One Hundred and One Digressions
This really is an interesting spectacle. One hundred one off-topic posts in order to keep people talking about anything but the actual thread subject.
As bigoted animus goes, that's a pretty impressive spectacle.
If, however, we look at this as a closet case trying to rationalize his own behavior in support of homophobes in his proximal community, well, the four weeks of watch-the-birdie dedication advocating the surrender of civilized society on behalf of bigots actually sounds pretty mundane.
Reaction formation usually comes from knowledge and recognition. To call it reaction formation, however, is inappropriate on this occasion. Rather, the massive ego defense complex in play―including projection, intellectualization, and rationalization, at least―seems to be orbiting a locus best known by the term "overcompensation".
The problem is that the proximal community includes friends, family, and traditionally respected communal authorities such as teachers or clergy, law enforcement, and political leadership, and when one comes into such inherent conflict with these influences, options are limited.
Will one hate his own family? That's a hard thing to ask of anyone for any reason. Will one suffer in silence, as he has for all his days before? That many try to conform is perfectly human; that the internal conflict of self-betrayal can be incredibly destructive, even outright deadly, is the challenge.
It's actually easier to concede that external conflict, surrender to the proximal community, and abandon oneself. Or, rather, people tend to think that is a functional solution. And it does work for a while. They pass for months or years. And then it blows all to hell.
Truth is it never really goes away. My mother, for instance, is perhaps my biggest supporter in life; indeed, she was the only person in my family to actually
ask if I was gay. But it turns out that while she's fine with the knowledge that I'm gay, she's uncomfortable with damn near everything else about it. So it's weird because to the one, she knows right from wrong, to the other she struggles as any human does, and yes, we must necessarily note that she's
trying, even if she can't honestly admit to whatever the problem actually is. At the same time, though, there is only so much longer I can smile and
not say, "Call it 'playing dress-up' one more time, I dare you!"
And, really, if this was the whole of the challenge gays faced, I would take that outcome. But it isn't. I am among the luckiest people on the planet.
Think of it this way: I just had a mindblowing appointment with my doctor. To the one everything went as well as one could hope. I advised him that I had changed by sexual orientation declaration, and he nodded, then paused, and you could see the drive light flashing as he pulled the different protocols to mind. We agreed that a full panel was essential; I was offered Truvada, responded that since I'm out of the closet I would hope to be skipping out on high risk behavior, and that answer seemed to satsify him. We returned to the subject of the STD panel; he reminded me that the paperwork is
essential. And then he took a moment to specifically advise me on predatory transmitters of venereal disease as a public health issue. I'm still not over that one. It's not a question of moral offense or propriety; rather, it's extraordinarily awesome. My doctor took time to give me specific nonstandard advice based on a legitimate public health threat to my sector. Look, I have no idea what goes on between a woman and a doctor, but it is not mere coincidence that this new discussion takes place immediately after I inform my doctor that I am openly identifying as gay. That is to say, never once as a heterosexual or identifying bisexual did I receive any advice remotely comparable. It's supposed to be scary, but I am instead rather quite reassured to live in a community like this, where we dispense with the psychomoral bullshit unless it's specifically on the table. (This is a doctor who has been in the business long enough, and in places strange enough, that he has experienced the necessity of explaining to a patient that "Negro" is not a communicable disease.) Consider to the other that my invitation to the Gay Fray would specifically have rewritten medical school curricula and standards of practice in Oregon; the contrast is striking.
Not everybody lives in this sort of community. I don't have to leave the state to find bad places in terms of human respect for gays. I don't even have to cross the mountains. But neither do our rural communities wrestle with the issue as they do in places like Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, or Texas. And, really, beyond our American borders? There are great places to be gay, but the world in general is still hostile.
I can't tell any of my neighbors when or how to come out of the closet, but even in hiding they are still taking tremendous damage from their communities. In the end, the best one can hope for is a wash.
And there comes a point at which they put on such performances that the answer is obvious. The choice of issues for making this stand is itself suggestive; the dedication to the cause is indicative.
To the one, I never understood why some people
want to be sociopathic. To the other, I don't have any really good answers for coming out of the closet. To the beeblebrox, aspiring sociopathy and desperate closeteering are not necessarily mutually exclusive.