Last night, my spouse and I were watching a TV show where one (straight) character said to a lesbian character, “I’m okay with your chosen lifestyle, I just don’t want it in my face.”
That opened a story line to explain some tension between lesbian (gay) and straight characters. But it also demonstrated and reinforced the ongoing and totally wrong belief among straight people (the show’s writers) that being gay is a choice.
Let me ask, simply, when did you choose to be straight?
A lifestyle is defined as the way that a person lives.
My chosen lifestyle is…
…probably the most “ungay” lifestyle there is. I choose to live in a nice home that I built myself on a quaint suburban cul-de-sac. I drive an old but reliable truck or a motorcycle (weather permitting). I wear comfortable clothes; seldom do I wear suits and I don’t give a damn about men’s fashion or style. I choose to wear leather garments in my off-time in cooler weather. I never wear “products” on my hair or skin. I eschew frivolously expensive technology like smartphones and other gadgets that provide less value and convenience that they’re worth (to me.)
And oh yeah, I wear boots as my choice of footwear. Every day. I do not own any other form of footwear from dress shoes to sneakers, and especially, no crocs or flip-flops which are, to me, the silliest and most heinous things that were ever invented.
I live a quiet, comfortable life as a married man. My spouse happens to be another man, and yes indeed, he is my “choice.” Just like straight men choose to marry a certain woman. Okay, that is a choice.
But I did not choose to be gay. That is how my genes worked out. And that is why I get very annoyed each time I hear references — even on TV shows which are not reality — that one chooses to “live a gay lifestyle.”
As soon as straight people start saying in their TV shows that they decided to “live a straight lifestyle,” then I will continue to be annoyed at this stuff. There remain many deniers of science (gene theory) out there.
Life is short: life a lifestyle that suits how you choose to live — honestly and with integrity, but not having to do with whether you were born gay or straight.
So when will someone ask a straight man or woman, “….when did you decide to be straight, in the womb?” Once that happens, I really want to know their answer. Sexual orientation (or should I say sexual orientation predisposition?) is genetic. Whether one acts on it is a choice. Some folks are too dense to understand the difference…in my opinion. Some groups, however, profit from maintaining the confusion as they need that confusion for them to continue to thrive.
If you were to ask me, when did I choose to be straight? Well, I didn’t choose to be straight, it was chosen for me.