Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site watmath.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!saquigley From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) Newsgroups: net.motss Subject: coming out Message-ID: <6788@watmath.UUCP> Date: Sun, 5-Feb-84 18:02:51 EST Article-I.D.: watmath.6788 Posted: Sun Feb 5 18:02:51 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Feb-84 08:06:26 EST Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 53 I don't know if this has been discussed in this group already or not. If it has, please disregard this article. I have noticed a discussion on the difficulties of "coming out" to one's parents. I think that if I were to ever decide to start having homosexual relationships, this would be one of the two hardest things for me to do (being an only child certainly doesn't help). The other thing would be simply deciding whether to let people one has just met know that one "is" homosexual (I don't like this categorisation, because I don't consider myself "heterosexual" or "homosexual" or "bisexual", but simply somebody who has all sorts of relationships with all sorts of people, and it simply happens that so far, my sexual relationships have been with MOTOS; I also tend to perceive other people along those terms, which is sometimes a mistake; but to simplify the discussion, I will talk about "being" homosexual) It seems to me that one's personal sex life should not be relevant to relationships with people, yet it turns out that people think it is; it also turns out that at some points, it becomes relevant, because not telling about it becomes hiding. I recently had a friend of mine (she is a friend now, she was just an aquaintance then) tell me that she fell in love with another woman. She had so far only had love affairs with men. I was a bit worried about her at the time because I could sense that she was sort of apprehensive about how I would react. This is very understandable, because she didn't know me that well at the time, but our conversation was arriving to a point where it was really silly of her not to tell me as I was sort of getting confused about it was eaxctly that she was telling me: she was talking about that woman as she talked of a lover, and yet from previous talks I had with her, I had understood that she was not interested in women as lovers as she had had a very unpleasant experience with a lesbian friend of hers, so I deduced that they were not lovers. Anyway, telling me that this woman was her lover became relevant at this point, so she did. So, how do you deal with this problem? Do you just let everybody you meet know that you are homosexual from the start even if this is of no relevance whatsoever with the type of relationship you have with that person, or do you wait until the moment is ripe, in which case, do you tell some people, but not others? how do you decide? or do you simply not tell anybody but your homosexual friends, which can make you feel as though you are living two different lives? or do you let people guess, which will make it so that homophobics will probably come very fast to the conclusion that you are homosexual and the others will probably not guess as they are probably accustomed to think in heterosexual terms. How do people react when you do tell them? have you lost many friends that way? Have you gained any? (I gained one, and she gained me) I hope I am not offending anybody with these questions. I realise that I am somewhat of an outsider to this group, as I have never had sexual relationships with MOTSS, and because I am a woman in a group which seems completely made up of men, but I do not feel different, even though I might be perceived as different by some of you. So, if you perceive my questions as voyeuristic, please forgive me, they were not meant that way. Sophie Quigley watmath!saquigley