LGBT
Related: About this forumNormal as Folk
ITS gay pride month again, and that means its time for the straight media to deliver its annual state-of-the-gay report.
If experience is any guide, this exercise will involve a lot of triumphalism about the progress of the gay movement, as measured by the increasing cultural assimilation of young lesbians and gay men into American society as a whole.
Gay men in particular, who used to frighten the horses with flamboyant displays of sexual outlawry, gender treason and fabulousness, have supposedly dropped their insignia of tribal belonging and joined the mainstream. Gay men, it seems, have become indistinguishable from normal folk. Now, thats progress for you!
Back in the Bad Old Days, or so the story goes, there was such a thing as an edgy, subversive gay male culture. But it was an artifact of homophobia. Older gay men may still thrill to torch songs, show tunes, classic Hollywood melodramas and Lalique; they may still spend hours arranging the furniture just so.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/opinion/style-and-the-meaning-of-gay-culture.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120622
William769
(55,147 posts)If that were the case we would live in a very dull world.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)I never wanted to be normal. I always wanted to be gay, openly and proudly and happily.
It's always every OTHER gay person who aspires to normalness, it's always seemed to me, and still is today.
Obviously, I don't mean people here, but outside here, IRL.
Do gay people in SFO try to be 'normal'?
Creideiki
(2,567 posts)Red skittles are just as acceptable as orange skittles are just as acceptable as yellow skittles...
The thing isn't about saying that red skittles are super different from other skittles. They're still skittles.
So when I say I want to be accepted, I should be accepted as a person. Just like I won't differentiate between people who happen to be another race, or another gender, or another religion. All people are at their heart, people, and deserve to be treated like any other person.
Fearless
(18,421 posts)Just be yourself and fuck the rest!
beyurslf
(6,755 posts)chooses only to show the flamboyant, wild, outrageous parts of our community. The pic from the Pride Parade is always the most lavish, outrageous (and always gorgeous and hysterical) drag queen.
I never get up and feel like I am living a gay life--I just feel like I am living MY life.