Being in the spotlight (or not) can be a strain on open sexuality
A couple of days ago, The Huffington Post released an article about celebrities who are out and proud. Some of whom we know, like Ricky Martin, Alan Carr, and (quite obviously) Rylan Clark. Others, I wasn’t actually aware were gay, let alone had come out; Nick Grimshaw, John Barrowman (I mean, I know he’s camper than singing show tunes in a sauna, but hadn’t clocked he marched in our parade) and the lush Zachary Quinto. What the article highlighted, aside from the fact that I can be more than a little ditzy when it comes to people’s sexualities (I’m gonna say that’s because it doesn’t matter who people sleep with, not because I’m so self-involved), is that more and more celebrities are finding it OK to come out, in professions that were unforgiving of such ideas however many years ago.
Sure, it’s not a sentence to solitude here in the UK, because we love gays! And if it did end your acting career, there would always be a space for you hosting a budget TV show on some channel that nobodies ever heard of. Or writing a column in a magazine alongside the other has-been’s and Z-listers. But, in Hollywood, things are a different story. Just like they are on the football pitch (something that was well reminded to us in last month’s Attitude magazine). What we need, are more pioneer’s for open-sexuality in the business where big-bucks are exchanged. We need to start a movement. Once directors/production companies aren’t scared to cast gay/lesbian actors in lead roles, and they are proving their talent despite coming out as homosexual – maybe we can actually overcome this ridiculous Hollywood stigma.
Zachary Quinto stated that “When I found out that Jamey Rodemeyer killed himself, I felt deeply troubled. But when I found out that Jamey Rodemyer made an ‘It Gets Better’ video only months before taking his own life — I felt indescribable despair.”
He told New York Magazine, “It made me feel like there’s still so much work to be done, and there’s still so many things that need to be looked at and addressed.” And he wrote on his own website, “Now I can only hope to serve as the same catalyst for even one person in this world”. PREACH. So, in conclusion, not only is Zachary Quinto hot, he’s also a good role-model and spokesperson.
Anyway, amongst this seriousness of being open with ones sexuality with in the spotlight, it reminds me of a little story about when I once dated a celebrity. Although not so much dated, as slept with a couple times and blew in a dark corner off Canal Street. And, not so much a celebrity, as he was an extra on Hollyoaks. But she was a total closet case so I’m gonna tell the story anyway…
We were going on our second date/hook-up, and he’d already expressed that he wasn’t out to his family, work and most of his friends. Which, at this point, was fair enough – it meant I didn’t have to meet his unbearable mother anytime in the near future, I wouldn’t be going to any boring functions for whatever office job he did and I wouldn’t catch him wearing anything with fringe, leather, glitter or two sizes too small. Fine by me. So I waited at Manchester Coach Station (yes, coach station, I’d spent most of my student loan on trainers and Ecstacy. And yes, Ecstacy, it was long before the fad of legal highs) where he was going to pick me up. When he arrived, I threw my bags onto the back seat and jumped into the limousine (OK, it was a Vauxhall Micra).
Obviously, we spent the best part of the evening in his bedroom. And though, he may not have been “experienced” with men, he knew more about having sex with men than some of the sluts I’d slept with. I mean, he called me Antionette and referred to my G spot as a clitorus but at least he knew where it was. So come the evening when we decided to actually venture out of the bed linen and go for a couple of drinks we bumped into a crowd of screaming fans outside The Bijou Club. OK, it wasn’t so much “screaming fans” as it was his cousin with six teeth. And it wasn’t so much The Bijou Club, as it was a Yates Bar.
He was lucky I wasn’t allowed to speak to his mother, ’cause I’d be having a word about knowing anybody, family or otherwise, that drink in Yates for a start. He introduces me as his workmate. His workmate? Do you think anybody this fabulous ever worked in accounts? I’m telling you, no they did not. Can you picture me sitting in front of a pie chart in a fur gilét and Kardashian eyebrows? (The look I was sporting at the time). Honey, no. It was totally like that scene in Will & Grace where McDreamy introduces Will as his brother.
“So what do you do, mate?” As if his cousin was making small talk with me about a fake occupation.
Erm, I sleep with men? I have big ambitions of being a D-list celebrity? None of these answers seemed appropriate.
“I’m actually just an intern.” No further questions warranted! So my point is, that it isn’t just celebrities that don’t have the luxury that some of us do when it comes to coming out. Every time I get a funny look for wearing something slightly different to general straight population, it reminds me that we’re not actually at a stage where sexuality is irrelevant. At the time I thought he was a pussy and needed to pull my finger out his ass and man-up. But it seems that even years on, whether it’s Manchester or Hollywood; prejudices, upbringings and society can build a prison around who people really want to be. So Zachary Quinto – we salute you!
