coming out, growing up

what coming out is to me
i came out in 1996. aug 1996 to be exact. but really, what is coming out? to some people (or most people i know), it is about telling the whole world you are gay. but for me, coming out is about self acceptance. it is about accepting one's own sexuality. accepting that one needs to take control of his / her life as a gay person and no longer needs to hide oneself behind a veil of denial. it does not need to mean announcing to people out there that one is gay. and by this definition, one can come out and yet not openly announce to the world about his/ her sexuality. it's rather interesting that as i type this, i recall one particular incident whereby i was chided by dominic (my ex's best friend) for not being open about my sexuality despite telling him i have come out. to him, it is people like me who does great injustice to gays for not standing up and fighting for our rights!... thinking back, i think he was totally confused between coming out and being an activist. i can be gay and yet not be an activist... hmmm, ok, back to my topic. decided to name this entry `coming out, growing up' in contrast to my previous `growing up, coming out'. i want to write about my life as a gay man after coming out. i want to write about my views about being gay and growing up as a gay man after coming out.

the second birth
as mentioned, i came out in 1996. that, i would term - my second birth. that was the year i was reborn. i had, prior to that, spent a large amount of time denying my own sexuality and convincing myself about my `straightness'. my coming out process was traumatic yet it happened so naturally. i was literally smittened by someone i met at the beach. it was infatuation to the highest degree. i did things i had never done before. i introduced myself using my real name (yup, using pseudonyms are common in the gay circle). i gave him my pager number (yes, those were the days). he literally dragged me out of my closet. he invited me out for dinner with his friends. he told his friends about what i did for a living (i was a regular army officer), what my hobbies were, where i lived,... literally everything about me. truthfully. yup, i was so so inside my closet that i had an alternative identity that i'd use to unknown gay men. men whom i had anonymous sex with. encounters and acts that satisfy my sexual needs ("hunger" or "lust" would probably be more appropriate actually... lol!) yet hiding my own sexuality. it was an intense period of nothing but just sex, sex, sex and more sex. but it felt empty, physically very satisfying but totally empty at the emotional-level. it was self-destructive to a certain extend. until this person came along. chong.

weeks passed after knowing chong and being introduced as the real me to his friends. when things did not fall apart after telling gaymen about myself, i began to realize that i had all along been living in a make belief world. a world that i had imagined to be so so bad that it would destroy me, destroy my family, destroy everything that i had known for my last 30 years. that i was still who i was, told me that hey, it was time for me to start accepting myself. but things did not work out between chong and i. it was one-sided from the start. it was a difficult period and my life was punctuated by suicide attempts. i lost more than 10% of my body weight. my body was at the point of breaking down. i had gone in and out of depression. i kept pestering chong to consider a relationship. i ended up monitoring his every moves, well, not to the extend of stalking him. then it happened. chong gave me the cold turkey treatment. he disappeared altogether. that was when i had no choice but to slowly creep out of my hole. heading back into the closet was no longer an option. i had been "exposed" or rather, i had learned to accept myself as a gay person. i had come out. and so, i started to pull myself together. that was when i decided that if there was anyone who could help me was myself. that was my difficult birth as a gay person. that process took me about 3-4 months.

1997, i attended a one-year course in safti. my first couple of months was a total screw up. it cost me my top 10% eventually. but it didn't matter to me. i was too consumed about my life and my growing up as a gay person. i was like a sponge, learning about how things are like as a gay person. and i continued my frequent visits to popular haunts where gaymen would hang out. fort road, katong park, flyovers, tanjong pagar, club street etc. and i had my first experience of the poppers. so, yes… the years after coming out was intense. lots of learning, lots of experimenting, lots of experiencing.

growing up, relationships
after coming out, what were my initial thoughts about gay relationships? my first gay `relationship' with another man was with my classmate during my uni days. and i placed the word relationship in parenthesis becos i had not come out then. it was something that was very sexual and very intense. but interestingly, given the fact that we both deny our homosexuality (or for him, bisexuality), we continuously convinced ourselves that what we did was `just a phase' in life and that we were `normal' (defined in terms of being able to have sex with woman - ie heterosexual). it was weird. but when he wanted more and to become a couple `officially', i freaked out. i started ignoring him. that was how i manage relationship realities. i'd run away. it hurt him lots. we stopped talking and it was not till early 2003/4 (after more than 18 years) that we spoke again.

anyway, back to the topic of relationships after coming out. as a young gay man, i totally did not believe that lasting gay relationships was possible. from what i saw amongst my friends, gay men getting together would break after a short span of time. for some, days, for some, weeks and for some, months. and amongst some of my friends, anything more than a couple of months would be considered a record and to be celebrated. and becos of that, i did not even bother to try. encounters with men tend to be more of `on a friend' basis. but as time pass and i got my comfortable with my gay-self, i wanted more. i started to want a relationship. but people i liked did not like me and people i did not think i could have a relationship with fell head over heels over me. that was where i hurt people i really cared for. was in a situation where i wanted relationships yet felt jaded. i shan't mention their names here for i don't think it is fair to divulge such details publicly without asking them. but suffice to say that of these few, there are some that i still keep in very close contact with and where we would still wish each other happy anniversaries to commemorate out friendship. and there were also some whom i would totally like to just ignore for they hurt me double bad. also, there were people who made use of me. there was this person who made me buy holidays for him, get their projects at work done and then turn around and accused me of stalking them once their projects were done. and of cos there were those whom i dated, and whom i had rather intense feelings for and then suddenly disappeared, etc... and it was these people who made me more and more jaded. thinking back, i realized that the people that had crossed my life and had given my so much pains (and joys of cos) were also trying very hard to manage their own sexuality. there was nothing rite or wrong about it. it just happened. until 1999.

amos came along. that was 28 feb 1999. met him after my run, and he after his gym at the national stadium gym. the feelings were mutual. and we hit it off very well from the very start. but things did not last becos he kept harping on the fact that his kidney pains and all sorts of other pains becos god (yes, he was a christian) was punishing him for being gay. and in the end, he told me he had to let me go and be a good christian. we ended our courtship on 18 may 1999. hmmm, he tried to come back to me 5 months later, but i was with james already by then. and the last time i saw him on the streets, i thought he was real campy! well, that would be another story. and it was two weeks later that i decided to get together with james. the rest was history. and today, i stand corrected. lasting gay relationships is possible. i have come across many many examples as my circle of gay friends expand over the years. for that matter, my cousin had been with his partner for more than 20 years!

growing up, gay sex
after coming out, what were my thoughts about gay sex? well, for sex specifically, i was aware of the reproductive aspects of it as well as how it can be enjoyed by people. nonetheless, the topic of sex was considered very private and taboo and thus, it was hardly spoken of amongst people. and to me back then, the only sex act possible was the act of intercourse between a man and a woman. ya, thinking back, i could only say, i was really naive and stupid. but i did not have any reference or anybody to talk to. and the only information i could find about sex then was from straight porn. porn magazines circulated by my secondary schools class girls! so, you can imagine how confused i was to find it so natural and be able to enjoy sex with men when i was in sec 2. my experiences was nothing more than mutual masturbation. and the first time i saw a man being penetrated by another, i freaked out. i even had nightmare that very night. in my dream, the scene replayed itself and the policemen came and arrested everyone in my dream! i woke up in cold sweat.

over the years, as i visited different places overseas, with the spread of internet and information, i began to learn that the rules of sex amongst gay men are very much different from that of heterosexuals. and for that matter, i learned that sex amongst straight people can be as varied as one could possibly imagine. and my attitude towards what many conservatives would consider perverse began to change. i began to see many of these acts as personal choices of people in their bedroom. sadomasochism, leather, rubber, latex, underwears, and so on. just name it. i had previously thought people engaging in such acts as lowly creatures and ought to be avoided and despised. the common branding of these people in the main media did not help. but i have since broken away from such mindsets. who am i to decide what works or what does not work for them. how they live their private lives has nothing to do with me much as i expect people to not decide how i live my own life. and for that matter, over time, i have slowly come to accept and even tried some of them out of curiosity of it but decided that these are not for me.

but of course, i have my limits, sex must be consensual and should not involve acts against the wishes of the individuals, sex with children (paedophilia) remains a no no thing. same goes for sex with animals (bestialism), sex with carcasses (necrophilia) and so on. these are still no no for me. it will never be. it goes beyond logic of natural behaviour.

growing up, self-love
but what i felt was the one most single important thing about coming out and accepting oneself as gay is - self-love. too often we have given in to pressure, been wired to believe there is only one norm - straight conservative norms - and tried to live out our lives according these so called `social norms'. and where we did not fit in, we end up with self-doubt, self-blame, low self-esteem, no or low self-confidence and so on... or worst still, despising ourselves and at times inflicting pains on ourselves. it can be very destructive. and that was why i believe many older generation gay men ended up in mental hospitals. it is not because of their being gay, it was because of the pressures that society had placed onto these people to conform that made them this way. i think i am lucky to be able to live in this age where things are generally more accepting and where information and social support is increasingly available. of cos, things are still not ideal and there are still a lot of wrong perceptions and discrimination against gay men. but i certainly believe it is moving in the right direction. personally, my coming out to myself is one of the most important thing that i have done in my life. if i have the chance to live my life all over again, i'd probably come out earlier. then again, there is no point looking back. life's like that, when one looks back and sulk too often, one will fail to appreciate and shape his present and in time to come, he will regret again.

think i have written quite a fair bit. i have chosen to focus on myself. not my family, not my friends, not my work as in my previous post. ok, will stop here.