Straight acting gay definition
For a person to struggle for a cause that can put their life, reputation, and the happiness of those closest to them in danger, they must believe above all else that their struggle is not in vain. I look back on my attitude now and realize the sheer extent of pessimism that underlay it. I showed no concern for gays and lesbians other than myself, nor for the “issue” of homosexuality to begin with. My liberation was minimal, with only the goal of surviving as an individual.
In exchange, I accepted having to live according to “the rules of the game” outside this space. In it, my gay universe would overlap with a few straight people I loved whom I could count on, and through whom I could obtain the bare minimum of friendship, love, and self-worth needed to sustain me.
#STRAIGHT ACTING GAY DEFINITION FREE#
I just wanted a small space free of lies and pretending.
Until recently, I wished only to be left alone. If I was told back then that one day I would be speaking openly about the details of my sexuality, I would have considered it a joke or a kind of annoying hallucination. It would be years before I was openly gay in front of a straight person. For a few moments, you felt like you could be just the way you were. In between encountering two girls on their third date, and getting to know a male couple who had been lovers for fifteen years, you really felt for a few moments that you were in a different Arab world that was not governed by pathetic sexual mores, that homosexuality was no longer “an issue” to begin with, and what consenting adults of sound mind did amongst themselves without hurting others was nobody else’s business. Then there were the lovers of Beirut and its seasonal visitors-Jordanians, Iraqis, Egyptians, Gulfies-and foreign tourists from all over the world.Įveryone did their best to look elegant and beautiful the atmosphere was playful and enjoyable but not vulgar, at least according to the standards of globalized bourgeois society. There were Syrians and Palestinians, some of them working class, both gay and straight, working at the bar alongside their Lebanese counterparts, and affluent or middle-class customers who were regulars there. There were Lebanese from all regions and all sects, mostly from similar class backgrounds, but on crowded, raucous nights they might come from dissimilar backgrounds. I recall them now as normal, polite, well-mannered people, even unsophisticated, but at the time I experienced them as extraordinary for how liberated and different they were. I began to go with them to new bars for middle-class gays and lesbians. I felt as if the weight of tons of boulders had been lifted from my chest and shoulders.Īmer (that was his name) introduced me to his friends, and they in turn introduced me to theirs. I found him and told him “about myself” in a few sentences that I spoke extremely slowly, enunciating the words in a drawl that slurred my speech. I returned to Syria a few months after that dreadful night, and without much thought or reflection (or perhaps after a lifetime’s worth), I took the first opportunity I had to go to Beirut and look for a young Palestinian man I had once met there, and whom I had later heard was openly gay. I hit rock bottom when I swallowed thirty-seven Ambien sleeping pills, before being overcome by the fear of death and the image of my mother hearing that her only son had killed himself at the age of twenty-six in a distant land. I would wake up in the morning wishing I had died in my sleep. Everything began to lose meaning: I was worn out by lying and loneliness took hold of me, becoming my living nightmare.