Straight people should act more gay!

Considering the sensationalized gay-themed TV shows, music, fashion, and movies, you would think that the straight world would be motivated to embrace some of the amazing strengths that the gay community offers. Fortunately for us, though, we offer much more than tips on coordinating your outfit or finding a fabulous partner. Many of us have found happiness and enlightenment in embracing and enjoying our lives.

Many gay people struggle through youth with personal identity, and live in fear of being rejected or hurt. Although this can be traumatic while we go through it, it can provide us amazing accomplishments and perspectives that many straight people don’t gain.

I think there are three areas where gay ideals could set straight people up to be more holistically healthy, honest and introspective.

First, many queer people create a non-biological family of people who accept and embrace them – beyond a great group of friends or a support network. It speaks to our desire for closeness with others and can rival or surpass what we experience in our birth families. For those who were rejected and hurt by biological families, our chosen families can support us in our times of need and celebration when amazing things happen in our lives. They support our moral compass or offer wisdom, but also act as valuable sounding boards when we need loving feedback or a kick in the ass. It’s an amazing extension to an existing biological family – we can never have too much love or support in our lives.

Second, many queer people embrace openness in relationships beyond conventional monogamy. True, some people are wired to only share intimacy with one person, but there is also nothing fundamentally wrong with spreading the love. With great communication and willing participants, we’re able to embrace our physical, emotional and spiritual desires – fulfilling yearnings that otherwise go unsatisfied. Expressing and sharing these desires with your partner can be a much healthier choice than sneaking around and cheating. Feeling forced into behaviors that go against your passions can lead to a variety of destructive and resentful actions.

Third, in addition to breaking the confines of traditional relationships, we’ve made great strides owning our own sexual natures – especially regarding the kinky stuff. The leather and fetish communities have been at the forefront of our efforts to come out of the closet. For many outside our queer world, being gay is dominated by ideas of who we have sex with. Since our sexuality is already a public issue, many of us embraced these differences and we began to show the world how proud we were of sexuality, and how delighted we were to have it with the people that turn us on. There are some that complain that our community is over-sexualized, but I am confident that it also brings us to a more empowered place. We will own it. The majority of us realize that who we screw and how we do it does not necessarily have an impact on our ability to be stable, intelligent and successful.

As individuals and as a community, we’ve put our money, focus and hard work into shattering stigmas toward being gay, kinky, HIV-positive, awkward, chubby – and rejected – and combatting the things that could keep us down. We continue striving to be more powerful, successful and enlightened. These accomplishments could not be realized without focusing on and embracing who we truly are.

We have had to deal with feelings of shame and rejection, while developing the courage and strength to overcome these as proud, honest and powerful people. Our community has been working on coming out in various ways since long before Stonewall. Other communities can benefit from the path we’ve forged. Regardless of sexual orientation, the courage and introspection to be our authentic selves is important. Hopefully straight people can take lessons from us, until they’re ready to begin coming out as well.