My reasons for declaring a sexual preference had to do less with the pursuit of personal freedom than with the lust for pure shock value.
In retrospect, the most unnerving aspect of being openly gay was that it turned out to be as disappointingly normal as being straight.
Perhaps there is no agony worse than the tedium I experienced waiting for Something to Happen.
Scrawling 'I'm gay' in lipstick on your parents' bedroom mirror may demonstrate a personal signature of the highest style, but is not particularly sensitive to their feelings. Upon hearing me utter those words almost twenty years ago, my own mother did what and self-respecting middle-class mom would do: went directly into a seizure.
Coming out is a means of redefining oneself, of claiming membership in a lifestyle and a social order with distinct values. Chief among these values is honesty.
Proclaiming a sexual preference is something that straight men never really have to bother with.
