“Atrévete, Te, Te, Te

Salte del closet,

Escápate, quítate el esmalte

Deja de taparte que nadie va a retratarte”

As someone obsessed with learning about other cultures, especially those of Latin

America, I am a big fan of reggaeton music and in particular, the songs of Calle 13, a

famous reggaeton artist from Puerto Rico. My favorite song of his is titled “¡Atrévete, Te,

Te!” For years I listened to this song, even before I knew how to speak Spanish. Like

most gringos (Latin American term for white americans), I never knew what it meant.

Embarrassing, I know. After I moved to the Dominican Republic, the song was finally

translated for me, and what does it happen to be about? Here’s the translation: “Dare, to ,

to, to, come out of the closet. Escape, take off the nail polish. Stop covering yourself, no

one is going to take your picture!” Perhaps the song is a bit racy and probably insulting

to gay people, but I am not the kind of person to take offense to song lyrics about

homosexuals, it’s just not worth my time or energy. Ironically, this ear-opening

experience came as I was discussing and building up the courage to come out to my

parents. If thats not a sign, I do not know what one is. I have struggled with the fact that I

was gay for years and asked myself the depressing question “Why can’t I be straight?” In

hindsight, I don’t even really want to be straight. I thrive on the fact that when people see

me kissing my boyfriend on the street or holding his hand that it makes them turn their

heads. Now that I have matured enough to move past the whole “I just wanna be

accepted” phase of my life, the new question I ask myself is “What would I do if I had
ended up being straight?” I truly believe I am a more open and understanding person

because I am gay, and I would take that over being heterosexual any day.

While I would not consider myself the most adventurous or dauntless person in the

world, I would like to think that I have that daredevil edge that allows me to make every

day just as interesting and eventful as the last. So when it comes to facing what life

throws at me, on a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate my fear level at about a low to mid-

ranged 2. Not bad, right? Well, let me just say, coming out to my parents was one of the

most fucking scariest moments of my life. After 20 years of life, an uber-conservative

high school, older european girlfriends, a girl I actually loved, a pretend exotic novia, an

uber-liberal university, douche bag boyfriends who I thought I loved, moving to another

city, then to another country, and meeting the love of my life, I was still a pussy when it

came to coming out of the closet. So much of a wimp, in fact, that I did it through an

email. Welcome to the 21st century. After all of that worrying and obsessing over the

reaction I would get, I got the most disappointing and unsatisfactory response from my

mom (not surprisingly, also in an email), “All is good on our end. We met [him] last

summer remember?” Imagine spending years of your life, from the days when you were

experimenting with your sexuality as a teen going through puberty up to graduating from

high school and moving away from your parents, building up to this huge moment where

you think your life is going to change forever, that you will be shunned or disowned, and

you receive a response as anti-climatic as that. All I could think was “Am I crazy? Have I

tortured myself for years and made myself miserable, when all I had to say was ‘I am

gay. I have a boyfriend that really makes me happy and I want you to meet him.” All

things considered, I made things a lot harder for myself. All that I had to do was accept
that being different doesn't make me any less of a person. My only regret is that it took

me so long to realize it.

Now, I am fully aware that coming out is not easy for everyone, so this is in no way a

celebratory story about how everyone should just come out and deal with it. That is

certainly not the case. I am very fortunate to have such a support system behind me, and I

will never take that for granted. Being gay is not a disease or a curse, it is who I am and I

deserve to be happy, whether society deems it "normal" or not.