Actor Goes Into Heartbreaking Detail About Coming Out As Gay
A note slipped under a door marked a significant turning point in one actor’s coming out journey.
From a young age, Taiwanese actor Ah Ben knew he was attracted to the same sex. During an episode of the Taiwanese variety show Lady Go, he shared that he went through a “very confused phase” in secondary school, where he was attracted to both girls and boys.
After realizing that he actually preferred the same sex, Ah Ben felt like it was the end of the world. Throughout high school, he kept his feelings to himself. It was a tumultuous time, during which the actor’s parents thought he was simply going through a typical teen rebellious phase.
It wasn’t until Ah Ben slipped a note under the door of his parents’ bedroom–after he fought with them one day–that everything began to change. The note read, “I just like guys.”
It would take Ah Ben’s parents over a decade to accept his homosexuality. After reading his note, his mother, who blamed herself for Ah Ben’s sexual orientation, began to cry. She would spend years believing that she could change him. Then one day, without warning, Ah Ben’s mother suddenly brought up his homosexuality in a different way:
Do you have a partner? Do you want to find someone who can take care of you?
— Ah Ben’s mother
Ah Ben is now in his forties, and both his parents have accepted his sexuality. Although it was a difficult journey for all of them, Ah Ben believes that the reluctance to accept his sexual orientation had more to do with his parents’ upbringing than who they are as people.
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I’m already in my forties, and my parents’ generation is very conservative. Society’s opinions and values as well as the things they’ve been taught, made it very hard for them to accept that I just wanted to be true to myself.
— Ah Ben
