Re: closet conlanging

I have just returned to my email after the crimbo break, and haven't
yet read the ensuing thread, but I think I'd better write this reply
immediately.

Daniel O'Neil says:
> On Fri, 18 Dec 1998, And Rosta wrote:
>
> > It's curious how there is a kind of metaphorical relation between
> > conlanging on the one hand and masturbation and bi/homosexuality on
> > the other (The Secret Vice, The Love that Dare Not Speak its
> > Name). When some months ago there were several people posting
> > to the list declaring themselves to be bisexual teenage conlangers,
> > and I never got round to observing that bisexuality and conlanging
> > are, like religiosity, phases that many teenagers go through but few
> > adults remain in.
>
> And, perhaps it's a good thing that you didn't make that observation.
Well, had I made that observation I would certainly have welcomed an
opportunity to subsequently disavow any homophobia read into my words
and to affirm my sincere and enthusiastic amity to gaydom, to you and
to all of our friends on this list.

> As a gay man, I don't feel comfortable with the implication that my sexual
> orientation is an immature phase I should "grow out of."
That implication is of course not only uncomfortable but insulting to
you, and I'm sure you can accept that my remark is true (in some relevant
sense) yet by neither intention nor logical necessity bore the
offensive and thoroughly objectionable implication.

> I would be wary of making such sweeping generalizations about people's
> sexual identity development.
I am bad at treading on eggshells, and placed perhaps too much trust
in the customary cordiality of this list to quench any suspicion my
innocent remarks might understandably but undeservedly be held under.

> And there may be far more compelling reasons
> why relatively few adults identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual other than
> "maturity"--reasons such as the very real possibility of losing our
> jobs, our families, our friends, our children (because we're considered
> "unfit parents"), and even our lives (thanks to all the gay-bashers
> lurking out there like the ones who brutally murdered Matthew Shepard
> earlier this year).
True, in an infinitely-diluted sense, also for conlangers.

> Oh, and did I mention that in slightly less than half the states sodomy is
> still a crime and that nowhere in the world do we enjoy full and equal
> marriage rights (not even in the Scandinavian countries)?
I hope you, as a conlanger, will be reassured to know that in Livagia
(where I would reside if I could) sodomy is not a crime, and is not
socially stigmatized (under any definitions of "sodomy" except sex with
nonhuman mammals), and that homosexual marriage has always been a legal
and wholly accepted part of society. I regard the continuing failure of the
real world to emulate Livagia's example as a continuing outrage made tolerable
only by the fact of one's own impotence to end it.

Yours fraternally,

And.