While it’s no longer a surprise to see people “come out of
the closet,” we are learning just how many closets there are, and that the
doors to those closets don’t always open at the same speed.
What exactly are we to do with the information that one of
our most respected male athletes, Bruce Jenner, is becoming a woman? And that’s
not even the right way to say it: he knows that he has always been one, just
issued the “wrong” body. Like being forced to wear clothes that don’t fit. Chaz
(formerly Chastity) Bono had the reverse situation, but even his story wasn’t
quite enough to make the rest of us take this seriously. Bruce Jenner’s walk out
of his closet may be a game-changer, and could stop comedians’ jokes dead in
their tracks, at least for a while.
If any of us are having trouble getting our heads around
Jenner’s announcement – as at least one of his ex-wives has admitted – think
what would have happened had he made this revelation some 40 years ago, at the
height of his Olympic fame. He wouldn’t have been simply the butt of jokes, but
a pariah. It’s also true so many of those in closets have taken so long to come
out because they weren’t even allowed to admit their orientation to themselves.
And closets can change – children can sometimes be unclear of what their
orientation is as they grow up.
I went to an all-boys high school. God really did have to
deliver any student who was homosexual or even exhibited a small degree of
effeminism. A life could literally be ruined by such things. Even when I was a
child, a relative once said to me he was glad I was “normal.” Lovely word,
“normal” – except that we often forget that it is a mathematical term meaning
“conventional.” It does not mean “correct.” I have often said that those
looking for “correct” in human sexuality are not only barking up the wrong tree
– they’re in the wrong forest.
Then there is that other lovely family of words,
“perversion” and “pervert,’ sometimes called PREvert. The dictionary defines
perversion as an “aberrant sexual practice habitually preferred to normal
coitus.” (Just for the record, I don’t think I have ever written “coitus”
before in this space). We Americans traditionally have had a low tolerance for
perversion. It’s true that some practices, like those involving children, are
harmful and can’t be allowed. But we are very quick to call someone a “pervert”
if it involves a predilection that isn’t our own – when perhaps we should be
thanking God or whatever didn’t saddle us with the urges we so easily condemn.
The book and movie “50 Shades of Grey” has opened another
closet door. Now, some of those who are into bondage and S-and-M are seeking
acceptance. There is even an acronym (that escapes me now) for their
organization. But have times changed all that much? I believe that as we learn
more about ourselves as human beings we are going to find that there are about
as many strokes as there are folks. And then we’re going to have to consider
where, when and why it matters.
