Different Kinds of Closets

In response to my comments complimenting another person's blog, he responded with questions about mine. What follows is my reponse to him, with his comments in italics

You get right to the point as well. Case in point, "And
I am strictly heterosexual." It's forceful, it's informative, and it's
darn funny. I think I found it even more so because I'm strictly not.

My father always told me I'd never make a diplomat; that I was much too plain speaking for that. And although I'm not gay, I am a natural ally of gay people because I consider myself a sexual minority. Although het, I am not the least bit monogamous and have no desire to be. And I do not make excuses, nor do I apologize for that basic part of my nature.

I suspect that there are more people out there like me who have not come out of the monogamy closet as unambiguously as I have, but are still trying to pay lip service to the sacred cow of monogamy and are getting themselves into all sorts of trouble with their denial. Bill Clinton is a prime example of that....a libertine if I ever saw one!

I also made a post on the McGreevey incident, as you did on your blog. The basic point of my blog entry was that staying in the closet and living in denial all those years is what got him where he is today, and that there are other sorts of closets as well, specifically the one reserved for the nonmonogamous, which also lead to all sorts of trouble, as Clinton again has shown us.

I've heard the term libertine before, but I never really understood
what it meant. Is it like liberal, but not? Like libertarian, but
not? Just curious.

Check out my blog entry "Liberal Libertarian Libertine", which goes into that. One thing that is interesting to note is that even though most liberals and libertarians are not libertines, most libertines are both liberal and libertarian.

Roget's Thesaurus defines libertine as:

"Marked by an absence of conventional restraint in sexual behavior; sexually unrestrained."

I would go beyond this and say it is at core an attitude, a way of looking at the world, as well as being unrestrained in sexual behavior. It is possible to be a libertine, albeit a very frustrated one!, even when one is in a monogamous relationship or is celibate, but is unable to act out their libertine impulses in their present lives, for whatever reason. I've had several people tell me that they have the "heart of a libertine", but cannot actively express it right then because of other responsibilities, but hope to later on when circumstances in their lives allow it.

Libertine is also just another way of saying "promiscuous". It's not a new concept; as there were many people who were openly libertines in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. And, of course, libertines have always existed in actual practice, if not in philosophy.

After doing much questioning and reading into biology, anthropology, sociology, and history, I decided to accept myself and my sexual nature as I naturally am, and to come out of the monogamy closet. Life is too damned short to live in denial while trying to squeeze oneself into an ill-fitting mold. And, as gay people have claimed the word "queer", I have claimed the word "libertine" to describe who and what I am.