Coming Out, Pathological Honesty, and Paranoia
Submitted by GCFboi on January 05 2001 15:05:57
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I have a question to ask of anyone who feels that it is answerable. Maybe in some ways this question will be a little too general to answer, since I cannot go into endless detail about all of my personal friendships or where I live, but what I want to ask is, how much caution should I actually take in discussing my feelings with people in real life? And have I gone too far already? The truth is, in the past, I have been very open and forthcoming with almost everyone in the gay community, but I have been mostly secretive around straight people. (This has not been a problem before, because I have spent about 75% of my social life with gay youth anyway). People have sometimes accused me of being way TOO open about my personal life. ("Pathological honesty" is what they call it!) Have I perhaps already made enemies or brought suspicion on myself, without realizing it? Certainly many people are aware of how high my sex drive is, and now I wonder if people are going to be able to trust me in the future, knowing my past. It was OK when I was younger for me to express my attractions for teen boys openly, because I was a teen myself (or in my early 20's) and this was considered normal. But now I am wondering if I need to stop doing that. I am wondering if I may be putting myself at greater risk than I once thought. I have to confess that almost all my gay friends and acquaintances already know to some degree about my feelings. Most of these people know that I like older teens, but only a few know that I also like younger teens. I have been lucky that no one has decided to try to use these facts against me (except for the occassional name-calling). I'm trying to figure out what the difference is between justifiable concern for my own safety and security, as compared with paranoia that is unwarranted. One of the reasons that this concerns me more now than it used to, is that things seem to be getting worse politically in America for sexual minorities, especially BLers, rather than better. It seems like the laws and regulations that have to do with adults interacting with children and youth keep getting more and more restrictive and draconian all the time. Although I have hope that ultimately this prejudice will be overcome, in the short term, I feel like things may get worse instead of better. Some of the laws that exist now, and some of the policies that churches and youth organizations have are so vague, that I keep wondering if I am going to break some rule unintentionally and get myself in trouble. Especially with the election of President Bush, I feel discouraged. Sometimes I feel like it's just a matter of time before it becomes illegal just to BE a boylover, even a celibate one. What do you all think? Is this just a paranoid fear, or should I be concerned? I just haven't thought about it enough in the past, but now I am wondering. I very much want to be able to continue doing volunteer work with boys in the future, and being friends with them, but I sometimes wonder if people already have suspicions about my motives. For example, I have come out to one of the pastors at my church, and he knows that I like teen boys. He hasn't ever condemned me for it, but I have also never made it into an issue for him. I've never volunteered to work with the youth group at that church, because I have been busy in the past working with a group for gay youth. Well, within the last six months, the gay youth support group that I had been working with for about 1 1/2 years was disbanded (for reasons that I don't have time to go into here), and I miss my volunteer work very much. I have thought about working with the youth group at my own church, but I am afraid that perhaps it wouldn't be as easy for me to fit in there, because it is not a gay church, and is rather conservative, and only that one pastor knows that I am gay and that I like teen boys. Fortunately, he has not condemned me, but I worry that many other people there would if they found out! How much secrecy is required, and how easy it is to keep these kinds of things from becoming a problem? I do not have much experince dealing with straight boys, or doing volunteer work in straight settings, and I am afraid that I might not know how to keep my emotions under wraps well enough that people would not find out about them. I guess my question can be boiled down to this: are they really out to get us, or does it just SEEM that way? |
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