A slightly modified comment in a friend’s journal:
I’m getting the impression that you may be working under a common social psych phenomenon known as the “outgroup similarity effect”. It leads to things like “I can’t tell all you asians apart” and “All christians are alike”, the former of which may be true, but is a personal deficiency if so, and the latter of which is decidedly untrue. It can also lead one to attribute solidarity to a group where no such solidarity exists.
Homos are sprinkled pretty evenly throughout the world population, though that distribution may change with various cultural actions, such as much of the Islamic world’s executions. What that means is that homos have all sorts of different backgrounds, they don’t tend to be born particularly near one another, or cluster together prior to coming out.
The diversity and frankly disunity of the gay subpopulation is a cross section of society as a whole. So, it’s hardly surprising that you’re not finding yourself in others around you. Neither do I. I don’t think many people do unless they deliberately set out to fit in.
There are a few things that unify homos. All homos share the experience of being different from the people around them in important ways. Most homos have experience with rejection by family, by friends, and by society as a whole. Many homos have the experience of denial or repression either to themselves or the world of their underlying sexual preferences. Finally, homos want to sleep with “the same” people.
The last one is actually the least true of all of them. Few people actually have such broad tastes that they are attracted to everyone of a particular sex/gender. People are attracted to different appearances, different personalities, different cultural markers, etc, etc.
So you can put down the culture you grew up with and pick up whatever your concept of gay culture is (drag culture, nethomo culture, club culture, gym culture, whatever), or you can try to be gay in the culture you grew up in. Communities follow cultures. Most of us end up juggling multiple cultures and communities. I walked away from Catholic culture years ago, and, though echoes of the culture remain with me, I haven’t actively participated in any Catholic communities in years.
Yeah, our attitudes towards sex are quite different from yours. I can’t say mine has been one I’d recommend, but fear doesn’t strike me as a very healthy response either. Like miss manners, I recommend playing the field a bit before settling down (in dating terms, not knocking boots terms in her case). Upheaval before commitment is less destructive than upheaval after. Getting to know oneself in relation to others before jumping into marriage is huge to my mind. I don’t recommend waiting til marriage to anyone. I recommend a slightly less extreme version of what harvey fierstein said in a 1992 commencement speech: “Have all the sex you want. Safe sex. Get lust out of your way. It’s the only way I know to make sure you fall in love for the right reasons. And I want you all to find true love.” Although, less than a decade ago, long term commitment seemed actively stupid to me. Ah the times they have changed. =)
There are a few things that unify homos.
Like, they’re all into dudes!