How It Feels to Be Different

Randy · Jul 2, 2013

About the middle of the semester, my education class did a guided fantasy about sexual orientation and it completely behooved me. i wanted to hear your opinions on this guided fantasy:

Please get comfortable. If you feel comfortable to do so, close your eyes as you sit or lay back. Concentrate as I take you to a world very different from the one in which we live—a world in which you are straight, but everyone else is not. In this world, almost all of the teachers and students in your school are gay. All of your friends and family members are gay; most of the doctors, judges, politicians and world leaders are gay. Celebrities are all gay, as are all of the priests, rabbis, Sufis, and imams. In this world, all of the books and television programs are about gay characters, and marriage is legal only for gay couples.

Of course, there are some straight people, but they are ridiculed and whispered about. Clearly, there is something really bad about being straight. You have heard things like: straight people are sick; they are obsessed with sex. Programs on television sometimes explore the curious 'straight lifestyle,' describing how straight people are always getting pregnant or infected with HIV. In these programs, straights are like the characters out of an old circus sideshow—exposed for their oddities. Your friends have told you that straight people are often child abusers and you have overheard your neighbor saying that straights are emotionally disturbed and have no morals.

Last year there was a big problem in your town because someone accused one of the teachers of being straight—parents don't want straight people to teach their children—so, the teacher was fired even though she insisted that she was gay. There are few, if any, protections for straight people. You have heard that straights can't lead scout troops, and that straights can be fired from their jobs or kicked out of the military if people find out about them. There's even a story you heard last week about a kid who was kicked out of his own home because he told his dad he might be straight.

This is all very scary for you because you are beginning to think that you, too, might be straight. More than anything in the world, you want your parents to love you, to accept you as you are. What will they say if you tell them that you might be straight?! The thought of telling them—of telling anyone—makes you sick to your stomach. Who can you turn to? Your brothers talk nonstop about how cute the quarterback on the local football team is. Your sister has a crush on the latest supermodel. You wish you had a crush on someone of your own sex, but you don't! It's people of the opposite sex that attract you. No one in your family has these feelings—in fact, no one you know has them, so you continue to hide this scariest of secrets. Somewhere deep inside you understand that, if people found out who you really are, they would ridicule you. Worse yet—they might not love you anymore!

Sometimes you think that you have to tell someone about this secret. You spend hours thinking about whom to approach. You remember when you were a kid hearing your dad tell nasty jokes about straights at the dinner table and everyone laughed. So, you can't tell your family. You remember your family's religious leader telling the congregation that being straight is unnatural and immoral and the whole congregation nodded in agreement. So telling the religious leader is definitely out. In health class you learned that it is normal to feel physically and emotionally attracted to people of your same sex. No one talked about being attracted to someone of the opposite sex. You are sure that what you are feeling cannot be normal and that no one can help you. Last week in math class, two of the popular athletes started taunting this shy kid and calling him 'straight.' The teacher just ignored it. You heard her laugh the week before, however, when the kid in the second row called out in disgust that the poem the class was supposed to read for English was 'so straight.'

All of this makes you feel really isolated and afraid. You are unsure what to do. Where can you turn? Who can you talk to? You can't talk about your feelings at home; your school feels unsafe; you don't trust your friends to support you. Having this secret is a little like having a piranha inside—it keeps eating away at your self-esteem, so that after a while you hate how you feel and you hate yourself, too!
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After my instructor read this, we were told to write down our comments, what we felt during the fantasy, and most importantly the perspective that it gives teacher.

My comments were as follows

During the guided fantasy, I had thoughts of:

Like I was alone in the world filled with gays or lesbians and that no one would be able to relate to me cause that is not the normal behavior of society and frowned upon by society. No one would understand me. I would question why I was put on this earth as a heterosexual. And seclude myself/hate myself for having to hide those feelings

As a teacher, this puts a new perspective on the situation because I mean if you are teaching one or a couple gays or lesbians, I feel it wouldn't matter cause that's only a couple out of over a hundred or so.
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I just wanted to share this with all of y'all and so you can voice your comments/opinions or if any of you felt this way, how did you overcome the difficulties of feeling like you didn't belong?

Grrrr331 · Jul 2, 2013

This almost sounds like that video on Youtube... I would be very, very scared and shy, not knowing who to trusts, who that actually understands you. I think I would still be proud like how I am now. That is if until the bully may caught it. Yea,.... this world is cold and scary.

Jinkies · Jul 2, 2013

This is exactly what I want to say to the few LGBT people who are anti-heterosexual. No, bashing them is not okay. No, threatening to hurt them IS NOT OKAY. No, death threats especially ARE NOT OKAY! They've done it to you, why would it be okay to reverse it?

How It Feels to Be Different

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