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The gay "lifestyle"

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by Spaceman, Apr 18, 2014.

  1. Spaceman

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    So I got in an argument with my wife today and she accused me of being selfish for pursuing my "lifestyle." Made me realize how much that term has come to irk me with its implication that it's a choice. I've found even well meaning people use it. He'll, I used to use it myself, but not anymore.

    I sometimes still find myself avoiding the word "gay" when talking to family members who I am out to, especially my wife. I guess I'm trying not to make them uncomfortable but I'm now fighting the urge to use euphemisms and just say gay.
     
  2. helperman

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    Have you told your wife this? If so, what's her explanation? If not, it might help if you do. Also, I know this sounds a bit hoaky but your sig applies to your problem.
     
  3. Wolf123

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    I too find the word lifestyle strange. I say this simply because I don't choose this, the only choice I have is not wallowing in misery over it. I don't let people dictate for me. I can agree with the label-I hate it. It was weird someone asked me if I was lesbian....that word sounds weird to me.. For some reason I like the word gay lol, but still just say I like girls.. Anyways, I cannot say I don't have a difficult time with the wording. I spoke to my doctor and she made a good point why label yourself. Just say you like girls so now when people want to say lesbian I just go blank and yeah lol. I think you need to be comfortable with saying it first. I think you are so uncomfortable saying the word gay that you believe they are or will be uncomfortable if you say it. I think you are projecting what you feel onto them. Meaning you are uncomfortable and therefore assume others will be. People will be okay with it. Hell I was surprised with some people when I mentioned it to them. They were like okay and tried to assure me that they will always be there for me.

    Also I agree with the person above me.
     
  4. BMC77

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    I've come to dislike the term lifestyle too...

    My favorite comment was one Chris Crutcher (teenage novel writer) had:

    When I hear willfully uninformed people from the so-called right talk about the “gay lifestyle,” I automatically think, Get up, grab breakfast, go to work, try to live a meaningful life…JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! There is no gay lifestyle, people. There is only a forced secretive existence in response to “Christian” conservative bigotry. Lifestyle has nothing to do with sexual orientation. Should I be asked to “come out” as a heterosexual? “Hi. I’m Chris Crutcher. I do what is none of your damn business with women.” ​

    (From "Boy Scout 'Leadership'")
     
  5. gravechild

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    Somehow, I get the feeling people are envisioning drug-induced orgies when they use the word "lifestyle". Would they ever believe there are gay people who have children, are virgins, or don't conform to gay stereotypes? It's not a choice any more than bachelor parties, strip clubs, and prostitutes are for heterosexuals.
     
  6. Wolf123

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    I agree. I swear people have this whole gay lifestyle picture in mind.

    Here is a look at my life: I spend my life in school ( graduating college next month), I work, I hang out with people from school like go out to dinner and or movies. I spend all the rest of my free time either working on homework or being with my family whom I love dearly. I believe in family being very important whether you define family as close friends or blood related.

    Lets see, I cannot just see myself kissing everyone known to man and such. I am a virgin never been with anyone. I find that when I do meet that person then yey. I will be committed to that person and hope for the same. Um... I hate partying I have tried it once I find it boring, likely because I don't drink etc. Um I finally did say yes to someone who invited me out to a bar/concert just because I like concerts, but I could never see myself always going to bars since I again think they are boring ( even though I have agreed to go with a group of people). I am still trying to figure out what the whole gay lifestyle means since all I find myself doing is just normal stuff everyone else does. HMMM!!!!!!!!!!! Oh and Easter guess what I am hanging out with my family and working!!! Sorry to upset people, but nothing too exciting here.
     
    #6 Wolf123, Apr 18, 2014
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2014
  7. OGS

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    I agree that the whole "lifestyle" thing is irritating. First it makes it seem like being gay is a choice, which I don't agree with. Second, it makes it seem like it is sort of a vapid choice, like you are going to put up with all the societal nastiness because you'd like to wear lip gloss or something. And I think in the end that's what bothers me the most is that it trivializes the choice. While I don't think that being gay is a choice, I do think that being open about it is a choice--and I think it's an incredibly noble one. The only thing that pretty much all openly gay people have in common is that they have decided to risk everything they have--family friends, everything--to live a life of honesty and love. Putting that on par with some sort of hobby like playing with trains in your basement just drives me nuts.
     
  8. greatwhale

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    Talking about lifestyle, I heard a great line from the movie of John Leguizamo's fantastic one-man show: "Ghetto Klown"

    As for euphemisms for gay, there are so many! They seem to be an important part of our culture...http://emptyclosets.com/forum/chit-chat/84502-euphemisms-gay.html
     
    #8 greatwhale, Apr 19, 2014
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2014
  9. all paths

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    But... *blinks* ...bachelor parties, strip clubs and prostitutes ARE choices. xD

    lol

    And to be frank, heteros having hetero sex with their hetero spouses is a "lifestyle choice" too. It's just that, because it's what the *majority* chooses by dint of who they are, it's seen as a matter of fact - "this is the way it is by default, so nobody 'chooses' it." But we are not they (who they are). So we have parallel, but different, natural inclinations for our "lifestyle" just the same as their natural inclinations for theirs. :slight_smile:
     
  10. Argentwing

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    It's just a gross generalization from people whose mouths are bigger than their capacity to think. To a point it can be a lifestyle if a person lets their sexuality define them, but that goes as well for straight people. For others it's just a thing.

    OP I feel bad for both you and your wife :frowning2: but she has to realize that neither of you might find as much happiness as you deserve while staying faithful to each other.
     
  11. all paths

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    OHHhhhh This! ^ :love:
     
  12. Highlander2

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    I agree. When my wife and I were trying to come to terms with what was going to be happening, and I struggled to find a way to please everyone and, horrors!, myself in it, I had the accusation thrown at me that I was choosing a 'lifestyle' over my family. I tried to explain that it wasn't something that I 'chose' to be, but clearly the inference that was being made to me was that my pursuit of my sexuality (in her eyes it was a pursuit) meant more to me than my kids and her. For me it was about being honest with myself - truly honest and with personal integrity - about who I was and what I felt sexually. I could have 'chosen' not to say anything, to live with the cloud over me for the rest of my life and torture myself wondering what might have been, and that would have just ended up in misery for everyone in years to come I have no doubt about that.

    So, yes, there was a choice. Carry on trying to deny who I was - which was impossible given what was happening around me at that time - or make a defining decision and try and move forward without the world collapsing around about me.

    It does drive me crazy when there's some sort of judgement made that somehow you had a choice between the 'normal' hetero life and having same-sex feelings that you were born with. No-one should be judged for accepting who they are and trying to find the pieces for their own inner happiness.
     
  13. BlueSky224

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    My feeling is that "lifestyle" is used one of two ways:

    1. As a naive euphemism. Someone is uncomfortable voicing the words "gay" or "lesbian," so they talk of "people with that lifestyle."

    2. As an offshoot of anti-gay rhetoric. There is a powerful implication of choice, and "lifestyle" references usually shoot quickly to images that represent only a fraction of gay and lesbian people. We've all seen it: "lifestyle" equates with shirtless parade marchers.

    As Highlander2 pointed out, it really reinforces one choosing a lifestyle rather than one of the cores of one's identity.

    The other term that can bug me is "the gay community." This implies that we all know each other, go to meetings, get daily tweets and are in the midst planning our revolution. There are, in fact, gay communities, but they are comprised of small pockets of gay and lesbian people.

    I was just described in a newspaper article as, "a member of the Jewish community." I found this odd. Why not just say I'm Jewish? And I'm not really a member of any community... I don't have a regular synagogue, a steady group of Jewish friends, etc. It was so odd.

    The pendulum can also swing a bit too far the other way. In my world, it's not unusual for people to ask, "How do you identify?" I find that nauseating. Why not just ask, "are you gay or straight?" Why muddy the waters with more confusing questions? But perhaps I'm just old fashioned.
     
  14. greatwhale

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    It's the same problem many people have with saying the word "Jew", it's too jarring, but if people ask what religion I "identify" with, I am a Jew.

    And if people ask me about my sexual orientation (not a frequently expected question, or FEQ, by the way) I will say I am gay. Period.

    Community is one of those "plastic words" such as Problem, Strategy, Project or Process (read the work by Uwe Poerksen, and his book "Plastic Words: the tyranny of a modular language-1988). These particular words can mean many things to many people. Like a ready-made box into which you can pour almost any meaning you want.

    From his book: "Abstract language allows the world to be planned, levels it out evenly, and makes it available to the drawing board. It constructs homogeneous and easily visualized spaces. It focuses on what remains when one gets rid of all particular cases. This is precisely how it opens up the world for exploitation" and, quoting Nietzsche:

    "They have overcome the drawback of metaphors by sloughing off any pictorial context that might serve as a reminder of their origins"

    Words matter, and euphemisms exist for one purpose only: to reduce anxiety and to bear a simile of the truth. But I refuse to be a simulation.
     
  15. tscott

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    Same here. My wife generally refers to going out and having "fun" with my new lifestyle. In reality it is been more about finding support than it is "fun". This has not been "fun" nor has it been a choice. At this point in my life, why would I choose this. I also resent the term lifestyle, because it represents a life of frivolous bed hopping, drugs and booze, and a lack of depth, which is re-enforced by what's seen in the media.
     
  16. flatlander48

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    There was an old saying:

    "People who talk about lifestyle usually have neither."
     
  17. StillAround

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    Amen. Good one. :icon_bigg

    ---------- Post added 19th Apr 2014 at 06:26 PM ----------

    So true, Tim. For me, this process has been anything but fun. Hiding myself in the closet for 56 years, even often from myself, has taken a toll in stress, chronic anxiety, and loss of personal integrity. And if I'd come out of that closet at the age of 13, when I first really knew, in 1957, I might well not be alive now. So to call my past life or even my present life fun, is an act of cruelty, whether conscious or not. I think all of us in this situation need to speak out on this issue, to make the path of others a bit easier.

    And "lifestyle?" Give me a break! "Lifestyle" is whether you live in the city or in the burbs. "Lifestyle" is whether you entertain at home or go out. Being gay is at the core of the most basic emotional connections of our lives. "Lifestyle," bulls**t!"
     
  18. AKTodd

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    Speaking of old sayings....

    It's a life, not a lifestyle.

    Todd
     
  19. Beetle

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    I think a lot of ignorant people on the right think this "lifestyle" is like an every day Pride parade. Which is like saying life for heterosexuals is like an every day Mardi Gras or strip club.

    My lifestyle involves eating, drinking too much coffee, making cartoons, playing harmonica, not getting enough sleep, dealing with crappy drivers on the road, freaking out every time I see a dog or cat...
     
  20. BlueSky224

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    If drinking too much coffee, inadequate sleep, and dealing with crappy drivers are part of the "lifestyle" than I'm definitely deeply entrenched in the gay lifestyle!