Thursday, April 28, 2005

Coming Out: A Modern Ordeal

[2nd Draft]

I’ve just deleted a very long and somewhat pompous sociology essay that you probably wouldn’t have been able to bear reading all the way through. All it really said was: For gay men, coming out is a real Rite of Passage. It marks the distinction between two different phases of your life and for many people it is an Ordeal in the older sense of the word.

The upside of this is the real sense of community it engenders: You’ve shared the suffering yourself and so you probably know what’s going on in someone else’s head as they are going through it themselves.

The reason I’m dropping this pearl of wisdom on you is that last weekend, as I was randomly browsing blogs, I came upon this one. The blogger, Bruce, is a young gay man who came out to his mum recently and got a bad reaction. He was pretty desolated so I left a supportive comment.

It didn’t cost me anything. It took up very little of my time, but I empathised with what he was going through and thought I’d let him know he wasn’t alone and things would likely get better. He wrote a very heartfelt reply which both made me feel good and kind of crystallised the views I’ve expressed above.

All of which serves to remind me of the worth of things like the Chorus and its outreach projects which are designed to give guys like Bruce precisely that extra bit of support to help them face their ordeal.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One of the many reasons I like the chorus - as something of a camp follower - is the huge sense of 'we're really enjoying this, as out gay men' that I get when I come and watch.

Keep it up!

(shame I didn't get the chance to see the first version of the essay!)