Bob Mould came out as gay back in 1998, which is further away then it seems to be and surely in the macho world of hardcore and Husker Du is kinda like if, say Tom Cruise came out as gay. The point being, it was a more difficult time to come out and also even in 1998 (even in 2014) you could get into some pretty big trouble.
Discussing coming out with Uncut, this is what Mould had to say: “Coming out was different than it is now and I’d always placed a premium on privacy. I didn’t feel comfortable identifying myself as a gay musician. I wanted to be a musician and if I happened to be gay, that’s great too… But Spin led with a saucy byline, something like ‘I’m not a freak’. I was like, ‘Oh, of everything I said, that’s what you’re gonna put on the cover? The gay community’s gonna kill me. ‘That’s not me. I’m not a freak. I’m a normal person.’ Again, I worried about it way more than anybody else. It didn’t really make much difference,”
That’s an interesting perspective from a smart man. The nature of coming out about anything is fraught with dangers unknown. Whether it is real or not, whether you are the same person or someone else, simply expressing a truth about yourself is scary and it is one thing to come out to your friends, family, business colleagues. But to do it on the world stage is full of strange vibrations.
For the person, you are being forced to be known by the world for something that isn’t really any of the world’s business.
