Closet gay men
Although I grew up in a small beach town in Southern California, I have lived my juvenile adult life solely in major cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. It was never a choice I consciously made—I just understood that it was where gay guys go when they graduate from their small town high educational facility, and I knew I wanted to be with my people instead of the closet cases in Ventura, California. Who could blame me, right? I was tired of hooking up with straight dudes. In a big town, I thought I wouldn’t have to encounter that issue ever again.
What I’ve discovered throughout the years, however, is that closeted gay men defy geography. They’re everywhere. They’re functional in fashion in NYC, the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, doing…anything in San Francisco. When my friends and I encounter someone who is so clearly a homosexual but claims to be unbent, we’re always stunned. Because how could someone transfer to a city enjoy New York and not be who they really are? That’s what living in this city is all about (at least that’s what the movies told us.) You relocate here to break away from your conservative upbringing and live your lif
The American Closet Is Bigger Than We Thought
Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a fascinating—and disheartening—story on the declare of closeted gay men in America. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, an economist and perspective page contributor, began his research hoping to more accurately measure the number of gay men in the country using sources like Facebook and Match.com, and his estimate—that “at least 5 percent of American men … are predominantly attracted to men”—fits comfortably within the range of 2-to-10 percent that we’re familiar with. But the rest of that paragraph is somewhat surprising (and certainly disappointing):
… and millions of gay men still live, to some degree, in the closet. Gay men are half as likely as linear men to acknowledge their sexuality on social networks. More than one quarter of gay men conceal their sexuality from anonymous surveys. The evidence also suggests that a immense number of gay men are married to women.
Stephens-Davidowitz’s piece is worth reading in full, but two points in particular remain out. In comparing outness in states with varying degrees of tolerance (as defined by Nate Silver’s state-by-state estimate of back for same-sex mar
How times have changed for LGBTQ … or hold they?
There is no doubt that we acquire seen an increase in acceptance of LGBTQ over the past two decades. I never thought in my lifetime that I would ever be approved for being an out gay man nor be able to legally commit my husband of 28 years.
Of course, we still see people who are LGBTQ attacked by the culture at big for, of course, creature LGBTQ. Hate crimes are on the rise nationally and according to the Human Rights Campaign, “Hate crimes based on sexual orientation represent 16.7% of hate crimes, the third-largest category after race and religion.”
Source: I-Stock by Getty Credit: Tat'yana Mazitova
While acceptance of us LGBTQ folks have risen, I’ve been surprised at how people who are perceived to be closeted gays are being attacked for creature closeted!
I’ve been thinking about this ever since I filmed a video on TikTok, and expressed an unpopular view about how straight men can still enjoy sex with men.
I was surprised by all the comments I’m still getting from people who saw the video and assumed that I was either a closeted gay or bisexual gentleman. In reality, as a sex therapist and educator, I was sharing one of the ma
The Closet: Psychological Issues of Being In and Coming Out
In the jargon of contemporary homosexual culture, those who hide their sexual identities are referred to as either closeted or said to be in the closet. Revealing one's homosexuality is referred to as coming out. Clinical experience with gay patients reveals hiding and showing behaviors to be psychologically complex.
Homosexual Identities
In the developmental histories of gay men and women, periods of difficulty in acknowledging their homosexuality, either to themselves or to others, are often reported. Children who grow up to be gay rarely receive family support in dealing with antihomosexual prejudices. On the contrary, beginning in childhood--and distinguishing them from racial and ethnic minorities--gay people are often subjected to the antihomosexual attitudes of their own families and communities (Drescher et al., 2004). Antihomosexual attitudes comprise homophobia (Weinberg, 1972), heterosexism (Herek, 1984), moral condemnations of homosexuality (Drescher, 1998) and antigay violence (Herek and Berrill, 1992). Hiding activities learned in childhood often persist into fresh adulthood, middle age an
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