Who We Say We Are - 1) Biology and Expression

Should I sit down and try to describe to you who I am, I might start with a physical description of my appearance. That I"m human, male, the colour of my eyes (green/grey), my height ( 6ft 1in and shrinking ) etc. Then progress on to listing what I like, what I do for a living, my career, my interests, my religion, my politics, my possessions. All the things I can name about myself that I could find that are notable, rational, logical, empirical, physical, evidence indicative of who I am. As though I am a magpie collection of views, habits and biases that I compose into one self, that I identify as being me. 

If I make a statement about my sexual orientation, say those words and declare that I am gay, there are no facts, visible on my exterior body, to support that assertion. We are in an interior realm of the mind, emotions and desire. I have the feeling of being gay, and feelings are rarely as definitive as facts. We value objective external verifiers. I'm in a relationship, but no one else outside of that can know my 'gayness ' for sure. There are signifiers and clues, but they are the sort of thing anyone could wear or adopt. One may start by talking of a history of my observable behaviours, using them like signposts in a story arc.

These may or may not conform to the cliche signs folk think of as 'gay'. Some of which may indeed be present in myself - my interest in the arts and performing for instance. But none of these sorts of signs are ever universally so. Not all artists or performers are gay for instance. There may be a higher percentage of LGBT+ people working in the arts due to factors such as - it being a welcoming vehicle for self expression of a gay sensibility, or you feel more readily accepted for who you are in the arts sector. Stereotypical conventions of what 'gay' is are rarely exclusively so. There are proudly heterosexual men out there, who are effeminate, camp or dress flamboyantly, for instance.

In our desire to understand and then to display who we are, gay men themselves adopt these external 'gay' signifiers. We try them on for size. Its a bit like unfurling queer flags for the external world to read - Oh, he's gay! Such gay conventions Quentin Crisp railed against, because for him they confined the range through which one's self and individuality could be expressed. A gay sensibility becoming reduced to a few camp hand gestures, a mince and a bitch for a mouth. These can be almost as much of a personal prison as conventional expressions of masculinity are.

Being gay, as I've said before, is a feeling for who I am. Over time I've come to know it as being more than the physical expression of sexual desire, it has its own sense of culture. And any culture is cultivated. This feeling may be hard for your 100% hetrosexual to imagine, and it can feel threatening to them too. On a factual biological level what could I say to support that feeling. Not a lot. You may of course point towards some research or other that indicates the existence of a 'gay gene'. My conscious reason for saying I am gay, are not derived from that at all. An understanding of my genetic inheritance was not required in the acceptance of who I am. I did choose to align myself with feeling gay.

In theory you could possess a 'gay gene' but still live a fully heterosexual life. There is a gene for most things these days, probably even shoplifting, but not everyone who has that gene becomes a shoplifter.  There has also to be a nexus of circumstances, opportunity, culture and habit playing their part, into which any genetic predisposition may be thrown in. If you live like a hermit you're unlikely to bump into a gay orgy any time soon. There maybe nature, but this always requires nurture from circumstances. Feelings, not facts, require finding modes of expression.

Saying I am gay is a statement of identity, its one of the things I believe myself to be. Once I felt confident to come out and say it, this was a relief. Because it is important that who we say we are, is visible and known by those around us. Though I know myself to be a much wider range of things than gay itself can encompass. Some of my personality has been built around being gay, other things have been adopted, many have nothing much to do with it at all. My interest in Ancient Egypt, and History in general for instance. Being gay is primarily about who I love, and though that is important, its not the be all and end all of who I am. Statements about who we say we are, are mainly subjective in nature. Being gay is a strong feeling, built around a desire, by my sexual orientation, and to some extent is extended and elaborated in a range of preferences and sensitivities, both aesthetic and otherwise. Ones I resist to call camp, because that is as broad and nebulous an umbrella term as 'gay' is  Its also an unrepresentative one, as not all my aesthetic preferences or likes fit into it at all.

Male and female gender cultures are largely constructed. They have always taken their range of expression beyond simply depending upon the facts of our biological sex. There are sub cultures attached to gender, of which gay is only one. There exists a wide spectrum of manners in which an individual gender can chose to be expressed.  Traditional stereotypical gender roles for men and women, are just some of the roles we can assume and perform as part of society. These may or may not be represented in who we are biologically, or feel we are emotionally. And when these are at variance. When the facade hides an interior person that does not match what you project to the world outside. This produces a stressful dissonance that has to be resolved one way of another. This can only be done via the doorway of imagination and expression.