National Coming Out Day
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual , • Richard Evans Lee
I often feel like I have no right to encourage gay men and women to come out. I did it back in 1972. I came out as soon as I found out. No shame, no guilt: being queer was neat. Thankfulness to discover I wasn't just a heterosexual was my first response.
I told my high school acquaintances that instantly ceased to know me. No loss. I told my momma, who was afraid I'd be lonely (the gay man best known to her was very lonely). Later I told my daddy who told me to go starve in the gutter, die in the hospital but to never ever call him. (Later through the magic of total denial of reality he convinced himself that I'd said I was queer only to annoy him. Poor old fool.)
I've been out ever since. Except for a short stay in jail when I didn't want to be raped, submissive fantasies aside.
I've never suffered, hence my feeling I have no right to urge others to take risks.
But I fear you'll never be happy until you are honest with yourself and the world. The longer you put it off the more you'll regret the loneliness you've imposed on yourself. Don't waste your youth or your middle age because of the tenants of an insane religion or the deluded fools who adhere to it.
Be yourself. There's nothing else you really can be. But burying who you are is just a self-imposed form of damnation. You wouldn't put yourself into a physical prison. Don't put yourself in a mental, emotional one.
Best wishes to you,
Richard (The Pansexual Sodomite)