Pride and prejudice

It has been a long time. I passed my exams, with a 10 and a 8. Good news. A lot of stress, anxiety, and also disappointments. I thought I had found friends. But now I see how wrong I was. I have been missing lectures for some time. I was not well. Nobody bothered to ask me how I was doing, what was wrong with me. I am in a WhatsApp group with some mates, and all they can do is make dirty jokes about gay people. They know I can read and they know I am a lesbian. I am tempted to leave the group, but again, that would be an impulsive reaction to their silly provocation. I suppose they do not do it to hurt me, they do not even think about it when they joke about things that are no jokes for me. That is the problem: they never think.

I recall meeting a gay man, in a gay bar, years ago. Everybody called him Queen. We chatted for a while, and he asked me if I had a girlfriend. I was single, so I said no. Since I said I had no girlfriend, he thought I was straight, and said to me he never had troubles with straight people. But I rectified immediately and pointed out that I was single, but a lesbian, because I do have a lot of problems with straight people. It surely comes from my side, I do not want to point the finger at anybody. But why do straight people always make fun of gay people’s sexuality? I was together with a man for almost 3 years, during a time when I was trying to force myself into being straight. Our sexuality was something I could make fun of. He could not kiss, he could not have sex without making me feel in the middle of a circus show, he always had to put on some boring porno movie to get turned on, and after he was finished he just fell asleep. Is this not ridiculous? But I do not laugh about it. This was his sexuality. I respect it. In the same was as I respect all kind of consensual sexuality between two straight people. At the same time, I deserve respect if I decide to have sex with a woman or if my friend Micky decides to have sex with a man. Because we are not ridiculous. Or, at least, not more than two straight people having sex.

I do have a problem with straight people. They feel they are “normal”. The “rule”. I am accustomed to being neither the “rule” nor “normal”. I was born schizophrenic so that I never experienced something like “normality”. But there is a certain kind of straight that is not “normal”, in my opinion. My ex boyfriend. He had a huge sex drive, he wanted sex all the time and could not even give me a little hint of pleasure. And all abusers. My ex boyfriend abused me, he forced me into having sex even when I did not want to, just because he had to have his sex drive satisfied. He had no idea of love, empathy, tenderness, affection, and not even of sex. Sex is not just fucking. But it was “normal”, because it was straight sex. Well, I dissent.

There will be a gay pride parade in two weeks here where I live. I would like to go. I will never be able to attend it, because my parents do not know about my homosexuality and, like many elderly, they would never accept it. I am not in favour of parades and demonstrations, but I would like to be there, even if I dislike masses and I get panic attacks when I am surrounded by many people. I would like to be there to shout out that we are not letting ourselves be discriminated. For my “friends”, “gay” is an insult. I read their messages on WhatsApp, they wrote things like “he should shut up, he is just a gay ass”. It was referred to a straight guy. “Gay” is not an insult, is a way of living sexuality. For me personally, “gay” is a compliment. Discriminating gay people in this way is just like discriminating someone for the color if his/her skin. The color of the skin is a factor in which the person has no control. The same is with sexuality. I did not choose to be a lesbian, I just am one, but I am proud to be one, I am happy with it after I lived in shame for years.

Honestly, I do not know how to react to my “friends” anymore. I can turn the other cheek once, but after a while it hurts and I would like to say something more than… nothing.