Denying the Truth

Denying the truth

Although SPA is essentially concerned with the needs of a straight partner, it’s worth considering a few issues that confront their gay, lesbian, or bisexual partner before they come out.

With the assumption that everyone is straight and ‘normal’, society puts pressure on individuals to marry, settle down, and have children. The pressure is largely unspoken and comes from family and friends, but social expectations play a large role as well . A gay or lesbian TV couple, offering a positive role model and perhaps without an obvious political axe to grind is very rare.

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people will have spent years, if not decades, repressing their sexual orientation and hiding the truth from their family, their friends, and themselves.  At some point, they meet their 'ideal' partner - a straight person with whom they've fallen in love and with whom they want to settle down. Or they may be in such deep denial about their sexual orientation that they're barely aware of being anything other than straight. On some deep level they may even hope that their partner will ‘cure’ them particularly if they feel they love each other enough. This hope may be so deeply buried that they're largely unaware of it. How many times have you heard the cliché 'love conquers all'? Therein lies the problem: the hope that the straight partner will 'cure' them - an expectation of which many straight partners are completely unaware. Many gay, lesbian, or bisexual people are barely aware of it too.

We're all in denial:

1. Many people, regardless of their sexual orientation, believe that gay or lesbian people can't fall in love with a straight person and vice versa
   
2. Many people, regardless of their sexual orientation, believe that gay or lesbian people are unable to make love with a straight person
3. Many people believe that gay or lesbian people can be, and should be, 'cured'
4. Some closeted gay and lesbian people are unaware of their hopes of 'cure' when they make a commitment to a straight person
5. Some closeted gay and lesbian people have been so successful at hiding their sexual orientation, that they're barely aware of it or unaware of it
   
6. Sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice
   

Isn't it about time we all faced the truth?

Mixed orientation relationships

So to expand on this a little - why would a gay, lesbian, or bisexual person want to commit to a relationship with a straight person? Does it shock you to realise that gay and lesbian people can fall in love with a straight person and have a sexual relationship with them? Surely gay men are only attracted to men, and lesbian women are only attracted to other women? If only life was so simple!

Obviously, people who fall in love want to make a commitment to each other; therefore, some of the reasons why gay, lesbian, or bisexual people make a commitment with a straight person will sound very familiar:

• They want to settle down
• They’ve found the right person, they love each other, and want to make a commitment
• They’re best friends and want to spend their lives together
• They want children

• They don’t accept that they’re gay or lesbian
  
• They believe that a loving and sexual relationship with a straight person is proof that they're straight
  
• They want to hide their sexual orientation
• They hope that their straight partner will 'cure' them of being gay, lesbian, or bisexual
  

If the straight partner is unaware of the other person's sexual orientation, there will almost certainly be consequences. They range from the gay or lesbian partner being angry and/or hyper-critical, both of which are often directed at their bewildered partner, to physical and/or emotional health problems. The straight partner will  end up feeling inadequate and unlovable - feelings that will take a toll on their  physical, mental, and emotional health. They may become clinically depressed. The gay, lesbian, or bisexual partner will become angrier and more hypercritical as they  realise the straight partner won’t be able to affect the ‘cure’; in their eyes, the partner is failing to meet their expectations. Most of this goes on at a very deep subconscious level.

A cure?

To further complicate matters, some faith groups claim to ‘cure’ homosexuality with reparative or conversion therapy. This therapy is based on the discredited assumption that homosexuality is a mental disorder  and that a gay, lesbian, or bisexual person can and should want to change their sexual orientation. Many of its proponents are faith-based groups, and one of the largest is Exodus which is based in the USA. Never mind that reparative therapy has been condemned as unethical, ineffective, and harmful by all mainstream medical and psychiatric professional groups in the USA and the UK, these groups typically state:

• They’re 'called' to love gay, lesbian, and bisexual people whom they feel are struggling with sexual orientation and gender identity. This belief enables their supporters to ignore the struggle with homophobia and the pressure to conform
  
• Homosexual orientation is a matter of choice or is the result of bad childhood experiences
• Such ‘sinful’ behaviour cannot be condoned and they are 'called ' to change the sexual orientation of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people

Fear

With the prospect of a 'cure', it’s not difficult to understand why some gay, lesbian, or bisexual people are unable to accept their sexual orientation, never mind feel able to disclose the truth to their straight partners. The basic problem is fear: that they’ll lose their partner, their children, their home,  their job, and everything that they’ve attained over the years. If they have been sexually active outside their straight relationship, there are further sources of fear: that they’ll be exposed as unfaithful cheats or condemned that they exposed their straight partner to sexually transmitted diseases.

Faced with a direct question from their straight partner about their sexual orientation, many gay or lesbian people will deny it - sometimes repeatedly. Their denials may fly in the face of firm evidence. that their partner has collected: emails, letters, text messages, a history of gay or lesbian websites visited on the computer. Denial is a normal human reaction when confronted with a threatening or frightening situation. Denial may seem the only option even if the gay, lesbian, or bisexual person is confronted with incontrovertible evidence. Defending oneself is a natural human reaction which we all share if we find ourselves in a threatening situation.

Promiscuity

Being gay is often equated with living a very promiscuous lifestyle. Even allowing for individual variations, straight people may find this very unsavoury. Some people will even point to this promiscuity as evidence that being gay or lesbian is 'unnatural' - because gay, lesbian or bisexual  people should be faithful to their partners. Just like straight people are always faithful, right?!

It almost goes without saying that the matter isn't as straightforward as that. It makes some people uncomfortable to think that children  express sexual orientation but consider this: many children and adolescents fall in and out of love very quickly with other children or adolescents of the opposite sex. Can you remember your first crush? Parents, teachers, and peers view this as very normal behaviour and all part of growing up. They instinctively know that this will help the child to form a deep  and committed relationship with their soulmate in adulthood.  But it's only part of the truth. What about those children and adolescents who fall in love with others of the same sex? Remember - their sexual orientation is part of their make-up. They fall in love and out again just as quickly but their behaviour is condemned. Parents and teachers worry that if the child isn't very firmly corrected, there will be dire consequences. To make matters worse, the child is often bullied by their peers.

There are indeed dire consequences, but parents and teachers often ail to understand they're the direct cause. These children are denied the opportunity to express their sexual orientation by falling in and out of love almost on a daily basis and making emotional attachments. These children will have unresolved issues with their sexual orientation, and as adults, they'll constantly search for the emotional commitment that they need to feel happy and fulfilled.

Excuses

Sometimes a straight partner will stumble upon evidence of their partner's sexual orientation - perhaps a letter, email, text messages, or a computer history of visiting gay or lesbian websites. Their world is suddenly thrown into chaos, and they're about to upset their partner's precarious equilibrium by presenting them with their evidence. Do any of the following scenarios sound familiar?

• You find a stash of condoms, lubrication gel , and gay sex toys in his briefcase or gym bag: ‘Oh the guys at work/at the gym were just playing a practical joke'
• You find links to gay websites on his computer: ‘I have no idea how they got there. A hacker must have accessed my computer and put them there’
• You find his profile on a gay website: 'That's a nasty joke! Who would do that to me?'
  
• You find sexually explicit texts on his mobile: ‘Somebody at work was bored and messing around’
• You discover him making furtive, late night phone calls: ‘My boss called about an urgent issue that I need to sort out tomorrow morning’
• You find a gay magazine: ‘Don't you remember I'm on a diet?! The photos  are my incentive to lose weight'
  
• You discover he’s a member of a gay website: ‘I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about’

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