Background
In late 20th-century America, the closet had become a central metaphor for grasping the history and social dynamics of gay life. The notion of the closet is inseparable from the concept of coming out. The closet narrative sets up an implicit dualism between being "in" or being "out". Those who are "in" are often stigmatized as living false, unhappy lives.[1] However, though many people would prefer to be “out” of the closet, there are numerous social, economic, familial, and personal repercussions that lead to them remaining, whether consciously or unconsciously, “in” the closet. The decision to come out or remain in the closet is considered a deeply personal one, and outing remains a problem in today’s culture.Effects
In the early stages of the lesbian, gay or bisexual identity development process, people feel confused and experience turmoil. In 1993, Michelangelo Signorile wrote Queer in America, in which he explored the harm caused both to a closeted person and to society in general by being closeted.[2]Seidman, Meeks, and Traschen (1999) argue that "the closet" may be becoming an antiquated metaphor in the lives of modern day Americans for two reasons.
- Homosexuality is becoming increasingly normalized and the shame and secrecy often associated with it appears to be in decline.
- The metaphor of the closet hinges upon the notion that stigma management is a way of life. However, stigma management may actually be increasingly done situationally.
- “the deadly elasticity of heterosexist presumption means that, like Wendy in Peter Pan, people find new walls springing up around them :even as they drowse: every encounter with a new classful of students, to say nothing of a new boss, social worker, loan officer, landlord, :doctor, erects new closets.”[3]
See also
- Down-low (sexual slang)
- Ego-dystonic sexual orientation
- National Coming Out Day
- The Closet (2001 film)
Notes
- Seidman, Meeks, and Traschen (1999)
- re-released in 2003 by University of Wisconsin Press, ISBN 0-299-19374-8
- Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. The Epistemology of the Closet.
- http://www.lambda.org/youth_suicide.htm
References
- Chauncey, George (1994). Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York: Basic Books. Cited in Seidman 2003.
- Humphreys, L. (1970). Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. Chicago: Aldine.
- Kennedy, Elizabeth. "'But We Would Never Talk about It': The Structure of Lesbian Discretion in South Dakota, 1928-1933" in Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America, ed. Ellen Lewin (1996). Boston: Beacon Press. Cited in Seidman 2003.
- Seidman, Steven (2003). Beyond the Closet; The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life. ISBN 0-415-93207-6.
- Seidman, Steven, Meeks, Chet, and Traschen, Francie (1999), "Beyond the Closet? The Changing Social Meaning of Homosexuality in the United States." Sexualities 2 (1)
- Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet (reprinted 1992).
Further reading
- Epistemology of the Closet (reprinted 1992) by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, ISBN 0-520-07874-8.
- Dossie Easton, Catherine A. Liszt, When Someone You Love Is Kinky, Greenery Press, 2000. ISBN 1-890159-23-9.