From: adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (Arne Adolfsen)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: just came out
Date: 4 Sep 1996 17:11:17 -0700

In article <50l19q$5ts@news.duke.edu> 
kbergen@acpub.duke.edu (Kristin Bergen) writes:

>Christ, Arne, you really sound like someone who's just barely _begun_ to
>come to terms with his sexuality, judging from the intensity of emotion
>you consistently bring to this topic; you know, the
>recently-rocketed-out-of-the-closet-and-ah'm-mad-as-hell type.

You're misreading me.  My intense reaction is not to my parents'
inability to come to terms with my sexuality -- at this point I
don't care what they think about anything -- but instead to the
often smarmy and insipid advice that always seems to be given to
people who've just come out to the 'rents.  You know the drill:
give 'em time and they'll eventually come around and LUV you to
bits and you'll be one big happy family again.  Sorry, folks, but
it doesn't always happen that way and it's cruelly misleading to
tell a freshly-out person that his parents are going through a
momentary phase.  It's exactly like the vacuous Mike Brady-like 
happy talk that sets Mike Thomas' teeth on edge when a happily-
coupled person tells an unhappily single person to chill out because 
being single is so damned much fun.