Sexologist and psychiatrist Catherine Blanc gave her advice on Tuesday on Europe 1 to an auditor who has just come out, in other words to reveal her homosexuality, to her parents. He wonders how to overcome the feeling of embarrassment within his family regarding his sexual orientation.
Jordan's question
"I came out to my parents during confinement. It went well. However, I still feel a certain embarrassment, ever since, with my parents. How can I untie the situation?"
Catherine Blanc's response
"It's always tricky to talk about your sexuality to your parents so you can understand this embarrassment. In everyone's imagination, images are essential and we fear the images that the other has. We can also fear to share these images through words. It is quite normal that the mixture of genders, that is to say in the context of parent-child relationships, poses a problem on the subject of sexuality. before his choice of love life means not only talking about his sexuality but talking about a sexuality that stands out from the model proposed by parents with always the fear of disappointing them when you do not walk in their steps.
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You may be afraid to tell your mother that you don't love her because you love men. One can also fear to scare his father or not to be virile like him if the father has claimed a certain virility. Lots of questions still arise about the child's bond with his parents, but we should rather calmly assume that we are moving towards our sexuality and our object of love. We don't have to go into details, but we can simply say that we have found a way and that we are at peace with it. "
Whether one is homosexual or not, it remains difficult to talk about one's sexuality to one's parents ...
"Say 'I'm gay or say' I have a girlfriend or boyfriend 'if you're heterosexual enough. Parents act and eventually ask their child if he's happy. Sometimes they can ask questions : "Who is he? What is his name? What does he do for a living?" And that's all there is to it. Parents should never enter into the context of intimacy, sexual experiences or sexual positions for example. It is not something that is shared. But often, since it It is so difficult to come out and therefore position yourself on the fringes of an entire majority society, there is a desire to express your happiness, your freedom and your discoveries.
It is obviously not with his parents that this can be done. It is important not to try to find disapproval in a somewhat closed attitude, a frown. It takes time for a child to tell his parents that he is entering sex life, even more so when he is gay. In this period of tension, [the Covid-19 crisis], the child waits to know if we still love him. So, the child observes the movements of his parents with the desire that they may feel a curiosity signs of an interest on the part of his parents.
The greatest concern for the gay male child is that of paternal reception. So everything is scrutinized with the idea of tension. But everyone has to digest. Because what happened to the child who tells of his homosexuality may be a surprise for the parents (even if they are generally not fooled). Parents also feared this face to face with their child. Even in the case of heterosexuality, they are not comfortable talking about their child's sexuality. "