Coming Out: A Multifarious Affair [A Monologue]
[This past Thursday and Friday, my university put on a production of The Coming Out Monologues, which is like The Vagina Monologues, but with either more or less vagina depending on whose monologue you’re listening to. My queer resource centre, the school’s student success centre, and a local queer resource centre organized the performance. I wrote the monologue below, and performed it. There’s video out there of me making an ass of myself on stage. I’ll track it down for public consumption.]
For me, coming out was like multiple orgasms. Only not at all. So why would I, as a guy who likes guys, liken my coming out experience to an arguably enviable lady phenomenon? Well, for two reasons:
- The process of coming out was as confusing to me as the concept of lady-orgasms.
- It happened over, and over, and over again.
The first time I came out to my mother, she came to me. I was sitting upstairs in a robe, wrapped up in my sister’s fluffy pink Barbie blanket, watching the Oscars. Really, if you saw me, you’d be hard-pressed to have any reason not to assume I was a raging homosexual. She was holding a letter that authorized me as an executive member of the queer club at the university. She asked me point-blank if I was gay, and I said nothing. It was unexpected, and I think the award for best actress was playing, so I was torn between my need to deal with this, and the pressing issue of who won the academy award. So I told her. And then she cried, and I cried, and she cried some more, and there was more crying than that god-awful Halle Berry acceptance speech a few years back. My mom said she needed more time to sort things out, and I said I did too, since I wasn’t really ready to deal with coming out to my family yet. The next few days were really awkward, but we generally avoided the topic, and it all kind of blew over.
But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here. I started coming out by degrees starting back in high school. The first time I came out, I didn’t even come out; I was told I was gay. One of my best friends, [name redacted—I totally said it in my performance. Whoops. Heh.], had asked me out on multiple occasions, and told me that I must be gay. According to her, “I’m [redacted]! No one says ‘no’ to [redacted]!”. When I finally gathered up the courage to tell her, “Aha! I knew it!” wasn’t really the sort of heart-warming supportive response I was going for.
Now, the second time I came out to my mother, it was as awkward as the first time, and she again came to me with some damning evidence. I really had to learn to hide my things better. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a certain DVD. Now it’s been some time since this happened, and I can’t quite remember if it was Ass Bangers 47, or Cum Guzzlers 23, but it was the kind of DVD that was awkward, and really made it hard to deny everything. So I told her again. And this time, there were the questions. Some of my favourites included:
- Does this mean you want to be a girl?
- I can’t accept this. There’s no proof that you’re that way. Is there some sort of blood test?
She refused to accept the fact, and has told me that she rejects both the idea and me for being what I am. But she insists that I’ve never told her, and her denial means that I keep having to come out.
You see, I’m from your standard, good upper-upper-middle-class family, and our given response to familial woes is to repress, to repress, and to repress. If we don’t talk about it, it isn’t true. And that means that I have to come out over and over each time something flies in the face of her heterosexual fantasy world.
But, you know, it gets easier with all the practice I’ve had coming out. And I’ve realised that I’m going to have to come out again, and again, throughout my life. I’m going to have to come out to coworkers, friends, and acquaintances. I’m going to have to tell them, “no, I don’t have a girlfriend, I have a boyfriend”. Or, “no, I’m single. And I like penis.”
And I’m okay with that. Because, in the end, I’m okay with me.
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