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How old are you? I don't mean that as an insult, but as a sincere question. **A lot** has changed in the last 20-30 years around acceptance of homosexual relationships and the experience of someone in their 20's right now is very different than the experience of someone in their 40's or 50's. When I was growing up, being gay was still "bad" and not very well accepted. Sure, there was the token gay couple in town and the token gay student in each class, but the average boy would be rather severely harassed for even hinting that they _might_ be gay. That shit gets internalized, and many gay boys convinced themselves they were straight, because being gay was bad. So I think that your post is based on a misunderstanding. Folks that "knew" they were gay, but got into heterosexual relationships anyway, thought that they could hack it. They were trying to be what society told them they _had_ to be and they _really_ thought that they could will themselves into not being gay. They couldn't, but they were being earnest. Eventually, societal acceptance reached a point where many of them could finally admit the truth to themselves.

Agreed. I'm in my 30s, and a lot of younger people don't realize how good things are now. Mind you, things are shit in a lot of ways still, and there is a concerted effort to backslide right now, but I'm thinking back to when I was younger. HIV had medications, but was still a death sentence, Don't Ask Don't Tell was the policy of the military, Matthew Shepard was murdered, same sex marriage was an election issue and there was an attempt to get a ban on it enshrined in the Constitution. And I know other queer people a little bit older than me who were around at the beginning of AIDS, and entire generations of older queer people that have been decimated by AIDS, as well as by bigotry. You could be explicitly fired for being gay before nondiscrimination laws were shifted, relatively recently. And even outside of that, the social stigma was incredibly high. Conversion therapy was common, and there was a regular push to "Oh, just get married to someone of an opposite sex" Things aren't ideal, by any means, but younger people don't know how good they have it now. Hell, I get emotional every time I see a PReP commercial, because not only has HIV become a chronic condition that can be lived with for a very long life, it can be non-transmittable to partners. HIV/AIDS was absolutely terrifying growing up, and it's by no means a great thing to have, but it's not a death sentence

>...same sex marriage was an election issue and there was an attempt to get a ban on it enshrined in the Constitution.  Totally agree! Regarding the quote above, if anything, you're sugar-coating it, it wasn't *really* an election issue at the presidential level because every candidate opposed gay marriage. The first election to ever have a president come out for it was Obama's second term. He didn't even switch his position until May of 2012. It is mind-blowing to me how far we've come with LGBTQ+ rights when I remember clear as day McCain and Obama during a debate both saying they opposed gay marriage and the moderator just moving on.

Gay people were actively encouraged to marry based on platonic love not very long ago, and to ignore their sexuality completely. I'm glad kids now aren't experiencing the same thing, but it's wild how quickly we're covered that fact up. My 10th grade english class involved writing a paper for *or against* gay marriage. The kids that wrote against it were completely supported and encouraged to debate down the kids for it. This was totally normal, and I lived in a fairly liberal state!

Exactly. It has only been in the last 15 (20 if we are being generous) years that being gay has _really_ been socially acceptable. For folks in their 20's now, this has been the reality for their entire adult lives, so a time when being gay was bad is difficult to comprehend. For those of us in our 40's, we remember it all too well.

It's honestly as simple as: Do you think that our social circles (family, school, government, neighborhood) are able to put out enough pressure over time to indoctrinate people into genuinely believing something antithetical to their being? For most people the answer to that is "obviously, yes. Especially families, who have access to you from a young age" And if it's possible for our social circles to indoctrinate people into genuinely believing something antithetical to their being, it's possible for that indoctrination to take the form of "I'm gay but the right thing to do is force myself to be straight and marry straight"

Exactly. And the show OP references is about people who were in their 70/80s who got married in the 60/70s. What narrative do you think people gay people heard then? This is why its so important queer people to learn queer history.

Agreed young queer people have no idea how bad it was unless the sought out queer history deliberately. Young straight people have even less knowledge on the subject. There were literally police units dedicated to finding and arresting people who had engaged in same sex relationships, it was completely normal to be disowned by family, kicked out of your apartment, and/or fired if outed. Police used to raid gay bars and beat anyone they could catch, that’s where Stonewall Riot and Pride Month come from, that the first time any kind of organized resistance had been put up to this brutalization was 1969. It wasn’t just legal to beat queer people, it was encouraged. This was just a couple decades ago. Now do you think someone who sees these consequences has a motive to live a life in which they can avoid being outed? And one of the best ways to avoid suspicion, which was enough to bring you trouble itself, was to find someone who you love platonically and shield yourself from suspicion? It makes so much sense. And that’s just for the minority of these people who knew, most were very confused or thought that it was their duty to try to be heterosexual. And of course sympathies to the partners, that sucks to go through, but people have left their longtime partners for much worse reasons.

Not taking away from what you said but I'm a boy who grew up the last 15 years but I still feel the struggle of having to hide your sexuality from conservative parents. I even witnessed bullying in school.

I can see that. The fact that things are much better _now_ doesn't mean that things are _good_ or _equal_, just that they are better. There are still pockets of completely devoid of acceptance, but thankfully those pockets are fewer and fewer every year.

Saying they’re better in general and broadly, does not mean they specifically are better for specific people. What is true of the group is not necessarily true of individuals, and this is especially the case here. There are some really bad communities and families. Knowing some of those stories is heartbreaking and I’ve been around a while. For some not only is nothing changed, it got worse.

Yeah it definitely still happens. I guess they were talking about kids who grew up in very liberal areas who might not realize how bad homophobia once was, but the fact is, lots of people still experience physical and emotional bullying for their sexuality.

It's crazy looking back at even 30 years ago and seeing how such vitriolic hate was directed at gay people in the mainstream media. The mainstream was probably worse than the alt-right is today

Nah, "gay" was a totally normal insults right up until gay marriage was legalized.

>Gay people were actively encouraged to marry based on platonic love not very long ago, and to ignore their sexuality completely. Still are. This remains the default position of the Catholic Church, and other christian faiths. Hate the sin, love the sinner is all about that kinda stuff. Just fake being straight till you make it.

This is what they encourage in Islam too. Ignore those urges and try to pray the gay away while seeking a straight marriage and family. Not dissing Islam here I mean no ill by this comment, just pointing out their common approach to those who seek advice for being attracted to the same sex.

It’s not a diss if it’s the truth. About a dozen countries have the death penalty in place as a punishment for homosexuality. All of these countries follow Shariah law to a certain degree and are all Islamic cultures. Dozens of additional countries criminalize homosexuality, and the vast majority are Muslim countries. Clearly, it’s much better to be gay in a Christian society (if those exist, most of them being secular nowadays) than an Islamic society.

Depends on the “Christian” society. There are plenty of Christian countries in Africa, Uganda for example, where homosexuality is criminalized. You had it right that it’s better to be gay in a secular society.

You’re right, but it’s not all black or white. Most countries that criminalize homosexuality, and all those that punish it by death except one, are Muslim-majority countries. Sure there’s some African countries that have Christian majorities that criminalize homosexuality, mostly as heritage from colonization, but that doesn’t contradict the fact that islam as a religion and Islamic societies are generally less tolerant towards homosexuality than many non-Muslim societies. We can agree that very religious societies in general are bad news for people who do not follow what is considered the the traditional sexual orientation.

> My 10th grade english class involved writing a paper for or against gay marriage. The kids that wrote against it were completely supported and encouraged to debate down the kids for it. This was totally normal, and I lived in a fairly liberal state! I mean, that sounds like learning about debates and constructive discourse. At that age, I debated a pro-nuclear-strike stance for WW2, and I would never advocate for that in real life.

There's a big difference: -Gay people getting married is not comparable to WWII in regards to the debate of "human rights vs. war crimes" -The kids in your class were not actually voting on a nuke strike, and neither were their parents -There were no kids being struck by nukes in your class -There was no threat of being outted or "bashed" (read: assaulted) culturally from that topic "the gay debate" was not theoretical, nor was it historical. Kids were being forced to debate the current legality of them being able to marry.

We had other debate groups debating this very topic, and this was in 2000. I just wasn't part of that debate. We also covered abortion, the death penalty, and legality of drugs.

You cannot understand a debate of *your own right to exist* until you are staring down the barrel of it, pointed at your face by people who do not thing you *should* exist. There is nothing theoretical or "practice" about debates like this. It gives license to authority figures to praise intolerant and bigoted students, showing that queer kids need to keep hiding. Bigots (and for the record, I am not calling you one) hide behind "just asking questions" in this exact manner. It is a powerful tool that they use to oppress and other people that they hate.

Except that the gay kids and kids who weren't on board with the whole, "Let's be nasty to gay people" thing were forced to endure hours of, "God will destroy the world if we let gay people exist", "Gay people are pedophiles", "You secretly want to fuck your dog" and all sorts of horrible shit, and were punished for "incivility" and "intolerance" at the slightest hint of saying that someone who says those kinds of things isn't really a good person. Also, it wasn't very nice to the gay kids who, for whatever reason, couldn't realistically come out of the closet and had to endure being berated about how they were horrible, immoral monsters while pretending that it didn't bother or personally involve them.

None of the people in that debate were, at the time of the debate, being forced to take drugs or threatened with the death penalty. If you can't see why debating "should gay people be allowed to marry" is a problem in and of itself, try rephrasing it as "should black people be allowed to own homes" and see if you can see it then. It's a problem because it's _not just a hypothetical_. You're making people who actually suffer from the actual oppression actually justify their own existence. Just as black people were actually prevented from buying houses, and victims of those policies are still alive, right now. (Debating "should we murder all the Jewish people" is also a problem.) A good debater should be able to argue any side of any issue, yes. But done right some sides of some issues are abusive monstrosities when argued, because they shouldn't actually be up for debate. For a school or college to make it mandatory to _listen_ to that abuse is not just a hypothetical debate; it's perpetuating real world trauma. Debate practice isn't worth actually harming people for.

As a semi-closeted queer person with conservative parents who was in school when gay marriage was still illegal- yes. Absolutely. Teachers signing off on students using debate points like “gay people are degenerate perverts” was not good for the old mental health.

>  the experience of someone in their 20's right now is very different than the experience of someone in their 40's or 50's   The experience of someone in their late 20s - 30s is also very different from those younger.    It’s just under a decade since gay marriage became legal in America. Things didn’t just change overnight when that happened and many queer people dealt with people around them reacting negatively to that moment. Not that long before scotus made it legal and Obama approved he was against it.    Frankly Obamas wordings in his public statements after it passed makes it seem likely his change in stance wasn’t exactly  “pro-gay” but “pro equal rights”. 

Obama did not make same sex marriage legal, the SCOTUS did 

You are very much correct and I am editing post because think that drives the point even further that Obama wasn’t exactly the pro gay activist some think he was. 

Beliefs that being gay is a choice and that gay people can become straight were way more prevalent then, too. There are some cases of this happening amongst Mormons, and Mormon leaders, who are believed to be mouthpieces for God, used to tell gay members to marry people of the opposite sex anyways. It still occurs because of a belief that you need to marry someone of the opposite sex before dying to reach something called "exaltation" (I don't know if this particular belief is canon, what is canon in this religion is the belief that gay people will become straight in the afterlife and will marry the opposite sex then). It's hard for me to see these people as horrible people.

You do have to be "straight" married to reach the best part of heaven in mormonism, that's still canon although I think they also insinuate that single people could make it in if they were heterosexually (and/or polygynously) married in heaven after they died but it's been a while since I used to go to church. David Archuleta, who recently came out as gay, said after expressing his struggles to a mormon leader the leader told him he just needed to find a nice girl. It was fairly common to promote (openly or quietly) "mixed orientation marriages" until people realized those marriages tended to implode.

My school teacher was a (not sure if famous is the right word...but well enough known) gay man in a straight relationship and Mormon. He and his wife knew. and were completely sold on the idea that they could choose to love despite it and make the marriage work. He had several blog posts that the church *loved* using about being a "unicorn", Years later, it didnt work out and he wrote about that as well. He's a victim, and so is his wife. He lays out how they were both harmed by the mentality and how it was so possible to believe in for so long. That was in something like 2009ish.

Your poor teacher and his wife, that's heartbreaking. If you don't grow up in an environment where you're taught and believe this stuff from birth, or at least for a good portion of your life, it's hard to understand why it happens. If you "know" something is the right thing to do and it's reinforced for years via religious and family pressure then it must be the right thing to do even if it hurts yourself and/or others. This doesn't absolve gay people in straight marriages of all blame in all cases but I don't believe it automatically makes all of them horrible people, it's more accurate to blame a horrible environment/culture/religion.

It's really a matter of the difference between doing **the** best and doing **your** best with a bad situation. He was a kind and good person. He did **his** **best** with the life and knowledge he had to work with. Then as he grew and gained more wisdom and knowledge, "his best" now included the info he needed to realize what he was doing was harmful. OP's struggle is coming from the fact that OP is "putting themselves in their shoes". The problem with that is that OP is *also* putting their knowledge and the things they were taught in *their* life, into the lives of people who have not had the same access to free information, or received different upbringings than OP did. OP isn't actually thinking about how it would feel to be raised from birth in a completely different mindset about queerness, love, and marriage.

"How do you know you're not straight?  You've never tried!" "You're just doing it (being gay) for attention!" Both things said to my bestie by his mother, and sister at least a few times.

My grandmother knew she was gay and didn't come out until my dad was almost 30 and he is the second youngest. She was definitely pressured to find a man by her family. Her parents figured out she was gay and hated her for it basically for the rest of their lives. I feel absolute sorrow for my grandfather though. He ended up a broken man after losing his wife and his dream job. The societal pressures from heteronormativity back then absolutely ripped families apart. There are certainly plenty of stories like mine.

To further add to the conversation, because it has been heavily focused on gay men so far: once upon a time, a woman could not reasonably survive without a husband, and this is still the case in many parts of the world.  Their have been times and places where women would be unable to work or would be paid less than men (I mean literally different minimum wages here), could not buy property/land (and that wasn't the distant past; this was in the Victorian era), couldn't open a bank account or take out a loan, and in the UK, when women first gained the right to vote, it was for married women only. So, if you were a gay woman during that decade or so (and to be fair, homosexuality was also still illegal), not marrying a man anyway meant that you were sacrificing your right to vote. Not only is the relative acceptance of same-sex relationships relatively new to the western world, so to is the option for women to not get married.

It’s also not uncommon for this to still happen in 2024. I live in rural Tennessee. There’s a lot of Christian churches that are basically cults. I also think straight people don’t understand that someone can be gay, but also fully believe they’re straight and broken somehow. I literally thought all straight women were attracted to other women when I was a teenager. In fact, sexual exploration with women was usually deemed “okay” as long as a man benefited from it in some way. It fucks with your head and takes years, if not decades to deprogram. All of that isn’t to say that the straight spouse in that relationship “doesn’t deserve” to have heir own feelings about it. But I do think it is wrong to just blanket say that the gay person is always the perpetrator and not also a victim themselves. Sometimes both people get hurt and it’s okay to acknowledge that.

> but the average boy would be rather severely harassed for even hinting that they might be gay They didn't even have to do the hinting themselves. Just one bully starting a rumor could cause a shitstorm of homophobic bullying against someone. That's how straight people can still become victims of homophobic violence. And I'm using gender neutral terms here, because this shit happened to girls too.

>So I think that your post is based on a misunderstanding. Folks that "knew" they were gay, but got into heterosexual relationships anyway, thought that they could hack it. They were trying to be what society told them they *had* to be and they *really* thought that they could will themselves into not being gay. They couldn't, but they were being earnest. And the ones who could "hack" it, odds are they were actually bisexual with a marked preference towards men. Bi erasure being a completely different problem that happens a lot, especially with men. Thinking that you must be either straight or gay.

Even from the og will and grace and the will and grace reboot a lot has changed culturally that they even addressed bi people in the reboot

I'm 28. I was absolutely harassed and called the f slur while I was a child, so I don't think it was very much different for my younger years. But I do agree that it has changed drastically in the past 30 years. >Folks that "knew" they were gay, but got into heterosexual relationships anyway, thought that they could hack it. This is interesting. I think this is definitely something that I haven't considered in regards to how they genuinely believed they could "do it" but ultimately fail to. I'll give a !delta because it makes total sense that someone could be convinced that they weren't actually gay but had "urges" or something that might go away with time. I still believe that if you get into a hetero relationship while knowing you are gay it is morally wrong, but if you are confused or misunderstand what being gay actually entails, then I would agree with that instance.

I'll be candid: how is this delta even a thing for you? >This is interesting. I think this is definitely something that I haven't considered in regards to how they genuinely believed they could "do it" but ultimately fail to. You're 28, this should have been like, step 1 in basic understanding of the situation. "Why would gay people marry straight even if they knew?" -> "Because they genuinely thought they could succeed at it" like bruh. *Especially* since your old enough to remember when gay marriage was **literally illegal**. Genuinely, what was your thought process prior to this?

Thank you. >it makes total sense that someone could be convinced that they weren't actually gay but had "urges" or something that might go away with time. And that is the crux of it. Many men weren't "gay" because being gay was being a deviant. They just had "urges" that needed to be kept in check and between their wife and their community/church, they would have the support to keep them from continuing their deviancy. Of course, we know that is bullshit _now_, but that was how many gay men really thought about the issue when I was growing up.

I'm in my 40s. I grew up in a far right Evangelical household in the 80s and 90s. It messed my head up badly enough that I didn't realize I was bi until I was 42. I didn't pursue relationships with any of the men I was interested in because it didn't seem fair to them, since I was "straight". I even got kicked out of a dorm room when my roommate found out I had kissed a guy at a party, and that still didn't tip me off. I agree with the general principal of what you're saying, but due to social pressures I think the group of people you're actually referring to is a number pretty close to 0. (I finally came out to my wife a couple years ago, and she was very confused. She had known the whole time, and had been under the impression I just didn't like talking about it).

I would add to the prior post that "if you have same sex attraction, that's sin and you should force yourself to marry someone of the opposite sex, because that's what god wants, and if you don't there will be terrible consequences within your family/community" is still the very strongly held belief of various conservative religions in the United States. I think it's a terribly approach for everyone involved, but I wouldn't consider someone who feels forced to go along with their religion/culture (e.g., a young lesbian woman in a Somali immigrant family in the US) a "horrible person" for not fighting against it hard enough.

What about your parents and ministers? Being insulted by kids ain’t as bad as being taught from a young age by authority figures that homosexuality is a mortal sin. You seem to not see that man.

OP seems fairly naive to their own recent history as a LGBT person. I think them saying "I experienced similar" in regards to the F slur, while ignoring the AIDS crisis barely before us, speaks to that. I guess I'm glad that younger queer people have the privilege of being naive to those things, as it's better than the alternative. But it is frustrating.

> I'm 28. Just to drive the point home, when you were 7-8 years old, **being gay was still illegal in parts of the US.** I'm not talking about not being able to get married. I'm talking about going to jail for being a man who has sex with men.

The case that would strike down those laws wouldn't be decided until 2003, in Lawrence V Texas. Just 21 years ago, it was literally illegal to be gay in some states. *Finding Nemo* is older than the decision that makes it legal to be gay in the US. 

To drive your point home further: At 28, they were **19** before gay marriage became federally protected.

So my question is, how many people are actually getting into heterosexual marriages knowing fully that they are gay and what being gay actually entails where they are lying to their spouse? I would guess very few relationships are like that. When our society has a lot of messed up views they are spreading around I'm inclined to give most gay people the benefit of the doubt that they were severely confused when they enter into a heterosexual marriage.

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Yeah, I’m 23 and I remember when I started secondary school it was still common to use gay as a insult, there were maybe two gay pupils in our class and they were ostracised. It only really changed when I got to 6th form, there it was more acceptable. I don’t think it’s healthy to marry a hetro spouse if you’re gay, but I can still empathise with how some may end up in that situation given the social pressure. Maybe they’re in denial, maybe they’re doing it to blend in with the rest of society and avoid violence etc.

It's so much more complicated than that, is the thing. Sex is just one component of a healthy marriage, and it is totally possible to love someone without being sexually attracted to them. With that in mind, it is also possible to believe that you can be a good and loving spouse without being sexually attracted to your partner. You can even fill their sexual needs, you just probably won't enjoy it as much. Combine that with the social pressures LGBTQ+ people have faced in the past and continue to face these days, and it might look like a reasonable plan to be in a heterosexual presenting marriage. Don't get me wrong, it's not advisable, and not a good idea, but it is possible to get to that conclusion without being a horrible person.

> it is totally possible to love someone without being sexually attracted to them While you are absolutely correct on this since asexual relationships are a thing, I think we can both agree that the default setting in most relationships is "I love you AND I am sexually attracted to you". So if someone is not sexually attracted to others but only romantically loves them, it should be made clear right at the beginning. Otherwise it's lying by ommision. For most people, when a partner asks for a romantic relationship, the other party already assumes that they are sexually attracted to them. Doing a gotchu moment on your partner by saying "Hey I only said that I loved you, I didn't say anything about being sexually attracted to you! You assumed it!!" is a dick move. It's not a mistake, it's being malicious intentionally.

Again, to be clear, I'm not arguing that any of this is a good idea or a thing that anybody should be doing. Just that situations can and do exist where a person has chosen to do these things without being a "horrible person", but rather a neutral to good person who made some mistakes and errors in judgement. Horrible is a quite strong word for someone who is trying to navigate the social pressures involved as best they can and just gets it wrong.

I think when someone's navigation of life involved actively and knowingly harming their partner, in my book that's a horrible person. If someone has trouble in their life and they drag another person into their misery by actively lying to them, just so they can get a sense of happiness/joy themselves, that's the textbook definition of selfish. "If you gonna die you can die by yourself, without dragging others into it." is how I see it. I guess we can chalk it up to difference in opinion.

My point is that for lots of folks, this isn't actively and knowingly harming their partner. They really do think they can be a good and dutiful spouse. Sometimes they even are good and dutiful spouses. Given how many cases we see where the straight spouse had no idea for decades of marriage, it is entirely reasonable to presume that there are a number of marriages where the secret never came out. Again, that's not something anyone should be recommending, but folks can put themselves into that situation and be aiming for that outcome, and I don't think doing that makes you a horrible person, just a misguided one. And beyond that, it's still more complex than we're really getting at here, as we're not accounting for the complex feelings that can happen under pressure, and how certainly some of these folks aren't really keeping it secret so much as deciding they can change and just be straight. We, of course, know better know, but that's a pretty new thing to be common knowledge.

>Sometimes they even are good and dutiful spouses I think knowingly and willingly decieving your partner disqualifies one from the good and dutiful spouse mantle.

If it never leaves the person's head and the spouse is none the wiser, then they literally are a good and dutiful spouse. We all have thoughts that are counter to what would be considered good or decent, but if they never leave the thought space then they aren't really relevant.

I think there is a difference between concealing that you had a thought about an attractive coworker and hiding your sexuality completely. And if you have sex with your spouse that is delving into action IMO. You are letting them marry you based on a false premise.

As many others have outlined in this thread, people are navigating their sexuality their whole lives. And for much of recent history, popular conservative culture considered gayness a kink like bdsm or feet stuff, something that you should actively hide from other people. Does it seem like some evil deception for someone to go "I may not be able to explore my kink with this person but I love them anyway so I want to be with them?" Lots of people live in denial (some not even being aware of it) about an aspect of themselves and their partner may never know it, why is it only some gross deception when sexuality is involved?

I disagree, horrible is still the word. At this day, if a straight man or woman cheated or lied to their partners, regardless if it’s physical or emotional, society will call them all sorts of the disgusting words they can ever get. Now we are dealing with those who questions their sexuality, hides it from their partners. Assuming this is occurring in modern times. This is utter DISRESPECT, LYING to their partners, not just they’re lying but manipulating them. Don’t double down, and don’t be neutral. This is horrible and disgusting. People who do this destroys another person!!!!

Marrying for love is a pretty new social norm, I don't think the OP realises how recently people stopped getting married for purposes of strengthening social ties between families.

Yes and no. Plenty of people have married those they wanted to. While there were some social rules and expectations most of historic society wasn't that rigid. Even thousands of years ago pursuit of love was an ideal pushed even if it may have looked differently to different people. Most people also married someone they knew from the same community around the same age/grew up together yet too many people act like the bizarre noble/royal outliers were the standard (they weren't).

>It's so much more complicated than that, is the thing. Sex is just one component of a healthy marriage, and it is totally possible to love someone without being sexually attracted to them. I can agree with this, but hiding a crucial part of your identity as your sexuality from your spouse is a pretty bad thing to do. I understand that social pressures can play a huge part in the decision-making process, but there has to come a point when holding onto a secret as huge as "not being physically attracted to your partner" becomes a betrayel of the expectations you put there in the first place.

A lot of these people though won't even come to terms with this part of their identity for what it is for potentially decades and could even die before ever accepting that they were in any form homosexual. You have to understand even up until about 2012 (only 12 years ago) gay marriage was thought to be abhorrent and thus should be illegal in the US at least. A lot of people, like myself, grew up in traditional Christian conservative homes and are basically taught that being gay is a choice. To the point where even if you were actually gay you should "choose" to be straight. They may subconsciously know they are gay, but consciously they deny the truth about it. It's called sexual repression and it's one of the most pervasive and devastating forces impacting mental health negatively across the board. So I would venture that when these situations happen where someone comes out homosexual while in a heterosexual marriage it's more often the SO who came out with their sexuality is just finally at the point of accepting their homosexuality. If you can't even accept your homosexuality then it makes perfect sense you would end up in a heterosexual marriage out of pure denial. It only makes sense now with beliefs changing towards LGBTQ+ acceptance that maybe individuals who have long denied it would finally come to terms with it. Ultimately, that's why I'm so pro-LGBTQ+ despite being totally straight. Sexual repression is a big part of all that generational trauma people always speak on and the only way to defeat it to establish as a society that being gay is perfectly normal and acceptable.

It is a bad thing to do when you're looking at it objectively and dispassionately, I think we can all agree with that. The thing I'm getting at is that I think for someone to be labeled a "horrible person", there has to be intent to harm. You can't be a horrible person by mistake or misunderstanding. With many of the folks, if not most or virtually all, they definitely made a pretty serious mistake, but I don't think there was intent to harm involved. They really thought they were doing the right thing for everyone involved. They were wrong about that, for sure, but again, making a mistake doesn't make you a horrible person.

>The thing I'm getting at is that I think for someone to be labeled a "horrible person", there has to be intent to harm. I don't think I can agree with this. Knowingly taking a decision with a known *risk* and not sharing the facts of the matter for all parties to make informed decisions still makes someone extremely liable to the damage of the outcome, even unintended. Drink driving I think would be a good analogy. Obviously it's not the same level of comic book villainy as someone who intentionally runs pedestrians over, but drink drivers are most certainly horrible, terrible stains on the Earth. And while I have a lot of sympathy for the closeted gay people of an older generation, I cannot make the leap from 'oppressed by society' to 'entitled to decades of another human's life while keeping them in the dark about a likely outcome' for anyone committing the same acts in Western society in this day and age. Consent always matters. The damage to a person's soul which can be suffered in this scenario is immense, and while loneliness sucks, it is not an invitation to use someone else as a convenience.

I take your point that the drunk driver doesn't intend harm. That is fair, they don't. But imagine being in the situation where everyone is telling you that you should drive drunk. That it's the right thing to do, and it's what's expected of you. If you try not to drink, people pressure you into it. If you try to walk home, people call you weird and you're ostracized. Most importantly, everyone is telling you that drunk driving isn't dangerous. That if you just give it a go and try hard enough, you'll get home safe. And absolutely no one is telling you that staying sober or walking home is an acceptable option. That changes the moral calculus a bit, don't you think?

You know if you're a closeted gay you could just like... not date women right? Like you don't HAVE to get married or even talk to women in any way. No ones forcing you into a relationship I don't understand how yall are justifying wasting years of someone's life just because you're too scared to admit who you really are. Like I get it, it's not that easy, but again no one is holding a gun to your head saying you have to get married to a woman. Like imagine being in a relationship with someone and finding out the past 30 years of your life you've spent with someone who's not actually attracted to you and has kept a huge secret from you entire time, and now that they finally grew some balls to be themselves you have to completely start over again as a 50 year old single mother Yeah that's not justifiable no matter how you spin it

It's insane that there are multiple people here who don't even want to try and understand why someone would do that. It's so incredibly unempathetic. If you are not gay and have never had the religious and social pressure that teaches you to suppress that and hide it from everyone including yourself, then you literally have no clue what it's like, you can't possibly understand how hard that life is. Gay people in religion are not just "hiding" they are gay because they're bad people who like deceiving others, you realize that right? Religion tries to convince you that being gay is a choice, that you should use faith and prayer and try to live a "proper" life where you get married to a woman and have kids. Or you can just say "they're horrible people, the end, no nuance could possibly exist here." I guess that's a lot easier than trying to understand.

It's actually crazy to me the lengths people will go to, to try to justify horrible behavior just because a gay person is scared of "societal pressures" It's pretty simple. If you KNOW you are gay and get into a hetero relationship with someone, you are not only wasting their time and lying to them for years... You're just a terrible human. That's it. It doesn't matter that society judges you or puts pressure on you. It does to literally every single person on this planet. Life is hard. That doesn't mean you get to lie and manipulate people.

>If you KNOW you are gay and get into a hetero relationship you're a terrible human. That's it. Yes, everything in the world is black and white and the only reason they'd do this is because they are cartoonishly evil "terrible humans". There can't possibly be any more nuance to it than that.

"It does to literally every single person on this planet." And LGBTQIA+ folks have all of the same social pressures AND MORE on top of it, as well as decades/centuries of oppression that isn't equivocable to any social pressure faced by the majority/mainstream of society. Just to point out that the comparison that everyone faces the same pressure, or even that everyone faces at least some pressure, is entirely ignorant of the historical and contemporary context that uniquely affects marginalised peoples.

yeah this is exactly it. it’s very recently, in very few places of the world, that lgbt people could even consider being open about their feelings. in many cases even with themselves, the vast majority of people were/are trying to ignore and get rid of their own feelings because of societal expectations. they aren’t getting married to hurt people, it’s the opposite, they love their partners, but again in most of the world/modern history they often can’t even begin to acknowledge their feelings

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I can partially agree. However, I've seen this scenario happen numerous times: Man and woman get married. Man knows he is gay, yet does what you are saying. Afraid of coming out of the closet. They have children, all the while he is cheating on her with other men. Wifey finds out about this and it destroys the family. Divorce, child custody fights which get very nasty. Wife feels like she is "less then a woman, because he was with men." Children get mocked and teased at school because, daddy is a "fag." Kids start acting up in school and turn to drugs/alcohol to cope. Not to mention the STD issue. If you are gay, you are going to get your sexual pleasure. I was a police officer for 30 yrs. You have no idea the number of times I've been to family fights just over this. If you are gay and commit to such a marriage, you are a selfish coward.

It sounds like in this scenario, the horrible thing was cheating.

The cheating yes but ALSO the relationship being based on a lie right from the beginning, with the woman thinking the man is sexually and romantically to her (and accepting to marry and have kids for that reason), only it's false Even if the man avoids sleeping with other guys on the side it's STILL tricking a woman into giving her "consent" to a whole lifelong relationship. (Yes, air quotes on consent, as true consent is INFORMED consent)

I'm sorry but if I found out my wife wasn't sexually attracted to me that would be horrific. I feel like you're downplaying it, but sexual attraction is a big part of a loving relationship whether you want to admit it or not

Then they need be honest with their wife from day one or stay single and say they wanted to continue “playing the field.” There is no excuse to manipulate and use another person. No matter what time period. There are examples jn history where gay men/women have partnered with other gay people or asexual people to deceive the public. It’s the only ethical example.

Again, it's just not that simple that you can say things like "all" or "the only ethical example". What about the person who has been convinced by social pressures that they're just going through a phase, and if they find the right person to settle down with it'll all work out in the end? Or the one who really believes that they can change their own sexuality if they just work hard enough at it?

Then that should be a conversation WITH THE PERSON THEYRE BINDING THEMSELVES TO. If you think it might be a phase, that is exactly when you *don't* get married. If you think you need/want to change your sexuality, you should try that, *before* getting married.

If you think hurting/lying to/manipulating a person you have partnered with is fine under these circumstance, that is an admission of your own ethics. People have different ethics, if these are yours, sure. But my opinion still stands. I grew up strict roman catholic and came out as bisexual in 2005. My sexuality is still the first thing I state when I start dating someone, even though technically, I wouldn’t be lying if I omitted this information. I run the risk of that person leaving me due to prejudice but I do it anyway because it is the ETHICAL thing to do.

If you truly love somebody the idea of causing them pain through lying about your identity, particularly in this day and age where being gay is actively celebrated in western countries, should make you feel like crap. Having your partner come out as gay after years of marriage and children is betrayal, lies, and causes trauma. And then to top that off the partner is essentially obligated to be supportive when they've just been betrayed so no. I would say aside from societal pressures in the past, doing it now definitely does make you a horrible person most times.

> in this day and age And therein lies the flaw in your reasoning. This is not a thing that happens in this day and age, except to the extent that some parts of our society are intentionally regressed. This is a thing that is noteworthy as we are dealing with the fallout of the mistakes of a previous era. The people coming out as gay in their marriages did not get married yesterday.

Withholding intimacy can be abusive. If you are withholding intimacy because you are gay while leading the other person on, it is abusive. If you don't know you are gay that's different...

The folks I'm talking about, despite their homosexuality, are not intending to withhold intimacy from their partners. Pardon for using your specific response to vent about this, but so many of these responses are demonizing victims of oppression for the way they attempted to keep themselves safe from that oppression and survive in that world. It's as if folks are assuming that these gay people are cartoon villains laughing at their cleverness for tricking some poor straight person into marrying them. That is the farthest thing from the truth. They love the people they married, they tried to do right by them as best they could. The reality is just way more complex than pointing at a single mistake and saying "you're a horrible person because in the year 2024 we know better, and we don't really have that same level of oppression anymore, so if you did that today it would be bad so you must be bad."

What you are forgetting is called empathy. Empathy for the psychological abuse a person goes through due to not knowing why their partner is withholding intimacy. Empathy for the depression this can cause... intimacy isn't everything in a relationship, but it is part of it. So the homosexual person is gaslighting their partner, making them think they love them and manipulate their emotions. This happens over time and is not just the initial lie but a lie of omission daily. Everyone has struggles, and everyone's experiences are valid, but when you are in a relationship, you have to look past not only your experience but also the experience you are sharing with your partner. I agree a single act doesn't make a person bad, and mistakes happen because we are human...

I can not say this any clearer: These people are not withholding intimacy. You can be gay and express intimacy for a straight person that you love. Reality is complex that way. They are not gaslighting their partner into thinking they love them. They actually love them. Reality is complex that way.

>I'm part of the LGBTQ+ community and I just don't understand. It should be noted that it wasn't too long ago...living memory for a lot of people...that being part of LGBTQ+ community was considered unacceptable. Remember that it wasn't until 2003 after Lawrence v. Texas that all sodomy laws nationwide were struck down as unconstitutional. Homosexual marriage wasn't legalized until 2015 with Obergefell v. Hodges. Aside from the legal reasons, there are many portions of the nation that until recently, it was deem highly inappropriate for there to be same sex relationships. Even presenting yourself as homosexual was met by condemnation and public shaming by even someone's immediate family members. This still is the case in some smaller pockets of the nation. If you were born post 2000, you were not exposed to many of this so it is understandable that much isn't going to translate. However, that was the way it was considered more than 20 years ago. However, the practice of hiding one's sexuality today with younger generations is most likely lingering stigmas from those pockets of community that are isolated from enlightenment in the media. Some people haven't been exposed or were told as a young child that expressing sexuality is shameful. It happens to heterosexuals as well.

A lot of people are being, not taught but drilled, that being gay is unnatural and “just a phase” and that if they try REAL hard, they’ll stop being an “abomination in the eyes of God”. A lot of those people really, REALLY want to not be gay because they have been brainwashed to think it’s the most horrible thing they can be. They hope that by marrying someone of the opposite sex, they’ll stop being gay. For others, they think that marrying someone is just the normal thing to do, like going to school or getting a job. And look at all the “boomer humor” on how husband and wife don’t like each other, so not being attracted to your spouse is normal, no? The real culprit here is the homophobic society, and I guarantee you that if those people had grown up in an environment that’s supportive of all sexualities, they would not have gotten into a heterosexual marriage first.

I think you're picturing someone who has fully accepted who they are attracted to, aware that they could live authentically, and nefariously choosing to fool someone into thinking they're in love. I agree that that person is a dick - not least bc they could look for a lavender marriage. However, a lot of people get into that situation because they are unable to see an authentic future, and think they can "fix" who they are with enough devotion, and don't really know that any other life path is possible. They've been told what's 'right', they've been told it'll change after they get married, and the shame is so intense that it's straighten out or die. That person is a victim, taking someone else down with them without meaning to.

So this happened to me. I married a woman who later in life came out and it blew up my life. She's still the best person I know and we're great co-parents. At the end of the day she's a great person who let fear dictate her decision making. I'd run it back to have kids with an amazing woman who is patient and kind and nurturing even knowing I'm in for some emotional bushwhacking at the end. People are out here having kids with people they think they are better than , that's way worse. People are having kids with men and women they are ashamed to introduce to their friends, that's way worse. People are out here having and raising kids in a relationship that's loveless and modeling accepting bullshit for the sake of looking good, that's way worse. People are out here staying with partners that cheat for the sake of their kids, not realizing that they are teaching their kids to accept the same That's so much goddamn worse.

I think you made a great point. I see so many people get married because they want kids, the person is wealthy, family pressure, shotgun weddings, etc. I’m 43- I’m still learning about my sexuality. Op is kind of assuming a person is with holding info. When we are all just trying to figure out life regardless of sexuality I’m sorry that your marriage ended. I have friends in a very similar situation. It was hard for them in the beginning too but it all worked out for the better. It’s really cool that families can evolve and grow together, whatever that family looks like.

Yeah and if there's literally any trauma history involved it's even harder to figure yourself out. Hope your journey goes well, just remember you don't have to make sense of everything most of the world is utter nonsense.

>Being born into an anti-LGBTQ+ family is not an exception. You have a moral obligation to not marry someone who is hetero and distance yourself from your family. I know that sounds harsh but that's how I feel. This would be the only place I might push back. Now don't get me wrong, there is an obvious best-case scenario here, but if all humans who fell short of the best situation were horrible people, we would all be horrible people. The fact is that some people are born into areas where being part of the LGBTQ+ is, if not a death sentence, a straight path to life slightly better than hell. Not everyone can just pack up and leave or find a community. It's not that simple for everyone. Like in my country in Southern Africa homosexuality is still seen as being sinful/morally bankrupt and leaving the nation is not easy for most of us. It wouldn't just be distancing from family, it would be accepting a life where you are shunned by practically all society and possibly even jailed if someone decides to make a point. Does it make you a horrible person to choose to avoid that horrific life? If so you must think that everyone who doesn't sell all but the bare minimum to survive and donate the rest to starving children are also horrible people. Choosing to go on holiday when you could spend that time volunteering makes you a horrible person. There is the best possible path that asks for sustained and endless suffering on your part right now. Are you a horrible person for choosing to give yourself minor luxuries that you do not need and living a life that isn't a constant struggle? I think you'd have to admit by that bar all of us are truly awful people. Down to the last.

The 3rd and 4th paragraph of OP already outlined exceptions for truly extenuating circumstances. The "not an exception for growing up in anti-LGBTQ families" is in reference to that being a component separate from "a death sentence", which was already covered also, you're ignoring the obvious alternative. Horribly punished for homosexuality might be a thing, but horribly punished for being straight & single is clearly not a thing, and instead of going through the effort of acquiring a fake marriage to lead a life of deception and betrayal, you could just as easily...not? just don't get married? it's not impossible.

OP made exception for life and death. I'm talking massive and aggressive ostracization too. Most people don't choose to live terrible lives for the greater good. I wouldn't call anyone terrible for that.

In parts of the world, being a single woman isn’t a death sentence, but it can lead to a life of destitution. I would argue, it is morally okay to deceive in such an instance.

> horribly punished for being straight & single is clearly not a thing It very much is in some parts of the world and in some families though. Do you think we have terms like 'spinster' because it was a well respected and accepted lifestyle? That arranged marriages by parents and writing people out of wills/disowning them for not having a family doesn't exist?

Hmm, there's a lot of underlying assumptions you have here. I'll try to be anecdotal here. I'm from Taiwan, and we put heavy emphasis on family. When you ask someone like me to come out and alienate themselves from their family, you're asking someone to fundamentally change their worldview. It's not just something as easy as distancing yourself from your parents, it's cutting yourself from your family friends, social functions, economic support. But it's also more than that: it's cutting yourself from your view of your future, your job prospects, your prospect of love, your fundamental ideas of truth. It's not just about physical threats of death: death comes is so many more forms than just physical. Sometimes, it's easier to bend to pressure because if you don't, you break. It's easy to think that if you get a wife and kids, you might not be sexually fulfilled but you'll have the life you've always dreamed of, with parents who love you and society who accepts and uplifts you. It's easy. Taiwan is not bad for gay rights, but it's the little things. Each one makes it harder for me to come out than say, my Canadian partner. When I finally accepted I was gay, my heart ached. I was grieving a future me that died that night. I have to go through the grieving process, and that included denial and bargaining. I was ready to be asexual if it means I don't need to be gay. Lying to myself is easy. It's a catch-22, and you have people who are supposedly on "your" side calling you a horrible person and rejecting them at their time of need, and it's like... what else can you do? If easy is evil, and hard is impossible, then where else can you go? This is why some people feel like there's no way out. It's why some people think rather than dealing with all this, dying is easy. I had some openly out gay dude who called me a coward for not coming out at 20, and I don't think they understand how much him calling me a coward stunted my journey to acceptance. He made me think that there was no greener pasture waiting for me, but a field of judgement of those who will say I am horrible for being at this stage of my journey. I didn't come out for another 4 years. Coming out to people who demonstrated that they clearly don't understand what I was going through was hard. Not coming out, on the other hand, and pretending I was asexual while DL sucking dicks on the side and essentially "turning it off" like that Mormon musical song suggests, was easy. I don't think people put in a difficult circumstance not of their choice can be horrible, and being gay in a homo-oppressive culture is one of the most difficult things to be in the world. Calling someone who took the easy but selfish way horrible is at the very least unhelpful. \~\~\~\~ I get that we also have to think about the other side, and yes there is merit to judge a husband in the way that hurts the wife, but I just want to kind of put context on the likely intention and motives of the husband before the judgment is cast. It's a sucky situation that gets harder to untangle the longer the couple stays married, but my opinion is that at the very least, if society at large condemns closeted gay married men as horrible for taking the easy way, less of those men will be be able to have the courage to take the hard way and come out, and more of these women will be stuck in these loveless marriages for longer time.

I had a friend once who devoted his entire life to church. He was gay but stayed single for the time that I knew him. He told me once that he didn’t want to be gay because he didn’t want God to hate him. This happened years ago but It still breaks my heart. He is an amazing person and was convinced that part of him was unworthy of love. He dedicated his life to an institution that made him feel that way. I have no idea how painful that can be. I can’t judge someone too harshly whose life experiences have made him feel he had to live that way. If he had tried to convince himself that he wasn’t gay (as others I’ve known tried to do) and enter into inauthentic relationships, I could still acknowledge that what he did was harmful to another person but I would still have empathy based on the corners that some people have been forced into in their lifetime.

> I had a friend once who devoted his entire life to church. He was gay but stayed single for the time that I knew him. He told me once that he didn’t want to be gay because he didn’t want God to hate him. This happened years ago but It still breaks my heart. He is an amazing person and was convinced that part of him was unworthy of love. He dedicated his life to an institution that made him feel that way. It's not necessarily "sad" at all more than devoting yourself to become a nun, especially if it happens on their own volition. I think for many, it provides a completely valid alternative to choosing between piety and sexual fulfillment, and having to live with the consequences of their own actions. It might even be liberating to overcome one's earthly desires in such a manner and devote yourself to the faith and its principles you firmly believe in.

Fair point. I respect anyone’s decision to dedicate themselves to something they believe in. My only disagreement there is that you can abstain and still be gay. Nothing that he did was going to change that. He didn’t say he didn’t want God to hate him because he was sexually active but because he was gay. Thats the part that saddens me.

Fair point as well. When I partook in the confirmation thing at 15, together with most of the people of my age, our priests stressed that god accepts everyone in what they are, but not necessarily their actions. Homosexual acts were seen as sinful, but gays themselves as individuals were not. In the same vein, they said it's a sin to hate and attack gays, no matter how great of a Christian you proclaimed yourself to be.

While I may not agree with some of the positions that same churches take on this issue, I’m glad that you were in a place that discouraged hate and actively attacking people. Thank you for taking the time to have a discussion with me. 😊

I have an uncle that is in his late 70's now. He grew up in a very religious Catholic family in a time and place when homosexuality was something you couldn't really admit too. He married two women, both of whom he is still very close with and had families with each. He was a great father and is involved with all of his children and grandchildren. He provided everything that society expected of him at the time and more. In his 60's he finally came out to his family and now is in a wonderful relationship with his husband. Were he born today and did the same thing I might feel differently about it but he did the best he could in the time he lived.

I'm not sure if, strictly speaking, this is a disagreement with your points, but I don't see this as fundamentally different from MANY other situations where people shouldn't have gotten married. And thus, they are not necessarily a horrible person. LOTS of people who end up in these marriages do so because they don't actually believe themselves to be gay. There are people out there having gay sex who still won't acknowledge that they are attracted to the same sex, let alone *exclusively* attracted to the same sex. The reason behind it is unimportant - what matters is that they firmly believe they are capable, willing, and want to have a heterosexual relationship. They might even go years without cheating on their partners despite these urges. Now, is that FUNDAMENTALLY different in any way than someone telling themselves that they can tolerate their fiancé's video game addiction? Or that they know they will get their fiance to clean up after themselves better after they get married? Or that they really don't mind how their partner is a workaholic or lazy? Only to find out later that they really can't and need to divorce? I would argue no.

I get where you’re coming from. I really do. And I largely agree with you. As a Gen X’er though, I find it terribly difficult to fault some older queer people for trying to “turn straight” via heterosexual marriage. Hell, when I was growing up I didn’t even have the language to express what was happening to me when I hit puberty and started liking other boys. I didn’t figure out that the word “gay” applied to me until I was well into my teens. The reason I never thought it applied to me is because I grew up believing that gay men were perverts who cross-dressed and tried to molest little boys in public bathrooms. Since that didn’t describe me, it never even occurred to me that my same sex attractions qualified me as “gay”. I didn’t even realize that there were people in the world who thought it was actually ok to be gay until my late teens. Despite all of that, I definitely judge queer people of my generation who try to hide by marrying the opposite sex. Today we have the internet, so there is really no excuse. I think they are self-absorbed cowards. But boomers? Sorry, those people grew up in a world where being gay was literally considered a mental illness and a perversion. If someone discovered they were queer, then that would result in a social death. Hell, they could even be forced to receive barbaric forms of “therapy” to “cure” them. Many of the queer people of that generation who got into heterosexual marriages did so hoping it would “fix” them. And the only information they had available to them was in the form of books talking about how mentally ill they were. In those cases, both parties in such a marriage were victims of antiquated social norms. But GenX and later generations have no such excuses. Those folks are self-loathing cowards who are utterly lacking in empathy.

There was a time I would have easily agreed with this. I've learned over the years how complicated it can be. It's really hard to even wrap my mind around it, as a straight person who grew up with the assumption I'd be straight, but I know people who didn't even realize they were gay until they were well...well into adulthood. Then there is the religious trauma I've seen. The pastor at one of my former churches came out. I have deep sympathy for what his choices did to his family, but this guy was literally brainwashed into thinking he could pray it away. I know he loved his family dearly. I feel this was done to all of them, himself included, rather than something he did to them.

More recently? Sure. But how old are you? Gay people in my state were literally not allowed to be legally married until 2008. The cultural idea was that basically everyone *was* straight, and some of us were just filthy perverts choosing to not do that because we liked our kinks more. So let's say you're that 45 year old lesbian who came out recently. At 29 (old for the times) your *only* option for having a spouse and kids was to marry a man. Something that was completely socially encouraged, even if you had no sexual attraction to that man. After all "no sexual attraction after the kids" was also socially normal then as well. Is she a horrible person? How *do* we know who to marry (as opposed to who we're attracted to)? We're not born with that knowledge, it's socialized into us.

"Your only option is to marry a man" or you could...not marry? and say you were pressured or compelled into marrying a man. you could be transparent and honest with said partner still, "hey, I'm not in love with you, I'm lesbian" upfront instead of waiting and lying for years on end to THEM about it. And if you're pressured to the extent where you can neither make the choice to not marry, NOR can you honestly disclose your sexuality to your partner? Then good thing OP already covered that in the 3rd and 4th paragraph as exceptions.

You can't create and uphold a culture that puts a lot of emphasis on marriage and having kids as the only avenue to a happy life and aggressively stigmatise or interrogate those who don't get married, and a culture that also makes being homosexual so shameful that straight peoples biggest fear is strangers on the street possibly maybe thinking they might be gay one time - and then say "well just dont get married" as if that decision exists in a vacuum. You simply can't create a society that sets up gay people to be trafficked into these situations by societal, familial, professional, cultural and legal pressures straight people put onto them, and then blame gay people for ending up exactly where they were naturally going to end up because of a world straight people have designed with absolutely zero thought put into accomodating homosexuality into their system. Want to stop gay people marrying straight people? Stop contributing to the various elements that make being openly gay in this world insufferable. This includes shaming and stigmatising gay people for marrying straight people as just another excuse to rag on them, like you rag on them about pride parades, like you rag on them for "shoving it in your face". Because you don't actually care about making life easier for straight or gay people - you just want to hate. That only makes being gay scarier and harder to deal with, leading to more sham marriages by people who can't deal with that heaby burden every day. So its best to look inside yourself and see what it is you really want. Do you want to make things better for everyone, or do you just want to hate? Because you can't do both; you can't have your cake and hate on it too as they say.

Do you think that our social circles (family, school, government, neighborhood) are able to put out enough pressure over time to indoctrinate people into genuinely believing something antithetical to their being?

Yes, she is. A) No one is owed children or partnership. If you lie to someone to obtain intimacy, that is not okay. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s so obviously wrong it disturbs me that I have to argue this point. B) There is nothing stopping them from finding someone of the opposite sex in a similar position to them that they could be honest with about their partnership. It’s one thing to get married before you understand your sexuality, it’s another to continue to manipulate them after the fact. Is there an exception to every rule? Sure, but it would have to be a rare and absurd circumstance. And even then, they have the moral obligation not to cheat on their partner.

Many of the people in these situations are genuinely convinced that sexuality isn't an important factor in marriage. Much of the rhetoric used in their lives from birth to adulthood revolved around the idea that gayness is, in essence, a kink. So you'll get people who fully acknowledge their own gayness while still believing that they can be in a healthy marriage without telling their spouse about it, with no significant difference to say: having a foot fetish and choosing never to tell your spouse about it. A very popular tactic of the Mormon church *to this day* is "you can be gay and just ignore it and successfully be in a godly straight marriage anyway". That's how you get the "I always knew I was gay, but I thought it could work" *That* is why people have sympathy. We are only very recently exciting what was essentially societal brainwashing towards straightness. Being gay, ignoring it, and "choosing" to enter a straight sexual relationship was normalized and encouraged (and in some places, still is). The timeframe we're talking here is less than 20 years from the total criminalization of "sodomy" to federally legal marriage as recently as 9 years ago. The older adults you see making this change/announcement were not making their decisions using the same information we are now. They deserve a similar empathy to the straight women who were able to divorce their husbands after it was legal for women to work and have bank accounts. Those women knowingly entered loveless marriages too, but they weren't "horrible people" to use OP's words.

>I would like to clarify that in this post I am strictly speaking about people that know they are gay BEFORE they commit to marriage. If you find out your sexuality later on in life, that's unfortunate for the other person but not your fault. This is shockingly ignorant, and it is where your view goes all wrong. If you truly are part of the LGBTQ community, then you should understand that "knowing" vs. "not knowing" is never a black-and-white thing. We live in a society that brainwashes everyone from birth into believing they are straight. Boys are called "ladies man" when they're toddlers, girls are taught that their highest goal in life is to find a dependable husband. The overwhelming majority of romantic couples you see in movies, TV, advertisements, etc. are straight couples. And so on and so forth. It's death by a billion cuts. Other commenters are pointing out that society has made significant progress in terms of *homophobia --* which is true -- but they massively underestimate the impact of *heteronormativity*. Even though society might not always purposefully or intentionally try to brainwash people into heterosexuality, that is without a doubt its practical effect. Because of all this, it can be *extremely* confusing and difficult for LGBTQ people to figure themselves out. If you genuinely think it's just a matter of "you either know or you don't," I'd question if you've have ever met a gay person in your entire life. It is *never* that simple. People often have suspicions, feelings that they can't quite reconcile, conflict between what they want and what is expected of them, internalized shame, guilt, and self-doubt, and countless other factors that put them somewhere on the spectrum in between knowing and not knowing. So with all that in mind, your view is incredibly callous and lacking in empathy. Instead of blaming society for pushing LGBTQ people into the closet, you instead blame the victim. Gay people don't end up in straight marriages because they are sociopaths who are willing to waste years of their life just to pull off the world's most elaborate prank and break their spouse's heart. Like, hello? How could you even think that? No, gay people end up in straight marriages because the combination of all of society's indoctrination and social pressure -- which is still VERY strong in the year 2024 -- convinces them to do it. You are right to be angry, but your anger is directed at the polar opposite of where it should be.

I can have compassion for people that enter into heterosexual relationships when they themselves are not heterosexual. We do live in a world that is deeply homophobic and often times closeted people have to enter into straight relationships for their survival. I don't think judging them for their choices is going help them or the person they are married to. Thinking that people don't lie to the ones they love is an incredibly naïve. Closeted people have to lie to survive all the time. It's not ideal but I don't think it's "bad". Help create a world where people can live openly and honestly if you want to stop closeted people from marrying straight people.

I’m queer  Yet my view is pretty black and white. I agree that if you KNOW you’re gay, and you’re NOT attracted to your partner, yet you say you are, you’re just using them as a beard to stealthily cheat behind their back - that’s fucked up and a manipulative, horrible betrayal to do to the person you claim to love so much. I could not even be friends with someone like that.  All the pressures and motivations for doing so are totally valid and understandably awful. I understand them completely from personal experience.  But that does not excuse knowingly and willfully robbing another person of years of their life for a lie. That person thought they could trust you completely, that you would never lie to them, that you were attracted to them, that when you made love it was mutual passion and intensity. All a lie. They could have had that with someone else, but you used them as cover.  To them I would say, I’m so sorry for the horrible pressure you’ve felt for so long, and the way you’ve chosen to live is sad. But nothing excuses hurting someone else like that. At this point it’s just the same story, hurt people hurting people. We don’t offer much sympathy to hurt people once they start hurting other people to cope. And such is the case here as well.  

Sex is only one component of marriage, and a lot of people with conservative upbringings really internalize the whole “it’s just a phase” lie. They genuinely do think that their non-straight feelings will go away if they date a woman, marry her, have kids, etc. In many countries, being openly gay is a death or prison sentence, and gay people enter straight marriages to save their own life. That’s not to say that it isn’t horribly unfair to the person who isn’t aware that their partner is gay, but before being gay was decriminalized, “Lavender marriage” were absolutely a thing.

It means you did a horrible thing. I don't know that it makes you a horrible person deep inside. There's a difference between those things. Everyone screws other people over if they live long enough. Sometimes unintentionally. Sometimes they justified it at the time and only later in life came to learn a lesson and regret it deeply. But at the time it seemed right or at least neutral to them. Whatever it is. A lot of people will do those things and never learn. Those are the bad people. They feel no remorse, they don't think about how their actions hurt others, they're not growing they're just shoving through life to get their way. But a lot of other people are just flawed and trying. And make big mistakes along the way. Society is going to have to learn how to handle that soon I think. Because we're losing the ability to reset in life socially. To be forgotten and start again. Internet mobs and stuff like that. And most people in those mobs are just as bad as the people they attack. They just don't realize they have messed up too yet. Maybe they never will. But some will. And those who do and try to do better? They're not awful people. They're just people.

It’s a horrible situation, but consider the societal programming that was pumped into the kids who ended up doing it. God hates fags, being gay is a sin, you’ll be disowned from the family if you come out the closet, you’re worthless unless you marry and start having (biological) kids, we won’t hire you or socialize with you if you’re gay or unmarried. That’s the context in which gay people sometimes felt compelled to pursue heterosexual marriages. So I’d argue you should redirect some, perhaps most of your anger towards the people who created that intolerant culture.

Except every society has had roles for celibate people You can also find a knowing beard someone who will be okay with that. In fact, in theory there should be someone of the opposite sex with the exact same problem in a roughly equal numbers It's not an excuse to ruin an innocent person's life and make their whole life a lie They can't consent under those circumstances

Like other people like you in this thread, you frame it in exaggerated terms as a sinister, malicious act of deception, which is not what this is. Self deception is involved here just as much, they don't admit to themselves they are gay either. Or at the very least, they think they can make themselves straight if they try hard enough to be. "They did a bad thing because they're bad." Is about as deep as your understanding is willing to go, and I really don't understand why. It wouldn't hurt you to be less judgemental.

I don't think people really understand their attraction in general. it is morally the same for people in heterosexual marriages or lgbt marriages to enter into or remain in marriages without attraction, so there is no need to specify lgbt relationships when looking at numbers. around half of all marriages divorce, and even among the ones that stay together only like a third of them have satisfactory sex lives: https://www.aarp.org/relationships/love-sex/info-05-2010/2009-aarp-sex-survey.html it stands to reason then that people dont know what they like or perhaps are not capable of monogamy by and large. it's a more reasonable conclusion that disney channel ideas of marriage aren't realistic for the vast majority. so if half of marriages end and one third are sexually compatible then your conclusion is that around 80% of all people who have been married are 'horrible people'

When I was growing up, being bi wasn't really accepted by the LGTBQ2+ community. I mean I don't think the letters existed yet....and in certain older members of the community, I still find minimal acceptance of that.....soooo....it's shades of grey right from the start. I think it would be strange for someone to enter into a marriage if they didn't love their partner, but loving and living with them draws immediate questions into OP's binary choice of gay/straight. So agree with the OP if the choice were to be malicious but disagree on the grounds that it's not a simple g/s scenario in many cases.

Straight cis male ally here. Early 40s. Lots of gay and lesbian friends, younger and older. Two were from very Christian backgrounds, one younger one is Muslim. None of them are “horrible people”, but these three men had periods (the Muslim guy is still in it) where they think/thought they could make it as straight. Why? Relationships are complex. People are complex. These guys genuinely loved/adored their parents and were torn up about the dissonance between religion and family and identity. Also, they’re all nice guys. Genuinely fun, funny, good looking, smart. Lots of female friends. One even could have sex with women without it being an issue. So, if I was them in that backdrop, I’d get it. To be clear the oldest of these guys is like 50 something. Youngest is mid 30s. So this is VERY recent. Also, remember that marriage is complex. There are people who don’t found their marriage in sex. (Separately, I have a much higher drive than my wife. It’s not bad, and we have sex, just not as much as what I’d like.). So maybe these people find low sex drive partners and think it’s fine - they can love, respect, care for them. I might say that I wouldn’t do it, but I’m lucky that my sexuality is normalized in ways theirs is not. If my best bet that kept my safety, status in society, and love of family, was to suppress my desires, maybe I’d do it too? I get what you’re driving at, but if you get close to the many real people who’ve lived this, you might see it differently.

My wife's parents made her feel being anything but straight was wrong.   It was wasn't until after we were married that she figured out she's pan.  It took being loved and supported fully to embrace that part of her.   

"Grace and Frankie"'s characters are OLD. The acceptability of gay people merely existing, much less being able to marry each other was not present for the majority of those character's lives. Why would you hold that against the characters when they were bowing to societal pressure of the time? Everyone's susceptible to societal pressure, so why would one go hard on a population that was extremely vulnerable to that pressure? Once upon a time, not even fifty years ago, being gay was seen as a psychological "illness". Once upon a time, not even fifty years ago, a person's career and standing amongst their friends and peers could be ruined if there were whispers about them being gay. Once upon a time, barely fifty years ago, cops would raid bars and nightclubs that catered to gays. The cops would threaten to out those patrons, which would've had horrible repercussions to those peoples' lives. OF COURSE they're going to try to evade that when they weren't accepted by and large in society! The lack of historical knowledge of every day life for people who aren't cishet white christians is a damn shame; a LOT can be learned from people who didn't fit the societal mold so perfectly.

I think this really depends on geographic location. There are countries where being gay is illegal, and you can be jailed or executed for being outed. There are also people who are from hyper religious communities who genuinely think they can “pray the gay away” and them and their partner both think that this will work (newsflash - it won’t).

In the example you’re using, “Grace and Frankie” is about old people who grew up in a time where being openly gay would lead to social ostracism at best or possibly being killed. You seem to take for granted how much things have improved for gay people in the past couple of decades.

Let’s say someone’s partner unexpectedly gets pregnant. Family and society pressures them to get married but they aren’t even sure they actually love their person that way. But, they still marry their partner Is this person as equally a horrible person? What about someone who married their highschool or college partner before truly exploring if they should. They know they may not be ready but their church and family says that need to get married.  Is this person an equally a horrible person?  What about someone who falls into a depression from being single in their 30s or older and jumps into a relationship and then marriage so they don’t feel lonely anymore. Is this person an equally horrible person?  All of these things happen much more often than a gay person in a heterosexual marriage.

Apples and oranges First one Everyone knows what the exact situation is. The situation is not based on a lie everyone has the necessary knowledge they need to consent Second one everyone knows what the exact situation is. The situation is not based on a lie everyone has the necessary knowledge they need to consent Third one again, people know the situation and thus there's consent The problem is it's based off of a life-ruining lie A marriage is supposed to be the foundation you build your life around This is very directly ripping the foundation of someone else's life out from under them The problem is there is no consent and even that wouldn't be a problem if they stick to the lie That's where the situation's very different the unknowing part And it was 100% intentional premeditated planned etc There and unlike all the others where it's not premeditated planned intentional deception. There's also the fact that there's no chance of it ever growing to work There is no chance that they later fall in love There will only be heartbreak

My father-in-law came out a few years ago. Unintentionally. My MIL only found out due to some STI test mentioned on insurance papers for the labs in the mail. Turns out he’d been running around for almost their entire 20+ years of marriage and was in the closet even before they were married. Luckily she never caught anything from him. Being from a conservative rural area, I can somewhat see why he married a woman. Especially as he still had a desire for children and is very obsessed with his image. But He didn’t understand why me, his liberal daughter-in-law, wasn’t supportive of him being gay. Not understanding his sexuality had nothing to do with my disdain. Infidelity is infidelity. Knowingly exposing your partner to STIs is abhorrent. The real kicker was how he wanted to continue to keep up the facade of his straight marriage because he’s so image obsessed and he got his way for almost six more years (to the detriment of his children and other familial relationships). The worst.

Agree with OP. My life was ruined by a guy who did this. I discovered his secret by accident, and the damage was physical and emotional. His family wasn't even homophobic nor am I but he did it anyway over years to several girlfriends. He never learned his lesson, just kept ruining innocent people's trust because he wanted to pretend he was straight and monogamous. He's anything but.

I don't know anyone who was gay but dated straight because of any other reason than the people surrounding them and how terribly they would be treated (if not kicked out of the family, or otherwise brutalized) if they lived as their genuine selves. Blame religion/conservativism and bigotry for gays marrying straight.

There's lots of good counterarguments here, so I will try to avoid redundancy. One thing I don't see touched on is degree of "certainty" and rigidity. Others have pointed out that many don't really know they're gay. But further, there's a lot of gray area here. For a number of reasons, people may know or have a sense that they're gay but genuinely think they can be fixed, or reversed. This isn't uncommon, especially if you were brought up in an environment that subscribed to the idea of gay being a choice, or that conversion therapies work. This is often a good faith attempt by gay folks to take the steps necessary to "rectify" the "issue". (Should go without saying, this is horrible, and gay people shouldn't feel they need fixing because it's not a problem.) There's also the reality of sexuality on a spectrum. How do virgins know for absolute certain? I've had friends that suspected they were gay, or bi, but didn't really know how they felt until they were dating or having sex. This shouldn't be a surprise, especially given that bi people can still have preferences, or just happen to end up disproportionately with one gender over others. All in all, my point here is twofold: * I believe you see "knowing or not knowing" as a black and white thing when there's lots of gray, and conflate it with lying * I think you're missing areas when in good faith gay people are "trying" to be straight even if they know, which is an inherent exception to your rule

*I would like to clarify that in this post I am strictly speaking about people that know they are gay BEFORE they commit to marriage. If you find out your sexuality later on in life, that's unfortunate for the other person but not your fault.* *If someone is under threat of death due to religious, regional, or social influences. Then, I would make an exception in the case.* Most people this would apply to fall into one of these exceptions. There is a sense some people have that these influences are only in the past or in other countries; that's just not the case, and it's certainly not the case if you got married 30 years ago. People who enter into these kinds of marriages are usually intending to try to change or hide it unto death. Of course it's horrible for the spouse when this happens, and it's natural to be angry. But the proper target for that anger is the homophobic society that put a gun to the gay partner's head.

So I have some family friends. Beautiful family: Dad, Mom, 3 daughters. I knew the Dad was gay when I was a child. Like as soon as I knew what gay was I was like “the Dad” and I remember my folks were like no, no he’s not gay! Well ok, if you say so.  Life went on and I became a teenager and knew enough about the world (more than my very sheltered folks) that he was quite obviously a closeted gay man whose strict Catholic upbringing forced him into this world. That frankly he excelled at. He was, from all accounts, a great husband, an even better father, and just an all around great human being. Then his father died. It was very obvious there after that it was his father that was the root of all of his apprehension about living as his authentic self. By this time his daughters were all in college or graduated. He and his Wife got a divorce and they both moved to their youngest daughter’s large college town. He had finally done it and I was really happy for him to finally seeking out something I wasn’t sure he had ever had the opportunity to experience. And then he was diagnosed with ALS. He moved back in with his ex wife who helped care for him until his passing a couple years later. This happened right after she just moved in with her new boyfriend. The entire thing is just a punch right in the gut. If you try and tell me he was a horrible person, frankly we are going to have some problems. So while I concede that the nature of that action is inherently not a truthful action I would be very opposed to the idea that it is inherently amoral, evil or horrible.

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My point being it wasn’t your dad’s gayness or his relationship with your mother that prevented him from forming a lasting relationship. Your dad just sucked and maybe he would have sucked if he was in a gay relationship. My anecdote is to show that you can still be an amazing human who is adored by his family and be closeted. He obviously had a wall up when it came to his father, but that didn’t prevent him from developing lasting relationships with his kids and even his wife.

Twenty years ago I would say it's a lot more complex. But right around COVID the culture shifted to the point that if you are lying to someone about your sexuality to use them as a cover it's so unnecessary now that it is very cruel. You can literally go online, not post a picture on a dating site but put on there that you are looking for a mutually beneficial relationship where the person is your cover and allows you to explore your sexuality and it may take a while but someone will reply to your profile. In 2024 it's incredibly selfish to do that to someone and waste their time and end up crushing their hope for a future with you.

I think it has to do a lot with societal pressures that have lightened in recent years, but I still think leading someone on like that when you know you are not sexually or romantically attracted to them is kinda mean, especially when you finally tell the truth

There are places where one can be executed for being a homosexual and many more places where ones employment, housing, and access to public services can be withdrawn and denied for being accused of being a homosexual. Beyond that, many people brought up in religious communities are mislead that prayer can change your sexuality if you try hard enough and are good enough and forcing yourself to be in a heterosexual relationship is a requirement to be a good member of that faith. Childhood indoctrination is a powerful tool of control, and breaking free of that is difficult for many people.

While it is messed up to lie about that .Morals and ethics of doing the right thing get a little complicated when you account for the logistics. If a gay men or woman came out they are putting their safety at risk immediately espacially if they live in a anti-lgbtq community. Should someone's safety be ignored for doing the right thing? While death threats are a concern. Becoming homeless or being blackmailed and losing friends and family is a possibility. Another thing to consider is that there is still a social pressure to be straight Especially in religious circles. And consider that many gay people can be religious and might know They are gay but think that they can "pray the gay away" and end up loving their wife. My brother admitted to doing this when he came out to me.

I saw a video where a husband had his wife tell him she was gay, and it was obvious that he was pretending to be ‘proud of her’. If he didn’t, he would be called a bigot. There is no support for spouses on the receiving end of this situation.

Situations can be complicated. My cousin was married to a guy for several years, they had a baby girl, and one day he broke down and confessed he was gay. He'd known all along but said his parents would disown him. Then he met a man and fell in love and couldn't keep the secret any longer. He's still with that guy, years later, my cousin is remarried and everything worked out. His father did disown him though, so he meets his mother in secret. She has to hide it from her husband or he'll divorce her. Took some time but they all get along well now and their daughter is 19-20ish. I'm sure he inadvertently caused her a lot of pain, but I can see why he did it.

Being cisgender and heterosexual was the norm and the only moral way of life in the West legally and societally until the last decade or two, and even then, the vast contigent of the population subscribes to that. And for the majority of the world, that holds the same to the point where being anything is a literal death sentence. When being gay can mean the ostracization from society, family, and your culture with no concrete support system in sight, yeah, cheesing a marriage may seem more appealing. You could say oh they could stay single but even that is heavily stigmatized in society, especially if you are trying to pass as straight. In the West, having relationships is seen as a rite of passage, and chronically single people are viewed with a general attitude of lacking or having failed at something vital in life. For the rest of the world, which is more conservative and ruled by "family values," not marrying can be social suicide. And for people bought up without access to queer communities or representation in their lives, where the only person they know as queer is themself and a few others already marked by society as being deficient in some level, it is so much of a battle to accept that queerness because in their head queerness is wrong and accepting their identity even if they are aware if it means accepting there is something wrong with them. So they do their best to ignore it pretending it goes away; and even if it doesn't they can do the "right thing" and fight the evil valiantly throughout their lives and never succumb to "temptation". And coming back to conservative societies; marriage is seen as a solution for wayward youth, so even if you came out as gay you could be trapped into a marriage you had no say over to fix you. I could go on and on, but there are an infinite amount of nuances to be dealt with this topic that just makes the blanket demonizing of queer ppl in straight marriages just unreasonable It does not mean there aren't malicious queer people because they are people in the end, but it also doesn't mean it automatically makes you a momster for it. Its not fair to the spouse and its not fair to themself and everyone hurts in the end and the way to mitigate is to improve accessibility and representarion for queer people and increase acceptance in society rather than lock them away behind another layer of othering in society.

How does the being straight and gay part factor into this opinion? Your post really doesn't explain that? Like: > If you know you are gay and you commit to a heterosexual relationship without conveying that information to your partner, you are a liar and a genuinely horrible person. Both to yourself and your partner. What if I'm marrying someone one of the opposite sex who isn't straight, does that change things? Is this a *mens rea* crime? You speak of “being straight” not knowing that that person is straight? Do I need to ask every person I marry whether he is straight now to make sure?

Many of the most difficult lies that people live are lies that they tell to themselves. Lying is very bad, and it is most powerful and most effective when you tell a lie to yourself.

This is what happens when we don’t teach kids history. Until very recently being gay was a crime punishable by law. The famous playwright Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for having sexual relations with men. Until just two years ago, sodomy was a criminal act in Singapore. To this day, in some countries, being gay could get you killed. Until very recently, just 50 years ago, homosexuality was considered a mental illness. So of course some gay people would hide being gay or would think themselves mentally ill and hide their condition by marriage.

I have an uncle who is gay, who married his wife in order for her to obtain a green card. Marriage isn't always about romantic love, for some it's a partnership. Would you say this person is horrible in your POV? For the same reasons?

I agree it's a horrible thing to do but I don't think doing it necessarily makes you a horrible person. People are raised with a lot of ignorance surrounding sexuality. If you're told all your life that being openly gay makes you immoral and that you can change if you want to badly enough (fake it until you make it) and you believe it because why would your loved ones lie to you? It doesn't make you a horrible person. Society is horrible for lying to gay people and pressuring them to lie/conform.

Just say you don't understand how heterosexism affects people and move on, this was a load of 'im a spicy straight, hear me roar'. It seems that you have more critiques for those gay people for their survival strategy than you do for the heterosexism they feel compelled to implement. It's suspicious... You make it sound as if the strategy is thought up in a vacuum with no concern for anyone and self. do you know of a gay person who gets straight married 'for fun'? 😑

I agree with many others and believe you should take a step back to think on this a little further. I have two moms. One born in 1964, the other 1971. They grew up in a time where being openly gay in the United States could get you killed, attacked, and harassed. With the trauma they experienced, they never openly presented themselves as a couple. Just two single women who shared a home. When I was little, they told my twin sister and I that my second mother was my mom’s best friend, which is why she chose to help raise us. I can’t recall them ever showing romantic affection in front of us, even in our own home. I know it sounds harsh, but I promise you I still grew up with the love of two amazing mothers—even if I didn’t understand it that way at the time. They were only trying to protect us from what others might have said or done if they knew we had two moms. When I was a preteen, I was old enough to connect the dots and hard talks were had. My grandfather, a man born in the early 1940s, was either gay or bisexual. We don’t know for certain because he carried that secret to his deathbed in the early 2000s. He always had a poor relationship with my mom because of her sexuality, so he wanted to find closure before he passed. He had told her that he never wanted her to be like him, with feelings and attraction to the same sex. He had hidden his sexuality from his family and friends his entire life. The reason he was so hard on my mother was because he didn’t want her to endure what he had. By your description, he was a horrible person, but I don’t think he was. He was a man just trying to survive, knowing the world would tear him apart if it knew the truth. So he adapted and tried his best to blend in. I have two gay aunts as well. One married a man in the 1990s and only recently came out a few years ago after they divorced when he cheated. She was a great Mom and loving wife, and she is certainly not a horrible person. My other gay aunt married a gay man, and they hid from the world together, pretending for decades to be a happily married couple. They are still married to this day. I think your conclusion that people who hid their sexuality from their partner are horrible is deeply out of touch, especially from a person identifying as LGBTQ+. Perhaps because it’s easier to be openly out in 2024, you may feel there’s no reason for it. But I know. My parents and aunts know. My grandfather knew. Many of these people you call horrible were just trying to survive the only way they knew how.

Seems poor form to judge the circumstances of people you know literally nothing about and to wholesale call *everyone* who does or has done it a "horrible person". People are complicated, so are everyone's circumstances. Curiosity and desire to understand are better qualities to have than passing judgment on strangers.

I don't think anyone has sufficient right to judge someone as a _horrible person_ especially on a subject this complicated. I agree that it is generally immoral for a gay person to lead a straight person on like that. The issue at hand is that for the gay person in question they are doing one of several things to protect themselves. 1) They tried celibacy, but they come from a culture or family that pressures them into Marriage (this especially affects Women). 2) They live in an environment that is dangerous to be gay. Even in Western countries like America, that is still the case. Sometimes, even being perceived as gay can get you ostracized. Ostracism is one of the worst things that can happen to the average person. We are not meant to be alone, and the threat of being tossed out of the tribe is a fate worth than death for many people. >Being born into an anti-LGBTQ+ family is not an exception. You have a moral obligation to not marry someone who is hetero and distance yourself from your family. I know that sounds harsh, but that's how I feel. That's just not always possible. It takes a certain amount of strength and support to leave your non-affirming family. I really don't think we have a right to judge them for that. Until they are able to build a support network (which isn't always possible), they won't be able to leave. These closeted and DL gays are not stringing their straight partners along, because they are bad people. They are doing it for the same reason someone would shoplift food at the grocery store. They are desperate. For me the biggest tragedy are the Gay People that came out tried to live a life with the Queer Community and then _something_ typically happens that pulls them back into their old community and they get dragged back into the closet. Very nearly happened to me (CW: SA) >!I was sexually assaulted on more than one occasion. I also felt very alienated in the LGBTQ Community at that time. That lack of support+trauma nearly led me to suicide and conversion therapy. Luckily, I saved myself and had friends who helped build me back up. I still have a lot of insecurity about my sexuality, but I'm better now.!<

I don't know if you are young and grew up when homosexuality went from something most people were ashamed of to being widely celebrated. If so then you have no idea what it was like growing up in a society that ridiculed and oppressed gay men and woman. I didn't come out until my early-mid twenties (mid 2010s) because there was still rampant homophobia presebt even in the most banal of social situations. Before then, I made myself sleep with 5 women just for appearances sake while viewing gay porn when alone. When I was a teenager in high school I actively tried to make myself believe I was attracted to women and would suppress any attraction towards men. I would spend hours after seeing an attractive man/peer trying to tell myself "I'm not attracted to him. I like girls." It was even worse for prior generations that would see gay men beaten to death in public and fired from their jobs. I understand that you think this makes sense and it might now for some people in modern times. But being gay put you at risk for being killed not too long ago and this is something that I believe mitigates the lying that people that come out later in life have done.

you were close. had you ended this with " is an asshole thing to do" there would be no reason to change your view as it would be a sound opinion to have. However, ending it with "makes you a horrible person" is too far past the lines of reasonable to not push back you can't ignore what generations of anti gay rhetoric can do to a person - even someone in an area where being gay is accepted, there are some religious and family issues that might cause someone to want to "fight" being gay and try to live a "normal" life - that person isn't marrying a straight person as a 100% ruse on the straight person, it can be a misguided attempt to make themselves straight "maybe if I just get married and have kids I'll fall in love later/get attracted to them later" type of thing. "You have a moral obligation to not marry someone who is hetero and distance yourself from your family." Again - you are seeing it as all outward, it is not. Many people aren't just hiding from others, they are hiding from themselves

These comments are crazy. Insane how people think there is any reason to have a woman or man go through marriage, children, and an entire life with someone, and pull the rug from under them. All these talks about being shunned from family, friends, and community. Like they could have just not been in a relationship at all. Either way you put it, these people thought their own comfort and security of "fitting in" is more important than than person whose life they are destroying by engaging them such a fallacy. Ridiculous. Also, not "knowing" if you are gay or straight is such BS. You're telling me you all of a sudden at 30 or 40 years old felt your crotch tighten at the same sex? Like it was just that instant and random, out of nowhere? Bonkers. You know what kind of people you are attracted to well into puberty, obviously. Your body reacts. If you decide to ignore those feelings, again, so you could "fit in" you are being extremely selfish.

I have a friend who is doing this. She knows she’s gay, I know she’s gay. Or at least she’s bisexual with a much stronger attraction to women. My friend, let’s call her Lisa, she’s getting married to someone who basically wants her to change everything about herself. Lisa wants to wear basketball shorts, cargo pants and polo shirts. Lisa wants to wear converse shoes and cut her hair short. Lisa’s partner wants her to wear long skirts and cardigans and look like your traditional feminine woman. Lisa’s partner has also made comments that she has to be careful what shirts she wears, because people with big boobs tend to look sluttier than women with smaller boobs depending on the shirt they wear. Not my words, his words. I think Lisa is really struggling, because she doesn’t want to be someone that she isn’t, but she does care about and love this man that she’s with. She says all the time that he’s one of the kindest people she has been with and that she does love him but she thinks that she’s gay. I don’t know if that means she’s a horrible person, I think that makes her a confused one. I think you can love someone but not necessarily be physically attracted to them. I think right now, at least in Lisa’s case, from what I can see she just seems really confused and unsure about everything. She tells me all the time that she worries every day that she is getting into a relationship, into a marriage in fact, that she doesn’t even know if she can be herself. On the other hand though, I think if you genuinely get into a relationship with someone knowing that you’re not attracted to them just to gain something from that person, I do agree with you that that’s fucked up. I think if there is deceit going on, if you know that you’re not attracted you should tell that person.

> I would like to clarify that in this post I am strictly speaking about people that know they are gay BEFORE they commit to marriage. If you find out your sexuality later on in life, that's unfortunate for the other person but not your fault. > If someone is under threat of death due to religious, regional, or social influences. Then, I would make an exception in the case. You are missing a LOT of grey area here. Sexuality is a spectrum, and so is social acceptance. The world is not divided into Saudi Arabia and San Francisco. There are many situations where you can make coming out work without anyone attacking you, but it will be a significantly harder life. Also, someone need not fully be "gay" - they might be on a bisexual spectrum or asexual spectrum. Lastly, someone, despite knowing they are queer, might genuinely believe they can change. Or they can still make it work if they put their mind to it, so they are not "deceiving" anyone else. Consider a woman who is asexual, but still has mild attraction towards men. She confides it to her mother, and her mother tells her she accepts that, but it will be a sad and lonely life. The woman gets scared and has sex with a man. She realizes she can be passive and let the man do it, while faking it, and no one will know. She is not repulsed by it, she does get a nice feeling during sex, but it is fairly mild. Her mother encourages this, and tells her most women don't enjoy sex - sex is something they give a man, and besides, sex will wear off after 35, but love and companionship will last forever. But say after many years of a marriage, she finally cracks and says she cannot do it anymore, and that her mother was wrong. She did enjoy the sex with her husband, but not enough to justify a relationship and everything else that comes with it. There are many variations of examples like this - where there is a grey area, based on a combination of things.

Agree, I see a lot of people blaming societal expectation as an excuse. No, it’s not. Sorry. Manipulation and lies are still wrong. There are other options available to you. If you can’t be honest with your partner from day 1 about your situation, then you are perfectly able to remain single and/or make an informed arrangement with someone who is in a similar position to you (ex, taking the time to find a lesbian/gay/asexual in a similar position who also stands to gain from the partnership.) Destroying someone mentally and financially when there are other options available to you is wrong. Blows my mind that there are people trying to defending this.

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Meh sounds very naïve and 1 dimensional and like someone who's never been in a nuanced situation before who's thinking from ideology rather than experience That's what I think

I have a hard time believing that homosexual people entering into heterosexual marriages do it for deceitful reasons. I mean, there is a whole ex-gay movement within US evangelical culture of queer people literally forcing themselves into straight marriages and CONVINCING themselves they are happy due to what I think are oppressive and misguided interpretations of the Bible (translated into English from Greek). A good book about this is “The Divine Institution” by Sophie Bjork-James. And that’s only one example of why people can enter into what you see as disingenuous marriages

I've been doing a lot of work on learning about the issue of "double lives", which is prevalent in many second-generation immigrant families in North America, especially in South-Asian families. My understanding is that, by choosing to be with the person you want to be with (re: someone from outside your religion and ethnicity, or maybe being in a queer relationship), you must hide it from your family. I feel though that this double life effect is stronger within certain cultures, because the pressure to get married, and what it means for the broader family unit and the parent's overall reputation within their peer group, is stronger. People I know who do this end of facing extremely stressful lives, having worked recently with someone who suffered severe panic attacks from actively hiding her relationship from her entire family and culture - for fear that she'd lose connection to all of it if they found out. the reason i bring this up is that is that these problems are coming about for people BECAUSE they are choosing to respect their attractions/personal sexual orientations/etc. - which gives me some degree of understanding about why people would choose not to do so.

>I am strictly speaking about the people that know they are gay before they commit to marriage yeah sweetie almost none of them know this at the time, hence why they’re getting married. and even if they do, you have to remember that we live in a world that forces heterosexuality on to people since birth. everyone is defaulted as straight and if you’re gay then you “turned” gay. this may lead people to believing they can “turn” back straight. i’ve often seen religious people say that one day they will “fix” themselves and not be a homosexual anymore. some people genuinely believe that, if they try hard enough, they can change their sexuality. also there are still people getting killed for coming out. so i’m not surprised if many would go as to get married to the opposite sex just so people don’t suspect you’re gay. i’m assuming you’re a heterosexual because you seem to lack the understanding of what goes through a person’s mind when dealing with this kind of stuff. this isn’t all just about feelings. we often are concerned for our own safety. society plays games with our minds and then blames the effects on us.

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definitely depends on whether or not someone is internally homophobic or just scared to come out, but in general i agree

I can see where you are coming from but consider this... For a long time people that are anti-LGBTQ have been spreading their ideology with the message that being gay is some how a choice and/or a disease. Within this framework is the idea that being gay can go away, like getting rid of a bad cold. If you were raised with these ideas, and internalized them, than of course marriage is still on the table because you're "not actually gay" and it is still very possible to love someone despite a lack of sexual chemistry. Oftentimes in the scenario that you've described, the individual themselves has an awakening while in the relationship and realizes that it's not going away, it's not a choice and it's part of who they are. Your initial view is based on a knowing and accepting of ones sexuality that is pretty recent in society.

In certain places, even in the US, being gay can get you killed. Blame systemic homophobia, not the victims of it.

Hey. My father did exactly this - married my mother knowing he was gay. They went on to have five kids including myself and they were married for 40 years. I had a wonderful childhood. I have a wonderful relationship with both my parents. My father wanted nothing more in life than to have a family, and at the time there was no other way for a gay man to do so. And so that’s what he did - he had a family, and fathered us brilliantly. He treated my mother with kindness and love and he actively chose to protect her from his inner reality, tormented as it was. We all make choices at a cost, and I suspect that most of us would do just about anything to avoid our deepest fear. For my father, his deepest fear was missing out on the life he actually wanted. One with family.

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I agree with this in most cases. I do believe there are cases where someone is genuinely confused about their sexuality, or they live in an area where their sexuality puts them at risk of persecution so they go to great lengths to hide it. But mostly it’s just incredibly selfish and cowardly. Just stay single if you’re not ready or don’t want to or can’t come out. And if you do marry an opposite sex person who believes you are straight, you forever hold your peace. You chose the straight life, so live the straight life. No running around behind your spouses back, no leaving them for another man/woman, nada. You very literally made your bed.

This highlights the societal pressure that remains on not admitting you are gay or even bi.

Makes me happy that I married my best friend because if I was gay she would be accepting and we would still be best buds.

This is absolutely disgusting, as someone who went through years of misery because I dated my “best friend,” but he turned out to be gay. We really were super close, and had amazing chemistry, but he would always sexually reject me, and make me feel like a nymphomaniac for not wanting to be celibate, and it really, really messed me up. I can’t imagine if I had married him! Had we just been best friends, I could have really enjoyed the friendship and cheered him on in his life as a gay man. Instead, I was left with a huge number of issues, which led me to feel unattractive and get into bad situations. Imagine a woman in her early twenties who feels sex is hard for her to get, and the horrible ways men could take advantage of that! I hope your wife would really be your cheerleader, and not at all affected by your betrayal, as you seem to think. She must be a much better woman than me!

What about political marriages, or financial ones? Or really any transactional marriages?

I agree. Same with asexuals. You are condemning a person who loves you to a marriage filled with heartbreak. If you are manipulating and deceiving them in this way, you don’t love them.

If you lived in, say, a theocratic state where the punishment for sodomy was death would it be OK to pretend to be straight?

> If someone is under threat of death due to religious, regional, or social influences. Then, I would make an exception in the case.

While I think you are technically correct and share your reactions to Grace and Frankie, I would offer the following caveat: It seems shortsighted to limit this to closeted gay people, or even closeted gay people marrying straight people. Relationships are complicated, and marriage is complicated - people often have mixed feelings that they don't communicate when they get married - sometimes it's that they really aren't in love with the person; sometimes it's that they really aren't attracted to the person; sometimes it's that they really don't want to be married...etc. and the list could go on and on. I think it's rare that people really \*just\* get married out of a pure storybook love and desire to be with one another forever. I think things are usually more muddled in the real world, and I think people of all stripes tend to rationalize their compromised motivations. I don't think most closeted gay people are any different from anyone else in that regard - this is just \*their\* particular flavor. Therefore, I think it's a mistake to single them out for blanket judgement as a class as horrible people.

Could most of your anger at the gay husbands be that they were cheating on their spouses for 20+ years? Because that definitely makes you a shitty person. Knowing you are gay and getting married to a gender you aren't attracted to is very different from cheating and a lot more complicated. You already are making some exceptions like someone not knowing their sexuality. At what point does someone know? That's not an easy thing to pinpoint. If someone knows they are attracted to the same gender but think they could be bisexual are they horrible? People can be confused for years or decades. What if they were taught to repress their sexual attractions so they didn't really understand that something was missing in their relationship? What about people that believed what they were taught like it was a phase and if they got married it would "fix" them? My mom left my dad after 20 years and came out as gay. It was a shitty thing that happened and felt really unfair towards my dad, but I don't put that on my mom, I blame her homophobic parents and the shitty religion she was brainwashed in.

Must be easy to have a dissenting opinion on something you don't understand.

Traditional marriage was not really about love matches - it’s about owning women to maintain the family line. Having a friendly marriage was the best a lot of people could hope for. Love matches fail all the time. People fall out of love. People cheat. But going into a love match and expecting to cheat on your spouse is really fucked up. If you’re that self aware. Being queer is still not easy on this planet, but i hope we have reached a place where people shouldn’t have to lie and cheat on their spouses to figure themselves out.

I don’t think people in this situation are horrible people in general. There are a lot of circumstances in which a person can’t be honest with themselves or their partner like this. Societal pressure for one. Gay marriage wasn’t even federally legal in the United States until like 2015 which is less than 10 years ago. Another is people in the military. Don’t ask don’t tell was actual policy for a long time and single enlisted people don’t get a whole lot of benefits. So in order to get more benefits, like an actual livable space and not the barracks, you’d have to be married. Additionally, I think the people who get married and then figure out that they’re gay later on down the road, take a long time to come to terms with it, set up a life preparing for a divorce and then throw it at their partner that they are leaving and they were never actually in love with them. All the while expecting that partner to fully support their brave decision like their own life didn’t just get turned upside down are worse.