Night and day

People often say, well, it's obvious--gay and straight are as different as night and day!  You're either one or the other!  Choose!

Yep, night is different from day.  But note--where it is something we know well, like 'night' and 'day'--how we are well aware of the subtle differences within 'night' and 'day'.  A summer's day, when it is 40 degrees outside and the sunlight is white hot.  A late afternoon, when the air is still warm and the sunlight slants through the trees and the air is golden.  A sunny winter's day, where the light is crisp and silver and so is the air.  An early morning, dewy grass, a pink tinge to the eastern sky.  Those are all 'days'.  A night sky of indigo silk, the stars  brilliant sparkles scattered across it.   A harvest moon, yellow and prehistoric, rising over the eastern horizon.  A sky of black velvet, rich and lush, with a silver scimitar of a moon at the west.  The wee hours, when all is silent and the moon's shadows lie sharp and clear in the garden.  These are all 'nights'.

The words 'night' and 'day' are convenient portmanteau terms for real things.  But we also all know that it's more complicated than that.  We try and create words to convey these realities because we know that the words we have aren't enough.  Just as Eskimos are supposed to have 17 (or is it 12?) different words for snow.

'Gay' and 'straight' are nice convenient clichés/labels for the unthinking, the-not-very-perceptive.  But the truth is that  it's more complicated than that.  Even if you add 'bisexual' to the mix, what does that mean.  Some men like serial sex with male strangers even if they're married, happily married.  Others have just one male partner with or without their wives' knowledge and acquiescence.  Some (like me) remain faithful to their wives yet feel the emotional attraction of men.  Some call themselves straight but love a single man. A very queeny man I know is with a guy but says that his next partner, if there is one, will be a woman.  I feel closer to women, he says.

Over the years, I have come to appreciate the vast diversity of human sexuality.  Once I too thought it was nice and simple and just a matter of correctly labelling and all would be clear.  Now I am more humble, more aware of just how complex and rich all our sexualities are, of how many different ways there are of seeing and experiencing 'night and day'.