This post was submitted by Zack Rosen

Do you hear the faint buzz of anticipation emanating from 17th Street? See the empty shelves at CVS where the mascara and eye liner used to be? It’s June in The District, which only means one thing: frizzy hair! Oh yeah, and Capitol Pride, DC’s week long celebration of all things queer.

Much cyber ink has been spilled on the subject, much of it at this website. Michael frayed some nerves last last year with his admonishment of the festivities, while Ben soothed them with a beautiful case for why Pride is necessary. Other readers weighed in on the subject as well. I love Ben, Michael and all of our readers, but I’m starting to think that all of their opinions are moot. Not incorrect, not inelequently expressed, just moot.

Pride is what it is. No amount of grumbling or defending or boycotting or outright discomfort at the what happens this week in DC will change the fact that Pride has is, and probably always will be, a party. That’s it. I’ve heard from a number of sources that say the whole thing began as a political rally and has since (d)evolved into the circus we see before us. I could spend more time here grumbling that Pride just propagates stereotypes, or is another gay excuse for reckless sex and substance abuse, or that it neither looks backwards at the great strides we’ve made as people or the hurdles in front of us to be jumped.

But what’s the point? This is as useful as complaining that bananas are yellow or that water makes you wet.

This is not due to any failings on the part of Pride’s organizers. Capital Pride proper is a ten-day period with an insane number of scheduled events including museum exhibits, plays, sporting events, religious services and volunteering opportunities. In fact, there is actually an admirable reflection of the contemporary breadth of gay culture.

But are people going to attend those events? Will the news cameras come? Will the straight be there? No. In the minds of most, Pride is synonymous with its attendant parade. The parade too does a decent job of reflecting many aspects of gay life  — sports teams and social clubs march between the drag queens and dykes on bikes — but all with that sheen of excess that can make the whole thing so off-putting. Who decided that displaying gay pride meant being so over the top that you start being on the bottom again? 

But there I go, ignoring my own advice. I’m wishing Pride was something it wasn’t, but it will never be. And I can’t change that. I can’t even think of what I would do to make improvements. Make a “gay book club” float where Gore Vidal wears a pink cardigan and reads aloud from the collected works of W.H. Auden? He’d be drowned out by the bar float behind him. Get Hercules and Love Affair or Athens Boys Choir to perform at the street fair? That would just be a different kind of party.

It’s far from awful as it is. I love how many people observe pride, even if they haven’t foot in a gay space the other 364 days of the year. It’s nice to be in an outdoor space that 100% gay. No furtive looks on the metro, no making guesses about the girl next to you at brunch because of her haircut. Just gay people, being themselves around gay people. The smiles on the faces of the little kids holding up banners that read “I Love My Two Mommies.” That makes me proud. It makes me feel like there really is a place for us in this world. But these moments are so fleeting that. It’s like trying to be proud of a grain of grass from an airplane. You know it’s there, and you might even think you see it, but blink and it will be lost behind in you in an endless sprawl of green and brown. 

I guess my feelings on Pride depend on two questions that I simply don’t have good answers for. The first is “What is the point?” I don’t mean this rhetorically. Is Pride supposed to get us together as a people and just have fun for a change without reflecting on the injustices deal to us on a regular basis? In that respect it is successful. But that leads me directly to my next question: To borrow a phrase from Passover, how is this day different from every other day? I guess all the gay people are gathered in one public place. That’s cool. More parties are being thrown over the course of the weekend than there normally would be. People are in the mood to have fun. But that just means the answer to my second question is “it isn’t.”

 I guess I should just accept the fact that Pride is a macrocosm of what is standardly accepted as gay living. And if I really play my cards right, I’ll just turn my brain off, scream the loudest at the parade, get wasted at my ownparty on Saturday, wake up with a headache on Sunday, and maybe get stoned before I head down to the street fest and do some people watching. I will probably experience a small heart-swell at seeing so many gay people mobilized to celebrate their identity in one place, but it will be brief. More likely all the men with their shirts off will give me a chubby and I’ll think about them on the Metro ride home.

I guess I have a third question, then: Is Pride really something to be proud of? 

Maybe it’s just an issue with the moniker. Pride, pride, by any other name, would smell just as sweetly of cum and beer. Maybe it’s time to drop the P word altogether.

New Orleans’ GLTB fest is called Southern Decadence. A good friend of mine once got a BJ on the street there, which doesn’t bother me at all. I simply commend the organizers for embracing the concept of truth in advertising, and giving the people what they really want. Is it off-base to say that what most people are seeking this weekend has nothing to do with being proud?

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