My apologies if this diary rambles at times. I'm working on stuff that's over a decade old, and the memories get jumbled from time to time. I'll try to keep from going off on too many tangents, however. Basically... this diary is about fear... and of my overcoming those fears in time.
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I was once homophobic. Oh, I wasn't one of those morons who spouts hate speech and attacks people. Rather, I saw my homophobia as something purer than that of people who used homosexuality as a reason to assault people. My homophobia was fear, pure and simple. I was scared of homosexuals, and of their way of life. I was scared of what I saw (in a biased news media during the 1980s) of efforts to "turn young children into homosexuals" and the like.
Looking back, I see how stupid those fears were. I was a teenager at the time, and I was coming off of years of being abused and tormented in school. Heck, one of the things I recall of those early years was having older kids calling me "Bruce" to rile me up. I'm sure that doesn't mean anything to anyone born after 1990, but back in the 80s and probably the 70s "Bruce" was a term used to infer someone was gay... at least, up in my part of New England. I'm not even sure how I had learned that... but I knew in my heart that while those boys joked "oh, we're calling you Bruce because of Bruce Lee!" that they were actually saying I was gay. And that this was a bad thing, because it gave them a reason to abuse me.
(Note, I didn't even know what gay was, back then. It was just... a justification by bullies to persecute people who couldn't fight back. I can't really remember when I finally learned what homosexuality was... probably when I first started reading books concerning sex. Still, it does perhaps explain my earlier fears of homosexuality. They were sown with great glee from young barbarians who wanted to persecute those who were weaker than them.)
This fear of homosexuality continued into college. Perhaps my most... shameful moment was when I asked help of a young individual to sign me up to some e-mail discussion lists (again, the younger people might not quite understand what I'm talking about; back in 1988 the World Wide Web didn't exist as we know it today, and internet forums and the like weren't around. Instead, people sent e-mails to Listservs that distributed those e-mails to people who subscribed to that Listserv). One of the lists he signed me up to was called "Iron Man" and I naively believed it was a discussion thread for the Iron Man comic book. (Yes, I was stupid back when I was 18. What can I say? I also was far more trusting than I should have been.)
I soon realized it wasn't about comic books. Rather, it was about weight lifting and the like... and was a list where homosexual men talked about issues. And I freaked. I sent an initial panicked e-mail which probably made me look like a complete idiot. (This is the danger of e-mail, by the way. It's so easy to type something and send it out instantly. But you often regret it when you write without thinking, and without taking time to consider what you're going to post. This is something that people writing comments in these diaries on DKos might consider.) I then sent out a more intelligent and constrained request to be removed from the Listserv because someone had signed me up to it as a prank, and I was removed without any trouble.
After that incident, I continued to build internet friendships. One such friendship was with a young man named Mario. We both enjoyed roleplaying games and tabletop wargames, and exchanged writing ideas and the like. And one day he admitted to me via e-mail that he was gay.
I was taken aback. I will admit, a small part of me screamed to cut off talking with him. But I had grown a little since that first Listserv incident and examined my friendship with Mario. He was the same man he'd been before I knew he was gay. Nothing had changed, except that I knew he preferred men. So I calmed the fears with the statement "he lives far away from me and I'll never meet him in real life, so it doesn't matter."
Baby steps. But at least they were steps.
Years would pass and I continued to hold onto my homophobia like a comfortable blanket. Even as I was exposed to other faiths and other ways of life, I still had a fear of homosexuals. Specifically, homosexual men. (Perhaps part of that has to lie with being bullied as a child. Another part of it might be the latent bisexuality within me; I prefer women by far, but a small part of me can see why women are attracted to men... and even has a tiny bit of attraction myself which I'd not act on.)
It would be a friend of mine who finally helped me break through those fears. This ladyfriend of mine is married, and lived in a different state. But she and her husband had a good friendship with me, and she and her husband had me fly out to their home in Wyoming three times. And while there, we'd play games like Dungeons and Dragons with me running campaigns for them in the short weeks where I'd be visiting.
Partly out of revenge for having hooked her on the Robert Jordan novels, and partly out of a joy for the writing, my friend gave me the first six of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar novels, including the Last Herald Mage trilogy... which had as its main character a sympathetic male homosexual, Vanyel. My friend had a huge crush on the character, to the point that during one of my visits, she wanted to create a D&D character based on Vanyel.
As Game Master, I was to create a game for her. And one thing she wanted her Vanyel to have was a romantic relationship with another male character. And she was interested in roleplaying (verbal, not LARP) the relationship between her male character and a male Non Player Character that was run by me.
So here I was, forced to remove that comfortable blanket of homophobia, and face my fears head on.
I honestly believe that I wouldn't have been able to do this, except for the fact that I was roleplaying an intimate (male) homosexual relationship with an attractive (if married) woman. That helped keep me from running screaming from the room.
That roleplay helped break through that barrier I'd built. I still have occasional moments of being uncomfortable about homosexuality. I joke about it with male friends who likewise have become comfortable enough with themselves that they can flirt with a close male friend knowing that it won't be misconstrued by the friend, and because there is still that small twinge inside that never will entirely go away, but that helps remind you to be careful because fear and hate could easily rise again.
So. I'd like to apologize to the homosexual community. While I never condoned violence against homosexuals, and while I don't recall any hate speech... I did condone homophobia, as a fear that I wrongly felt was justified.
And perhaps my story can serve as a lesson. Homophobia can be overcome. Through education and patience, fear (and the hate it can cause) can be prevailed against. It may take time... but there is hope for humanity.
Baby steps... but still steps.
Robert A. Howard, Tangents Webcomic Reviews