*Her Campus FSU does not promote illegal behavior and encourages all students to make smart, healthy decisions. This article does not represent the views of Her Campus FSU.
This week on The Scoop with Szmuc Her Campus FSU Contributor Lauren Pleasants will be taking over Sharon’s column to discuss something a little heavier than usual, but something that needs to be talked about.
My name is Lauren, but you can call me Lo, and I’m here to give you the lowdown on love. I am pansexual and this week I’ll be introducing you to the intricate world of coming out. There’s a lot that people don’t understand about coming out, and it’s about time we shed some light on the process. Gay marriage is legal now in the U.S., but still people are feeling afraid to tell the world who they truly are because of the stigmas, stereotypes and fear of not being accepted by the ones you love.
Even worse, many people who are anything other than straight live knowing that someone might try to emotionally or physically hurt them simply because of who they were born to love. Love is not a choice, and a lot of people are choosing to shut out their minds and pretend like it is.
So, that’s why I’m here this week. To take a floodlight and reveal what it’s like to come out from the inside of the closet looking out.
Contrary to what I choose to tell others, my first kiss was not a boy. From that moment I was convinced that I was tainted and cursed and the only way to break the horrible spell of feeling like I was attracted to girls was to have a real first kiss with a boy. I was only in elementary school, and I was already dealing with all of this. That is a lot for a kid to handle.
In eighth grade I achieved that glorious “first kiss” and pretended from there like all was well in the world again. But it wasn’t. Some days I felt straight as a board, and others I took online quiz after quiz begging for answers to why I felt I was attracted to girls. Why I felt like I was a lesbian, like it was a bad thing because it scared the shit out of me to think that I was.
I didn’t know what bisexual or pansexual was until late high school, and it wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that it was explained to me that it’s not all a perfect balance of attraction from one gender to another. A dear friend of mine explained that she was bisexual, preferring guys about 70 percent while girls ran around 30 percent.
That’s when it hit me like a bullet train through my veins that my sexuality, and that of so many others was far from black and white, and it wasn’t gray that I was missing from the middle. It was a mesmerizing rainbow of color and endless possibilities for love. I had been missing it my whole life, but it felt like an entirely new and beautiful wonderland that had finally opened its doors to me. The doors that were always there waiting, I just couldn’t find the path that would take me to it.
Since coming to the realization that I had the capacity to love anyone, I have learned a lot about who I really am, and what it’s like to understand and relate to the LGBT+ world. There is so much negativity still towards our way of life, and it truly sucks now that I get how it actually feels.
I get what it’s like to have friends trip on their words when they see me wearing men’s clothes when just yesterday I was wearing a dress and heels. I get what it’s like to have people say, “Oh you’re talking to someone! Tell me all about him,” automatically assuming that because I’m a female my dates must be with a male. That’s just how the world naturally works, right?
NO.
But while there’s so much negativity, there is also so much spectacular brightness.
I get what it’s like to have the opportunity to completely find yourself all over again, and while it’s frustrating and can really get you down, it’s such an incredibly journey. I get what it’s like to feel like a high school girl truly dating for the first time because dating your own gender is a wildly different ballgame than dating any another. I get what it’s like to feel the community of belonging to a group of such incredible people who really want nothing more than to be accepted and spread their colorful love all over the world.
I get to believe in love in a way I previously didn’t understand, and I believe there’s nothing greater than being able to love who you love and feel comfortable doing it.
This is just my story, though. There is a vast pool of people who have embarked on the same exact adventure, but their journey took them through so many different places than I experienced. To give some insight on another outlook of coming out I had a dear friend of mine, Brendan, tell their story of coming out and how it affected him.
“Ever since I was in high school, I can remember feeling really awkward around most of the guys in my classes. I just chalked it up to my social shyness or inability to hold conversations about sports and muscle-building. You know, traditional manly stuff.
Looking back now and being more self-aware today than I ever have been before, I’d say my sexuality played a big part. And it’s not that I was attracted to all of these guys. It must be noted what I’m trying to say here: gay guys are NOT attracted to every other guy on this planet.
You see, I was bullied in middle school and called the typical middle school terms of “gay, faggot, pussy, etc.” This stuck with me as I learned quickly that the best way to avoid this kind of treatment was to display that I didn’t fit these definitions. The weird thing is I didn’t even know back then that I was attracted to guys.
What happened is really interesting because it made me not want to trust most of the guys I became friends with for fear of them bullying me for thinking I was gay. To make matters worse, these same guys just so happened to be the ones I secretly thought were attractive, which is something that still aggravates me to this day. It was then that I realized something that I don’t have much control over: that I’m more physically attracted to those typically “douchy-looking” guys.
Fast forward to college past some family issues and you have me coming out officially. I first told my mom in an emotional fight we had and that was a really scary feeling because it was the first time I had ever vocalized that I was attracted to men. Luckily for me, my mom was super supportive about it and cracked some joke about it to make me feel better.
The day after I told her, I mean that very next day, the first day of the rest of my life as identifying this way, I felt better. I felt like I could breathe a little bit more deeply and not walk around on eggshells. Then I started telling the rest of my family and word vomiting to my friends, all of whom had said they already knew and they loved me anyway. It was like I had stressed out over nothing.
I have met some discrimination, but at the end of the day it’s only made me stronger and a better person because of it. It’s helped me realize my self-worth and that if you’re unkind to me then you’re simply not worth the energy. My story is one of privilege and I recognize that not everyone gets so lucky.
I’ve learned a lot from the process of coming out. I’ve learned that it’s something you never stop doing. I’ve learned that a straight person doesn’t have to “come out,” but that we do in order to be ourselves, to feel safe, to feel understood.
In the beginning I remember feeling like a kid in a candy store, realizing that I could actually acknowledge whenever I was attracted to another guy and that it was okay. But just like going into a candy store, not every piece of candy is good for you. Some are just way too sweet and sugary and you discover it’s just not the candy for you. Others are not for sale, and then some are so great when you first taste them, but turn sour before you know it. So that part is similar to being straight, but at the same time so incredibly different.
In summary, coming out can be emotionally draining sometimes, especially when you just don’t feel like sharing or feel pressured to do so. But at the end of the day, there’s no one I’d rather be than myself. Through my journey I’ve struggled and battled with questions of self-worth. It’s taken me some time, having supportive friends and developing a kinder inner voice to realize that life is beautiful. To realize that it’s petty to waste time worrying over whether someone will accept me or not because the only person’s approval worth having is your own.
To people out there who are like me, know that you have someone in your corner rooting for you and that it’s okay if you’re not at that place yet for yourself. Honestly, I don’t even have it all figured out after all this time. I’ve even spent all this time getting used to my life being gay that I’ve neglected to pay attention to feelings that would quite frankly have me placed as pansexual. Like I said before, you never really stop coming out. It’s all a journey and the important thing is that you’re being honest with yourself throughout it and that you’re trying your best.”
As you can see, not everyone experiences coming out the same way. Quite frankly, no one experiences it exactly the same as someone else. Everyone has their own, unique story and each one of them deserves to be heard. We are just two people sharing our stories. Take the time to learn someone else’s and if you have your own, allow yourself to open up and scream your experience out to the world.
People are listening, especially some who need your courage of coming out to ignite the fire inside them to do the same.
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For next week’s theme, “Spicing Up Your Relationship,” Sharon will be answering questions on how to truly make the most out of those “freak in the sheets” moments. Submit your questions to hercampusfsu1@gmail.com stating your first name, last name first initial and your age by midnight this Thursday, February 25th. If you would like to be published anonymously, we can do that as well. Just ask when you submit! The first three people to submit questions will receive a free beauty product, and, who knows, maybe you can use it for your next date. Remember, girls and guys are encouraged to send in questions, so stop swiping right and ask away!