It is not homosexuality that makes you contagious, but narrow-mindedness

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It is not homosexuality that makes you contagious, but narrow-mindedness
It is not homosexuality that makes you contagious, but narrow-mindedness
Anonim

A few weeks ago, we told you about the 7DayChallenge project, the essence of which is that heterosexual couples stand up for gays. The essence of the solidarity campaign is that for one week the couple behaves and communicates in public in the way that our society expects of homosexual couples. So there is no spontaneous kissing, walking around holding hands, or calling each other names - this could easily lead to someone claiming the right to make comments. Those who joined set the campaign logo as their profile picture on Facebook during the past two weeks, and a few of them told us how they got hot and cold from their surroundings.

According to Kincses Marcell, the spiritual father of the challenge, the author of the book Coming Out, it was psychologically stressful for the participants that they had to constantly paranoidly monitor themselves and their partner during the waking hours of the day and "filter out" all the spontaneous feelings arising from love. had to" with regard to their environment. “One of the enterprising girls said she even dreamed about these situations, she was so frustrated during the day,” Marcell said when I asked about feedback from challenge participants. "He felt helpless and angry that he should be 'ashamed' of his own feelings and of his partner. He was really looking forward to the end of the 7 days, but at the same time he got the message: he is indeed privileged when he can decide at any time to end everything - in contrast to the members of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community, who are all it limits you for life."

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shutterstock 107113361

More stressful than you think

When the author announced the 7-Day Challenge, he asked his readers to tell their daily experiences of the week in a "challenge diary". "We thought it would be weird when we started," writes 28-year-old Beatrix. "Anyway, we cuddle a lot, we walk holding hands and stuff like that. Aaron, my partner, often joked, he also found it strange that he couldn't touch me or call me names." At the same time, one of the biggest challenges for the participants in the challenge was settling accounts with friends and family. "They made them happy with funny remarks, and many tried to catch them cheating, even though I tried to give subjective rules: behave with your partner as you think you would if your partner were of the same sex as you," Marcell told Dívány.

It is not surprising that there were those who decided to disembark after just two days, because they felt that they could not and did not want to command themselves anymore. They mainly regretted the precious minutes they could spend with their partner at the end of the day, since they wanted to be 100% themselves. "I understand their decision and of course this is also a message: it interprets that it is not good to not be yourself and it is good to do what you really want. I respect them for trying," says the author of the Coming Out book.

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shutterstock 109275281

Everyday homophobia

In our earlier article about the challenge, there was also a poll in which, although many people supported the initiative, there were several hundred who interpreted the acceptance of gays as contagious, and about half a thousand of our readers felt that the expression of emotions has no place on the street, be it straight or gay couples. "I wasn't surprised by the result, because I live in this country and I experience the diversity of opinions on the subject, but I don't want it to stay that way, so I'm doing it," says Marcell."He was also among the participants, who was harshly scolded for what he does with how gays should live, let it be their problem! And he was confronted with the fact that, indeed, he has a homophobic acquaintance, about whom this might not have been revealed otherwise. But many more people expressed to him that they were proud of him for standing up for others." For Marcell, the biggest challenge on the path to openness is his own family members. "I drop by drop the news, either about my relationship or about the current events of the book. I want to be patient with them, since it took me years to get to my current level of self-acceptance, so they also have the right to this process, although I often wish it would go faster. They love me, but at the same time it is difficult for them to deal with the reality of my relationship."

“I dare not kiss you”

Treasure Marcel is in the "lucky" position that his partner lives abroad, so they rarely see each other. "When, after many weeks, I'm finally pulling my suitcase out to the airport waiting room and I can't wait to see my love and fall on his neck, my heart beating in my throat with happiness, it would be really nice if I could dare to kiss him, as it would come from the gut. But I don't. I give him a good crunch, I hug him tightly, but I don't kiss him. It's more important at that moment that I can only feel positive feelings and not have to feel the unpleasant feeling in these happy, intense moments that someone around us doesn't like it when we kiss each other," he admits, and adds: he wants to change that, since the unpleasant feelings he doesn't get away with it anyway, because he is concerned with what wild strangers have to say about all this, to the detriment of his own happiness. "But to tell the opposite of this story: when I was on my way home after my visit, and we were at the airport again, where my beloved accompanied me, we secretly exchanged a kiss in the last minutes, thinking that no one was watching. When I looked to the side, I saw that a girl 8-10 meters away from us with her feet rooted in the ground, with a wide smile and wide open eyes noted our intimacy and looked at us with such a loving smile that really embarrassed us. But the case was also instructive: there are people who have a very positive attitude towards gays and think that they too have the same slice of life's cake as anyone else."

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shutterstock 125130671

You can't live locked up

Marcell continues to encourage those around him to take up the challenge if they can, and he is also happy that the Coming Out book is getting more and more attention. "I am also changing as a result of this, I feel that through the book I am also preparing a place for my own future family in society, since I want to continue to live my life among my friends, as useful members of society, and that cannot be done enclosed between four walls. I think this is what is most valued in my environment, standing up for myself and others, and with that comes a positive radiance that is attractive to people. It seems that he is right, since there were many people who shared Marcel's values among those who accepted the challenge."I have always had the rights of members of the LGBTQ community close to my heart, of course also those who face the injustices of the world alone. My liberal thinking is often perceived by those around me as an idealist, but I don't want to live on a planet where full equality is a utopia," writes twenty-three-year-old Leila, who believes that what straight couples can do in public without scandal should not be should not cause outrage in anyone, even if it is done by gay couples. "Homosexuality is not contagious, but narrow-mindedness, education against other human beings, lack of empathy, superiority. I would like to tell everyone to open up to your fellow human beings. If possible, with love."

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