COLUMN: Auto Outed

I actually don't have a coming out story. It's not that I'm not out. I'm very out. The lifestyle, social environment and career that I have make being gay easier for me than it is for some. It's just that I never really had to come out.

by Chris Bridges | 15th September 2013

When it comes to being gay or straight acting, I definitely sit somewhere towards the more fabulous end of the continuum. Not that I approve of that whole gay/straight acting thing. However good you are at DIY or playing football; you're not that straight acting with a cock in your mouth. Although, thinking about some of the straight men I've met over the years...

I was a slightly effeminate child. When I say slightly effeminate, I mean that my idol was Wonder Woman and there was always 'Girls' World Styling Head' written at the top of my Christmas wish list in pink glitter pen. I'm sure that I was auto outing myself with every sissy boy lisp and mince. This wasn't a problem in infant and junior school but once I hit secondary school, I was the target of a fair bit of attention. It was usually the wrong sort of attention (the hostile kind), but I didn't have to identify myself to any of the other children as being gay. They worked it out all on their own.

There are pluses and minuses in every situation. As a teenager, I wished that I was less conspicuous and that people couldn't tell so easily that I was gay. Now, I don't care at all. I see positives. At least I don't have to constantly come out to every new person I meet. They seem to work it out for themselves somehow. Maybe had I been able to hide the fact that I'm gay from the rest of the world then I'd be closeted and miserable somewhere; one of the legions of married men sating their desires in grubby public lavs. I'm thankful for small mercies.