choosingchange — Counselling Sydney CBD

Homosexuality...

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Most of us, I would go out on a limb here and say all of us, grow up with societal influences that are primarily heterosexist, controlling and dictating how we are in the world. Same sex issues affect all of us, not just people of different sexual preference or inclination. Demeaning one group in our society demeans us all.

ALSO VISIT
Gay & Lesbian Counselling

Clarification of Cultural Bias Toward Heterosexuality.

See — Gay & Lesbian Counselling or Gay Couple Counselling

We all have individual and particular sexual preferences and inclinations. If we look look at this as if on a continuum it is easier to understand that each person has their individual preferences and inclinations in their sexual choices.
Some people like to cuddle a lot, others like kissing. If I make a decision about what is 'right or wrong' about kinds of sexual preferences, that also limits me and inhibits my inclinations.

Demeaning one section of the community...

...demeans us all. For years women have known the results of being second class citizens. Homosexuals are beginning to rationalise their position as also being second class.

When a person with homosexual leaning grows up knowing they will never have the same rights as heterosexuals their self esteem can be badly affected. Seeing constant reminders of how things should be (i.e.—advertising billboards condoning only heterosexual coupling) play a great part in that section of the community finding solace in ways that are detrimental to their mental and physical health.

  • Being gay in a heterosexual world
  • Office politics
  • Being asked what I happened on the weekend
  • Denial of partner's existence
  • Denying one's nearest and dearest is tantamount to treachery
  • Family gatherings can be an unmoving experience because a Gay or Lesbian person would never be able to participate in their own marriage and other family events.
  • Birthday celebrations — How can a life that is viewed dirty, ungodly, sick and depraved ever be celebrated.

Advertising

On radio, TV, billboards, newspaper and magazines, online mostly illustrate heterosexist attitudes and values.

Advertisements mirror to society how the world is. There is very little criticism about advertising and the standards dictated by the norms they represent.

  • Media representations
  • Film, television, music and video

Expectations

Overheard "Oh... isn't the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras just a recruitment drive... isn't that what it is?"

Prejudices

Always being aware that homosexuality (male especially) is often mistakenly aligned with child molestation and predatory sexual behaviour.

Parent's expectations

"Thank god Peter has a girlfriend. We thought he might be gay ." — Parents talking about their children.

Philip Johnson operates  the choosingchange clinic from 147 King Street, Sydney CBD.
 choosingchange , Counselling Sydney CBD,  Relationship Psychotherapy Sydney, Smart Couples...  serving the Sydney CBD and the Eastern Suburbs and North Sydney — including Surry Hills, Bondi Junction, Darling Point, Woollahra, Edgecliff, Kings Cross, Double Bay,  Paddington, Paddington, Potts Point, Darlinghurst, Central, Broadway, Chippendale, Ultimo, Pyrmont, Redfern, North Sydney, Lavender Bay, McMahons Point. For more information Contact.

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Psychotherapy Sydney CBD Phone 02 9362 3025 02 9362 3025
Counselling Sydney CBD Phone 0425 281 251 0425 281 251
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 Counselling sydney CBD, CAPA NSW

Suite 510, Level 5
147 King Street
Sydney CBD NSW 2000

Between Pitt
& Castlereagh Streets
Opposite MLC Center
Minutes from Town Hall,
Martin Place and Wynyard

Parking at MLC Center

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Epistemology of the Closet

Epistemology of the Closet
Coming out can be a tumultuous time for families, friends and those coming out It is often the first time some people begin to realise that things are not going to be as they expected. Coming out is also politically a defining time.

This is discussed admirably and extensively by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Epistemology of the Closet
by Eve Kosofsky

The best illustration of this phenomenon is provided by what Eve Kosovsky Sedgwick has memorably called the ‘epistemology of the closet.' Sedgwick has shown that the closet is an impossibly contradictory place: you can't be in it, and you can't be out of it.

You can't be in it because— so long as you are in the closet— you can never be certain of the extent to which you have actually succeeded in keeping your homosexuality secret; after all, one effect of being in the closet is that you are precluded from knowing whether people are treating you as straight because you have managed to fool them and they do not suspect you of being gay, or whether they are treating you as straight because they are playing along with you and enjoying the epistemological privilege that your ignorance of their knowledge affords them.

But if you can never be in the closet, you can't ever be out of it either, because those who have once enjoyed the epistemological privilege constituted by their knowledge of your ignorance of their knowledge typically refuse to give up that privilege, and insist on constructing your sexuality as a secret to which they have special access, a secret which always gives itself away to their superior and knowing gaze... The closet is an impossibly contradictory place, moreover, because when you do come out of it, it's both too soon and too late.

You can tell that it's too soon by the frequency with which the affirmation of your homosexuality is greeted with impatient dismissal... Nonetheless, whenever you do come out of the closet, it's also already too late, because if you had been honest you would have come out earlier.

pp.34-5 Halperin, D. (1995).
Saint=Foucault
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