It’s Time to Open Up Your Closet

We all have our own closets.

I’ve written, on occasion, about being bi. I’ve written about coming out, I’ve written my thoughts on sexuality. I’ve read a lot of what other people have to say about it too. One thing that stands out, when I look at all my thought processes on this, when I think about Pride in a more general sense, is this underlying message that we can all, more or less, relate to. At least to me, anyway. See, it’s not just about being Queer and Here and Proud … . it’s really about everyone living their lives Proud.

It’s about the importance of living the life you want, making the choices that make you happy—as opposed accommodating others—no matter what that means.

I think we all have our own closets, our own secret longings and desires and fantasies, whether they are to be with some one of the same sex, or to have bondage sex, or an open marriage, or simply to not be married-with-two-point-five-kids-and-a-minivan at all.  Yet we keep these wants and needs secret, away from public viewing. Because we’re afraid to come out. We’re afraid to be judged. We’re afraid of the consequences, of what others will think.

What do we miss out on, because we keep it in a closet out of fear?
In addition, one thing we often miss, is how much do we add to the collective fear of being different, by continuing to conform? What if, instead of never opening up our closets, never letting our true colors show, we threw open those doors, embraced our longings and desires and fantasies? We lived as our true selves, whatever that means … would we not, in turn, make it easier for others?

Would we not make it less fearful to be different than the status quo? Would we not, by living a life of color, speak more strongly against those that tell us we can’t be gay or trans or bi or poly? Would we not speak out for everyone’s right to a life they want, to be different?

The thing of it is this, in my opinion, we actually have a responsibility to come out of our closets, regardless of what it is that defines them, for several reasons:

1. We have a responsibility to ourselves: To know ourselves well enough that we recognize our wants and needs. That we take those desires out into the light and investigate them, and embrace what it is we want and need to be happy (while also remembering to first do no harm).

2. We have a responsibility to the people who love/fuck us—i.e. those that we want to engage in intimate relationships with, whatever that means: How many people live in marriages or other relationships they don’t want? How many pursue something else, and lie their pants off about it? Or simply relationships that then they never allow to see the light of day? Talk to someone you know who is gay, and I guarantee they will have stories of closeted affairs with teachers, coaches, frat boys with girlfriends … you name it. Such behavior isn’t fair to your current partner, or the one you keep behind closed doors, or to the idea of relationships or sex positivity or valuing other people or mutual respect or …

3. We have a responsibility to the greater human community: To show others just how varied we really are in terms of how we express our sexual and intimate desires and relationships. To make diversity something that is celebrated, not something that is feared.

So, with that I encourage us all to take a hint from the gays and take a look in our closets. “I am what I am

I don’t want praise, I don’t want pity
I—bang my own drum
Some think it’s noise, I think it’s pretty!
And so what! if I love each sparkle and each bangle!
Why not—see things from a different angle
Your life is a shame
Till you can shout out
I am what I am!

I am what I am
And what I am—needs no excuses
I—deal my own deck
Sometimes the aces, sometimes the deuces!
It’s one life and there’s no return and no deposit
One life—so it’s time to open up your closet!
Life’s not worth a damn
Till you can shout out—
I am what I am!”

Read more Gay Pride on The Good Life.

—Photo credit: Editor B/Flickr