Hey guys After years of dreading the day, recently I finally told my dad I was gay. My worry stemmed from a mix of my dad not being the most liberal of people, and also a huge fear of disappointing him. Thankfully the process was brilliant - he dealt with it superbly, almost a fairytale ending. I owe him a huge debt for how he handled it, and feel guilty for doubting him to start with... The processes of coming out has had more of an impact on me than I thought it would. It was almost like I came out to myself - it sort of hit me... and it got me thinking about the whole concept and what the future holds for me. Worst, it has made me feel that being gay is a defect. I keep thinking that I am unnatural - my natural sexuality is not compatible with having biological kids of my own with my partner (something I always pictured happening). I have started to feel like I am not as worthy as my straight friends - for example, if they mention a new (straight) relationship they are in, I can't help but feel strange when they ask if I've been seeing any guys. And in the back of my mind I have the paradox of thinking "I am naturally gay" and "being gay is unnatural". Okay, perhaps 'unnatural' is a poor choice of word - but it makes me feel like I've been screwed over for being who I naturally am. Has anyone else struggled with feeling inferior - unnatural even - due to their sexuality? Did your thought process change over time?
Yes, my feelings exactly! Except, that I did not had any coming out experience, because I was so obvious gay from the start. In my childhood no-one talked about homosexuality like these days, so basically one can really say, that I came out to myself. Just like you said it! And time will change those negative feelings. Just few close friends to talk to, that helps a lot. And not too much partying
This may seem like a strange response to your post but I thought I would relate an experience I had that really helped me deal with this. At one point in my life I had the fortune of studying anatomy under one of the best anatomy instructors. One of the things that makes learning anatomy challenging is learning the large number of anomalies the body can have. Some are more common than others and students tend to get fixated on them. We were required to learn common anomalies plus the ones we would find in our cadavers. The students tried to argue with the instructor that certain anomalies were not common enough to warrant us having to learn them. They were simple trying to lessen their workload but the instructor never gave in. It seemed like he just kept piling more and more work on us. In one particularly heated exchange when a group of students tried to argue that a particular anomaly was too uncommon to be concerned with, the instructor retorted by saying that there is no such thing as "normal." He said all traits should be viewed as anomalies and we should consider "normal" to be nothing more than the most common anomaly. Normal, he said, has no intrinsic value. It certainly wasn't his intention, I know, but that statement changed my life. I suddenly realized what a mistake I was making by allowing others to make me feel inferior for being gay. Their heterosexuality does make it easier for the species to procreate but it's been a long time since human population sizes have been problematically small. For the first time in my life I finally realized I truly have as much right to be here as anyone else.
I had that for a while when I first started identifying as gay. I was suddenly hyper aware of everything that straight people had that I didn't, I mean I guess I always was, but being out meant that other people were aware of that too, and they saw that in me. They saw me as a gay person, and being gay comes with a lot of inconveniences. I guess I didn't mind the inconveniences themselves, but I still felt embarrassed, I felt like straight people saw me with those inconveniences branded onto me. Now my identity is so natural to me that I feel, well, normal haha I'm sure you'll grow out of this feeling of inferiority, I think it's a phase that a lot of people go through after coming out.
People feel screwed over for many reasons by natural defects that they were born with - they're born ugly, they're born x coloured, they're born with a disability, they're born female etc. Society might disadvantage people with any of those features, but you are in control of how you conduct yourself in society thus can control how disadvantaged you are by your features, despite not having had control of acquiring those features in the first place.
