Chalchalero
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This is a great question! When I was younger, I remember wishing that I didn't feel so different fro all of the otehr kids around me. When I was in parvulario, or what Americans call nursery school in Argentina, we used to play dress-up and house and all of that fun stuff, and I always insisted on wearing the girls clothes and playing the happy housewife. One of my teachers brought in some old shoes and clothes of her husband's and tried to convince me that this was what I should be wearing and all I could think to myself was that the shoes were big and clunky and ugly as hell, and I just didn't feel as comfortable playing "the man". Now, of course I have a fabulous wardrobe and not one item includes a dress or a pair of women's shoes, but that is besides the point!
Whe you are younger, all that matters is to fit in somehwere. In my country (Argentina), the political climate of the time (the dictatorship of the late 70's and early 80's), my family (provincial reactionary pre-Vatican II Catholics), conformity ruled. If you were different in any way, you were definitely cast out and made to feel most unwanted.
Unfortunately for me it would not have mattered whether I was gay or straight, as the fact that my mother was black was all my extended family needed to hate me. But being gay on top of that really made things harder for me, I can assure you. Especially when I went to military school at the age of eleven, just around the time that I started noticing God's built-in toy and puberty started rearing its ugly head.
There was no one whom I could ask for help, advice, or even some clarification about what I was feeling. I knew that I had feelings for some of the boys I knew (including at least two of my cousins...), and I knew that this was "wrong". I remember confessing my feelings to my family's priest and he immediately ran back to my father with some very wide hints about my needing to be watched very closely, which I believe broke the rules of the Sacrament of Confession, but that didn't seem to bother him very much. He seemed to feel that saving my soul (and my family's reputation) from sin were far more important.
On the day of my Confirmation, I remember my father announcing to me that now that I am a man in the eyes of God I am responsible for my own sins, so I should repent now, or prepare to go to Hell. Nice words of congratulations and support on such a big day, no?
Anyway my point is that when I was 13 and moved to New York, all of that insecurity and doubt came right along with me, and throughout my teens, I continued to live this double life, where I was gay downtown and straight uptown with my family and their friends. This didn't change until I went to university and was finally free from the pressures of family and church and the tiny provincial world in which I had been raised.
Suddenly I began to feel that I had the freedom to make my own choices and live my life as I pleased or rather as I feel I was intended to live it. Don't get me wrong, that does not mean I chose to be gay. I just mean I chose to stop pretending I was straight.
As someone said in an earlier post, there are problems which one encounters whether as a straight person or a gay person, neither is a silver bullet against the weight of the world. But I believe that we are better equipped to handle these problems when we are at least aware and accepting of who we are fundamentally. When we have established our core values and a firm love and respect for ourselves, then it is much easier to muster the necessary self-confidence and strength to deal with whatever comes at us.
That is why I would have to say that when presented with the question of whether I would rather be gay or straight, while earlier on, I would have said "straight", but I am now totally happy and accepting of the fact that I am gay. Having gotten over that hurdle I am now free to deal with the one hundred million other aspects of my life, personality, etc that could use some improvement, reflection, or just outright changing. As long as I know that it is for the betterment of myself and not to conform to the wishes of others, it all becomes much more straightforward for me.
On one last note, I wish to comment on what aother poster said about being able to deal better with homophobia as he becomew older. My friend, as you become older the problems become different. Like ageism in the gay community. Or the loneliness which ensues when your friends and lovers die off and you don't have the traditional familyunit to fall back on. I have had two lovers die in the past 12 years, and each time I learned the hard way the difference between true friends and "club friends", "drinking buddies", and "fuck buddies". You will find that illness and death are remarkable at separating the wheat from the chaff in your relationships with others.
Whe you are younger, all that matters is to fit in somehwere. In my country (Argentina), the political climate of the time (the dictatorship of the late 70's and early 80's), my family (provincial reactionary pre-Vatican II Catholics), conformity ruled. If you were different in any way, you were definitely cast out and made to feel most unwanted.
Unfortunately for me it would not have mattered whether I was gay or straight, as the fact that my mother was black was all my extended family needed to hate me. But being gay on top of that really made things harder for me, I can assure you. Especially when I went to military school at the age of eleven, just around the time that I started noticing God's built-in toy and puberty started rearing its ugly head.
There was no one whom I could ask for help, advice, or even some clarification about what I was feeling. I knew that I had feelings for some of the boys I knew (including at least two of my cousins...), and I knew that this was "wrong". I remember confessing my feelings to my family's priest and he immediately ran back to my father with some very wide hints about my needing to be watched very closely, which I believe broke the rules of the Sacrament of Confession, but that didn't seem to bother him very much. He seemed to feel that saving my soul (and my family's reputation) from sin were far more important.
On the day of my Confirmation, I remember my father announcing to me that now that I am a man in the eyes of God I am responsible for my own sins, so I should repent now, or prepare to go to Hell. Nice words of congratulations and support on such a big day, no?
Anyway my point is that when I was 13 and moved to New York, all of that insecurity and doubt came right along with me, and throughout my teens, I continued to live this double life, where I was gay downtown and straight uptown with my family and their friends. This didn't change until I went to university and was finally free from the pressures of family and church and the tiny provincial world in which I had been raised.
Suddenly I began to feel that I had the freedom to make my own choices and live my life as I pleased or rather as I feel I was intended to live it. Don't get me wrong, that does not mean I chose to be gay. I just mean I chose to stop pretending I was straight.
As someone said in an earlier post, there are problems which one encounters whether as a straight person or a gay person, neither is a silver bullet against the weight of the world. But I believe that we are better equipped to handle these problems when we are at least aware and accepting of who we are fundamentally. When we have established our core values and a firm love and respect for ourselves, then it is much easier to muster the necessary self-confidence and strength to deal with whatever comes at us.
That is why I would have to say that when presented with the question of whether I would rather be gay or straight, while earlier on, I would have said "straight", but I am now totally happy and accepting of the fact that I am gay. Having gotten over that hurdle I am now free to deal with the one hundred million other aspects of my life, personality, etc that could use some improvement, reflection, or just outright changing. As long as I know that it is for the betterment of myself and not to conform to the wishes of others, it all becomes much more straightforward for me.
On one last note, I wish to comment on what aother poster said about being able to deal better with homophobia as he becomew older. My friend, as you become older the problems become different. Like ageism in the gay community. Or the loneliness which ensues when your friends and lovers die off and you don't have the traditional familyunit to fall back on. I have had two lovers die in the past 12 years, and each time I learned the hard way the difference between true friends and "club friends", "drinking buddies", and "fuck buddies". You will find that illness and death are remarkable at separating the wheat from the chaff in your relationships with others.
So I'm going with gay. 