The word “gay” of my childhood meant cheerful and merry, and is now mainly used when referring to homosexual men. For curiosity’s sake, I clicked on www.dictionary.com. There are 1,414 results for the word gay, and the following one is simple and interesting: “Usage note in addition to its original and continuing senses of “merry, lively” and “bright or showy,” GAY has had various senses dealing with sexual conduct since the 17th century. A gay woman was a prostitute, a gay man a womanizer, a gay house a brothel. This sexual word included homosexuals too, and GAY as an adjective meaning “homosexual” goes back at least to the early 1900’s. After World War ll, as social attitudes toward sexuality began to change, GAY was applied openly by homosexuals to themselves, first as an adjective and later as a noun. Today, the noun often designates only a male homosexual: gays and lesbians. The word has ceased to be slang and is not used disparagingly. HOMOSEXUAL as a noun is sometimes used only in references to a male.” Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary. So, it appears that this three-letter word gets around.
What brought this up? Well, a friend told me that a friend of hers discovered her husband is gay. It was an eye-opener for her. I don’t know why, but it reminded me of when I first moved to New York City straight from a typical New England upbringing of that time, and someone mentioned open marriages. “Open marriages! What is that?” said I. Now with so much water under the bridge – hmm, lots and lots of water – I say, a woman who finds herself married to a gay man is in that relationship for a reason, as is anyone connected to that relationship, as a matter of fact, as is anyone in any relationship. And what’s important is what’s gained, what’s learned. And, of course, that depends entirely on those involved. It’s all so personal and much deeper, and finer, and intricate than any label given to it.
How different life would be if many of the labels placed on people were removed. Just like the songs suggest in Marlo Thomas’s Free To Be You And Me. The things that are happening around the world should teach us to allow some things to be as they are. Defining and separating people if they don’t meet a society’s definition of normal seems archaic in today’s world. Normal, what is that anyway? Millions of different forms in the universe were created. Creativity is the normal, and as long as no one is hurt, creativity and normal should go hand in hand.
Children enjoy a feeling of unity with everything in their lives; they see themselves as not “separate from” but rather “part of.” – THE WORLD IS AS YOU DREAM IT by John Perkins, pg.8
We are raised on comparison;
our education is based on it;
so is our culture.
So we struggle to be someone
other than who we are.
-J. Krishnamurti
Relationship is surely the mirror
in which you discover yourself.
-J. Krishnamurti
You know, all mystics – Catholics,
Christian, non-Christian, no matter
what their theology, no matter what
their religion – are unanimous on one
thing: that all is well, all is well. Though
everything is a mess, all is well. . .
– Anthony de Mello