By Annie Muse
If I paint a couple of white lines that the 68% can easily conform to, I will have at my disposal a powerful conforming force. But if the lines are white enough, thick enough, enforced enough, and I land out in the tails, I can even cease to be considered human. I could become Other.
I have a friend, a well-meaning friend, to whom, after many years, I came out. For our purposes here, let’s call him Steve.
(I’m getting to like all this name choosing stuff! It gives me such power! Just like Adam naming the animals of Eden, I get to stick labels all over my little garden… just please stop me if I get out into the weeds!)
Steve is a great guy. He and Karen are married, have three adult kids, and are very hospitable. I’ve known him for more than twenty years, ten of which he spent running a bible study out of his house with Karen — a sort of a house church thing out of their living room and kitchen.
There were several married couples who were a part of this, and some singles. In this world you are either a kid, a teenager, a single man, a single woman, or a married couple. The married couples like to split into smaller groups of exclusively men or women, along with the corresponding singles so they can talk about the issues that are important to them, things that cannot be brought up in a mixed group.
Men’s discussions consist of many admissions of sin with respect to internet porn or other acceptable secret sins. The women don’t have nearly as much trouble controlling their desire for porn so a lot of their time is spent talking about cooking, fashion, and children instead. Just regular working folks, the kind most would consider normal.
When the groups are together the men talk about sports and work, the women talk about what the kids are up to.
Just regular stuff.
So it makes for some interesting dynamics when something “out of the ordinary” crops up.
It was especially interesting for me because I tried so hard to fit in. I am pretty well read, have a good education. I am blessed. But it’s lonely being the abnormal one! And especially lonely if you can’t be real about who you are or even admit your aberrancy.
Where safety is key, us Comingouters must be very careful not to rouse the lions.
There is tremendous pressure to conformity within any group. To be “out” might really mean being “out.” Out in the cold. Separated from friends. But who needs them anyway, right? Well, actually, we all do.
To be “out” within the group is unthinkable. To be “out” is to be Other.
In statistics there is a concept called normal or Gaussian distribution. It’s the idea of the “bell shaped curve.” You can see a picture of this in Wikipedia.
If I were to find 100 random people, measure their heights, take their weights, or find out their IQs it would be possible to draw a few of these bell shaped curves and visually analyze what the probability would be for an individual’s particular weight, or height, etc. (I hope I’m saying this right!) Each person in this group of one hundred represents 1% of the population.
Now suppose I want to control the group. (And I could speak here about the power of hormones manifesting as the energy behind powerfully narcissistic forces but will hold my tongue….) Maybe it’s not even consciously thought out — after all, power has its appeal. And its arguments from rationality. Maybe I’m ambitious. Maybe I’m greedy. Maybe I have strong charisma. Maybe I’m smart.
So I stand up bravely, ambitiously, greedily, and recognizing that people will go along with what they already feel is right, I could announce something that around 68% would agree with without question. Like something that matches their sexual, racial, economic, or gender orientation. And to get full buy-in I need a whole lot less than 100% to carry the day.
My choice of 68% is arbitrary, but in statistics-speak the middle 68% is called “one standard deviation.” And on our bell-shaped curve, the outliers — the folks outside the 68% — are said to be on the tails of the curve.
For instance, I might say, “It’s important to our group that people mate up with individuals of the opposite sex.”
Generally, most people would agree with this kind of statement if put forth by a charismatic individual. In fact, probably about 68% would. And not even recognize the aggression that might be hidden within. They are words of power.
How can it be wrong when it feels so right?
And as the smart and charismatic fellow that I am, I realize that if I paint a couple of white lines that the 68% can easily conform to, I will have at my disposal a powerful conforming force. Why, I could even say that it is wrong to go outside the lines! That stepping outside the lines is sin!
And if I’m smart enough I may even find scripture to back up my assertion. Never mind the rest of the Book — never mind the fact that I have no idea (and no one else does either — we squabble about what it means all the time!) what the writer might have been addressing at the time. But because of my charisma, my intelligence, my privilege, my stroke, oh, oh! and my Doctorate, my arguments will carry the day!
But. If the lines are white enough, thick enough, enforced enough, and I land instead out in the tails, I can even cease to be considered human. I could become Other.
Many interesting things happen around these white lines. For one, if I believe I am landing in this “grey area,” I will feel tremendous pressure to become one of the 68%. If I want to “go rogue” around the white lines I can take on the role of a strong enforcer, shoving people back into the 68%. Many benefits are imparted to the 68% and its enforcers. This is the land of privilege.
If my orientation by nature lands me within the 68% I feel blessed. I am right with the world. I am loved by God.
Benefits come to our charismatic leader as well. For example he might scare us enough to make 90% of us conform to the orientations of the smaller group in the middle. And God help those of us in the tails!
Self-disclosure that lands us outside the white lines can be a very courageous, even dangerous act — as all us Comingouters well know.
Getting back to Steve and my own story, the day came when I had to leave the group. Sometimes we have to trade in our old friends and find some new, nicer ones. It feels so selfish and scary. And liberating. To get out of unhealthy situations is a sign of mental health and maturity.
I honestly thought I would find support in this group. They said that they believed in the power of love. I found it was the kind of love that attempts to draw you back into the 68%. But that would have come at the cost of my identity.
Steve and Karen were my friends. But their worldview could not include me. Or probably another 32% of the population.
I believe that it is honorable to be human. I would much rather be 99% me (I’m doing my best!!) than denying my true self within the 68%. I like to think this makes me a 99%er.
And let me assure you, there are groups that are accepting. That really do love us Comingouters. Amazingly, they love us even while we try and figure these things out for ourselves. Even when we screw it up. I’m not the old me I used to be. They encouraged me “back in the day” when I was that old person, and they encourage me now that I am that new one.
We need to be honest. How do we react to what we perceive as “against nature”? How do we accept and include those that aren’t like ourselves?
Dear ones…don’t be mean.
Other posts in this series
Standard deviation diagram by Mwtoews (7 April 2007), based (in concept) on figure by Jeremy Kemp, on 2005-02-09, via Wikimedia Commons. Used in accordance with Creative Commons license.
Out North Contemporary Art House presents The 18th Annual Under :30 Show, featuring work by Eric Giliam, Leslie Kimiko Ward, and Stephanie Ajax Brown. Four shows on Fridays and Saturdays. Jan. 27 –28 & Feb. 3–4 at 8:00 PM.
![[signature of Michael Howard]](http://www.bentalaska.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2012-01-12.michaelhowardsig.gif "[signature of Michael Howard]")
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