Coming Way Out
OIA executive editorDerrik Chinn
[5/2/06] Chris Nutter never thought he'd garner much attention when he decided to answer an ad for freelance writers and come out of the closet at the same time. So you can imagine his surprise when Details magazine decided to run his essay. When the issue hit stands, Chris, who had kept being gay a secret from everyone from his family to his frat brothers, was suddenly out to the entire world.
The real shock, however, he says, came when dozens of young gay men from all over the country began to write and call looking for guidance.
Now, 12 years and countless candid articles later, Chris shares all he's learned in his first book, which chronicles what it means to be a gay man in America no matter if you're in denial, closeted, half in, half out, just out or been around the block. The Way Out hits stores later this month.
You warn the reader early on that you’re not a doctor or a healer. What are you? I think in classical Western cultural terms I would be called a philosopher, which is to say someone (who’s) on the search for wisdom.
How has the coming out process changed since you hopped out of the closet 12 years ago? I think it was still revolutionary in American society; now it’s more of a rite of passage. In white American culture it’s become something a certain number of men are expected to do. Details magazine wouldn’t publish the coming out article I wrote in 1994 today. It would have no news value. You’d have to be a celebrity or a professional football player coming out to get that kind of news these days, and I got it just being a frat boy in Mississippi.
What’s the biggest misconception about being gay you’ve had to deal with? That I was what gay culture told me I was, a sexually insatiable young party boy destined to tragically get old and lose all his power. I believed that about myself so it was true to me, but it was never actually true. And that coming out healed me entirely of all of my unconscious beliefs about being gay. It was a great leap forward but it was only one step in the healing process. To this day I uncover hidden snakes that tell me I’m not as good as straight men.
A lot of gay men are afraid of growing old. Why? Because we believe that our power for love and happiness lies in our ability to appear young and virile. As long as we believe this then it is true for us, so naturally we’re going to be scared shitless of getting older. But the suffering that comes from this fear can be potent enough to force us to question these beliefs. My appearance has been my singular tool for power since I was a teenager; now I am realizing this was nothing but a belief and that gay culture has simply given me reason to reinforce it. Don’t get me wrong, though; I still go to the gym.
In the book you write, “Being gay is a gift.” It is an incredible tool for becoming more aware of the fact that you are not what you were told you are or should be. We are born under an assumption of heterosexuality, so there is a major identity gap gay people have to close themselves. The other challenge comes with facing all the ideas of what being gay means: wrong, imperfect, perverted, despicable, unhappy, not fully human, the list goes on. Once you’ve learned how to overcome such overwhelmingly negative beliefs you strengthen your ability to trust your own experience rather than what the cult of society has told you is true about you.
What would you say is your book’s value for someone who’s already out? Its function as a deprogrammer from the cult of gay society, and this is why: Gay culture (is) big and powerful enough to tell us what we are, who we should be, and what is wrong with us. This is how cults function — they convince the person that there is no need to question it. Being a living host for a culture’s programming will cause you to have what Joseph Campbell called a “schizophrenic crack up,” which is what many gay men are having.
Is the mainstreaming of gay culture working for or against us? It's a wonderful way for us to learn to stop going against ourselves, because once we do that we’re home free. Most of us choose to believe that it’s San Francisco and Brokeback Mountain that make us legit and the Catholic Church and the NFL that make us invalid. But if you step back and observe that it is always you choosing to feel one way or another based on certain circumstances, then you will begin to make the choice to feel your inherent validity. The only way through this is through experiencing it, so mainstreaming is for us, though not in the way it may appear.
Why do so many gay men feel like they have to be “fabulous?” Because both straight and gay societies program us to believe this. And it’s not even really fabulous — it’s an idea formulated on notions of status. In gay men (it) is usually a defense mechanism — I can’t be straight, but at least I can be “fabulous” and have this one attribute to hold over straight men for which straight women will worship me. But that is compensation for an underlying belief that they are in lack because they are gay. “Fabulous” is a minstrel show for gay men, but it is our choice to be in that show or not. And just because “fabulous” is a bunch of bullshit doesn’t mean that fabulous doesn’t exist. I mean, you can’t look out upon the cosmos and tell me it isn’t fabulous — it is fucking fabulous. And so am I.
What will coming out be like for the next generation? I think the coming generations will begin to experience what it’s like to never go in the closet, and therefore they will have no need to come out.
If you had to come out all over again, what would you do differently? Absolutely nothing. Coming out the way I did couldn’t have been a more awesome way for me to learn just how powerful I am, and in the process show others what the possibilities are and that they have just as much power as I do. The Way Out is in a sense a book end to that Details article because it is my second coming, only this time I’m coming out of everything.
found at outinamerica.com 11 May 2006.
