I can picture the commercials. A parade of celebrities and quirkily attractive "regular" people
are shot individually against a bright white backdrop. Whimsical music
plays in the background as they tell their stories in an offhand way.
They finish their stories, look into the camera, say their name and then, "I
switched." Only they didn't switch from PC to Mac, they switched from straight
to gay.
When Cynthia Nixon came out last week, the first thing I thought
was how impressively casual she was about it. No grandstanding, no big media
build-up, no drama, just the Daily
News story and a simple quote:"My private life is private. But at the
same time, I have nothing to hide. So what I will say is that I am very happy."
I've admired Cynthia Nixon as an actress ever since I saw
her in Angels in America on Broadway, but I wasn't exactly aching to find
out about her love life. And she didn't exactly commit to being a lesbian, she
just
said she was in a relationship with a woman. That way if the relationship goes
south she can pull a Heche and go back to men. (Not that there's anything wrong
with that.)
A gay friend of mine believes that women are more sexually
flexible and can go either way more easily. He says that men's sexuality is fixed;
gay is gay and straight is straight and ne'er the twain shall meet. I disagree.
Sexual fluidity varies by individual, not by gender. Society just accepts fluidity
in women more than in men.
There's something very appealing about the idea that you can just say, "My private life is private. But at the same time, I have nothing to hide. So what I will say is that I am very happy," and have that be the end of it. I'm glad Ms. Nixon is happy, and I'm sure she's relieved. But eventually "not hiding" and being happy isn't enough. Once you've come out, you have to live out. And that's hard work. At least until the time where everyone is free to say "I switched."
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