Not that there's anything wrong with that

The other day I saw someone tweet that cis Gen Xers need to talk more about how homophobic society in general was in the 80s and 90s. So my Pride post this year is a story from my small town adolescence in the 90s.

 

This story does not contain any violence, hate crimes, or actual homophobic acts, but it does contain extensive descriptions of my own thoughts and feelings from back when I knew nothing other than that culture and environment, and these thoughts and feelings do not age well.

 

***

 

In the Seinfeld episode "The Outing", Jerry and George are mistaken for a gay couple, and spend the episode flailing about vociferously denying being gay, each time qualifying their denial with "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

 

When I saw this episode at the age of 15, I was super confused: why are they saying "Not that there's anything wrong with that"?? Surely if you suggest that there's nothing wrong with being gay, people will think you're gay, and then Bad Things will happen! Why wouldn't they just say nothing??

That was literally the very first time in my whole entire life that I had ever been exposed to the idea that a person might not want to come across as homophobic. I'm not even getting as far as the fact that there's nothing wrong with being gay - I had never, not even once, been exposed to the fact that there are people in the world who might perceive you negatively if you're homophobic.

 

Absolutely 100% of life experience to date had suggested that the strategic thing to do in any situation would be to come across as homophobic. After all, my life experience suggested, if you don't come across as homophobic, then people would think you're gay! And then Bad Things would happen!

 

(I wasn't clear what these Bad Things were, but the way my classmates talked about the idea of Gay left no room for doubt that it was Very, Very Bad.)

I hadn't even thought as far as deciding whether or not to be homophobic myself. All I knew was that 100% of the empirical evidence to date suggested that it was unsafe to not be homophobic. So I proceeded accordingly.

When the Seinfeld episode ended without anything bad happening to Jerry and George, I was completely baffled. This was completely outside of my experience or frame of reference. The story seemed completely unresolved. I literally could not understand it.

And that's what 90s small town homophobia was like - it left a sheltered 15-year-old unable to comprehend a situation where people can just . . . not be homophobic, and that's okay.

***

 

What's interesting is how 15-year-old me reacted to this after giving the matter a little thought.

 

Jerry and George acted as though there wasn't anything wrong with being gay, and nothing bad happened to them! Furthermore, no discourse about this had reached me - no one was talking about how it was bad or horrible or shocking that nothing bad happened to them for acting as though there wasn't anything wrong with being gay.

This meant that maybe, for some people, in some parts of society . . . it's okay to act as though there isn't anything wrong with being gay? The characters on Seinfeld were clearly cooler than me, so maybe the parts of society where it's okay to act as though there isn't anything wrong with being gay are cooler than me?

Now, if, like 15-year-old me, you're an awkward, dorky, bullied teenager living in a small town, it can be strategic to give the impression that you have hidden depths, aspects of yourself that are way cooler and edgier than even have an opportunity to become apparent in such a limited and uncool environment than school.

This (brand new! unprecedented!) notion that there's nothing wrong with being gay provided this very kind of opportunity. Next time the idea of gay came up, I could proceed as though there's nothing wrong with it, as though it's unremarkable and not worth mentioning! Maybe I could even pretend to be confused about why people think it's a problem! Surely that would be a super edgy thing to do that vastly exceeds the cool potential of our small town!

So I tucked the idea away in my metaphorical toolbox, and proceeded with life.

The opportunity to use it arose a couple of years later.

I was sitting in the library doing my calculus homework and listening to my discman when a classmate sat down across the table from me.

I didn't know this guy very well. The periphery of his social circle overlapped with the periphery of my social circle, but we had very little in common. He had a beard, drove a pickup truck, seemed like he'd know where to buy drugs - way cooler and edgier than me, and the very demographic who is likely to bully me! But, despite these demographic indicators, he had never been unkind to me, and sometimes had been a touch more kind than strictly necessary.

He sat down across from me, pulled out his own homework, and asked me what I was listening to.

"Ani DiFranco," I replied.

"Did you know she's very popular with the gay community?" he asked.

I didn't actually know that. In fact, I hadn't the slightest clue! (My first Ani DiFranco album was Dilate, and I hadn't yet discovered the online fandom.)

I briefly panicked: Oh shit, now he's going to think I'm gay! And if I deny it, he's going to think I'm hiding being gay!!

Then I remembered: when you want to be cool and edgy, act like there's nothing wrong with it.

So I looked him dead-ass in the eye and said, "Yes, she is."

Then, with a level of savvy I didn't even know I possessed, I offered him an earbud. "Would you like to listen?"

He accepted the earbud, and we sat there doing our math homework and listening to Ani DiFranco. And no Bad Things happened.

And, in that small town in the 90s, that was what passed for progress.