The price of the closet

I've not really been thinking about this at all the last 24 hours, rather the thoughts have invaded my consciousness. Particularly as someone who has jumped the fence, it's with fairly recent memories that I decided to engage in sexual exploration. I guess I was always curious about the other side of things, my first experience with a guy was in Auckland at 17. Spent the night at a guys place who picked me up when I was walking home late at night from work in the inner city. This was way back in the very late 70's. He screwed me and although I was curious it hurt a lot. After that I decided to stick with girls. 

After my wife died I was come on to by a guy in a chance thing at a pub. Being open minded and much older, I decided to go with it. And after that I decided I wanted to see what the gay part of me was all about. It obviously was there as part of my sexuality I thought. You only get one life don't you, and after all the years of trauma I was happy to experiment and discover different things. There were the issues of old family friends and particularly my daughter, but when the time was right I was open about what I was doing. This is after all, eastern Sydney FFS. If anyone had a problem then that was there fault.

Today I'm still on that same path of discovery. I don't think it will ever end. IMO sexuality can't be put into a box, labeled, and made out to be what you are forever more. "Gay" IMO can be as much a label as "straight". There's many in between's, and much evolution in people's lives. A persons sexuality may be in flux or quite rigidly defined, but there's no universal label I reckon. I still am finding new paths and new things that I like. 

And then there are others.....   Others who live in the same open minded environment as me in eastern Sydney. Here, very few care less about you being gay, which I guess was a big reason why I felt so free exploring sex. Sydney has I've been told the 2nd highest per capita of gays in the world, second only to San Fransisco (BTW eastern Sydney also has a very high HIV rate among gays, not straights, gays; one in 5 are positive). But anyway, despite the open society, there are still people here in the closet.

And it's tragic. I thought I was fuckin tragic, but I got nothing on these guys. At least I was brave enough to admit I wanted to have sex with men. These guys in the closet have sex with men but pretend to be straight. Live a lie. 

Sometimes they're not even in a relationship with a girl. Sometimes they are free to do what they want, but are bound by their own inner fear and self hatred of how they feel. They open the door to their sexuality, but never enter. They live in a world of fear and horror; the fear of being caught going too far, and the horror of that fear.

Sometimes they get used by savvy guys. Guys who themselves are confused sexually, and can see the same signs in their victim. They lead him on. They string him out. They give the hint. But they never fulfill it. They use him up, and in the end won't give a fuck about him. And he who can't simply go out and look for someone who declares themselves gay, is used up.

His friendships fail. Those who really care about him are cast aside as he blindly follows his latest boy. His latest frustrated hidden desire. The boy can do no wrong, and his friends are all wrong. His friends leave.

It'd be better if he just said he was happy to explore himself sexually, and if people didn't like it then they could fuck off. He would get much respect and acceptance, his friends would gather and support him. But he chooses not to. He ends up isolated and alone.

This is just some of the cost of the closet.