ThE SeVen DeAdly GaY SinS

THE se7en DeAdLy GAY SinS

LoSt?

This week, I am employing an arcane device for reviewing gay behavior. Well, this is not because of the passing of the Holy Week 'coz I really am not affected by it, but anyway, my Seven Deadly Gay Sins should be read with a dance remix of "O Fortuna" or any song form "GREGORIAN CHANT" in the background, or immediately followed by a viewing of the movie "Se7en." Not having been raised religiously, I have no proper sense of reverence or resentment toward papal proclamations. For the record, unlike Pope Gregory the Organized, I arranged my Seven Deadly Gay Sins list in alphabetical order, not by degree of severity.

Those of you who are Catholic and already feel guilty just contemplating the sacrilege of my entry should skip ahead immediately to the first deadly gay sin. If you are like me, just be prepared to be entertained. When you see yourself and your own terrible behavior in there, don't be surprised; that's just the way it is with my entry. Feel free to assign your own degree of severity to your sins. You will anyway.

Achievement

How many of you were class president, mr. campus or head of your fraternity? A need to hide who you really are often shows up as maximum-overdrive achievement. Gays have a reputation for being smarter and more successful, but I think the drive to succeed all comes from our need for acceptance. How can the world hate me if I own my own company at 16? Unfortunately, success never translates into the happiness and acceptance we crave, because it is only the achievement itself that gets the acceptance, and little gay you is still hidden away. Looks good on your resume, though.

Affectation

Gay is a world of inventions and secrets. Affectation runs the gamut from queening out in a mall to using a macho persona to get laid. Affectation is what the straight world mistakes for "gay culture." Gays can see it in the "straight-acting" illusion or calling friends "girl." Ultimately, the extremes of gay life are the affectation, because they came to us not naturally but out of a need to feel safe in a hostile world. You get an extra smothering with fire and brimstone if you insist on being offended by this one because you think it doesn't apply to you.

Denial

I think denial is our most powerful human emotion. Denial is what allows gay men to stay in the closet, even when everyone around them knows they are gay. Denial is what perpetuates unsafe sex in a time of HIV, syphilis and herpes. Sometimes, denial is what allows us to keep going from day to day against a tide of oppression, hatred and despair. Ultimately, denial costs us more than we get out of it, because without the truth, we are cast adrift in a world of shallow, easy lies that will wreck us on the rocky shores of reality. Still not sure if you're gay? Go back and read this paragraph twice.

Isolation

Gay life has been called lonely because it seems that no one can keep a relationship going forever. I don't think that gay life is any lonelier than straight life. I do think that the majority of gays are afraid of getting hurt. The coming out process is often fraught with rejection, as is the world of dating. We isolate ourselves from our own emotions, and ultimately each other. We slip into a comfortable world of our own design, where the potential for hurt is at a minimum. The trouble is that our isolation, which keeps out the lows, also holds us back from getting the highs, and our lives exist eternally in a bland middle ground of nothingness.

Regret

The evil twin of achievement is regret. The gay world is the land of the second guess and the "what if" scenario. On the one hand, our desire to be self-reflective and seek personal improvement by learning from our mistakes is admirable. Conversely, whenever our drive to win or to be in a relationship is thwarted, we crash into a swamp of regret and despair. Sometimes, there is regret for being gay in the first place, or in the difficult choices we have to make along the way. Regret is the hardest emotion to shake because, like being gay, it goes right to the core of who we are as human beings. The achievement/regret cycle is like the gay equivalent of manic-depression, which might explain why no amount of alcohol, casual sex or other self-medication can remove the underlying sting.

Restlessness

There is a constant state of restlessness about the gays. Perhaps it is a holdover from the days when we needed to hide who we really were. After all, we all know how hard it is to hit a moving target. There is an impatience with what we have and who we are. It is never good enough. So we keep searching. What are we looking for in that next sexual encounter, that next cute guy, that next gay film? Is it that we are always just searching for ourselves in others? Or perhaps we are afraid of what we might see if we stopped moving long enough to really see ourselves?

Worth

Our ultimate sin is found in our self-worth. This knife cuts both ways. Gays are infused with a sense of self-loathing built on a lack of acceptance and support from the world at large. At the same time, we are filled with all of the vanity of Vanity Fair. No matter how bad we feel about ourselves, there is always someone or something out there that we can hold in lower esteem. Our own low opinion of ourselves powers our desire to turn viciously on each other. Rejection abounds, and we are our own worst enemies. Just as the original seven deadly sins allowed for, we are dismembered alive, but in a novel gay twist, it's by our own hand.