Out at College — Not!

     A couple of weeks ago Gauss Jordan made a post titled "Out @ College – Recapped" in which he told of a weekend at his old alma mater (I think he graduated about 5 years ago) with a bunch of friends from his college days. Over the course of the weekend he came out to them, and they were cool with it.

     It got me thinking about how things have changed since the early '60's. No doubt if someone were to come out while still in college today, in most cases the reaction of friends would be similar to what Gauss Jordan got, although maybe the wider community would not all be so welcoming. But I asked myself what would have happened if I had come out to all my friends in college, and the answer is that I think it would have been a disaster. I did come out to a guy I had a crush on who was pressuring me to room with him and demanded an explanation why I wouldn't. And I came out to a gay guy in the class behind me who had latched onto me. And I came out to the priest I went to to try to get help. But that was it.

     There was a guy who got elected to Student Council freshman year, who had effeminate speech mannerisms, and he was consistently mocked in the weekly campus paper. He dropped out of the college after the year was over.

     One of my friends asked my roommate sophomore year, "Do you think Naturgesetz is queer?" and the roommate answered, "No. He's just not interested in girls." Well I wasn't queer in the sense of having sex with guys, but I was in the sense of being interested in them; and I don't think people would have been comfortable around me if they had known that. I'm sure I never would have been invited to the Bananas' reunion that I wrote about last year

     And if I had come out to them five years after graduation, I don't think they'd have been as cool with it as Gauss Jordan's friends. Maybe it was something they suspected, or knew at an unconscious level. But it was not something to bring out into the open.

     Today, if an occasion arose, I might actually tell the ones I've been in sporadic contact with, and I think they'd be okay. But those of you who are under 30 are really lucky to be living at a time when large segments of society are accepting of homosexuals. You don't have to come out unless you want to, but you don't have to stay in the closet either. You can get support if, like me, you believe that you ought to remain celibate. There are groups that help you deal with issues that you face. And if, despite my advice and urging, you decide to enter a sexual relationship, you don't have to skulk around in the shadows.