Recent Flame Wars
Submitted by jeroen on January 21 2001 14:01:56
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I just started posting on this site yesterday with the intention of sharing some of the insights of my adopted Eastern Christian faith which I have found helpful in my own spiritual struggle, and which might help others in theirs. Today I was just reading down the posting list, and came across a rather nasty battle of words from a few days ago, some of which had to do with the pros and cons of the established gay community, and I feel impelled to express my own view of this. (Warning: this is Jeroen speaking, not quoting anybody else!) I misspent a lot of my youth trying to find my place in the gay community until I realized that the community did not want me there. At the time if you were either bisexual or a boylover (you could say I am either or both, though I dislike such labels), you were gay, and that was that; and accepting yourself as gay meant that you were free to be yourself. I soon realized that this promise of freedom meant exactly what it means in mainstream culture--you are free to be what you are, so long as what you are is what others tell you that you are. There is a right way and a wrong way to be "gay" and people kept telling me I was doing it wrong because I insisted on being what I knew myself to be. Then in the mid-eighties, the attitudes of the community changed drastically: neither bisexuals nor boylovers counted as "gay" anymore. Boylovers were threats to good public relations, and bisexuals were the ones spreading HIV. We were not even allowed to march in Pride Day parades unless we passed as "mainstream gay." From the moment that realization set in, I distanced myself from the gay com- munity, and found my sense of community elsewhere. I make no judgements of others who do find their sense of belonging there, more power to them. But just as I am happier among Russian people than I am with my native Dutch community, I am happier in Christian fellowship groups than in any kind of gay gatherings. I hope my remarks have not offended anyone, but I offer this in case there are boylovers out there who are trying to be good members of the gay community but still don't quite seem to fit in: maybe you should look elsewhere, the gay community certainly has no monopoly on personal freedom. To those people, good luck and God bless. --Jeroen |
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