--- In gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com, Vikram D <vgd67@...> wrote: > > This piece, written by a guy who has quit a world of extreme orthodox > Judaism, is not really gay related (well, almost, there's one rather > staggering bit about male on male oral sex). It is about his interactions > with guys who are still stuck in that world, even though they want more than > what it can offer. > > And something about his interactions with them, and they way they both longed > to get out, but coulnd't - along with their rather unrealistic expections of > what getting out might be like - reminded me really strongly of so many > conversations I've had with deeply closeted gay guys who are, in terms of > feeling, in much the same space. > > These can be odd conversations because you are both strangers and yet the > conversations can get astonishingly, even uncomfortable, revealing. Of > course, they can do this because you are strangers and effectively will > remain so, which is sort of depressing because it would seem to reinforce > their inability to leave their closets. There is the momentary extreme > openness combined with a larger lack of it at all. > I realise that the extension of what I'm saying is to compare extreme > religious beliefs and practices with general straight society, which doesn't > seem quite right! But I guess the comparison is really to the kind of society > that believes that for those born to it there can be only one way, their way, > and no other is possible. > > http://www.salon.com/2012/04/19/the_sound_of_sin/singleton/
--- In movenp...@yahoogroups.com, "localguybangalore" <pwpw1920@...> wrote: > > A fascinating look into life as a Hasid. > But Vikram, where oh where was the bit about 'male on male oral sex'? > Also, in trying to understand your observations, particularly the references > to deeply closeted men (of which I am one), I wonder if we reading the same > article. > Cheers Apologies! I just realised I posted the wrong link. The article I wanted to link to was by the same writer, Shulem Deen, but not the one on how his marriage was destroyed by radio, which was the Salon article I linked to. The one which made me think of parallels with closeted guys was this article from the Brooklyn Rail, about his encounters with a guy leading the hard core orthodox Hasid life (as Deen himself once did), but who secretly longed for other things, including meeting women though not, he said, for sex: http://brooklynrail.org/2011/03/local/a-person-of-prominence The connection with closeted gay men is a bit strained, I admit, and I guess its fairer to say that its a connection with anyone who has to keep a part of his or her life secret, but longs not to. There is in his interactions with Deen some of the things I've encountered with deeply closeted men (and probably did myself when I was still in the closet). There is, for example, the nervous negotiations over possible places to meet, with ones that might, even remotely, intersect with your other public world being firmly ruled out. One ends up going to the oddest places, where one might never go otherwise (I remember often going to the coffee shop at the Ritz Hotel in Mumbai, one of those timewarp places that doesn't seem to have changed since the '60s). There are the innocently skewed world views that come from training ones eyes to the close horizons of the closet. There is, I wouldn't say, selfishness or egotism, but a certain type of view that narrows down just on your concerns, simply because you are just not used to thinking of other people in this context. (This sort of thinking is why so many closeted gay guys seem to imagine there are lesbians out there ready to get into marriages of convenience with them - they can't think of why lesbians might want to do this, because they can't imagine the lesbians as real people, with their own needs and lives, and not just useful problem solving entities). And there is also the startlingly intimate revelations - and here's where the 'male on male oral sex' suddenly comes into Deen's narrative. There are things one would never dream of sharing with anyone, but one will share with this complete stranger. Perhaps its just the liberating feeling of talking about something you thought was forbidden, that you think you can discuss anything. And in the end there is the helplessness, both on the part of the person in the closet and the person who is not. The closeted person wants something, help, friendship, love, but in most cases the person who's not closeted just can't give it, not because he or she doesn't want to, but in the end you can't because your lives, closeted and not, are so different. And so there is the helplessness at being unable to help, at having ultimately to cut off ties. In the end, always, the only person who can help someone really closeted is the closeted person himself or herself. Others can help a little, but it is the closeted person who has to choose whether to push open those doors, or not. Vikram
