GAY HISTORY: These Closets Have Too Many Bones

One fabulous, sun drenched afternoon Carrot’s human, Hunter, attempted to explain an interesting and complex aspect of human behaviour: denial. 

Carrot Can and Will … consider the fascinating information Hunter imparted about yet another human foible, allowing Carrot the pleasure of further vegetative analysis.

It is no secret, Carrot contends, that the two major progenitors of social change are the Black and Gay communities.  Carrot will not begin to list the thousands of artistic, social and scientific contributions coming from these collective powerhouses of dynamic thought and impeccably good taste.  No matter the number of achievements, Carrot will briefly focus on just one.  There are actually two contributions to world society that almost every adult human can relate to on some level, even primal in a few cases.

Carrot has believed for some time that a makeover was long past due years ago.  It was tired.  It had been used interminably.  It was used, overused and used again.  Then the abuse began and it continued.  At some point it was selfishly co-opted to serve individual needs and situations.  Then suddenly it appeared this under appreciated little descriptor of human behaviour was becoming valued again.  But alas, its value rapidly depreciated.  Nothing was done, nothing was said.  Left to its own devices and defenseless, it was again used and overused and the abuse followed, until one lone Black man raised his voice.  [Note: Remember, my Tasty Tidbit, Carrot is never wrong. Roll with it, Tids.  It was just one brilliant man.  Only one.]   Let’s see…ah!  Moving along.

Uttering four little words — On The Down Low — he changed how people across the globe view, for a while anyway, men who engage in same-sex sex while keeping it their naughty little secret, as is often the desire of many of your ministers, priests, elected officials.  Once used exclusively to describe Black men who spent their lives in sexual duality (in the closet was once used universally to denote those who hid/denied their sexual orientation while engaging in sexual activity with members of the same genger), ‘on the DL’ is now used universally and is no longer sequestered to just one ethnicity or group of people.  “In the closet” was used from the beginning to represent all people who hid their sexual orientation.On the down low teases the ear, it’s an ‘in’ phrase and so far it isn’t being overused or abused.  Until someone else thinks of a cool phrase identifying those who feel the need to secret away their sexual identity, ‘on the DL’ is here and he will be your friend, Carrot wryly speculates.

In the closet?   Why yes!  Next to your worn out pair of runners, behind the laundry basket on top of the broken tennis racket…

History is an eternal process of collection and reclamation.  Many of the disowned and the neglected moved on long ago.  Closets remain filled with the bones of countless millions who refused to live but opted instead to exist in the dark space of denial.

On the down low.  On the DL.  On the Low.  Why not?  Some things seem destined to remain the same.