I Just Declared my Sexuality. Yay For Me!

[Lemon Merchant]

(I'm going to preface this, for those who don't know, with the admission that I am a lesbian, and have been all my life. That fact might make the following sound a little weird, but maybe not...)

I don't know about some of you, but I'm getting a little tired of opening the paper or reading the news in some format every two weeks and seeing some celebrity pop up "announcing their sexuality." I don't mind in itself that these people have an alternate sexuality, or are "bi" or gay. If you're bi or gay, good for you. Be proud and wave that rainbow flag.

What bothers me about these celebrities is that they almost use this admission as a photo op, or a way to somehow increase their cachet and advance their (sometimes floundering) careers. It's like they sit around and think: "What will make me more interesting? What will cause the public to think about me for a while? What can I do to get some attention?" It's one thing to be gay. It's another to issue a press release about it. In said press release, the celebrity offers up some tantalizing bits of history, (carefully crafted by a publicity team no doubt), and talks about how "hard" it was keeping the secret from all their fans, and how hard it is to be gay in Hollywood.

Let me dispute a couple of fallacies in these generic press releases:

1. It's not hard to be gay in Hollywood. It's fashionable right now. The place where being gay is hard is almost everywhere else.
2. Your facts are unverifiable. No names. No one has come forward claiming an illicit affair with you in the past.
3. It's hard keeping the secret from fans because the admission either isn't true, or you're trying in vain to keep the paparazzi from finding out.
4. Or the tabloids have found out and you're trying to get the jump on them.

Call me heartless, but these admissions of coming clean to your fans are just a little bit of attention seeking. Coming out is a nerve wracking, difficult experience, bordering on emotional trauma. Yet these people do it with ease. It's practiced, it's put on, and likely generated by a publicist.

If I sound cynical, it's because I am. The media hype machine is using these willing people to sell newspapers, magazines, tabloid rags... ad nauseum. I learned a long time ago to keep my mouth shut about my sexuality in public. Maybe some of these people should too.

Am I the only one who thinks this way?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

In the main I agree with you. However, I am a bit more inclined to excuse celebrities for not "keeping their mouth shut" in public. Because they ARE in public, like it or not.

I can "announce" my sexuality. I can outright demonstrate my sexuality. I could experiment with alternatives to what I think is my sexuality. Basically NOTHING that I might do in this regard is going to wind up in the papers, even on the back page. I enjoy my anonymity. And I know that those who do not have the luxury of anonymity probably made many choices contributing to that lack, but I am still a bit sympathetic.

Maybe they would love to wrestle their way through 'announcing their sexuality' without having to get advice from a publicist, or read about it in the papers. And no doubt they could have said "I'm going to run a little handyman business in a small town where hardly anyone I meet will ever know my last name." But they live the life they live and have to deal with it...good and bad. I can't tell them how they should go about it, I'm just glad I don't have to live it myself.

 

[Narz]

No you didn't

 

[Lemon Merchant]

In the main I agree with you. However, I am a bit more inclined to excuse celebrities for not "keeping their mouth shut" in public. Because they ARE in public, like it or not.

I agree that living in the public eye, it must be hard to keep a secret like that if you don't want it known. I don't have an issue with a star coming out in a normal way. Like to begin talking about their partner in a standard interview about something totally unrelated, or relate a past same sex relationship/encounter in a generic interview. But don't give an interview just to "come clean" about your sexuality. That's just cheesy.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Hm. The only celebrity I'm thinking about right now is George Takei (the original Sulu in Star Trek). I found him an interesting person decades before he publicly declared himself, so to me it was just one more fact. Some people had already known about him, some fans had suspected for ages (never any rumors or photos of a wife or girlfriend)... but the younger generations suddenly went nuts with the "Takei is gay, therefore Sulu is gay." TOS Sulu is not gay. NuTrek Sulu (played by a different actor) is. George Takei himself spoke up, opposing that decision for the nuTrek movies - he said, don't make him gay because of me, don't do it just for more publicity about the movie.

What's more interesting to me about this actor is what his family went through in WWII. As Japanese-Americans, they were rounded up and put in an internment camp - in their own country. He's got a Broadway musical going about this experience now.

I don't remember how he originally went public. It doesn't really matter, honestly. It's understandable why he didn't, back in the '60s. He'd have been fired thisfast. It's not fair to blame the older actors/actresses who felt they had to wait until it was safe to reveal this about themselves.

All that said... about the younger celebrities? At this point, who cares? If they entertain people and give them value for money and don't do stupid things that get themselves in legal trouble, life goes on.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I agree that living in the public eye, it must be hard to keep a secret like that if you don't want it known. I don't have an issue with a star coming out in a normal way. Like to begin talking about their partner in a standard interview about something totally unrelated, or relate a past same sex relationship/encounter in a generic interview. But don't give an interview just to "come clean" about your sexuality. That's just cheesy.

Maybe. Or maybe it's preemptive, as you already suggested. Sure, if you are an A list celebrity with a movie about to release you are giving interviews about unrelated matters all the time and can just drop that in. But let's say you aren't an A lister. There's a very good chance that the only way you get an interview is because you have a 'revelation.' But if you wait a week for the photos to come out you'll have plenty of requests for interviews...from barracudas who want to do an exploitation piece in the aftermath. So you offer up the revelation to get ahead of it as best you can.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm probably quite a bit older than you, and I can tell that THANK GOD for those people in positions of celebrity who chose to come out. They were an essential component of overcoming the homophobia that has dominated our cultures for generations. I mean, maybe it's cute or trite now. But even two decades ago, it was a terrifically scary thing to do. And people did it, out of bravery and the desire to make the world better.

 

[Borachio]

Hmm.

Yes. It's probably true that celebrities can be trail-blazers in terms of public attitudes.

But I think the OP is largely correct.

Celebrity these days is just a product.

And being a celebrity is just a matter of cultivating the public's attention.

I can easily imagine an agent, or publicity team, sitting down with their "product" and telling them: "Right, now what you do is announce that you're gay/blind/have three fingers/dead. It'll help your career at this moment."

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Why would anyone claim to be part of a marginalized minority if they're really not?

My take on this is that it's the celebrity's own business. Not mine, yours, or anyone's who isn't part of that individual's family, or their significant other.

 

[Hrothbern]

Am I the only one who thinks this way?

Where I live many will share in general your opinion, I guess somewhere 60-80%.
It gets in the press for celebrities less attention than someone getting pregnant or divorced.

Your example is from the US.
Is being gay there whole hearted accepted and seen as perfectly normal by a majority ? Or more a fact of life that you have these somewhat strange people, that are as such "accepted" to varying degrees.
As long as the latter is the dominant case, it contains news/gossip value. Certainly for news reporters that as a person do not (really) accept it and/or exploit it as a kind of fairground oddities.

Should blow over in the course of time
perhaps a bit hindered by christian/victorian traditions that are a bit spastic regarding sex and everything to do with it.

 

[Disgustipated]

I hereby declare myself a lesbian in a man's body.

As for celebs, I believe in freedom of speech, and if they want to use their 15 minutes of fame to discuss their sexuality, let them. Just don't expect me to give a ...

 

[Borachio]

My take on this is that it's the celebrity's own business. Not mine, yours, or anyone's who isn't part of that individual's family, or their significant other.

That's certainly true.

And there are some pretty rare celebrities who do keep their private lives private.

But for the celebrities whose only claim to fame is that they're famous, parading what may or may not be true about their private lives is what it's all about.

You wouldn't, for example, run a shop that kept all of its products hidden from view from its customers, would you?

The private lives of celebrities is certainly none of my business. And I go out of my way to ensure that I learn as little as ever I can about them.

 

[Hrothbern]

Why would anyone claim to be part of a marginalized minority if they're really not?

My take on this is that it's the celebrity's own business. Not mine, yours, or anyone's who isn't part of that individual's family, or their significant other.

Everybody is ofc free to be cheesy or use cheap effects to get coverage in the press, just as everybody is entitled to feel awkward about that.

And similar the press is free to cover it extensively or with a small matter of fact paragraph in a bigger article, if that is the profile of that paper or magazine.
But also: every customer of that magazine is free to stop buying that magazine if it gets too cheesy or missing out on juicy details.

Ultimately it is the majority public opinion that influences the most likely behaviour of general celebrities.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I recently read the biography of Deforest Kelley (whose main claim to fame is that he portrayed Dr. McCoy in Star Trek). He had his circle of friends - many of whom were actors and actresses - but he was never known as someone who went to parties "just to be seen." He wasn't a "schmoozer", so to speak. He and his wife lived in the same house for decades. His neighbors got used to the fact that "Dr. McCoy" was their neighbor and when Kelley was working on a movie, he'd be picked up and dropped off by a limousine. Other than that, he was like any other neighbor.

He did keep a lot about his life separate from what was allowed to be told to the fans. He tried to stay out of the on-set squabbles as much as possible and wouldn't take sides in any of the Shatner-Nimoy stuff.

 

[plarq]

I declare I am straight.
Meh.

 

[Cutlass]

"There is no such thing as bad publicity."

 

[Akka]

The main thing I hate about famous people declaring they are homosexual, is when it's Ellen Page who does it and it shatters my dreams

On a more serious note, I come from a culture where sexuality, like religion or money, is something that is considered the "private sphere", which means that I find "coming out" in public to simply be somewhat, yes, attention-seeking and slightly bad taste.
Though I also do agree that the coming out from some decade ago did help to make it more acceptable in society at large. Today, though, meh. I'm not going to be shocked or outraged (except for Miss Page, obviously), but I'm going to simply think "can't you keep your private life to yourself ?".

 

[rah]

It used to be a big thing but now to me, it's not. As far as I'm concerned that's a good thing. Progress. Someday it will be the same for everyone except the few haters that will always exist.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Meh. The whole point of being a celebrity is to use any opportunity you can to cynically promote yourself and get attention.

 

[Catharsis]

I agree that living in the public eye, it must be hard to keep a secret like that if you don't want it known. I don't have an issue with a star coming out in a normal way. Like to begin talking about their partner in a standard interview about something totally unrelated, or relate a past same sex relationship/encounter in a generic interview. But don't give an interview just to "come clean" about your sexuality. That's just cheesy.

I can't fault them for wanting to keep any resulting stories on their terms, given the bloodlust of the paparazzi. You'll get the stories either way, but:

• Celeb comes out in a planned statement, headline is "CELEBRITY XYZ COMES OUT AS GAY"
• Celeb drops it into a standard interview like you suggest, headline is "DID CELEBRITY XYZ JUST COME OUT AS GAY?"

That second one sounds like a nightmare to endure.

Incidentally I just did a quick check and apparently there's still no openly gay Premier League footballer... that's the sexuality declaration I'm hoping to see some point soon because some participants in that arena need to face some proper facts about the world, and I do of course mean the fans. Unlike the Hollywood luvvies that one would take extra bravery even if it were scripted and stage-managed. BBC did a poll and found, among other things, that 8% of football fans would stop watching their team if a player came out, and while the BBC tried to play that down for some reason (82% would be fine with it y'all!), 8% of a full Old Trafford stadium, while a minority, is still quite a lot of bald fat men in tracksuits throwing coins at you.