AM I GAY?

When I think back of my early childhood, I can remember being fascinated with what I am. I was fascinated, in a rather special way - by a particular boy in my class. While my thoughts at that time were not particularly sexual (I was nine), I often thought about whether or not I thought this boy beautiful. I had problems settling the issue in my mind, but nevertheless, I looked at him ever so often, and I felt pleasure while doing so.

As time went on, as I entered puberty, I began to take a more active, albeit still very discrete, interest in other boys. While in the locker room after physical education, I detected that I was sexually attracted to several of the other boys, and I also saw many boys walking around the school corridors who caught my attention. Sometimes I looked them up in the school's yearbook to see what their names were, and in my free time, I often dreamt about being physically close to them.

But during this period of adolescence, I never really thought about what I was. All the things that took place in the emotional-sexual realm were, admittedly, real and concrete to me: I experienced real feelings for other boys (love, infatuation, sexual attraction). But at the same time, on an "intellectual" level, I never confronted these feelings, and so I continued having them without worrying about them or trying to transform them in any way. They just were, and that was fine with me. While some opponents of homosexuality often claim that it is "unnatural" (a claim which is thoroughly refuted in the essay "Homosexuality and the 'Unnaturalness Argument'"), for me, my homosexual feelings were very natural indeed.

Looking back at this period, my feelings for other boys were at least as strong as before, while my lack of an emotional-sexual interest in girls continued. I was very attracted to quite a few boys which I only knew from having observed them around the school, and I also experienced two strong infatuations, involving two boys in my class. Of course, as before, all of this was kept very secret. So how can it be explained that I, who really was gay, so strongly attacked homosexuality in different contexts? The explanation is, I think, psychological in nature. That is to say, I now think I was homophobic, not primarily to have people believe that I was straight (because I never thought anybody doubted that anyway), but to keep myself in check. I was "preaching" to my inner self, in a way.

During college, I gradually began to realize, on an intellectual level, what I was. Why did that take so long? I think because when one grows up and hears words like "gay" or "homosexual", one thinks of rather horrid people, who are disgusting, ugly, and immoral. I used to have a picture in my mind of two old, ugly men with mustaches (which I happen to find quite unattractive) kissing - and I found that revolting. I thought: I cannot be one of them. And yet I was, in a way. What I began to understand was that the term "homosexual" really did not denote anything but a description of towards whom a person was emotionally and sexually attracted. It did not denote anything, in itself, regarding the looks, behavior, or values of anyone. When I realized that gay people are like everyone else - some are nice, some are rude, some are beautiful, some are ugly, some are young, some are old, etc. - I had an easier time using the term for myself.

Today, I lead a rewarding life, both professionally and privately. I spend a lot of time with my steadfast circle of friends (we have dinners, go out together, talk on the phone almost daily, etc.), and even though I disagree with the French philosopher Michel Foucault on many counts, I find his view on friendship in line with my own, as it is described by Edmund White in his book The Farewell Symphony (London: Chatto & Windus, 1997, pp. 457-458): "Inspired by the ancient Greeks, whom he [Foucault] was studying, he'd developed a cult of friendship. He thought that we had nothing else to value now; the death of God had resulted in the birth of friendship. If we could no longer enjoy an afterlife earned by our good deeds, we could at least leave behind a sense of our achievement, measured aesthetically, and the most beautiful art we could practice would be the art of self-realization through friendship."

I am happy to say that I now view my homosexuality as enriching. I hope to be able to influence people towards more of tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality, and I think the best way to do that is to be yourself and be open - then, people will be able to see that gay people aren't really different, except in one little area.

*laughs.