There's a system, a measurement created by Vivienne Cass about 50 years ago that essentially has a scale of where one is at in sexuality (non-heterosexuality).
What makes this so interesting and useful is that it helps to codify to people and people like me (teachers-counselors) what we’re seeing in them, where they’re at. I was an LGBT Youth Coordinator so the youth, from 14 to 27, were all over the map in terms of life experience and sexuality/sexual experience. I was able to introduce the map to them and further help them see Identity-Sexuality as a progression.
What the above did was it also allowed me to isolate the differences between Out and Closeted.
Most importantly, what this did was it helped to isolate them being able to evaluate their peers and older men for the stages they were in and why.
When men are extremely Out, I’m talking Grand Marshall of the Gay Parade, they’re essentially a Level 5, Identity Pride. Some people stay there for a really long time because there isn’t much else to their identity to take primacy. We often assume that people are well-rounded or expansive but in truth at least 50% of the population are defined by very narrow criteria within their identity: family, gender roles, biological sex, religion, ethnicity/race, and maybe work/vocation.
So to NOT be heterosexual is a really big thing in about 50% of the Out (all) folk (and it also explains the reticence of the Closeted folk).
Ironically one of the reasons why I was able to be the Youth Coordinator was because I was a Level 6, I had achieved Identity Synthesis in that I’d been out close to 15 years when I started, I’d been in several men’s groups, on TV talking about sexuality, at jobs, in the newspaper—Out, Out, Out, Out, implying to all directly or by inference my sexuality. (Even now when taping my TV show I often think in the middle of some lesson—-Do I have to directly say or explain a connection to this sexuality idea or experience? Do I have to experience-signal or is just discussing this an outing of myself? Does anyone think I would be doing this sexuality topic if I wasn’t one of the rings on the bullseye?)
I can honestly tell you that I often forget about my omnisexuality, unless I’m scoping the male and female (and in NYC, in-between and other) hotties. Unless I’m thinking a passing sexual idea/thought about a person.
I also don't think about race a lot unless I’m thinking about other people and/or teaching My sexuality and ethnicity are sort of not simplistically baked in but more of sections or storage rooms in a big house that is Kyle.
People who are really, really really flamboyantly gay sort of have moved into a house and decorated all of the rooms very gay.
Why they do this varies. Some of it is for the sheer pleasure and comfort of being authentically themselves after years/families/religions of oppression. Also being out acts as a homing device for other men to find you for interest/romance/sex. I noticed over the years that I was confusing folk, men and women, attracting confused folk and then ending up confused myself because I wasn’t directly doing or being Out in ways that would signal who and what I was and interested in. Not from any point of shame or fear but it simply didn’t manifest for me in that way past the first couple of years of coming out at 18–21. I wore the Red Hot & Dance t-shirts, bought Chippendales calendars for my bedroom and went out to night clubs. Then I went off to college at 21, did workshops and seminars on sexuality, wrote articles and fiction stories and by my Senior year was less about my race and sexuality then I was about being Kyle, a writer and eventually a teacher. Then I started working in corporate America at a variety of big companies Citi, MetLife, Goldman Sachs, law firms and then I went back into education at a charter school—-it never occurred to me to be in the closet or to go to a parade.
(I’ve only been to two Gay Parades (one by work-force, I worked for GMHC and -part of the hiring contract was the understanding that we staff would cover one Pride event and the May AIDS Walk. The 2nd Gay Parade, I just happened to be in midtown when it passed by one Sunday so I took pics, particularly of the lone Chinese men with a Jesus Will Burn You sign—-I thought it was kind of courageous and sweet to be in his checkered shirt and chinos just protesting away—-in the center of thousands of oppositional New Yorkers in the street and on the sidewalks.)
I generally don't go to parades because I don't like excessive heat or loud noises/crowds—-unless I’m really planning on it—-a Prince concert, a Janet Jackson concert, etc..
So as a rather staid Alpha I have to remember to have a pin or a ring or a necklace with a rainbow because part of Level 6 is you’re unconscious to both gay and not gay folk, you’re not seeking attention about your sexuality. I’m no prude nor secretive, you can literally type my name into the internet and books, videos, my TV show will appear and there are plenty of gay topics abounding in all of those mediums. So I’m like so Out that I don't even think of Out and Closeted unless I’m talking to or about someone Closeted.
Perhaps that’s what Level 5 is—-definitely displaying that you’re no longer in the Closet?
#KylePhoenix
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That Vivienne Cass system is really very interesting, Kyle. Over the years, experimenting with my sexuality and gradually moving through the sexual orientation spectrum, I came to realise only late last year that “yes, I am probably gay”…although not fully gay, more like homoflexible gay. And I believe that I am at stage 4 now, at the Acceptance stage, with a few toes dipped lightly in stage 5. That sort of aligns with the “Out/Not Out” flowchart you also displayed. I am not out to the world in general, but am out to a few very trusted people who are very accepting of me. Not out to my wife as she is pretty homophobic at the best of times, and not empathic towards anyone not displaying what she considers as “normality”, and we are like best friends but not really romantically or sexually involved. However, I do feel that I have wanted to be out to a few people in recent times, and the truth be told, I believe that one day in the future, when my daughter is grown up and both my wife and I reach the natural conclusion that life apart would be more fulfilling for us, we will separate amicably and after some introspection and “me time”, I will end up coming out fully and then start dating with the aim of finding a compatible man for a life partner/husband.
It’s not fair to conceal your sexuality from your wife. She doesn’t even realize she’s living a lie.
