"You're Gay?!"

A few months ago, I talked about sexuality in fiction – and how I really didn't see it as a big deal despite being not only gay myself, but a gay writer. I touched upon how it’s both really funny yet also terrifying how the world fusses over homosexuality. 



I compared a person’s preference of attraction to a preference for various foods. Some like noodles, but some like pasta. Some like both. I despise curry, but I know many people who love it. They are varied and their liking of curry doesn't make me think any more or less of them.

Now, obviously preferring relatives, children or non-human species is wrong. That’s like enjoying human flesh. But this all goes without saying.

The punchline of this joke is that whilst I don't care, so many others do. Even people on the LGBT spectrum can get so hung up about sexuality. They seem to think that people falling in love with the same gender changes everything. The entire world as we know it will collapse and rebuild itself as the setting to The Hunger Games - with the straight people living in the districts and everyone else acting all flamboyant in the center. Even perfectly respectable people, in their typical awkward English way, act in such a bizarre manner when you tell them all this time you've been talking about homosexuality and a gay man's been sitting right in front of you. "Um...well...obviously that's fine for you to like Lady Gaga and have sex in nightclub toilets

Again, this seems like such a ridiculous thing to react over, yet people have reacted. I'm illegal in 78 countries. There are 13 states in the USA where I could still get arrested...though I'd be swiftly released because whilst the police still uphold these laws, the courts don't. When the government grudgingly legalized gay marriage in the UK last year, people flipped out. Aged, sex-deprived loons claimed that God's wrath would descend upon us. Skinheads feared for their precious manhood and took up arms against skinny jeans.

And...nothing happened. Well, a handful of couples got married, but aside from that everything is more or less the same. The weather is still gradually being altered by climate-change, there hasn't been another sexual revolution, and homophobia still exists - but this is because some people just can't move on. Even though the law books say we're equal now, people are still shocked by the fact that human beings are unpredictable and this is rarely a bad thing.

I think realizing I was gay wasn't a huge shock to me. I'd grown up in an all-boys secondary school, which was the most sexist and homophobic environment I ever want to be exposed to. Anything broken, redundant, or lame was 'gay' and women were nothing but mannequins to be salivated over. It was nothing short of poisonous, and that's why I applaud all efforts for schools to teach pupils about sexual harassment and hate-crime. During this time I was attracted to several of my classmates, but I automatically dismissed all this because I couldn't possibly be a dirty faggot. It was only when I left secondary school I accepted my sexuality, though I eased myself into it by identifying myself as bisexual. It would be a further two years before I realized I was only re-assuring myself. I didn't really fancy women, and I was only pretending so I didn't have to confront the fact that I was much further on the opposite side of the spectrum than I'd previously thought. (And no, bisexuals are not liars. The only false-bisexual I've ever met was me.)

In hindsight, I think realizing my fabulous-ness was a shock - I just came to terms with it gradually. At first I was afraid (I was petrified) but then I swiftly realized that really the only thing changed was who I slept with. I was still the socially awkward waste of everyone's time. I hadn't morphed into a beautiful butterfly, or devolved into a slimy worm. I was exactly the same...but the rest of the world acts like I'm a bloody unicorn. In fact, the only reason why I hid my sexuality in school was because I would've got the shit kicked out of me by people who kicked the shit out of others so they didn't get the shit kicked out of them. 

In short: I'm not trying to overthrow the system. I'm not harming anyone. If homosexuality was accepted as a thing that happens, then I wouldn't need to discuss it. I wouldn't have completely freaked out about it. My childhood, my love-life, and my self-perception wouldn't have been ruined by society refusing to just get over gay people so I can too. 

I'm not the problem. You're the problem.