Jonny
Posted by ulla on Saturday, February 28, 2009
Under: Pomosexual
Country & city: San Francisco, USA
Name/nickname: Jonny
Age: 27
Gender: male
What did you come out as (gay, bi, transgendered, use any terms you like here)? Bi / pan / poly / pomo
What other words would you use to describe yourself? I like to say that my sexuality is “universal” or “open”. It’s a nice way of giving people a word that seems like a label but which has relatively few connotations.
How old were you when you first realized your identity? I’m still not even sure about my identity because I’m not sure it’s something that’s fixed once and for all through time. I’m really a late bloomer because I didn’t even realize that I was interested in other guys until I was about 21 or 22. Before that, through high school and much of college, I was basically clueless about a lot of things sexually. It didn’t hit me like a ton of bricks either. It just sort of gradually dawned on me that things are more complicated. It was like “Oh, ok, guys are attractive too”. But I’ve always felt weird about the fact that other people like to choose camps based on sexual preference.
How old were you when you first told someone? I was 25 when I told one of my friends that I was bisexual.
Did you plan it? If so, how? Not really. I’m one of those people that keeps their sexuality to themselves most of the time but also doesn’t make a huge effort to hide the facts either. If someone asks then I’ll talk about it but otherwise I’ve been told that I come across as pretty ambiguous.
What made you choose that person to tell? He happened to be bisexual also. I didn’t know that until after I told him I was bisexual but I guess I suspected it.
Can you remember exactly what you said? I was telling him a story about how I dated this girl while in grad school. She was bisexual and we went out on a first date and within the first 15 minutes she asked me point blank whether I was straight, gay, or bisexual. She was a very straightforward and outgoing type of person like that. This was when I was quite naïve so I just told her I was straight. But he asked me what I would tell her if she asked me now. I said I would tell her I am bisexual, and that’s how he first heard me say it.
How did you feel? Pretty good. It really wasn’t that big of a deal because we were in a bar having a few drinks and we were both buzzed. To tell the truth, I’ve always felt like people shouldn’t really have to “come out” because ideally our society would consider someone’s sexuality bi or pan or just ambiguous by default until or if they want to clarify otherwise. I think pansexuality is totally natural and much more of a reasonable default assumption than heterosexuality.
What was the person’s reaction? I think he was excited that I shared that with him.
What did they say? I can’t remember. I think he said “really?” and then I just continued the story somehow. After that he told me he was also bisexual, which I think I kind of already knew.
What was your relationship with the person like afterwards? We’ve remained friends. We were briefly sexually involved together but it didn’t go anywhere really.
What’s it like now? Just friends.
If you’ve been outed unwillingly, who did it? Nope. I think when I tell people that I’m bi / pan / poly / whatever, they sometimes don’t know what to think. I don’t think they’d really know how to “out” me.
What happened?
What were peoples’ reactions?
If you’ve experienced homophobia etc, please give an example.
Since coming out, how “out” are you in the following areas of your life:
Educational institution:
Job: Right now I’m substituting for high school. It’s really not an issue. In the Bay Area people really don’t ask about your sexuality, nor do they care. Students don’t ask either. Sometimes they might ask general questions about my life, like whether I’m married or not. But they don’t go into specifics and it’s not part of my job to share things like that anyway.
Family: They are confused about my sexuality. They know that I’m bi but I think they think it’s a phase or something and that I’m just gay and going to slide into that somehow. I think that’s a ridiculous bias that our society has.
Friends: I’m relatively open about things with all my friends. Many people assume that I’m straight and I sometimes get a rise out of playing with peoples’ assumptions.
What does being out mean to you? Nothing really. I think it’s ridiculous to divide the world into straight and gay, in and out, this or that. Everyone likes to keep their private life private to a certain extent. To say that someone is “closeted” is in my opinion a very pernicious way of labeling that person pejoratively. It may be that the person just doesn’t identify in the way that the accuser wants that person to identify. If sexuality is a personal matter and if we can’t just reduce everything to binaries then there’s really no way someone can hold it over your head as a threat. It’s really a political tool that many mainstream groups use to label others as somehow inferior or less secure. But it all rests on a popular and very oversimplified pseudo-psychology where if someone isn’t extroverted about their identity then they are branded as repressed in the sense that it’s assumed by others that there’s something waiting in their subconscious mind to be let loose. As a society I really think we are unaware of how heavily we rely in our popular conceptions on Freudian psychology.
What differences, if any, did your cultural background make to your experience of coming out? I’ve always lived in California and my parents have lived in and around the Bay Area throughout their lives. And now I live here also so I’m fortunate to be in a place where the culture is not only very tolerant but also open to lots of alternative forms of sexuality and identity. There are all kinds of weird people here.
What does the concept of the closet mean to you? Same as “being out” above. I really don’t like the metaphor.
What advice would you give someone wanting to come out? I would tell them to do whatever the hell they want. There’s no certain “way” anyone should be or do anything. That’s part of the problem with mainstream queer or gay culture. There are all these ideas floating around about how you should be but then people turn around and say that these things aren’t just cultural but also inborn or genetic or whatever. Everyone wants to have it both ways. They want an in-culture that everyone feels good about but they also want to say that it’s an irrefutable part of nature. I think there’s a lot of confusion over what’s socially constructed and what’s really biological. I don’t think the labels allow us to “know” ourselves as well as we think. At least that’s my experience.
If you could do it all again, would you do it any differently? If so, how? Hmm. Maybe I’d just do something really crazy like send out a mass email to everyone saying that I’m sexually ambiguous. That would be quite entertaining. Everyone takes “coming out” so seriously sometimes. But I think it’s ridiculous to think that someone has to sit down and be all serious and confess every little detail of their private life to everyone. That’s how some people think though. I feel like they don’t question the whole standardized process of “coming out” enough. When you sit down and “confess” everything to someone, I feel like that’s just another way of giving in to heteronormativity. Mainstream culture controls the way gay/bi/poly/etc. people see themselves by implicitly requiring that they “fully disclose” their “orientation” once and for all. But there’s no complementary process for “straight” people. They don’t have to do it. That’s the power structure. I think there are different ways of combating it, so I don’t think everyone should change the way they do things. I just think people shouldn’t feel compelled to approach their sexuality in the same manner as everyone else. Be unique, be yourself. Make your own rules.
Name/nickname: Jonny
Age: 27
Gender: male
What did you come out as (gay, bi, transgendered, use any terms you like here)? Bi / pan / poly / pomo
What other words would you use to describe yourself? I like to say that my sexuality is “universal” or “open”. It’s a nice way of giving people a word that seems like a label but which has relatively few connotations.
How old were you when you first realized your identity? I’m still not even sure about my identity because I’m not sure it’s something that’s fixed once and for all through time. I’m really a late bloomer because I didn’t even realize that I was interested in other guys until I was about 21 or 22. Before that, through high school and much of college, I was basically clueless about a lot of things sexually. It didn’t hit me like a ton of bricks either. It just sort of gradually dawned on me that things are more complicated. It was like “Oh, ok, guys are attractive too”. But I’ve always felt weird about the fact that other people like to choose camps based on sexual preference.
How old were you when you first told someone? I was 25 when I told one of my friends that I was bisexual.
Did you plan it? If so, how? Not really. I’m one of those people that keeps their sexuality to themselves most of the time but also doesn’t make a huge effort to hide the facts either. If someone asks then I’ll talk about it but otherwise I’ve been told that I come across as pretty ambiguous.
What made you choose that person to tell? He happened to be bisexual also. I didn’t know that until after I told him I was bisexual but I guess I suspected it.
Can you remember exactly what you said? I was telling him a story about how I dated this girl while in grad school. She was bisexual and we went out on a first date and within the first 15 minutes she asked me point blank whether I was straight, gay, or bisexual. She was a very straightforward and outgoing type of person like that. This was when I was quite naïve so I just told her I was straight. But he asked me what I would tell her if she asked me now. I said I would tell her I am bisexual, and that’s how he first heard me say it.
How did you feel? Pretty good. It really wasn’t that big of a deal because we were in a bar having a few drinks and we were both buzzed. To tell the truth, I’ve always felt like people shouldn’t really have to “come out” because ideally our society would consider someone’s sexuality bi or pan or just ambiguous by default until or if they want to clarify otherwise. I think pansexuality is totally natural and much more of a reasonable default assumption than heterosexuality.
What was the person’s reaction? I think he was excited that I shared that with him.
What did they say? I can’t remember. I think he said “really?” and then I just continued the story somehow. After that he told me he was also bisexual, which I think I kind of already knew.
What was your relationship with the person like afterwards? We’ve remained friends. We were briefly sexually involved together but it didn’t go anywhere really.
What’s it like now? Just friends.
If you’ve been outed unwillingly, who did it? Nope. I think when I tell people that I’m bi / pan / poly / whatever, they sometimes don’t know what to think. I don’t think they’d really know how to “out” me.
What happened?
What were peoples’ reactions?
If you’ve experienced homophobia etc, please give an example.
Since coming out, how “out” are you in the following areas of your life:
Educational institution:
Job: Right now I’m substituting for high school. It’s really not an issue. In the Bay Area people really don’t ask about your sexuality, nor do they care. Students don’t ask either. Sometimes they might ask general questions about my life, like whether I’m married or not. But they don’t go into specifics and it’s not part of my job to share things like that anyway.
Family: They are confused about my sexuality. They know that I’m bi but I think they think it’s a phase or something and that I’m just gay and going to slide into that somehow. I think that’s a ridiculous bias that our society has.
Friends: I’m relatively open about things with all my friends. Many people assume that I’m straight and I sometimes get a rise out of playing with peoples’ assumptions.
What does being out mean to you? Nothing really. I think it’s ridiculous to divide the world into straight and gay, in and out, this or that. Everyone likes to keep their private life private to a certain extent. To say that someone is “closeted” is in my opinion a very pernicious way of labeling that person pejoratively. It may be that the person just doesn’t identify in the way that the accuser wants that person to identify. If sexuality is a personal matter and if we can’t just reduce everything to binaries then there’s really no way someone can hold it over your head as a threat. It’s really a political tool that many mainstream groups use to label others as somehow inferior or less secure. But it all rests on a popular and very oversimplified pseudo-psychology where if someone isn’t extroverted about their identity then they are branded as repressed in the sense that it’s assumed by others that there’s something waiting in their subconscious mind to be let loose. As a society I really think we are unaware of how heavily we rely in our popular conceptions on Freudian psychology.
What differences, if any, did your cultural background make to your experience of coming out? I’ve always lived in California and my parents have lived in and around the Bay Area throughout their lives. And now I live here also so I’m fortunate to be in a place where the culture is not only very tolerant but also open to lots of alternative forms of sexuality and identity. There are all kinds of weird people here.
What does the concept of the closet mean to you? Same as “being out” above. I really don’t like the metaphor.
What advice would you give someone wanting to come out? I would tell them to do whatever the hell they want. There’s no certain “way” anyone should be or do anything. That’s part of the problem with mainstream queer or gay culture. There are all these ideas floating around about how you should be but then people turn around and say that these things aren’t just cultural but also inborn or genetic or whatever. Everyone wants to have it both ways. They want an in-culture that everyone feels good about but they also want to say that it’s an irrefutable part of nature. I think there’s a lot of confusion over what’s socially constructed and what’s really biological. I don’t think the labels allow us to “know” ourselves as well as we think. At least that’s my experience.
If you could do it all again, would you do it any differently? If so, how? Hmm. Maybe I’d just do something really crazy like send out a mass email to everyone saying that I’m sexually ambiguous. That would be quite entertaining. Everyone takes “coming out” so seriously sometimes. But I think it’s ridiculous to think that someone has to sit down and be all serious and confess every little detail of their private life to everyone. That’s how some people think though. I feel like they don’t question the whole standardized process of “coming out” enough. When you sit down and “confess” everything to someone, I feel like that’s just another way of giving in to heteronormativity. Mainstream culture controls the way gay/bi/poly/etc. people see themselves by implicitly requiring that they “fully disclose” their “orientation” once and for all. But there’s no complementary process for “straight” people. They don’t have to do it. That’s the power structure. I think there are different ways of combating it, so I don’t think everyone should change the way they do things. I just think people shouldn’t feel compelled to approach their sexuality in the same manner as everyone else. Be unique, be yourself. Make your own rules.
In : Pomosexual
