed like everybody did their own thing and never really came together except for special occasions and a trip to Vespa. Is that all we are fellas? A social factor in the community? I certainly hope not. I want to sit down and be able to talk about all the things we are going through because you can't deny that each of us isn't going through something.

Also, we always say how we want more people to feel comfortable coming to events. This could be the perfect place for men who maybe aren't so much into the social scene to come and express ways we could help them feel more comfortable. I feel as though there is an entire segment of the gay male population that is just not being satisfied right now and this could be a step in the right direction to making sure that everyone is welcome.

Simply put: We can make our community better. We can foster stronger, closer bonds between all of us. All it takes is talking.

Oh Mother...

So my mom is coming to visit me in April and I’m hyperventilating already. I’ve made a mental checklist of things that need to be removed and stored until she leaves. By things I mean items that will scream, “Hey lady…your daughter is so gay.” This includes multiple posters, signs made by my ex and I for NC Pride, my flag (ugh I love that flag), my BDU bracelet, rainbow earrings, etc.

While this is my initial, personal reaction—to de-gay my room—I can’t help but compare it to my straight roommate and how she behaves when her parents come to visit. I recall many a hurried times hiding our alcohol at a friend’s or under our recycling bin outside even though we’re both of age. That was her biggest and only concern, from my perspective, because her parents don’t condone drinking. When my mom gets here, we won’t have to touch a single bottle be it in the freezer or on top of the fridge. Shoot, we’ll probably all have a drink together. However, I do plan to take a chunk of my identity and hide it away like a guilty pleasure (probably in my roomie’s closet). I know how my mother feels about homosexuality and I’m not ready to cross that bridge. Whether that should elicit shame or self-loathing I’m not sure, but that’s where I stand right now.

Ironically, my mother is coming to Duke to celebrate with me. A program I intern with is having an exhibit to showcase all the hard work we have done. My mom is coming to support me and show how proud she is. I can see her now: standing in the audience, looking right at me, tears rolling down her face, and clapping/whistling like crazy. But she’ll be staring at only half of her daughter; she’ll be celebrating with only half of who I am. The other half will be lurking in the depths of a laundry basket somewhere.

It’s difficult for me to see how much I have progressed/transformed/developed as an individual, a woman of color, in my sexuality and as a whole during this school year only to realize where I’ve fallen short so harshly. I want to be better than fear, however, I also recognize my limitations at this moment. Recognition doesn’t make it hurt any less but it’s a start. At least I know where I’m headed.

Anonymous Posts (1.31.10-2.6.11)

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 or hate speech. Feel free to submit your thoughts and questions :)

Super Bowl XLV was last night, Everyone. Is it just me or was it very zzzzzzzzzzzzz? Granted, I am from Long Island and have absolutely zero invested in a game between the Steelers and Packers, but even the commercials were especially lackluster? I expect lazy objectification of women in beer commercials (although also eek, GoDaddy.com. Eek.) and non-sequitur car commercials, but there's usually at least one other funny meme. And this year it was just slapstick and men getting hit in the groin. Hahaha, that had to hurt! Great work! 2011!

But then, of course, we were saved.

MMM. You know me too well, Glee. What're you doing "Whatta Man" next week? #amiright? This was a solid episode, if not clearly tailored to the residual Super Bowl audience that has never seen Glee before (the "there can only be one extra-curricular you're involved in because of how high school works" conflict is kind of tired). But OH MAN, Karofsky. That kid. So exhausting! And yet so Awww (he's in Stage 3 :/). I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I'm really hoping that Karofsky soon realizes he was Born This Way.

Valentine's Day episode tomorrow, You Womens, which will certainly feature a song with Blaine and Kurt. RIP Me, I guess. Good knowing you, Me!

Anyways. Other quick hits:

- Like these pages for The Center and This Blog on Facebook. Do it.

- We're looking to get photos of BDU/Center events online (like, on the FB pages), but don't want to picture anyone who's not comfortable with this. So I'm keeping a running list of people who are willing to have their photo up - email me (bluedevilsunited@gmail.com) if this includes you?

Mhm. Alright! Anonymous Posts! #yessir!

#1

From a slightly advanced vantage point:

Four years out of Duke I was surprised when I saw a reference to this blog while browsing The Chron, procrastinating crunching numbers for a bank. The funny thing is that while I never would have guessed that such an infrastructure existed at Duke, I was not at all shocked to read the linked posting in which a closeted frat star verbalized the internal conflict that he was experiencing while trying to balance liking dudes and his self perception as a "normal guy" (nay, a badass).

I look back on my time at Duke with no regrets, and the thing is, Duke is a weird place. As a homo who can pound a handle and who predates a well known gay KA who actually opened up a lot of peoples eyes, I feel compelled to post and offer some perspective, because my life changed when I graduated (for the better). Gone were the booze fueled, drug induced late night section romps with a select few (some of whom, to the discredit of Duke and broader southern culture, are now married). I struggled with those, not knowing what to think or feel or why I valued them or how to make myself blase about the possibility of another, and another, and another. Although it seemed like it at the time, I was not the only one who was actually into it, and certainly not the only Dukie who felt alone because I and everyone I hooked up with were to cool to care, to scared (of themselves, but really of others) to be honest, and too wedded to an ideal to acknowledge the possibility of others. Its not trivializing anyone's experience to say that at 25 in NYC, in a crowd of gay bankers and consultants and lawyers, many of whom can bench press you before drinking you under the table, its kind of a running joke how macho and closeted and hollow a lot of Duke experiences are.

Like 99% of the population, you have to adjust, and you have to make choices. My choice has been to stop hanging out with all the Dukies, to make friends with guys who went to *gasp* BC, to put myself in positions where I never thought Id be and that aren't 100% comfortable, in order to maintain an identity of someone who is smart, cool, good looking (OK, Ill stop), and private. And a 'mo. And you don't believe it now, but trust me, if you compromise your Duke indoctrination which is largely based on insecurity anyway, open yourself up to being friends with people from different schools, places, and industries, you will not have to compromise your masculinity, your interests, your friends, or your level of comfort with your own sexuality. I promise. And thats an easy promise to make, because organic self development will take care of half the battle anyway.

I hope Duke changes (and while the freshman Dukie in me says its lame, this blog is an awesome start), but that embarrassing conflict is its challenge. The things that make Duke great are the same things that drive you crazy. With respect to social culture, I think thats fairly unique. My Georgetown LAX friends, my homo Chicago and Williams friends, my Australian athlete friends are in NYC and have no problem with whoever you want to love (or just bang). So four years out, my unsolicited advice to the individual in question: get over it, and get to it. The world you hate yourself for wanting, the promise youve already dismissed, the social circle youre too scared to hope for exists, and is waiting for you. Maybe not with open arms, but since you're a rockstar with the balls to post on this blog while there are 20 more like you just lurking, something tells me youll be just fine.

#2

Well, I just got back from Wednesday Night Shooters. Funny thing is, I had the option to go back with either my sort-of-boyfriend-ish-person or my roommate, whom I'm in love with. I picked her. She's now asleep, and obviously doesn't give a shit that I picked her. Or maybe she does; I just would never know it, and probably will never know it. He doesn't know it either, but he'll probably always play second fiddle to her. Neither of them knows. This is my own little secret, and I'm worried I'll carry it to the grave.

#3

All guys want is sex...that's it. I thought I was a gay girl for the past two years but then I started falling for this guy...until he told me he wanted to be fuck buddies. No feelings involved at all. Me being my dumb self said no but the next day I still went to hang out with him at his room. "Maybe he'll still fall for me" I thought. We made out and did other things and at the end he said "Now don't let your feelings get involved." It seems like all guys are like this, I can't handle it. Girls are different, right? Or am I just fooling myself. I don't want sex, I just want love.

#4

I've only been out for about a year, and I'm already frustrated at being gay at Duke. The number of gay men here on campus is so small. There are a few guys I'm attracted to, and a few I've hooked up with, but all they're interested in is sex and the superficiality of it all makes me want to dissociate from romantic endeavors entirely. I know it's unfair to expect to find my soul mate within a population that hovers around 75, but I don't know how to expand into the triangle other than by signing up for some sketchy site online (which doesn't appeal to me). Only a few people from unc and ncstate visit duke, and as far as I can tell only a few people are involved in the lgbt club at unc, so attending their events isn't too enticing. The gay clubs I've been are always relatively empty or frequented by the same people each night. I know UNC has to have more options for me--it's almost 3 times the size at Duke--but I have no idea of how to engage with the less mainstream gay population there that hovers under the radar. I suppose I could just hop on the roberston, find a corner on Franklin street, and gaydar each guy as they pass, but that seems inefficient. Anyone else out there feel constrained by how small our community is, and anyone have some tips? I would really like to be in some sort of a relationships at least by next semester...

---

Uh, Can We All Talk About How Awesome This Is? So N.C. State posted their "It Gets Better" video online today and they just knocked it out of the park. I may actually be a little jealous right now? I may actually be a little jealous right now. We are all Wolfpacks (did I do that right?) today!


So yeah. Who's got a camera?

How Not to Come Out to Family

So I’m like really really horrible at coming out. My first verbal expression of “I have something to tell you” was over a year ago to my Dad. In order to muster the strength/energy to do so, I worked myself up into an emotional frenzy. You can read about it here but what’s pretty crazy is how rotten of a job I did to deal with the rest of my family.

Living a life of secrecy and hidden love is nothing new to me. In fact, nearly two and a half years of my time at Duke had been spent in this melodramatic heart-wrenching, heart-breaking relationship that caused so much pain to so many people that it is hard to think of myself as the same person. One thing that always stuck with me through all that was a complete loss of how to be transparent and truly honest. It is through these means that honor and pride manifest themselves.

So I vowed: No more secrets. No more bullshit. Let’s do this.

Except it’s really hard. I certainly don’t want to blame this on my recent history of secrecy since I was in a period of re-thinking my self image, my gender expression, and the true manifestations of love (I even shaved my head, damnit), but I didn’t have many clear examples of what to do.

To my own credit, I did come out to both of my grandmothers, but the talking stopped there. The thing about my extended family, is that they’re really a lot more like immediate family. We all live within a few minutes of each other, and my grandparents live next door. So it’s not a once-a-year kind of family, it’s a most-nights-during-the-week kind of family. I knew it was my responsibility to tell everyone myself, for my sake, and those who were holding and suffering from my news. But also for Hilary’s sake. The silence of a partnership—however it’s employed—is suffocating, infuriating, and never, ever okay.

I failed her. I failed Hilary and myself. I was crushed by the pressure and withdrew from taking action. Quite possibly the best example of proving love: to announce it, to celebrate it, to be honest.

So the night before Hilary and I flew out to San Diego together, my dad sat my family down, and told them the news for me because I hadn’t done it yet. It might work for some people to come out this way, it gets a lot of conversations done quickly. But my family refused to meet her.

Now, my family is the kind of family that will like all go out to one of our favorite restaurants to welcome a new friend, or my sister’s boyfriends (& her girlfriends since they didn’t know they were girlfriends). So it was a sinking, sick feeling. Dinners are like the ultimate expression of welcome and acceptance. Also a great opportunity to tease, and to test, and to talk about poop.

But Hilary didn’t get that. Not yet anyway. Because I fucked it up. I hope we can someday. It certainly isn’t a rejection of her as it is a rejection of a shocking truth told second hand and with less than 24 hours to react. I can only blame myself.

I know my grandpa cried when he found out. The only other time that’s happened is when he found out that I got into Duke, and he said, “I can’t believe a Puente is gonna go to Duke.” He’s a quiet hard-working man who I love dearly. I wish he could celebrate my love with me.

But my dad, who has sat with this news for over a year, COMPLETELY kicked ass. He had an awesome family dinner with my siblings and Hilary. Then after she left to return to Durham, he took my little brother, my sister and I to a GAY THEATRE. To see a GAY PLAY. Isn’t that the craziest shit you ever heard? He even knew the reputation of the theatre, and all this gay culture stuff in the city. It was clear that he had been doing his research, and the fact that he would plan a family outing with gay themes (sex included) for my 15-year-old brother to see, is a huge step for him. So back home, I felt more simultaneously accepted and furious at myself than I have in awhile.

Now—on to the step that, for me, is infinitely harder and oppressive than coming out: the follow up conversation. How the hell am I gonna conquer that one?

Adventures in Online Dating

I’ve been doing some “market research” on the free online dating industry. Yes. Market research.

I started with Ok Cupid, so well designed and full of interesting, educated people with witty profiles that it has almost single-handedly sucked the shame out of online dating. I quickly went through all the girls who met my basic criteria. As a result I’ve been on a brunch date at the Nasher and had interesting conversations with more girls I may see soon. I grew curious about the other types of free online dating sites. Would more queer women be on them? OK Cupid is the the crossover success. How much worse could these other sites be?

I checked out Plenty of Fish (literally the market leader,) which was horribly designed but not very sketchy. My inbox on Plenty of Fish is a repository of banal “Hey pretty” and “You’re adorable” messages. On DateHookup, I received my first no-strings-attached sex solicitation from another woman. (This could have boosted my ego, but I hadn’t even uploaded my first profile picture!) Now that I’ve received catcall messages I see it as less of an ego boost than a let down. Like getting a text, only to realize it’s from my Dad (which usually goes something like "Make sure you are using wifi while on campus!!" or "Do you think Texas will beat Bama?") I liked the idea for How About We, a site designed to match people based on their ideal date. Unfortunately no women who live in the Triangle and meet my basic criteria use this site.

I wanted to revisit the Mogenic of my youth (whichwas not just for teenagers,) but it has shut down. The first Google hit for “LGBT social network” was Downelink. What Downelink has in quantity (over 700 women in the Triangle who fit my basic criteria, over 500 of them black) it loses in quality. Sifting through profiles on Downelink is like looking at woman seek woman on Craigslist crossed with Myspace. All eyesore backgrounds and unsolicited music. I discovered people who spelled “younqq” instead of young, who wanted to meet “FUCK THAT A BANGED AZZ GIRL WHO I CAN CALL WIFEY” and self-identified as 15 year old jailbait. One girl replied with “That was the most refreshing msg I have received on here.” As a Duke student, I also found her refreshing. She had traveled throughout the South, meeting with a former slave owner, and had lived in New York City while auditioning for Broadway plays. For good or ill, unstructured wandering is not in the conversational repertoire of the typical Duke student.

I enjoy this research project, but it is not sustainable. Crafting opening messages beyond “Hey what’s up?” requires the type of close reading of a profile normally reserved for applications and cover letters. I don't have the time or interest to tease out personality from people content to say "I go to NCSU." Every time a message exchange abruptly ends I feel like I've expended much more effort than if I had just talked to a girl for 20 minutes at a party.

Results: My outlook has expanded beyond the terrarium known as Duke. I now realize just how many queer women are in the Triangle, some a bus ride away. The opportunity to check out many women at once is something straight people can take for granted but I rarely do in real life. When I start to think I'm the only queer femme, fashion conscious, intellectual, ethnically ambiguous lesbian in the Triangle I think of this quote by Frida Kahlo:

"I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too.
well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you."

Then I check my new matches on OK Cupid.

[I'm currently undertaking a ridiculous stunt to meet a lot of "my type" women in person. If the stunt is over in two weeks I'll post an article about it.]