By Paul Varnell

For the last few years I have jotted down notes for a column on “gay identity” and “gay lifestyle” but without ever making the material jell into a coherent column. So let me share some of my notes in hopes that they may stimulate your own thoughts.

As useful as the terms “gay identity” and “gay lifestyle” seem to be, they are actually pretty ambiguous. That ambiguity is made particularly clear by their polemical use by the anti-gay zealots of the religious right. And they entail some dangers for gays who buy into a notion of “a gay lifestyle”—one not too different from the religious right’s.

An identity seems to be however you think of yourself. But not just that. It also has something to do with how you actually are. That is, an identity can be inaccurate. The religious right tries to promote the idea that a gay identity is something you can put on and off at will, as if you can simply define yourself as not gay anymore and suddenly not be gay.

But most of us would say that “gay” has something to do with recognizing facts about yourself. Many gay men went through a period where they were aware of homosexual desire but not acknowledging to themselves that they were homosexual. When they finally accepted the reality about themselves, they usually felt a degree of relief that they understood themselves better.

Nor does a gay identity necessarily require sexual activity. I know gay men who engage in no gay sexual activity for one reason for another. But it is clear to them that their attractions are gay and they acknowledge that.

By contrast the religious right notion seems to be that if you stop engaging in gay sex then you can define yourself as not-gay. Sure, you can engage in self-deception, but there is a psychological cost and any such identity is usually brittle and unusually liable to crack.

Nor, of course, does anyone gay have only a “gay identity.” Being gay is just one aspect of anyone’s identity. Our identities are formed from all the various things we are, or do, or are interested in, of which being gay is only one.

A person may be black, Hispanic, Anglo or Asian (or any combination). A person’s job is usually part of his identity—lawyer, writer, bus driver, plumber—as are people’s religious and political affiliations (or none). So is some people’s support of certain sports teams or rock groups, etc. So the notion of an exclusive gay identity ignores the rich complexity of how people think about themselves.

Being gay may or may not be a deeply significant part of how people think about themselves. For many people just coming out, being “gay” can seem very significant as they explore and learn how to cope with this new realization and what it means for their life. But over time that often fades back into just one more aspect of a person’s total identity.

There is a similar ambiguity about “gay lifestyle.” A lifestyle is however you live your life. Gay men may be quietly partnered—or socialize with friends, pursue a variety of partners or engage in gay community projects—without being very sexually active, etc. But heterosexuals may choose any number of analogous options so it is a mistake to think of being gay or heterosexual as a major lifestyle divide or the necessary indicator of how a person lives his life.

Yet the religious right wants to sell the idea that being gay necessarily entails a “lifestyle” of heavy drinking, drug use, rampant promiscuity, restroom cruising, etc. Some “ex-gays” acknowledge having lived this “lifestyle.” Well, no wonder they found being gay unsatisfactory in the long term if that was all being gay meant to them, and no wonder they reject it. But they erred in thinking that that was how to be gay.

Often too that life seems to be led by men from conservative religious families who rebel against their background and go whole hog in the other direction. When that version of the “gay lifestyle” turns out to be unsatisfactory, they return to the religion of their background and blame all their self-created problems on “the gay lifestyle.”

Unfortunately, some gay men also think that drink, drugs and promiscuity are what being gay meant. I knew one man who thought exactly that but had the wit to go to a therapist who helped him understand that how he lived his life as a gay man was something within his own control and that being gay did not mean or require all those things he was doing.

Some of Paul Varnellís previous columns are posted at the Independent Gay Forum (www.indegayforum.org). His e-mail address is pvarnell@aol.com.