I am as glad – and grateful – as anyone for Anderson Cooper’s non-coming-out coming out. There are some lessons in this story worth talking about.
People who know Cooper seem to agree with him that he was not really in the closet except with respect to the general public. That is a telling fact. As the walls of the closet have come down on the private side of people’s lives, there is still that remaining door that can be opened or closed to the public. The people we know on our side of the door – the private side – are far more likely today to know we are homosexual than they ever have been. Cooper enjoyed that private side of the closet with his family and friends.
But Cooper is not like the rest of us (and not just in what he does for a black t-shirt). For those of us without a public face, the need to come out or not to others – to decide whether to open that door — is a recurring issue; we are always meeting new people, and regularly face the problem of how much to reveal to whom, and in what circumstances.
People like Cooper who have a large public reputation have to deal with this a little differently. Word spreads about the famous, particularly about something as personal and controversial (or at least pretty interesting) as homosexuality. News of my homosexuality never hit Twitter; it never really achieved a threshold of being news. For Cooper, opening that door once to a world that knows him as a personality pretty much brings him out in toto. There will still be pockets of cluelessness, but for the most part, this is a one-time deal for someone of Cooper’s stature.
The Entertainment Weekly story that got this story moving makes the point that it’s possible for even celebrities today to come out without its being a big deal, and Cooper’s example contradicts that (in the short term, since it was kind of newsish) but reaffirms the larger point, having such a short shelf-life. Writing this post all of two days after Andrew Sullivan broke the story already feels like I’m stretching it out.
But that’s where the political aspect of sexual orientation comes in. For me, when it comes to sexual orientation and politics, I was born this way. It has taken me a long time to accept that some people – a lot of people – are not born political, or at least don’t take to politics naturally. I see a need for lesbians and gay men to take political action, but as people who are more activist than me can tell you, it’s always been an uphill battle.
Cooper reports on political stories, but as a journalist he should not be an activist. As a gay man, that puts him in a difficult spot.
A lot of politically active lesbians and gay men resent celebrities who are privately lesbian or gay, but have not opened the public door. We have an enormous public relations job to do, and need all the help we can get. That is one of the things that animated the movement to out politicians and celebrities – the idea that they had an obligation to use their public face to help us all gain equality. The worst of the worst were the ones who worked against legal equality, but the desire for even neutral or supportive public figures to come out – or be dragged out – came from the mathematical problem of being a minority in the first place. We start out with numbers that are staggeringly against us in a democracy, and then have the additional problem of members of our group who won’t even admit they belong.
Cooper seems to have struggled with that. He mentions “the unintended outcomes” of maintaining his privacy, and says he may have given the impression that he is trying to hide something that makes him uncomfortable, ashamed or afraid. His coming out was intended to – and does — clarify any misimpressions.
But those misimpressions are, and always have been, a perfectly natural consequence of silence. If about 95% of the population is heterosexual, and someone doesn’t positively identify as homosexual, is it unreasonable for people to assume that individual is straight? The open discussion of homosexuality over the last quarter century or so changes the bet somewhat, since silence now looks more telling, when it isn’t downright implausible. Yet many people still cling to the fig leaf of privacy as if it were without consequence.
In this impressive compilation of Cooper in the field, one quote stood out: “Journalists don’t like to become part of the story, but unfortunately they have been made part of the story. . . . “ That, I am afraid, is true of sexual orientation as well. Our inequality is embedded in the status quo that recognizes only heterosexual relationships, and if we say or do nothing, we are part of a story that tolerates and accepts our second-class status. We cannot get out of that story, or create a more appropriate status quo unless we act, unless we speak, unless we stand up as lesbians and gay men.
The false neutrality of silence is clear in this story about Jitters and Bliss Coffee. The company claims to be neutral when it comes to marriage. They say they don’t have a public position on the matter, and “respect the views of all their customers.” To demonstrate that neutrality, they joined up with the National Organization for Marriage to offer NOM members a non-Starbuck’s coffee option, since Starbuck’s has taken a position supporting marriage equality.
That is the neutrality of the status quo, being nakedly manipulated to preserve itself. Our silence, their silence, anyone’s silence is a vote for NOM, is a vote for the bias and prejudice that are woven into the fabric of current law.
In this politicized environment, privacy equals silence, and silence equals — well, not death anymore, but certainly some spiritual damage. That was the unholy balance that Cooper upset. Neutrality is a primary virtue of the journalistic profession, but when “neutrality” means “the status quo,” and if the status quo is, itself, biased, then neutrality is not neutral. Anderson Cooper’s coming out helps expose that truth.
18 Comments for “Privacy, Silence, Neutrality and Anderson Cooper”
posted by Houndentenor on
It shouldn’t be a big deal. But it seems that it still is, based on press coverage and the reactions from people across the political spectrum. It’s not as big a deal as it would have been 20 years ago, but it’s a bigger deal than it (hopefully) will be 20 years from now. Besides, it was a little ridiculous how has had to sidestep any mention of his personal life. Not that I want him to go on and on about his personal business. We have way too much of that from media folks as it is. But he shouldn’t have to hide it. Hiding it implies that there’s something to be a shamed of. There isn’t.
posted by Jorge on
In other words, you advocate gays flaunting their homosexuality, only as a political display instead of as a sexual display. I suspect the gratuitous length of this post hides some sort of internal dischord on the topic. Well, I follow my own moral compass on that.
Interestingly, just today I have reminisced on situations in which I believe I have actively used my “neutrality” and silence. Not every gay person is obligated to swear a blood oath to be for or against anything in every situation. The flip side of being manipulated to preserve oneself is manpulating neutrality to preserve others. If you don’t embrace that, you’re not really neutral. I happen to think that the “open secret” is a neutral position in reality, not a complicity with homophobia (maybe heterosexism), and that it is possible to pull it off, if difficult. Of course, I might be blinded by my own experience.
posted by Houndentenor on
I believe in the right to privacy. There is a real risk for people in public life of losing their careers. Clay Aiken’s career tanked after he came out. It’s a very real risk and since it’s not my career being risked, it’s not up to me to make that decision for someone else. We do currently allow for a neutral zone between being out and being in. AC is a good case in point. It was hardly a secret. He also wasn’t lying to pretend he was straight. He just avoided the topic. The problem is that we don’t afford that luxury to heterosexuals in the media. It’s complicated.
posted by Lymis on
There is a difference between flaunting and acknowledging, just as their is a difference between being private and hiding.
Now that Anderson Cooper has publicly acknowledged his orientation and his relationship, he can go back to doing exactly what he has always done, being private, keeping his personal life out of the discussion, and being as transparent and unbiased as possible. The change will be that he will be being private rather than hiding something.
There is a huge difference between “an open secret” and “a non-issue.” Sorry, but yes, an open secret is NOT a neutral position, because it involves everyone buying into the idea that the subject is to be (wink, wink, nod) avoided. As opposed to not being discussed because it has no bearing on what IS being discussed.
Agreeing that it is somehow improper, or rude, or tasteless, or for any other reason Not To Be Done to be openly gay is most definitely being complicit in homophobia.
Now when Cooper says “I don’t talk about my private life, let’s keep this on topic” that’s exactly what it will mean, rather than having the overlay of having to pretend to pretend to be straight to be taken seriously as a journalist.
I’m not saying that anyone who isn’t hypocritically actively harming gay people should be outed, and that there aren’t real and valid reasons why some individuals make the choice to be closeted and that they, and only they have the right to make that choice if they aren’t harming others while expecting their own closet to be honored. But let’s not pretend it’s a good thing, or a neutral thing, to feel you have to be in the closet.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Dead right, Lymis, and well said.
I would only add that remaining in the closet does, in fact, do tangible harm that extends beyond the individual involved.
Every reliable study/poll over the last decade suggests (to my mind conclusively) that the single most important determinant in whether a straight person outside the hard-core religious right is pro-equality or anti-equality is whether or not that straight person knows and values a gay or lesbian as a family member, friend, co-worker or neighbor. To the extent that individual gays and lesbians stay in the closet, that decision slows down and impedes the change in attitude toward “equal means equal” among straight people. That’s a tangible harm to us all.
In the case of a respected public person like Anderson Cooper, it seems to me that there is an additional collateral harm. Young gays and lesbians are at high risk, and need role models. Respected public figures — news anchors, politicians, sports stars and so on — who remain in the closet deprive young gays and lesbians of a role model that can give hope that it is possible to be gay or lesbian and live a life of achievement.
posted by Houndentenor on
And let’s address the issue of “flaunting”. Recently one of my younger relatives got pregnant though not married. She hooked up with some guy and wasn’t using birth control and boom she’s preggers. Some in the family faulted her for “flaunting” her pregnancy. I’m not sure what they expected her to do. Go into hiding (difficult since she needed her job to support herself and the baby on the way)? Have an abortion and not tell anyone?
Whenever I hear the word “flaunting” what I hear is that the speaker wants people to be shamed about their life or their situation. I think that a life of honesty and integrity, even one that has included some mistakes, is one to be respected. Once again, many in our culture want us all to live a life of hypocrisy which makes me wonder what they are hiding that they want to impose their hypocrisy on the rest of us.
posted by Jorge on
There is a difference between flaunting and acknowledging, just as their is a difference between being private and hiding.
…
There is a huge difference between “an open secret” and “a non-issue.” Sorry, but yes, an open secret is NOT a neutral position, because it involves everyone buying into the idea that the subject is to be (wink, wink, nod) avoided. As opposed to not being discussed.
Agreeing that it is somehow improper, or rude, or tasteless, or for any other reason Not To Be Done to be openly gay is most definitely being complicit in homophobia.
In other words, you think gay people should flaunt their homosexuality to make a political (maybe social) point.
In all seriousness, Lymis and Tom, just as you argue there is a difference between flaunting and acknowledging, I believe there is a difference between being closeted and enforcing the open secret.
More toward Tom’s statement, I am simply not going to sacrifice my calm dispostion and general comfort level before the cause of gay visibility every time someone I barely know says something gay-imperfect, nor do I believe such actions serve as any kind of role modeling. It is enough for me to struggle with how to be out and how to promote gay equality at my own pace, which will over time increase gay visibility without putting my health and reputation at any risk I do not consent to.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
More toward Tom’s statement, I am simply not going to sacrifice my calm dispostion and general comfort level before the cause of gay visibility every time someone I barely know says something gay-imperfect, nor do I believe such actions serve as any kind of role modeling.
No one is asking you to become a gay “church lady”, Jorge, constantly on the alert for ways to “correct” folks.
All any of us have to do is live our lives out in the open, instead of slinking around hiding out. If we are matter-of-fact and straightforward about our lives, we give the straights who know us the opportunity to see that the bullshit that they’ve been fed by the likes of Maggie Gallagher is, well, bullshit. And that, in and of itself, is the most important factor in changing attitudes in the direction of “equal means equal”, if the polls and studies are correct.
I’ll grant you that being out is probably a lot simpler living in a small town as I do, where everybody knows, anyway, than it is in an urban area, where most people are relative strangers to one another, and even routine, day-to-day encounters can be high risk for gays and lesbians.
I don’t expect anyone to put themselves at unnecessary risk, but within our circle of straights — our families, our friends, our co-workers, our neighbors — we are change agents just by living openly.
posted by Jorge on
No one is asking you to become a gay “church lady”, Jorge, constantly on the alert for ways to “correct” folks.
All any of us have to do is live our lives out in the open
…
In the case of a respected public person like Anderson Cooper, it seems to me that there is an additional collateral harm. . . . . If we are matter-of-fact and straightforward about our lives, we give the straights who know us the opportunity to see that the bullshit that they’ve been fed by the likes of Maggie Gallagher is, well, bullshit.
You really need to make up your mind here. Are you critical of people who choose to keep their sexual orientation an “open secret”, or are you not?–that is the middle ground position.
This is why I do not approve of judgmentalness when it comes to how “out” or socially responsible re: the gay community other people are. Everyone thinks they know what the right level of outness is for everyone else , but it really just changes to suit the busybody’s own self-comfort level.
Which, when you get down to it, extends to an advocacy of using one’s homosexuality as a political or social weapon–flaunting. That is something no one has any moral authority to demand of others under pain of social consequences.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
You really need to make up your mind here. Are you critical of people who choose to keep their sexual orientation an “open secret”, or are you not?
Read those quotes you cited again, Jorge, and look back at my original comment.
I am pointing out that there is a collateral cost — a lost opportunity cost, if you will — by living in such a way as to keep our lives hidden from sight or to make our lives an “open secret”, not something hidden, exactly, but not something that can be talked about, either.
You seem to be determined to force me into an either/or box that I don’t think makes any sense. By pointing out that there is a collateral cost to hiding out or living an “open secret”, I am not being critical of those who make that choice, often out of necessity and usually for good reason. I am only pointing out that there is a cost to living that way, and that the cost extends beyond whatever it personally costs us to live that way.
It is not my business to tell others how to handle the question of being out or not, and to what extent. We all live in different circumstances, and I believe that how each of us handles the question of “being out” is a personal decision. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t point what I believe, that Lymis missed the mark when he suggested that we can live in the closet without “harming others”. The collateral cost — the harm to others — is real, and quantifiable.
Look, Jorge, we send a message to the people who know us by the way we live, no matter how we live. If we live in the closet, we send the message that being gay or lesbian is something shameful, something that should remain hidden from sight. If we live in a way in which our lives are an “open secret”, we send the message (as Lymis put it so well) “that the subject is to be (wink, wink, nod) avoided … [a]s opposed to not being discussed because it has no bearing on what IS being discussed.“. If we live open and straightforward lives, we send the message that being gay or lesbian is matter-of-fact, something that isn’t shameful and doesn’t need to be avoided. The people we know pick up the message we send, and the message we send influences how they feel about gays and lesbians and “equal means equal”.
posted by Jorge on
Read those quotes you cited again, Jorge, and look back at my original comment.
I did. I simply do not agree with you. What you say has its strong points. It also has its weak points.
When I think of the people who I have considered role models for myself, it has been those people who were in the closet or discreet, and lived lives of rightness anyway. This may just be due to my nature. The world I want to see is a little different than that, but not by much.
posted by Jorge on
That sounded awful. What I mean to suggest by “lived lives of rightness anyway” is despite any internal conflicts they may or may not have had–the stiff upper lip that shows the way forward.
posted by JaneKM on
Houndentenor: Your post regarding your pregnant relative is rife with disapproval and disrespectful wording. Please realize that simply using that situation in the context of judgmental prejudice is derisive and is made even more so by your word choice (preggers).
posted by Houndentenor on
LOL. Really? Preggers is offensive now? sheesh
posted by Houndentenor on
P.S. No insult was intended towards unwed mothers or those who become pregnant accidentally. I will not, however, apologize for expecting people having sex to use some method to prevent the spread of disease, which in most cases would also prevent pregnancy.
posted by Jorge on
LOL is right. What, do you want to encourage women to sleep around the block? I don’t. Everything you said is 100% true. Uhhhhh, so what? It’s for cause. The woman made a mistake: she had sex with some guy without using birth control (or STD protection), she’s pregnant, and her actions brought shame to herself and her family. She will now take responsibility alongside many others instead of hiding in that shame. Hondentenor is exactly right on both balances in saying “a life of honesty and integrity, even one that has included some mistakes, is one to be respected.”
posted by Houndentenor on
I only object to the shame aspect. I feel no shame in this. It’s just what happened. It really disgusts me to hear condemnations over things like this from people who claim to be Christians. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” There’s no reason to feel shame for something a family member did unless you believe that other people have a right to judge you. I don’t accept that. I honestly don’t care what anyone thinks about this. As adults we make choices and we accept the consequences. She has no reason to be either proud or ashamed.
posted by TomJefferson on
1. Their are potentially negative consequences to “coming out” (i.e. be as honest/open as a heterosexual is). This is why celebrities and politicians often do not come out. They want to maintain a certain standard of living and fear, rightly or wrongly, that once their homosexuality becomes known by the general (read: straight) public, their career will hit a glass ceiling (or go down into the poor house).
2. The ‘open secret’ seems to imply that certain people ‘know’ i.e. entertainment reporters and say, gay fans who read the gay press, but not the general (again, read: heterosexual Joe or Jane, Middle America Six Pack) public. The appeal of this is that the famous gay person does not feel like a total closet case, but gets to maintain a certain standard of living and certain people get to feel all smug that they have the inside-Gospel truth.