–“The World I Used to Be Afraid Of” by Blanche

Some of the first gay films I ever saw dealt also with the subject of the early days of HIV/AIDS, films like Longtime Companion, Angels In America, and Love! Valour! Compassion!, and Jeffrey (this still continues today with viewings of The Witnesses, Parting Glances, and The Living End). I was a confused new teenager with cable and insomnia, so I would stay up and watch anything that had to do with homosexuality (with a particular fixation on gay men, even then I felt more akin to them than to lesbians). It just happened that most of the films I saw were a little before my time.

I am pretty fresh and sheltered when it comes to the history and realities of HIV/AIDS in our community; I wasn’t born until the early 90’s, have almost always lived in suburbia, and have never known anyone who has HIV/AIDs, let alone died from it.  According to Larry Kramer, that puts me in the league of the lazy, uneducated gays of my generation by default (after he admonishes me for calling myself queer).  However, I strive to be neither purposefully ignorant nor excessively fearful.

Dame, die sich die Hände wäscht by Gerard ter Borch, taken from Wikimedia Commons

As I try to enter the world of dating and sex, I find myself periodically asking the question, “Would I date someone who was positive?” “Would I still hook up with them after they told me?” Looking at the OkCupid and ManHunt profiles of cute guys who are brave enough to clearly admit their status in their profiles (because, it is hard to be upfront about things that are often considered “less than ideal”), it certainly doesn’t rule them out in my mind. If you want to be ruled out in my book then show an open dislike for intellectual pursuits or put something along the lines of “no fats or flamers” in your profile.

There is definitely still a lot of unfair treatment and generalizations made. I can relate in more than one way to being stigmatized for a medical issue and have it become an automatic disqualifier in people’s eyes. There is this judgment that you can see pass through people’s eyes, and often that appalling silence that follows or that damn “Oh…” followed by the silence and judgment.  I don’t have HIV/AIDS, so I cannot fully understand, but I’d like to think I can at least make an effort not to be prejudiced despite my unintentionally sheltered upbringing.

It is really interesting hearing what my peers think about HIV and people who happen to have it.  For the most part, it seems more like a punchline to them than anything else.  With the exception of some of the social justice types with their sights firmly set on Africa and Bono, it seems to have disappeared from the mindset of those around me except in the form of a joke or an eyeroll when adults lecture about the importance of protection.  Our thoughts seem so separate from the interpersonal side of things.  I wonder what their responses would be if I asked, “Would date someone who was positive?” If it is anything like the responses I hear from many people about the question, “Would you date someone who is transgender?”, then clearly we have some things we need to talk and think about these matters on a personal, human level rather than technical terms and afterschool specials.

I’m also not so forgiving of celebrities who use offensive language and follow with some sort of caveat about how their comments are ok because they support gay marriage ala The Millionaire Matchmaker’s Patti Stanger, or Kings of Leon’s quick decision to tell a gay man to get a manicure and buy a bra, followed with an “I’m sorry 4 anyone that misconstrued my comments as homophobic or misogynistic. I’m so not that kind of person” tweet.

In my experience, classroom teachers don’t tolerate language like that from students of any age. Where should our tolerance lie as adults? As a student teacher, I took off points for students who used curse words or offensive words in their fiction writing, in classroom discussion, I corrected them aloud.  Teachers help young people learn respect, develop socially acceptable habits and gain understanding of historical, social and literary contexts of modern times. They also restrict aggressive, violent or inappropriate behavior. Who does this for adults? The police might step in for violent behavior, but what about the smaller offenses? Should we  make (theoretical) citizen arrests? Should we take to the airwaves (tweet-waves?) every time we hear an unjust word thrown? Should we boycott celebrities? Should we confront our families?

Mel Gibson: King of Racist Tirades

What do we gain from speaking out?

Enemies and fans alike have jumped on the backs (or off the bandwagons) of Mel Gibson, Michael Richards and Tracy Morgan for their racists or homophobic tirades. In some cases celebrities issue apologies – most likely because those fans pay the bills, not because they are truly sorry, or because they don’t actually agree with the offensive statements they made. Refusing to see the movies/buy the albums/ read the books of a person who has used offensive language sends a powerful message that ignorance or closed-mindedness will not be tolerated from anyone – but a lot of people think the two things are unrelated.  Do Mel Gibson’s racist tirades stop you from enjoying Lethal Weapon?

Digital courage Vs. face-to face courage

A lot of us replaced the tequila-courage of college with internet-courage of adulthood– even the most mild mannered folks might take the opportunity to speak out on an issue on Facebook or Twitter that they would never broach in “real life”- condoning a friend for reposting political or celebrity hate-speech, or calling out @Celebrity for being #homophobic or #racist on Twitter, but what happens in face-to-face situations? How do we react when a friend, colleague or supervisor comments about how “retarded” a call in a football game was, or that how “gay” it is that a buddy bailed on happy hour. Can we muster the courage to call out that sort of language face-to-face? Do our efforts make a difference?

What about Freedom of Speech?

While us liberal, PC, uptight, buzz-killers are out there reminding people that suggesting African Americans only eat fried chicken and watermelon is offensive, there’s a whole colony of commentators gathered around talking about Freedom of Speech. “What happened to the First Amendment?” they love to snarkily ask. These questioners are right – the government doesn’t have the right to restrict speech, but when you are a public persona (a politician, actor, musician, etc) whose career relies on the support, financial and other, of fans or voters – it might be wise to ensure that your Freedom of Speech doesn’t ricochet off your angry fans and hit you square in the face.  When an individual receives 1000 emails, or Facebook posts condemning their language or behavior, that’s Freedom of Speech, too, right?

A Focus on Education

Its easy for us to destroy someone’s reputation on the internet for offensive behavior (::cough cough:: Rick  Santorum), or to embarrass someone in a bar for using language that might not be PC, but its important to recognize that some people don’t actually know better. Sure, Santorum isn’t one of them – he earned his internet reputation for standing strong in his hateful views – but there are bound to be people who honestly don’t think that saying “retarded” is offensive if they aren’t talking about a person, or who think because their minority friends use certain slang words that everyone agrees with their usage. Think about it like our underpaid and overworked educators try to do with our kids – if there is a teaching moment, take it. Ask why the word or phrase was used, what that person thinks it means – explain the origin, or who it can offend. Sure its awkward, and can be embarrassing, but if there’s a chance to create a wizened advocate rather than a smeared reputation – its worth a try.

–

How sensitive are you to language? Have you ever boycotted a celebrity for expressing offensive views (intentionally or not)? Do you Tweet/comment on offensive language you encounter on the web? Do you correct friends, family, or colleagues when you think they’ve said something offensive?

The game of who is more oppressed is a complicated one. When intersectionality is taken into account, questions of identity are more complicated than black or white, gay or straight, Christian or not. Being of a majority group in one aspect of one’s identity does not preclude minority status in another, and social minority is not always a numerical minority. Minority status may be visible or virtually invisible, concealable or not. Some are able to pass or to assimilate to minimize the stigma they will bear in mainstream society, others cannot. Still others are unwilling to so.

In was not very long ago that assimilating, passing, was part and parcel of the American dream. Everyone wanted to be white and upper-middle class. Everyone wanted a suburban house with a yard and a dog. It was only whackos, bohemians, radicals, who sought to assert their distinctive cultural or ethnic identities. Very often these cohorts were made up of the discontents who were, for whatever reason, because of their skin color, bone structure, deeply ingrained mannerisms or accents, unable to pass, unable to disappear into the white suburban landscape. Black folks, Jewish folks, queer folks, and any number of other cohorts were excluded from this idyllic vision of the perfect American life. In time, things changed, and exclusion was limited to dark-skinned Black folks, People who were “too Jewish,” queers who couldn’t hide. If you were lucky and could pass, could be mistaken for White Protestant Anglo-Saxon, or at least toned down the distinctions of your culture so that it sort of resembled the norm, you did.

How things have changed. There is still discrimination, exclusion, assimilation, passing, but the new trend it seems is to vociferously claim the status of as many minorities as one can get away with. There are even those who seek to claim that the dominant White Anglo-Saxon Protestant cohort is an oppressed minority. Everyone wants to argue that their lot is, or has been, or should be in theory, one of hardship because whatever cohort they belong to is an oppressed minority, or was. No one, it seems, wants to claim privilege anymore. It doesn’t stop anyone from taking advantage of these privileges; just the opposite, in fact. They are taken as a deserved reward for the perseverance over culturally imposed hardship.

My skin is white. Because of this, I enjoy a certain privilege in society that dark-skinned folks do not. I am well educated. Because of this, I enjoy a certain privilege that folks without access to education do not. Because of these things, I do not experience the sort of systemic discrimination faced by the folks who do not share these qualities, which are the result of nothing but accidents of my birth. I am also a religious minority. I am also a sexual minority. I also live below the poverty line. I am also a woman. These are areas in which I do experience a certain degree of discrimination and invisibility. These factors do not, however, erase the privilege of being perceived as white and well-bred.

It gets even more complicated, though. Within each area of minority, there are in turn minorities and majorities, oppressors and oppressed, privileged and discriminated against. Within the Jewish world, I am of Eastern and Western European heritage, which is the dominant ethnicity of American Jewry, and the privileged class of Jews in Israel. In that minority, I am of the majority, the privileged, the oppressor class. Within the queer world, I am bisexual, dominant in numbers, but invisible and discriminated against culturally and institutionally. There, I am a minority of a minority. The analysis could go on ad infinitum.

Ultimately, where does all of this posturing get us? Well, what I think most of us hope it gets us is off the hook. None of us wants to be implicated as an oppressor, or even as one of an oppressor class. It’s always safer and easier to identify as, and with, the oppressed innocent, to divert the accusatory pointing finger away from us and our ancestry, until you’d think there was no such thing as privilege. We all know that there is, we just don’t want to ever think of ourselves as benefitting from it.

The more courageous thing to do, I think, is to step up and own your privilege. Recognize, and acknowledge, and say out loud “I am white, and I don’t worry about being profiled.” “I am straight and I don’t think about my right to marriage and children, or worry about being bashed.” “I am a man and I don’t worry about being raped.” “I am upper/middle class and don’t have to worry about where my rent/next meal is coming from.” “I am educated and have opportunities that the uneducated never dream of.” “I am able-bodied and don’t have to wonder if the places I want to go are accessible, and I never think about curb cuts.” It is surprisingly empowering. It also opens our eyes to a world outside of ourselves. If you recognize your privilege, you can see better where injustice lies, and just by seeing, we move a step away from being a part of the problem, and a step closer to becoming a part of the solution.

Reality television.

When MTV’s  The Real World began its edited broadcast of 7 strangers residing together in a house in 1992, it was clear that their actions would leave the world of televised entertainment changed forever.  The intimacy, the honesty and the grit were impossible to recreate in small screen fiction, and the viewer addiction was dangerous.

Fast forward 20 years and it’s impossible to click through even a few television channels without landing on a reality show. In fact, the variety has increased to a level where we don’t even think of the shows as being of the “reality” genre – they are just TV now. There are still “sharing a house on camera ” shows like The Real World and Big Brother,  but there are also “get help” shows like Intervention and Hoarders, “warning/encouraging bad behavior” shows like 16 And Pregnant,  as well as animal shows, wedding shows, buying/selling house shows, survival shows and plastic surgery shows. There are even shows with no detectable premise (Keeping up with the Kardashians).The list is endless. Today, it could be said that getting your own reality show is one form of Making It in America.  And if that’s true, maybe this trend has brought one gift to the gay community – a slow yet steady increase in visibility.  Gay reality stars have been making a serious impact on visibility of LGBTQ issues, and maybe even acceptance as they stream into American households every night.

The beginning of this impact can be traced to The Real World’s third season castmate Pedro Zamora. The openly gay and HIV positive Zamora brought LGBTQ issues and AIDS awareness into millions of American homes in the early 90s, a time when we were still not talking about openly about homosexuality and certainly not AIDS.  Diagnosed HIV positive when he was only 17, he auditioned for the cast of the show intentionally to spread more information about AIDS awareness. Zamora passed away from HIV related illness just days after the final episode of the season was broadcast. He was 22.

Unfortunately, not all LGBT representatives can be as admirable as Zamora. Sometimes reality shows reinforce negative stereotypes, like Patti Stanger’s attempt to pair up a gay millionaire on Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker (read AfterElton’s POV and AfterEllen’s POV on this episode) or LOGO’s The A-List which features a cast of selected stereotypes of gay men, and, as the Washington Post commented in 2010, doesn’t make a great social study but feels more like depressing voyeurism.

More often in recent years, a reality show might feature participants who just happen to be gay, thereby helping to normalize homosexuality. On TLC’s Baby’s First Day a lesbian couple is featured celebrating the birth of their child.  Gay couples get married on wedding shows or buy houses on house hunting shows. (Look honey! Those gays like bamboo flooring, just like us!”)

We have a revolving door of gay competitors on shows like Project Runway, Top Chef, America’s Next Top Model, The Amazing Race, and even a few on American Idol. These shows do a lot to normalize LGBTQ folks. Their sexual orientation comes second to their design ideas, knife skills, vocal talent or travel smarts. Americans root for them for these talents, and maybe sometimes forget that they aren’t hetero. They aren’t gay chefs or gay models – just chefs and models.

We still don’t have a same-sex couple on the US version of Dancing with the Stars (they do in Israel), which is broadcast into 10 millions homes a week, but the cast might be ready for it.

The popularity of reality TV shows might be a result of a lack of creativity of TV execs, our own creepy desire to peer into someone else’s lives, or our desperate wish to feel better about ourselves by focusing other batty people, but they might also be a subversive tactic in the LGBTQ fight for normalcy.

What are the best and worst representations you have seen of LGBTQ folks on reality TV?

It is not at all clear what Bert and Ernie’s ages are supposed to be. The fact that they share an apartment without adult supervision says nothing on this score given that Big Bird, who is eternally 6 years old, lives alone in his nest and is cared for by the community. The monster characters all seem to be at some stage of what we understand as childhood, with the adult (and sometimes child) human characters explaining the basics of emotions and numbers and relational concepts to them for the benefit of viewers. Bert and Ernie, however, are not monsters. They look as though they were designed as representative of human characters, and therefore we may feel more of a need to investigate and understand the truth of their narrative in human terms than we do of absurd characters like a green furry grouch living in a garbage can or a red furry monster with a speech delay.

The question for me, however, is not whether Ernie and Bert are a gay couple. I will admit that years ago I wrote a short story about the two puppets as actors on the show with their own off-camera life as a couple, talking about how they wished they could be “out” on Sesame Street… however, it was not an expression of my desire for them to reveal any such truth on the show. I wrote it after reading a news story similar to the ones generated by the petitions to have the characters marry now that gay marriage has been legalized in our state. An independent film had been shown at a festival in which it was satirically suggested that Ernie and Bert were gay. Then, as now, it was not the suggestion itself, but rather to The Children’s Television Workshop’s response to the suggestion that had got me riled.

Back then, CTW’s response was much more hostile in its defensiveness. This time it seems they’ve taken a more diplomatic tone, but the reaction still strikes my ears as laced with a certain sense of dismissal if not disgust, the brushing off of a patently absurd idea. The attitude that I perceive is echoed by responses from the public: How could anyone suggest that these characters might be gay? Why would we introduce this subject to a children’s show? Why must these innocent best friends be sexualized? Why should sexuality come up at all in a children’s show? Don’t our kids grow up too fast already?

These questions belie the very societal prejudice that they seem so fastidiously to avoid stating explicitly. “There’s nothing wrong with being gay but…” doesn’t remove the inherent homophobia implicit in the rejection of the “preposterous” suggestion that Bert and Ernie could be gay. The fact is, sexuality is, and always has been, a central theme of Sesame Street. We don’t see it as such of course, because we don’t think of Gordon and Susan’s marriage, Maria and Luis’s engagement and marriage, Bob’s relationship with Linda, Maria’s pregnancy and the birth of Gabby, or the adoption of Susan and Gordon’s son Miles, as having to do with sexuality… these events are about relationships and families, about love and attachment, things that children experience and process in their daily lives. But a gay relationship? That is seen as just sex, and something that children need not be exposed to.

I don’t need Ernie and Bert to be gay. I think it is a good thing that they are two best friends living together as roommates, teaching kids about compare and contrast, about agreeing and disagreeing, about friendship despite, or in light of, differences between people. I think that non-sexual, platonic, close friendship is something that needs to be depicted in the world of Sesame Street and I think that Ernie and Bert are the perfect vehicle for the lessons of friendship.

What bothers me, is that Sesame Street has always been openly about diversity, about relating to people different from you. The fact that the central families on the show are African-American and Hispanic is not a coincidence. There was a reason that American Sign Language and Spanish were emphasized. Jim Henson’s vision for Sesame Street was that it should both reflect the child’s life, and broaden her horizons, teaching her not only tolerance, but acceptance, and appreciation for differences between people, and recognizing at the same time the things that make us all the same. That is precisely what Bert and Ernie have taught us all since we were children.

Instead of getting up-in-arms about the suggestion that Bert and Ernie come out of a closet that they may or may not be occupying, perhaps we should all take a step back and realize that this is not about the orange and yellow, short and tall, messy and neat, type b and type a best friends who live in the basement apartment of 123 Sesame Street, and their sexual orientation. This is about a reality of our children’s lives that they are not seeing reflected in the show that helped us all understand and process lifecycle events and emotional truths and the variety of humanity. All of the families on Sesame Street are heteronormative. Why can’t we let those of our children with two mommies or two daddies see their lives normalized? After all, aren’t LGBTQ folks the people in your neighborhood… the people that you meet each day?

I read a lot about human evolution, specifically how our ancestors evolved into modern humans and how we determine the dividing point between animals and humans. Some say the change came when our ancestors began to create art, others say when they formed family structures and began supporting the adults and children within those structures.

We often think about species of the past, such as the Neanderthals, as being so extremely far removed from our modern, advanced species. They did go extinct, after all. We picture hulking, stooping beasts, dragging women around by the hair, swinging clubs, void of advanced intellect. We imagine that they were did not survive because they could not evolve and adapt like Homo sapiens – they could not modernize. We actually know better than that Hollywood dramatized image of stupid cave-dwellers now. We know that Neanderthals were much like us, so much so that there is genetic proof that some of our ancestors interacted and bred with them.

I was shocked to learn that many modern day humans have Neanderthal DNA (although I found it somewhat humorous that the only ethnic group that didn’t interbreed with Neanderthals are peoples descended from Africa, people who had suffered from generations of unfair accusations of being “less modern” or “more primitive” which was largely at the root of slavery in the United States.) But, what I was more shocked to think about is how even in our modern society there is this constant steam of political and social issues that reflect a prehistoric attitude. I cannot understand how some of these beliefs have not been left in the dust with our Neanderthal cousins – like the discussion about whether or not women can make their own decisions.

Apparently Michelle Bachman can’t – or perhaps chooses not to. She said in 2006 that her husband told her to get a degree in tax law, even though she didn’t want to, and then to run for Congress, and she had to do it. He’s her husband and she should be submissive. This is a woman who wants to be President of the United States, but believes its her duty to be submissive to her husband. Sooo…why isn’t he running for President?

Also reactions to the new test that can determine the sex of an unborn baby at 7 weeks. People are seriously acting like this new test will cause women to abort babies left and right because they aren’t happy with the sex of this child – so we shouldn’t allow this test because it will cause women to go abortion crazy. A woman who wants to have a child will have a child regardless of sex, and a woman who does not want to have a child would terminate regardless of sex. These people are pretending that the new test doesn’t have an advantage in finding sex-linked diseases. In places like China or India, where often having a girl child is unfavorable – the test won’t make a difference. That child will be a girl or a boy at 7 weeks, 12 weeks and 30 weeks.

Presidential hopeful and overall jackass Rick Perry passed the law that required doctors to show a woman a sonogram and make her listen to her babies heart beat before obtaining an abortion, as thought women who are making the difficult decision of abortion doesn’t know what’s going on inside her body. Some how the state governor knows better than she does whether or not she wants to carry her baby to term.

How is it possible that attitudes like this continue to exist in our “modern” society? Primitive thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate a belief that women cannot think for themselves, cannot make their own decisions, must be submissive to their husbands and on and on, are beyond our worst creative renderings of the uncivilized Neanderthals. Maybe that 1-4% of Neanderthal blood is keeping us in the past, or maybe they understood equality better than some Americans do. Its hard to tell which.

We remember when it was more common to frame women as helpless and men as caretakers, like in this commercial from a bygone era, but times have changed…right?

President Theodore Roosevelt

I want nothing more than for President Obama to succeed. I voted for him, was there in Chicago’s Grant Park  the night he won. It was an exhilarating moment for all of us there, and the millions across the country who were riding the wave of Obama’s brand of “Hope”. I would have put my money on seeing George W. Bush and Dick Cheney get gay-married over seeing my home state of Indiana go blue and vote for a Democrat for president, but it happened.

First and foremost, I’m a Democrat. I can only say that I am simply not able to vote Republican, even for the ones that I might even sort-of like. I will never be able to be supportive of a party that has collectively and so disgustingly been involved with the opposition of the rights and dignity of millions of gay Americans. I get that not every Republican is anti-gay, nor are they all small-minded or selfish fat cats who only care about getting richer and richer.

I wish that I had the ability to allow myself to look at all the issues and make a choice between the two parties, but I can’t. Republicans have continuously been elected on the back of bigotry, and I will have nothing to do with even the good ones. My conscience won’t allow it. I would love to look at both parties without having to think this way, but it is not possible for me and that’s the plain truth of the matter.

But here is one thing I will tell you about Republicans: they had Teddy Roosevelt, and if I could raise his ghost from the dead to lead this country through its economic and social struggles with bombast and bravery, I would do it in a second – and throw Obama out of office faster than he could pussyfoot around another difficult issue.

Mr. President, your position on gay marriage is still “evolving”? Oh grow up already and stand up for something. You want to drop DOMA, you pushed to get rid of DADT, and you speak to gay groups. Give me a break: stop using the community and actually fully stand up for them.

Mr. President, what have you changed in Washington? And look, I get it; I don’t expect miracles. Since Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson turned the government during George Washington’s presidency into one of the most biting, backstabbing and bickering political moments in our history — thereby setting the stage for our two-party system — those that have served in government have acted like children in their arguments and thieves who seek to only gain power, money and notoriety for themselves.

And every once in a while, someone comes along whom speaks truth to power, as the saying goes. Someone who cares more about what is right and getting it done above all else. You were going to be that President, that’s why we all voted for you for God’s sake.

Teddy Roosevelt was a thorn in the side of politicians and businessmen who throughout his life and career fought for what was right, no matter that it might have made him a political casualty. I don’t think that Roosevelt was a perfect person, nor a perfect president, but there is certainly a reason he hovers at the top of the list of most historians’ greatest U.S. presidents and was able to stand as someone associated more for the character of his politics than the affiliation of his party.

I don’t know what Roosevelt would do today, but one thing I do know is that he wouldn’t quietly compromise our future. The man was shot during a speech and refused medical attention until he was done with his speech – something tells me he wouldn’t roll over. He may have walked softly, but he sure as hell beat the shit out of the corrupt bastards in this country with his big stick.

So be the president I voted for, Mr. Obama. Remind me why I so passionately supported you in 2008. Don’t just try to do what is right. Do it. Stop pretending like everyone is willing to come up with a compromise and stop pretending like compromise is always the best option. Stand up for something already. Be brave. Be loud. Raise your voice for what is right. Show some real passion.

I know men with tits who have bigger balls than you.

To some degree everyone has a fetish; some might call them preferences, while others are more honest with themselves. Fetish connotes that a particular sexual or erotic taste lies outside of the ‘ordinary’ realm, but adhering to an active socially accepted preference is still a fetish.

On a recent trip to San Francisco, I spent my last night in town out with my local queer friends indulging in a few drinks and catching up. It was a three bar kind of night and our numbers dwindled with each change of scene. A night out in San Francisco, a city where just about anything goes, can get pretty interesting without walking more than a few blocks.

The first stop of the night, Blackbird, was a cute new quasi-hipster bar with modern interior fused with a bit of vintage flair. Ten of us had gathered and enjoyed a few libations before deciding to shift to the next bar. The second bar was 440 Castro and Mondays at 440 are daddy underwear night. My two friends who suggested the dive assured me that not everyone was older and dumpy and that frequently, a handful of eye-catching 30-somethings could be found carousing in their skivvies. As I’m generally game for most anything, especially after a few drinks, our now posse of four meandered a few blocks to 440 bar.

The bar was exactly what I expected with 40-50 year old hyper gays flubbing around in their Hanes tighty-whiteys. I’m not actually sure if there were any good looking guys in the entire bar as when faced with this situation you start playing ‘shiniest fish in the fish bowl’ and quickly make the most out of the otherwise mediocre. We bought a drink and made our way to the back of the bar where a few people were amiably gyrating to whatever terrible pop music was blaring from the ceiling. Older gay men in underwear showcasing their finest pot bellies is a fetish and I can now definitively state that it’s not a genre that does anything for me!

The two IPAs I had enjoyed at Blackbird were demanding evacuation so I made my way to the dingy pair of dimly lit bathrooms in the rear. One was a private stall with a lengthy line and the other an open door trough urinal, which I’ve only ever seen in gay bars and once at a high school gym! Next in line for the trough cave, I noticed a disheveled 45ish guy standing dead center chatting up the younger guy to his right and actively eye fucking his urinating member. Young guy finished his business and made haste vacating creepy pee-daddy’s viewing station. I stepped up to the show and tell stage, unfurled my manhood and attempted to pee while trying not to think about the creeper next to me salaciously watching! NOT A DROP!  I’ve never been pee shy in my life but clearly the instance of a half naked Ron Jeremy ogling my goods dammed up the floodgate. With no luck I zipped up and re-joined my friends.

While the trough might be more efficient than individual urinals, I really can’t get behind them! To creepy pee-daddy, please at least try to be discreet when visually molesting those next to you at the trough… even on underwear night when it seems like everything goes!

I spend a lot of time on Grindr – not for recreational uses, but for more scholarly pursuits. Through my research online in many gay digital spaces, I have noticed trends in the ways that gay men are presenting themselves online and how their online identities are operating through many mediums, Grindr being my favorite. Though there will of course be people that do not fit into the 5 boxes listed below, I am sure if you open up your Grindr, you will be able to spot the Five People You Will Meet. Think of this like a crossword puzzle, but more interactive.

Mr. Abdomen

Mr. Abdomen is the Abercrombie and Fitch of the digital world that is Grindr. His body is chiseled and he is usually found taking pictures of himself after:

1. Showering
2. Working Out
3. Showering after working out

Mr. Abdomen will not show you a face pic initially – that takes time, time that is filled with lots of vapid two-worded conversations like “hey bud” and through sharing pics of one another’s genitals, or assumed genitals (Tip: To help figure out if your Mr. Abdomen is showing you his “real” genitals do a comparison of belly-buttons, that usually can help you figure out if this is actually Mr. Abdomen’s genitals or not.) His About Me area is most commonly filled with a desire for “masc” men who are fit, but wait until 3am when Mr. Abdomen is coming home from his chosen late night entertainment…that will change and you too will have your chance with the faceless Adonis who will be “bored” or “chilling” in bed. But remember, there may be reasons beyond discretion that Mr. Abdomen doesn’t show his face – be cautious.

The Traveler

The Traveler just so happens to always be visiting that day and is in dire need of meeting up because he’s lonely or needs someone to show him the city, (sidenote: lonely is another code word for “let’s get naked.”) His About Me section will always say “Visiting from (insert major city in which I’m probably not from here)” and his profile picture will be of him doing something very exciting like boating, cooking, or standing on a beach, in order to prove his transitory problems. The Traveler, due to being a digital gypsy of sorts, has a high probability of being closeted and married with children. Be advised that The Traveler is many of the times the most persistent in communication and will walk the line of cyber-stalker and friendly very uncomfortably until you press that red-X button named block. Press it… you will forget about Mr. Visiting from Springfield soon enough.

The Bust

Arguably the most popular Grindr person you will meet is The Bust. He gets his name from using head and shoulder focused pictures as his profile picture. The Bust makes up a few different personality types: The Liar Bust, The Flasher Bust (penis pic on first message), The LTR Bust, The Stalker Bust, and The Bust in Sunglasses. The Bust is the person that doesn’t feel comfortable showing his full body on the first glance of his profile, and instead uses his facial features to draw you in to start a conversation filled with various salutations ranging from: “hi, hey, sup?” and “looking?” The Bust is the most flexible of the people you will meet on Grindr, and will sometimes change personas in regards to time of day, location, and levels of sexual frustration, maybe even changing into Mr. Abdomen for a few hours late at night.

The No Face

The No Face is comparable to the creepy Homeless Man that is always hassling you to buy some obscure object while he stares at your body as if you are a piece of meat. The No Face will usually start his messages with a compliment that feels like you were just cast in the upcoming production Showgirls 2, and his messages calling you “hot”, “sexy”, or just flat out saying “dayum” bounce off of you and for some reason make you feel worse about yourself. The No Face will never ever, ever, ever send you a pic due to various reasons such as: he has an iTouch, doesn’t have camera accessibility, camera is broken, or he needs to be very discreet. The No Face will also rarely have any information listed and don’t be surprised if he opens his first message to you with the intersection in which he is located and a dollar amount, which we can all assume is how much he will pay for “hanging out”.

Your Boss

Yes…that’s him, stop pulling up your works Photo Directory and comparing this Grindr picture of him shirtless to the picture of him in a suit on your companies website. Take a breath…take a screenshot…then decide whether to send a friendly “hello” his way or block and pray to God he didn’t see your profile picture with you shirtless in the office bathroom. Your Boss is one of those Grindr profiles that gets you incredibly excited as if you just hit the lotto, or terribly scared, because now he can favorite you and see if you are cruising Grindr during business hours, which will lead to a very uncomfortable meeting in his office.

Be careful, be cautious, and make sure you don’t circulate that photo on an office computer – you could get fired for looking at “pornographic” images while on the clock.

***Note: Boss can be co-worker, it works both ways.

Let me tell you something about this camp that we went to. It is called CTY. When people ask what CTY stands for, very often those of us who are CTYers will respond Can’t Tell You, and wait to see how long it takes for them to get it. CTY stands for Center for Talented Youth, and is a program created and run by Johns Hopkins for academically gifted kids. In other words, Nerd Camp.

To gain admission to a CTY camp, one must take the SAT and achieve a qualifying score. Qualifying students choose from subjects in the Humanities or Math and Sciences, or both depending on your math and verbal scores. The summer consists of two three-week sessions, during which students take a college-level course in the subject of their choosing. The class periods are five hours a day: three in the morning, two in the afternoon, followed by an activity period, dinner, and then two more hours of study hall.

Many people, upon hearing what the program entails, assume that this is a program that achievement-obsessed parents force their reluctant kids into to get ahead during the summer. They are surprised when I tell them that kids beg to go to CTY, and they beg to go back, and the school year in between is, for many if not most of them, a period which we call “CTY withdrawal” during which friends from CTY are a lifeline for one another, and all anxiously await the day they can “come home to CTY.”

Was this Zuckerberg’s experience at CTY? I do not know. But it was mine… and the experience of hundreds of CTYers and former CTYers I know, and of thousands I haven’t met. Why was, is, the experience of CTY so desperately important to us? Why is it that so many of us talk about CTY saving our lives? Because CTY was coming out.

I don’t mean in terms of sexual orientation, though many do come to acknowledge and embrace their queerness at CTY, but it comes of something more fundamental: CTY was, for many of us, the first place where we were permitted to be ourselves. Here we were, ages 13-16, the kids who did well on tests, the kids who would willingly spend three or six weeks in the summer in a classroom 7 hours every weekday learning a subject voluntarily. Most of the courses didn’t apply toward any sort of high school or college credit, we were just interested. We liked to learn. For most of us, that was something that, back home, people just didn’t get. We came from bullying, from isolation, from desperate loneliness. Some coped by being flamboyant about their nerdity, some by hiding. All of us though, when we got to campus, were free to express our quirks, our interests, our opinions, our minds, our intelligence, without fear. We could be open and honest about who we were, what we liked, what we wanted, how we felt.

I wouldn’t presume to know what Mark Zuckerberg’s psychological motives are in his creation of Facebook, with its mission of “Making the world open and connected,” but I can’t help making the connection between Facebook and CTY. In the days when I was a CTYer, when the internet was still relatively new and largely uncharted, finding people with common interests to befriend meant navigating the anonymous and sometimes sketchy world of Bulletin Boards. Keeping in touch with CTY friends incurred massive phone bills. And finding a CTY friend you’d lost touch with, who had moved or whose number had changed was literally a research project. Facebook has been a big part in changing all of that. We’re no longer groping in the dark looking for each other.

In an interview last year with The New Yorker, Zuckerberg talked about one of the effects of this new openness. “No one has done a study on this, as far as I can tell,” he said, “but I think Facebook might be the first place where a large number of people have come out … I think this is just part of the general trend that we talked about, about society being more open, and I think that’s good.” Facebook asks, when you sign up, “Who are you? What is it that makes you who you are?” I will not try to argue that there is no downside to the openness that Facebook invites of its users… but there was a time for many of us when the world, it seemed, went out of its way to tell us that it didn’t give a damn who we were. When we came to CTY and were finally allowed — no, invited — to tell who we were, when we were asked finally to come out, it was with a tearful sigh of relief that we did.

Mark Zuckerberg lists Ender’s Game on his Facebook profile page as a book he likes. The title character, Ender, a gifted child who is deliberately raised to be isolated and bullied so that he will save the world, makes the following statement in the book “I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.” I think that’s what Zuckerberg really wants to get at. I think it’s what we all want, when we come out.

By Guerillero, taken from Wikimedia Commons

“Kids don’t follow
What you’re doin’
In my face and out my ear
Kids won’t follow
What you’re saying
We can’t hear”

–”Kids Don’t Follow” by The Replacements

I don’t turn 21 years old until February 2012. I have never really been one for alcohol, so I really don’t care about the legal drinking aspect. No, it is the fact that I lack the freedom of movement until that time I turn that “magical” age.

Though Ian MacKaye is still alive and kicking in the area, his influence hasn’t seemed to have translated to the queer scene in DC much. Yeah, there are organizations like SMYAL that are for people 13-21, but if I wanted to hang around teenagers, then I’d hang out with my younger brother and his high schooler friends. That doesn’t cut it for me; I want to hang out with the big dogs. Besides, I am kind of known for preferring the company of people older than me (especially when it comes to dating). I’d say that almost all of my friends in DC are older than me, most by at least 5 years and some by about a decade.

The bad thing about having older friends while underage is the fact that going-out plans have to be changed or reconsidered to fit my limitations, or I end up not being able to go at all. There are many bars that flat-out do not allow people under 21. Needless to say, this gets increasingly frustrating, especially since I don’t want to drink at all. This is also frustrating for my friends, who want to go out and have fun, but also want me with them. I could call out some of these places by name, but some of them have been very kind to TNG and the queer community.

I have praised TNG for events like Homo/Sonic and Transformer for being all ages. In fact, I first met Zack (who encouraged me to contribute to the site) at Homo/Sonic when I was 18 years old. Sadly, there hasn’t been a Homo/Sonic since March (I remember because I was on Spring Break) and Transformer went by the wayside quite a while ago. Both mostly took place at the wonderful Black Cat, which, as a punk club, has always kept MacKaye’s ethos alive by putting Xs on the hands of the underage rather than excluding us.

Right now, I have to admit, I’m more than a little pissed off with TNG. Lately, there has not been a single event that I have been able to attend. Beat City, She Rex, and the like have all been at 21+ venues. Hell, I didn’t get to go to Zack’s DJing farewell party because of where it is held. The biggest downside is that, rather than getting to be around fellow queer people and supportive friends, I have spent a lot of Friday and Saturday nights of my summer being forced to stay in my hometown closet (as I’ve mentioned before, there is no queer scene or support system in my hometown for about 25 miles). I honestly feel that part of this lack of space is laziness, that places would rather exclude underage people rather than take the extra steps to let them in and monitor them from drinking (like the Black Cat does).

I know there are other “young adults” like me out there who are frustrated by this; I’ve talked to them before (yes, sometimes I do actually associate with my peers). When I was still at community college, I remember hearing at least one girl lament that she couldn’t find a lesbian bar that wasn’t 21+ where she could go and openly meet and dance with other queer women. Even when school is in session, you really feel the need to occasionally escape often-incestuous queer group of your college (sometimes you don’t want to make out with someone and have to see them in your Economics class on Monday). At least, Apex, for the mixed feelings people had about it, was actually a place where gay 18+ young adults could go hang out and dance (there was even a weekly free night for college students), but it has recently shut down. That pretty much leaves us up shit’s creek until something changes.

So what’s a queer underage student to do? Where do we go? Maybe it is time for us to rally our forces and demand our right to be treated like the legal adults that we are.

I am no stranger to the online world of gay dating/hookups.  My most significant relationship had a quick beginning with social media: Friendster.  And yes I have navigated the online world of Manhunt and the iPhone’s Grindr application: a virtual gaydar in your pocket.

While I have always had more hang ups than hookups associated with sites like Manhunt, now as a rural queer, I have occasionally found myself in the Manhunt jungle or Grindr maze.  More out of desperation than anything, seeking some connection- if only a picture of another gay-being that might happen to be in the same county as me.  Well as luck would have it, Grndr can tell me precisely all the gays, MSM, and hetero-felxible men’s distance from me.

As I sit in my apartment this evening I ponder, what is the significance of this new technology- not only on our gay community in general, but here in rural America?  It is kinda revolutionary that I can sit in my room and look at my phone and know that there are 20 gays within a 20 mile radius of me or sitting across a table from me.  Part of me wants to embrace this new technology and praise it as a new medium for community and connection to others, that rural queers of the past must have dreamed of.

I, on the other hand, cannot embrace the technology.  Yes, I want to see it as a liberating force that allows us all to embrace our sexuality and be sex positive at all times.  Perhaps it is my two only and awful experiences with online hookups that jade my feelings, but I think that sites like manhunt et al. tend to push us all back in the closet.  It is just another regressive tool that oppresses us?

Rather than accepting ourselves and our sexuality, these new technologies allow us the anonymity of faceless fucking and going into the shadows of the online hookup scene to find connections with others.  Something is fucked up, when I am at a farmers market and a man that comes to my stall, sends a salacious message on grndr, that he is too embarrassed to say to me in person, much less even say “hi.”

And when did it become OK to greet someone with a picture of one’s flower? (a term I picked up last summer from a sweet Mennonite girl when eviscerating chickens.)  In reality, I must laugh.  I actually think it is hilarious that we have dispensed of the chit -chat and gotten down to instantly exchanging pics of our pricks.

So hang ups aside, and by the way, I actually have met some pretty interesting people from Grndr, I cannot help but see Manhunt et al as one big invitation back into the closet.

I seek some other connection that is not in the darkness of the backroom, or the anonymity of the Internet. Is sexual liberation merely letting it all hang-out?  What I find revolutionary is getting beyond the shadows.  Actual connections are what are really revolutionary.  Men have been fucking other men in the shadows for thousands of years: Nothing is new about that.  But allowing two men to love each other in the open, now that is revolutionary and something I can get behind.

There used to be a time when finishing high school, obtaining a job that paid your mortgage, and starting a family was enough to permit a person to be happy. During this same time, the person you married might not be perfect, your career might not utilize all of your creative talents, and your home might be on the small side – but it was enough. You didn’t worry about the other stuff too much.

Equality was so far from real life that small steps in the right direction could be celebrated. Maybe people didn’t expect that we’d ever have gay politicians or a black president. They didn’t think equal marriage rights would ever be realized – but integrating high schools or making abortion legal were so important that people felt proud of their country’s progress.

This generation of which I am a member has been given something (I’m guessing from our baby boomer parents) that severely alters our ability to be happy. Barack Obama further pressed us to embody this. So many large and small protests waged internally and internationally rest on this very impalpable idea:

HOPE.

Hope is a valuable tool. It is with hope that we look forward to the growth and change of our world and of ourselves within it. It is with hope that we push one inch closer to equality and to freedom and to democracy (in the least imperialistic meaning of the word). Hope encourages us to work harder, to take more classes or to learn new skills.

But it is also with hope that we struggle to be satisfied. We set high goals and believe the words when we are told that we can be someone. We want rewarding jobs, we want perfect relationships, and we want total equality. None of those things are bad – they are wonderful goals to aspire to, and many of us will achieve at least a portion of the things we hope for, but that hope also leads us to be a disappointed group of people with too many degrees, too much debt and a lack of satisfaction about our lives (no matter how “good” they are). We are mad that we don’t hold success in our hands at age 30, or that our country hasn’t legalized equal marriage yet.

Older LGBT folks (the Old Gay, if you will) will often express their excitement about the recent changes in equal rights – because they recall just hoping these things might happen in their lifetimes. They also may warn us to relax a little – remind us that change doesn’t happen overnight, but things have moved so fast in our lifetimes, that we expect it to. We EXPECT change to happen right now. So many individuals who voted Barack Obama into office in 2008 were already two-facing his presidency by February because he didn’t legalize gay marriage and repeal DOMA and DADT in the first 30 days. Somehow we have forgotten that we have been spoiled by swiftly moving waters, and that not all things happen now because we want them now.

We must learn to balance hope and satisfaction. To find joy in the journey.

Is your happiness with your level of personal and professional success directly related to how you HOPED your life would end up?  How do we find satisfaction in the slow pace and road blocks of our individual journeys when we have been taught to hope so high?

Spawn of Cher, Chaz Bono, has been making the media rounds in promotion of his new documentary and book that detail his transition from female to male. Canonball’s James Worsdale examines Chaz’s interactions with a clueless, curious and caustic public, particularly around the apparently touchy subject of fellow child to celebrity parents, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt.

Image courtesy OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network

Chaz Bono’s documentary Becoming Chaz, which recently premiered on OWN, and his new book Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man both chronicle his transition from female to male and the effect it had on his body, identity, relationships with others, the media and more. Chaz has recently been making the media rounds, discussing his experience, bringing the existence of trans folk in the United States to the center stage and revealing some unpleasant attitudes our culture harbors towards them. Particularly, a post on US Weekly’s site, in which Chaz was quoted talking about Shiloh Jolie-Pitt and her potential transgender identity, got people’s blood boiling, sparking a transphobic and violent defense of cissexist norms and exposing intolerance of trans identities, particularly in application to children.

Chaz’s quote originally came from an interview he did with E! News in which they asked, if given the chance, what he would say to Brad and Angelina about their daughter Shiloh Jolie-Pitt — whose presence in the tabloids, which construct her existence as some sort of freak show with Angelina to blame, has been appalling. He responded, “I would love to talk to them at some point…to at least let them know that we have this resource for them if they ever need it,” referring to the organization he is actively involved with, Transforming Family whose mission is, “To empower children and families to create supportive and inclusive environments in which gender may be freely expressed and respected.”

Chaz’s response was diplomatic and responsible, not making any assumptions or diagnoses. Some commenters felt differently, attacking Chaz for indoctrination, accusing him of using Jolie-Pitt as a platform for fame, using his transition as a publicity stunt and making cruel comments about his weight.

The relationship of the feminist community and the transgender community is a largely contentious and occasionally torrid one. To sum up one of the key discrepancies of thought, Salvador Vidal-Ortiz articulates in “Queering Sexuality and Doing Gender: Transgender Men’s Identification With Gender and Sexuality”:

Some feminists who challenge transsexualism tend to state no difference between body image and material body, signifying to some that transgender individuals do not break the bi-polarity of gender, but instead, reinforce it by complete acceptance of hegemonic ideologies of sex and gender…It is often argued that transgender men transition in order to achieve, “male privilege.”

There are also discrepancies of thought in the transgender community around if bodily alterations and hormonal therapy further essentialize the link between the physical body and gender identity, as explored in the writings of Judith Halberstam on female masculinity. Generally, feminist criticisms of trans identities, in my opinion, are rooted in gender privilege. The sphere in which people seem to become the most defensive is in the question of children.

Children in the United States enter a world where their existences are immediately understood through a gendered sphere that only becomes more relentlessly reinforcedthrough the early childhood socialization process. What happens when a child demonstrates a transgression from the gender they’re assumed to embody through their biological sex, and what does that transgression mean?

There still exists in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (a.k.a. the DSM-IV) a condition called Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood, or GIDC, which has gone through several reinterpretations since its inception in the late ’70s, originally backed by conservative, Christian thinkers such as those of the National Association for Research and Treatment of Homosexuality. Critics, including sociologist Karl Bryant, note these biases and discussed how GIDC works to pathologize homosexuality and reinforce sexist norms of masculinity and femininity. However, Bryant still sees hope for positive utility of the diagnosis saying:

[Researchers and clinicians'] reorientation to gender-variant children has redefined the problemnot in terms of the gender variance itself but instead in terms of the stigma to which gender-variant children are subjected…the goal of mental health service becomes helping children and their families cope with stigma instead of trying to change gender-variant behavior itself.

Chaz’s hypothetical reaching out to Angelina and Brad about Transforming Family and the organization itself both seem in line with this non-judgmental, emotionally exploratory thinking, but transphobic, hate-speech-spewing internet commentors seem to think otherwise.

A repeated sentiment throughout the thread is “I was a tomboy and now I’m FINE.” That’s wonderful for you. But it’s important to remember that your own individual experience isn’t universal, a sentiment that the folks at Trans/plant/portation point out that Chaz may be guilty of as well. Privileging your own outcome as normative is uncool and discriminatory against marginalized groups you’re not a part of.

Another recurring sentiment is, “Maybe she’ll just grow up to be a lesbian.” Maybe she will. The oft-hilarious, occasionally heart-warming, while still problematic Born This Way blog is entirely composed of images and stories that associate childhood gender nonconformity with adult homosexuality, and those stories may resonate for many people. But this is still universalizing experiences and discounting many individuals whose lives don’t neatly fit within that narrative.

The dominant cultural reaction — discounting trans folks’ experiences and identities because of ignorance and invested interest in the correlation between sex and gender and the idea that those two forces must work within a binary framework — is hateful and cruel. When applied to young people, it highlights our lack of trust in children to understand their own identities, needs and wants and our attitude that we know them better than they know themselves.

I think that the way that we gender children is damaging both to children themselves and to the culture as a whole. I don’t, however, necessarily think that your self-expression at the age of five is indicative of a psychological condition. If that was the case I’d be running around right now with purple blush and a poodle skirt doing the mock-cheerleader monologue, “Like totally, for sure, I just, got my manicure.” (PLEASE tell me someone else knows what I’m talking about.) For some people this is certainly the case (the condition part, not the poodle skirt). The identity of Shiloh, who because of her fame is a relevant and interesting foil to Chaz’s narrative, is one that she will grow into, as everyone should be able to do, without the public’s constant genderalizing and judgment.

I think that, as Chaz’s interview with David Letterman illustrates, we have a lot of understanding to build about how sex, gender and sexuality exist in our society and in ourselves, and how we project those interpretations and values onto children. As we strive to build understanding about these social, biological and psychological forces, we mustn’t discredit trans voices and experiences.

A good resource for the history of transsexuality in the United States is Joanne Meyerowitz’s How Sex Changed and, more specifically on the experiences and identities of female-to-male transsexuals (FtMs), Henry Rubin’s Self Made Men.

c. Axwell, Wikimedia Commons

I believe in baby steps. I started blogging at TheNewGay.net last December. I still don’t know what I’m doing but I’m pleased with myself because I met my goal: to write every week no matter what. I wanted to be regular about at least one thing in my life. My lover told me last month, “That blog is the best thing that ever happened to you.” He was right.

When I started this blog I had no idea about the world of feminist new media. I had never read a “sex and relationship” blog. I briefly blogged years ago but that was to locate clients not to share my views and experience. Over the past six months I made many new friends, mostly other sex bloggers. This has opened the door to opportunities to teach and collaborate with local activists and writers.

Since the blogosphere is still all new to me, I’m not quite sure what to make of myself just yet. The weekly deadlines have started rolling in faster lately and Im struggling not with writer’s block, but writer’s fatigue. I’ve decided to take a break to take a step back and consider my next move while I continue to teach, sell sex toys, train submissives and hang out with like minded kinksters.

I’ve always hated looking back at my written pieces because I tend to cringe with self consciousness. Considering what I have to say has become easier as each week loyal readers like you continued to turn up on the Goddess Files page. Thank you so much. If you wish to stay in touch, considering joining the sex positive book club I am organizing for the summer. You can email me directly at dominvontana [at] gmail.com. I’ll see you next fall.

The Goddess Files will return in September. Still need your weekly dose of kinky banter?  Check out Master Aiden every Thursday at 2 p.m.

As the singularly most exceptional source for factual denotations, Urban Dictionary presents this definition of ‘gay root’: “early signs of being gay, things that affect the formation of one’s queerness.” The definition goes on to present examples of gay roots such as “the love of ABBA, and musical theatre.” I myself was never a fan of ABBA, but in reflection on my somewhat sordid childhood, there exists unequivocal evidence of my rampant homo-status very early on. Fifth grade arguably remains the queerest year of my existence, though it would be years before I’d discover my affinity for asymmetrical haircuts, literary tattoos, or you know, actually sleeping with women.

Fifth grade was comprised of two notably gay events, the first of which was the cinematic frenzy that was Titanic. I went with a group of my fifth grade girl friends (girls with whom I had friendships, not multiple girlfriends) and none of them could contain themselves over heartthrob Leo. They sat squealing and swooning as the romance between Jack and Rose unfolded, while I sat, bored. Boredom with Titanic is not my root. The gay root came into play during the infamous scene in which Jack sketches Rose in the nude. Suddenly, I couldn’t have been more interested. All my little friends longed for the day that a blonde, toned, poor, but hard working male artist type would save them from a sinking boat, and there I sat with one sole thought: Boobs. The Titanic was sinking and amidst the tears and distress my friends displayed, my only focus was on Kate’s natural floatation devices.

Titanic’s debut began a pretty interesting period in my life. Not only did I recognize that I was far more interested in Kate than Leo, I also realized that I seemed to identify with Leo. At ten years old, I would stare in the bathroom mirror, pulling my hair into a tight blonde pony tail to create the illusion of short hair, while simultaneously willing my bangs to fall “sexily” over my eyes the way Leo’s had. I really can’t help but pinpoint this obscure Leo identification/Kate obsession as one of the earliest catalysts for my descent into homo-ville.

While we’re on the subject of youth drag as an emblem of prospective queerness, I have another fifth grade drag tale. At my Elementary school, the fifth graders put on an annual musical for the entire school. Ours was You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown! Unfortunately, I didn’t attend any sort of liberal, new age, Montessori establishment, where teachers understand gender fluidity and, I imagine, unicorns drink from rivers flowing with acceptance. On the contrary, my school was painfully conservative. Meaning, as would be expected, that the musical director cast the boys as boys and the girls as girls. Yet, somehow, by the powers of some magical gay god, yours truly ended up being cast as Linus. As if that wasn’t hilarious enough, the real cherry on this cake of gay flamboyance was that not only was I cast as a boy, I was also given a solo, which involved a tap dance. Meaning, I was not only to play a boy, but a gay one! At ten years old I tap danced daintily on stage in front of the whole school (and assorted dedicated parents and members of the community) in drag! Gay? Very. Root worthy? Definitely.

My brief stint as a gay boy aside, I really do think my gayness can be traced back to an early morning mid March, in the late eighties. A young mother pushed out a 21 inch, 6 pound, 5 ounce baby queerling, and that little queerling was me. And believe me when I say, I’ve been on a mission to master Leo’s swag ever since.

Author’s Note: Many, many thanks to illustrator Rob Kirby for providing the graphic to accompany this post. Rob’s cartoon Curbside Boys was featured on TNG in the past. Robert Kirby is currently the editor of the queer comics anthology series THREE, and the author of Curbside Boys (Cleis Press, 2002), and co-editor (with David Kelly) of The Book of Boy Trouble and The Book of Boy Trouble 2: Born to Trouble, both from Green Candy Press. Website:Robkirbycomics.com

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I’d like to bury the word “troll” as an epithet for older gay men. I’ve come to realize it simply cannot be reclaimed. The word “queer” connotes oddness, or outside the norm, and I don’t have a problem with that, given the sheep-like behavior of the norm in our culture. But the word “troll” connotes a being of otherness, implying that older gay men are not even of the same species as younger gay men – after all we don’t refer to younger gay men as “troll-lets”. Not only that, but it connotes something lurking, evil and predatory. Older gay men deserve better.

The Five Gay Ages, illustrated by Rob Kirby exclusively for The New Gay.

“But what about the older gay men who are predatory,” you ask. “We call them “trolls” because they leer at us, and look like they want to pounce on us. Some won’t even keep their gnarly old hands off of us. If older gay men are predatory, why shouldn’t we call them trolls?” Well, let’s look at that, shall we?

The Problem Is Objectification

No one likes receiving unwanted sexual attention, whether the receiver is male, female, or other. We don’t like it because it is unwanted. Usually (but not always) we don’t want the undesired sexual attention because we don’t find the person giving it to us sexually desirable. When the person giving the sexual attention is male, and the person receiving the unwanted sexual attention is female, this can be classified as sexual harassment. Due to the genders involved, and the status of the genders in our culture, this sexual attention involves a power imbalance that is particularly destructive. (I would argue that male sexual harassment of females is in a category unto itself due to the vast power differentials, differentials that do not exist within the gay male community. Unless, of course, we view physical attractiveness as power and “currency”, in which case the older gay men cannot be seen as having much power, and therefore do not have the potential for abuse that a straight male has over a female.)

This regard of one person for another in a sexual manner is an aspect of objectification. I would argue that all human beings reflexively objectify other human beings in many various ways, not all of them sexual. It is simply a cerebral short cut for dealing with people in an efficient, evolutionarily selected manner. We see other people in terms of their utility (so-and-so may help me in my career), obstructiveness (that s.o.b. cut me off in traffic!), or mere disinterest. Sometimes that utility is sexual, at which point hormonal responses may come into play. Not to see another person as an object requires an act of will, a conscious choice. We do this when we consciously decide to get to know another person, and to try to understand that person’s motivations, life histories, viewpoints, etc. We even choose, at times, to try to get to know a person who attracts us sexually. Sometimes we even form long term relationships with such persons.

People objectify us in a thousand different ways over the course of a day. Often it is annoying. When that objectification is sexual, it may even be particularly annoying. At the same time, it is incumbent upon all humans who want to elevate human relationships to be aware of how they objectify others, and especially when that objectification is sexual, how to behave with respect and discretion.

The Problem Isn’t Age

So what is my point in all this? The real problem gay men usually associate with “trolls” isn’t that the men are older; the problem is that the men are sexually objectifying younger men. And therefore, the problem is obvious sexual objectification. And since obvious sexual objectification happens regardless of the age of the objectifier, why do we – by labeling older gay men as “trolls” – pour special and specific opprobrium on older gay men when they objectify younger gay men? If their failure is in objectifying others, let’s call it that without specifically referencing, directly or by implication, the age of the person committing the failure. However, if you feel the failure is attributable to the person being old, then that is ageism on your part, and that is as bad as other forms of objectification.

“But I don’t like it when older men hit on me!” That’s fine. Do you like it when younger men to whom you are not attracted hit on you? No one finds everyone of a certain age group – young, old or in between – attractive. So if you don’t like being hit on by men you are not attracted to, regardless of their ages, why single out older gay men with the epithet “troll”? Why not just label the behavior – i.e., sexual objectification – rather than label the person? How do you handle it when an older gay man hits on you? Well, how would you handle it when a younger gay man to whom you are not attracted hits on you? Politely refuse? Leave? My point is, one shouldn’t adjust his behavior or level of discomfort based solely on the age of the other person involved. To do so is simple ageism.

It is even ageism when, in a discussion of older gay men, someone feels compelled to mention that while some older gay men are nice, others bring the unwanted sexual attention. Surely you are not implying that only older gay men bring the unwanted sexual attention. Are you saying that younger gay men never do it, or that you are willing to accept sexual attention from all younger gay men? I sincerely doubt it, but even so, that’s ageism. I ask you to understand what it means when you feel compelled to mention unwanted sexual attraction only in the context of talking about older gay men.

My point is that when we view the undesired behavior without regard to the age of the person committing the undesired behavior, we avoid the fault of ageism. The age of the person committing the undesired behavior should have no bearing; if the behavior is bad, let’s label it as such. Let’s not resort to labeling the persons involved. Older gay men do not have a monopoly on the fault of objectifying other men. Giving them the label “troll” as if they did have that monopoly is disingenuous. Let’s bury the word “troll.”

Fabulous Las Vegas. Image by Pobrien301 (Own work) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The word “fabulous” is horribly ill. It actually called me up the other day, lying on its death bed, begging and pleading for me to help raise awareness of its fragile state. Confused, I asked Fabulous what was wrong and was saddened but not shocked to learn that it’s being dreadfully overused. Fabulous is worn so thin that it hardly carries any meaning any longer, and that’s when a word begins to fade and eventually die. I told Fabulous I’d do my best to help, and what follows is my humble attempt.

In modern English, it appears we have a wide variety of words that all mean some flavor of good. Some convey level of intensity, such as good vs. better vs. best. Fortunately, we’re not limited to only intensity levels, but flavors of good as well. Indeed, nearly all synonyms for “good” in common usage actually originally meant something else. Case in point, our poor, exhausted friend Fabulous actually means “of or relating to a fable.” It’s simply modern usage that dropped the fable part and rendered it a synonym of good.

Zack wrote last year about “fabulous” as a mindset. Not necessarily a personal mindset, but more of an expectation that others — often straight women, often gay men — might enforce upon us once finding out that we’re gay. “You’re gay? Fabulous! Let’s go shoe shopping! Then let’s go see Mama Mia! OMG, we’re going to be best friends!” Or the opposite, “You’re gay, so why are you shopping at thrift stores?” While I agree with him, and I’m surely “not fucking fabulous” either, I’d like focus on the word itself and not its modern, pink lifestyle interpretation.

I’d like to know what’s so special about the word Fabulous that it’s the mainstream gay synonym for “good.” Perhaps it was a gay signifier, back before gays were out and about, and used code and gestures to identify one another. If that’s the case, I fear that use is archaic, as those using the word with such frequency now aren’t sending subtle codes to anyone. They’re likely the most out and proud of the bunch, and “Everything’s Fabulous!!!” Your new haircut? Fabulous! This bran muffin. Fabulous! His new underwear? Fabulous! I’m sorry, but maybe if your hair cut was modeled after Tom Cruise’s in Legend, it’d be fabulous. Maybe if your bran muff is the chunk of evil left over at the end of Time Bandits, it’d be fabulous. Maybe if his new underwear is David Bowie’s codpiece from Labyrinth, it’d be fabulous.

Let’s explore some other synonyms for good and when we might want to use them:

• Amazing means that the thing amazes you, which is often good (but not always). Example usage: “His dick was so huge! It was amazing. I didn’t think they came that big.”
• Awesome means that the thing inspires awe, pretty similar to amazing but is more reverent, worshipful and inspirational. Example usage: “His ripped abs were so awesome. I just stared at them with my mouth agape for an hour while he played basketball. I need to get back to the gym.”
• Fantastic, generally meaning “good” but also implies it’s so good that it must originate from a fantasy, outside of reality, or it is something you would daydream about desirously. Example usage: “His ambrosia salad was fantastic! The food of the gods, I tell you. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
• Incredible actually means unbelievable, which technically speaking is just about neutral on the good/bad continuum. Example usage: “The homophobes shouted incredible reasons for why we will be burning in hell. They’ll never learn.”
• Magnificent, generally meaning grand or large. I don’t think we need explore too many examples of its usage.
• For international flare, feel free to use foreign language versions of any of the above, including wunderbar, muy bien.
• In a pinch, use one of the many modern adjectives that only recently adopted secondary meanings for “good”, such as solid, strong, tight or boss.

While we have to accept that language changes, we don’t have to accept its direction. Such direction can be influenced by simply using language in desired ways. I am going to reserve the word Fabulous for when I next see a life-sized rabbit wearing a top hat running down the street claiming “I’m Late, I’m Late!” For other good things, I’ll use a more appropriate word.

The Five Gay Ages, illustrated by Rob Kirby exclusively for The New Gay.

Author’s Note: Many, many thanks to illustrator Rob Kirby for providing the above graphic to accompany this post. Rob’s cartoon Curbside Boys was featured on TNG in the past. Robert Kirby is currently the editor of the queer comics anthology series THREE, and the author of Curbside Boys (Cleis Press, 2002), and co-editor (with David Kelly) of The Book of Boy Trouble and The Book of Boy Trouble 2: Born to Trouble, both from Green Candy Press. Website: Robkirbycomics.com

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The title of this post is the punchline of perhaps the most cutting of all gay jokes: What are the five gay ages? Quite possibly it’s cutting since perhaps none of the five ages are appealing to the majority of the mainstream gay culture.

For my part, I feel like I’ve been “thirty-two” since I first came out. I might have been a Chicken once, one night that left me mortified and scarred, and forced me back into the closet for another few years. I’ve never been a Twink, since I’ve never been fit or vapid enough. When I finally hit thirty-two and heard this joke for the first time, I thought about how I might extend the one-year gay “age” comfortably into my 50s, since the term Daddy seems so loaded with stereotypes all its own. While Daddy has some positive attributes, Troll is obviously completely undesirable.

The thing is, no one likely fits any of these stereotypes to a T. And even more likely, every gay man exhibits a few traits from each “age” no matter how old they are. But why do we feel the need to classify our entire community into more and more niche stereotypes? Is it to help us better understand each other or — more likely — to fragment our community even further? To transform more of “us” into “the other” so that we can feel superior in comparing ourselves to “them”?

Now, just for fun or perhaps to help illustrate how destructive this supposedly humorous stereotyping can be, I share with you my personal and admittedly exaggerated descriptions of these terms.

Chicken

Scrawny, wide-eyed, excitable, cautious, easily spooked. Young gay men in high school or college (or often middle school now? Or do we need a new gay age? Egg perhaps?) who have recently come out of the closet. They likely travel solo or in groups of two, or paired with a close female friend. They haven’t made their core gay friend group yet, and are very impressionable. They care a lot about what others think of them and are longing for acceptance from other gay people, yet they haven’t figured out quite yet how to gain that acceptance. They’re very easy to land, since sex is acceptance, and they aren’t very picky as long as you are relatively attractive, well put-together and don’t have bad breath.

In cities you’ll find them at coffee shops in the gayborhood, on university campuses, or at gay bars on all-ages college nights. In the suburban areas, they’re either haunting the shopping malls or, much later in the evening, lingering in the allies behind the adult book store. Despite the challenges looming in their near future, Chickens have an optimistic outlook on life. They have seen images of happy, out, actualized gay men in the media and know that they can reach some level of happiness and success themselves.

Twink

Muscular, cute, tightly clad, confident, clean cut. A Twink is a Chicken who has met his first friend group and worked tirelessly to gain acceptance from the members of this group. The transition from Chicken to Twink wasn’t easy. His new friends were hardly welcoming at first, and he likely had to sleep with at least one of them in order to even get them to notice him. Once he got his foot in the door, the morphological changes began: he shaved his nascent chest hair, started spiking up his bangs and adopted a workout routine from the latest Men’s Fitness magazine. His new friends have added a little spring to his step while simultaneously critiquing and influencing his wardrobe. Despite appearing more confident and better put-together, his insides twist with conflict. The social acceptance for which he’s so deeply thirsted has, it turns out, a bitter aftertaste.

His friends, while all relying on each other for emotional support, seem to be constantly criticizing one another and making jokes at each others expense. They have no tolerance for individuality, and loudly yet baselessly decry any hint of uniqueness in their friends. When together socially, they all seem to be talking simultaneously yet no one appears to be listening. When a Twink lands a boyfriend, his friends express excitement to his face, but jealousy and scorn to his back. The Twink in a relationship generally treats his boyfriend like one of his friends, alternating between dependence and resentment. Twink relationships rarely last longer than a few months, and often end very badly. Entire friend groups can be completely split up due to Twink-love gone bad: I don’t just mean groups ripped in half, I mean not a single person remains friends with one another after the split. Eventually the Twink tires of the vapid conversation, constant back-stabbing and protein shakes, and begins to seek something more. This happens at about the age of…

Thirty-Two

A thirty-two is a rare breed of gay man, since each one is only around for one year. During this and only this year, the gay man reaches his pinnacle of human existence. He finally has found a career that he cares about, he as a diverse group of friends, none of whom he relies on emotionally. He’s learned better than to do that. He feels a sense of calm come over him, somewhat like the opposite of the Twink’s springy step, a sort of restful sluggishness that provides him with the patience and tolerance to put up with his younger, Twinkier friends who have yet made the transition. A thirty-two usually reaches the peak of his physical form. His body has “filled out” a bit in his late 20s, moving him beyond the Twink’s skinny-yet-muscled look. He has finally found a workout routine that works for him, or has eventually given up on strict routines for alternatives such as bikram yoga or tai chi.

It is likely that a Thirty-Two may form a healthy, stable, long-term relationship with another Thirty-Two. Together, they will likely buy real estate, consider adoption, form lasting friendships with other Thirty-Twos and others outside the gay male community. A Thirty-Two might also find time in his life for giving back to the community. He researches volunteer opportunities and donates to his local public radio station for more than just the tax exemption. On rare occasion, this zen-like Thirty-Two discovers a satisfying life in this age, and can find a way to remain a Thirty-Two for the rest of his life. Being in a stable, long-term relationship is one way for this Thirty-Two-persistence to occur, but it’s not required. Those unable to sustain Thirty-Two, or those who never find that it suits them, shortly transform into the next age of gay evolution: the Daddy.

Daddy

The Daddy is perhaps the most diverse gay age. Daddies can range from beer-bellied bears to tight-bodied urban professionals. The age range of the Daddy is also the widest. While Chickens persist for a few years at most, and Twinks spend between 8 and 12 years perfecting their craft, the Daddy can reign between the ages of 33 to 55 or even later. As such, the most defining characteristics of a Daddy are his age and the color and condition of his hair. However, the behavior you’re likely to see from a Daddy is what unites them all.

Perhaps the most uniting trait of a Daddy is their overpowering sense of longing — either for a relationship lost when they were Thirty-Two or one that they never had — and how that translates into regular Daddy activities. Daddies are most often found dining in small groups at those restaurants in the gayborhood where, really, no one else eats. They also enjoy spending sunny early evenings and weekend days hovering within the darkened confines of gay bars with decent drink specials, not because they need the discount but instead enjoy observing and flirting with the younger, thriftier crowd attracted by the savings. Daddies aren’t relegated to observing and flirting: their experience, gray hairs and relative financial stability are positive attributes to some Twinks and Thirty-Twos who, were it not for the dark air of despair, could consider entering into a legitimate Daddy relationship, genero$ity not required.

Younger Daddies have no problems finding friends, as new Daddies are made every year. However, as time wears on and the longing, desperation and Vitamin D deficiency intensify, a Daddy’s friend group — like his hair — tends to thin and splinter. Friends are lost to any of a range of issues, from physical relocation to petty jealousy. As he ages, the ego-sustaining friendships that the Daddy maintains are the only thing that keep him afloat. Once these relationships whither and die, the transition to the next age is swift.

Troll

While not relegated to residing under bridges, the modern day Troll shares many attributes with their fairy tale cousins. Gaunt, large-eyed, sagging and often hunched, the Troll’s primary focus is the beauty of youth, and a mindless longing to possess it in one way or another. After spending over twenty years haunting darkened gay bars as a Daddy surrounded by pretty things, the longing and Vitamin D deficiency builds to a breaking point. Not unlike Sméagol’s transition into Gollum from the Lord of the Rings, the Troll’s transition is both physical and mental, and he is still recognizable as humanoid but somehow far from human. Instead of a ring, though, this Troll treasures youth.

His lair is covered with photographs of shirtless Twinks and bodybuilding Thirty-Twos flexing their muscles. He spends his afternoons cruising parks and book stores, eying precious youth. Evenings are spent a those gayborhood restaurants, sitting alone at the bar, looking on jealously at the tables of Daddy friend groups sharing a meal and a laugh. Nights are spent in the darkest corners of gay bars where they observe and crave from a distance. The more adventurous — or more desperate — may wander over to local cruising spots after a few drinks, hoping to catch a few hot young men in the act or, less likely, get in on the act himself. Others return to their lairs to stare at their youth-covered walls or watch pornography until sleep takes them. Although the above description makes it seem unlikely, Trolls can still be productive members of society. They hold jobs, meet their responsibilities, attend social functions. However, a Troll’s true nature is never far from the surface.

A Troll always sexualizes every interaction with an attractive, younger gay man, regardless of what medium of communication is used. In person conversations begin with lingering handshakes, are peppered with lingering gazes and concluded with lingering embraces. Work-related emails stay professional, but are often followed up with unveiled complements under separate subject lines. Phone calls include an extra vocal lilt, as if each statement, while conveying the overt meaning, covertly states, “You are so lovely.” When one’s leads his life so overpowered by desire, one doesn’t miss any chance for expressing and possibly satisfying it. Can you blame them?

Perhaps the worst part of stereotypes is that they exist for a reason. But perhaps these stereotypical behaviors are not innate but instead learned. Or better yet, they are in place as coping mechanisms for oppression. Sadly, much of the oppression behind the above behaviors comes from within the gay community and our constant need to bolster our individual selves at the expense of everyone else. Gays come out and give up a sense of self to gain a sense of community, I’ve proposed that many times. What I am now realizing is that far too often, once finding community acceptance, the gays turn on that community and sacrifice it on the alter of personal self esteem.

Form before function

Check out Domina Vontana’s weekly column, Goddess Files, every Wednesday at 2 p.m.

I was 24 the first time I wore a pair of stilettos. My best gay boyfriend was planning my birthday party and called me from the spa he managed to tell me what I was going to wear.

“Black suit jacket, buttoned in the front, no shirt underneath, just a bra.”

“Okay…” I say, eyes widening.

“Dark wash jeans.”

“Pretty sure I have that.”

“Black stilettos, classic pumps with a tall heel and toe cleavage.”

“I don’t even know what toe cleavage means.”

Click. Silence on the other end of the line. He’d hung up on me.

Ten minutes later the phone rang, “I’ve got your shoes, meet me at my place at 7 tonight.” Click, again.

I met him, spent five minutes squishing my virgin soles into my first pair of stilettos and then proceeded to walk down two stories of marble steps, squeaking and wobbling the whole way down. Nothing will make you feel dumber than not being able to put on a pair of shoes. It turns out he had intentionally selected a pair one half size smaller than what I told him I wore. Later I’d discover why, the leather grade in the heels was obviously middle quality, so after two turns out the shoes expanded to fit perfectly. But first I had to make it down the street.

After two blocks I latched onto a telephone pole rife with rusted staples and started begging for mercy. My feet were throbbing. I’ve never felt this type of agony before and my gay BFF didn’t seem to give a fuck. He broke a branch off a near by bush and started whipping me so I would keep walking. Somehow, we made it back to his place and I kicked those instruments of torture off my aching feet. I’ve been addicted every since. The next month I bought my first pair of Manolo’s, in the exact same style. The first time I wore them out I felt like I was floating down the street.

It wasn’t my first or last lesson in style. Once, while bitching about my boring hairstyle (I’ve never had short hair) my gay buddy told me, “Shut up, don’t you realize you have what every woman wants: long, thick healthy naturally blond hair.”

I shut up that day, but still dream of dying it red. Like they said in Sunday school, count your blessing.

Growing up in rural Montana, I was laughed at anytime I expressed an interest in wearing something besides blue jeans and flannel. There wasn’t a Vogue magazine for miles and this was before the world went online. Fashion was some great mystery that I was drawn towards wordlessly and uncontrollably. I was desperate to be able to express, and justify this interest of mine to my peers but I didn’t even understand what style was at that time.

Later I came to recognize style as one of the keys to successful living. Form does follow function and therefore the most successful choices make the best of what we already have and are specific to the needs of our lifestyle. When I moved from Dupont to Old Town I was fortunate enough to maintain my walkable lifestyle, so I can still ride my bike but also maintain my love of heels and dresses. So my theme for this summer is skirts and t-shirts. I hope to keep it thrifty, unique and functional. I want to look cute and lead a bad ass lifestyle.

Another interest I want to investigate this summer is hats: big floppy sun hats, perfect for pitching a tent at the pool or taking a walk in the farmer’s market. For ten years I’ve worn sunscreen every day, but I’m not getting in younger. I think it’s time to up the ante and keep any advantages I’ve earned. Hats make me incredibly self conscious, but I don’t want to have to buy another pair of Jackie O sunglasses this season. The frugalista in me is always seeking something new and is often at odds with my fashion fundamentals, and my wallet.

What are your style challenges this summer?

We experience many firsts in life: first love, first kiss, first heartbreak, and the first time being teased mercilessly by a fierce Drag Queen at a show. There exists for straight people however, a particular first that involves me surprisingly often: meeting their first gay.

We’ve all been there. “You’re the first gay person I’ve ever met!” or the commonplace inquiry “You’re gay?  Can I ask you a question?” For the record, I would never suggest that heterosexism or homophobia are issues to take lightly, but sometimes it’s merely a case of general naïveté, rather than blatant hatred. If the intention isn’t malicious and is more an instance of ignorance, it’s sometimes best to take it with a grain of salt, and laugh it off. I mean, let’s be serious, sometimes the comments that fly out of a straight person’s mouth upon meeting a homo are just downright hilarious.

I recall the reaction of a straight girl who had accompanied a good friend of mine to a party. I casually mentioned something about a girl being attractive and her eyes shot up in excitement. “OH. MY. GOD. You’re a lesbian?” Startled slightly by her enthusiasm, I validated her (obviously adolescent) gaydar.  She responded with a shriek of glee, followed by: “I’ve been looking for one all week!” Yes, well, we lesbians can be reclusive, as we hide out in our apartments with our cats and read feminist manifestos while drinking almond milk. After a wisecrack about whether she had checked out Ace Hardware to find “one,” I asked why she had been lesbian hunting all week. She explained that she suspected her best friend from home was a lesbian and wanted to talk through the “evidence” with an out lesbian. Of course, we all know she was probably questioning whether she herself was gay. A “friend” from back home? Please.

Some straight people over-compensate in their effort to prove their love for the gays. I had a co-worker high-five me when I told him I was gay. While arguably silly and odd, it was also conceivably the best possible reaction to my gay declaration.  High fives are a universal gesture of positive reinforcement and are really fun to give, so it was definitely a reaction I could get down with. In fact, I loved it so much that I started high-fiving him all the time.  You have table 3? High-Five! You have curly hair? High-Five! You have to take a piss? High-Five! A little positive reinforcement never hurt anyone, so the next time someone shares something about themselves, just throw up your hand, yell “high five!” at the top of your lungs, and continue on your way. This is a swift and sufficient response because after all, you probably have lots of gay shit to do.

Among the best straight reactions occurred while I was visiting a friend from college in her parent’s home. My friend had recently outed me to her mother in response to an inquiry about whether or not I had a boyfriend. Her mother later approached me privately.  I was prepared for a serious conversation about lesbian identity in which I’d attempt to open her mind. Instead, this happened:

Friend’s Mom: Honey, I just think it’s so great you’re a lesbian. I hope you know that.

Me: Thanks Mary-Lynn.

Friend’s Mom: Also, I don’t want to stereotype and I’m so sorry if this is offensive in any way but my husband is just so damn useless… and you look like you know how to swing a hammer so to speak… do you think you could you fix my toilet for me? It’s been broken for a month now!

It took every ounce of self-control I had not to laugh as she was a very sweet woman and absolutely meant no harm. Additionally, she had just set me up for the best possible pun. “Sure Mary-Lynn, I can fix your toilet…but it’s the only time you’ll ever catch me holding a ballcock!”  (Cue laugh track).

c. FCKH8.com

Whenever I’m really riled up in an argument I try to remind myself to control my voice and to avoid dropping F-Bombs. Yelling and swearing, I tell myself, are ways in which people who cannot smartly make points or communicate emotions make up for that lacking.

It’s not really that I have a problem with the words themselves; I swear in conversation or in my writing to emphasize a point or make a joke. However, in some situations, using “foul language” in anger can be aggressive, immature, demonstrate lack of control and often hamper communication. I can’t count the number of times I have been a part of an argument that has come to a screeching halt because one of the participants refuses to listen to a curse-laden diatribe. Most of us don’t react well to violence or aggressive language, especially those of us who have experienced it in the past.

Cursing is also often favored because its shocking and aggressive. It gets people attention. Ask any kid who has accidentally muttered “F*ck you” to a parent or older sibling because even young people are aware of how damaging those words can be. Language is power – and there is no doubt that foul language holds power – but what is the right way to wield that power?

What about GLBT Groups trying to harness that power to speak out about hate against gay people and bullying in schools? A friend of mine, who is a school teacher, sent me the link to a video which she had received from a student.  It was an anti Bullying video from the FCKH8 Campaign. I wasn’t able to view to video on my phone due to some content restrictions, but when I eventually had a chance to watch it I found myself pretty turned off.  I did a little research and found that at the end of March The Advocate reported that the FCKH8 campaign donated 300,000 dollars to GLBT Charities such as the Trevor Project. That’s awesome, but, as Davina Kotulski pointed out in January on Bilerico, “Is having children yell ‘fuck you’ to people who are against gay marriage on recorded video exploitative of children?” After thinking about it, that wasn’t the only question the campaign raised for me.

I am supportive of many movements that aim to “reclaim” opinions or terminology ABOUT minorities FOR minorities, but using angry and aggressive words to fight anger and aggression doesn’t work for me. The FCKH8 campaign has gained quite a bit of popularity, perhaps with young activists who believe that tooth and nail is the best way to reach equality, but there is also something to say for the desire of a minority group to reflect the morals and values that they desire others to exude toward them. In situations like this one, I tend to think  that fighting fire with water is much more effective than fighting fire with fire.

Conversations and peaceful sit-ins don’t always move fast enough or even accomplished the desired goals at all, but creating an ad campaign promoting equality that can’t responsibly be taken into schools, churches, offices or family parties doesn’t do us a whole lot of good. If we can’t be proud of our message in front of our teachers, our pastors and our grandparents, how can we be proud at all? Our message needs to be sharable, mature and inclusive. To communicate an important point we should be using important language. I wouldn’t use the F-bomb in a business meeting, or making a hotel reservation, or explaining why I’m pro-choice or anti-death penalty. Why would I use it to help people understand gay rights? If President Obama appeared in the State of the Union address and said, “F*ck Terrorism,” would you be inspired or offended?

What do you think of these videos and this message?

You can view the FCKH8 FCK Bullies video here. Due to adult language you have to sign into YouTube and be at least 18 years old in order to view it, so it could not be embedded here.  A powerful message for/by youth, restricted from youth? Something about that seems ineffective.

“Howabout you take an AIDS class and die, you stupid whore.”

I went on a quiet rampage, mumbling to myself about how anyone could think it was OK to say that, especially on a blog with a substantial and respected queer readership base. Said commenter went on to post some half-assed apologies and I stayed angry for weeks. Not because it was purely a dumb thing to say, but because someone didn’t think about the way that such a remark could hurt so many people.

Flash forward to last week. After an invigorating Royksopp concert at the 9:30 Club I decided to extend my night by one more drink at a nearby dive. I was talking to a friend of a friend, who by every account seemed really cool. It turned out she had grown up near where I went to college and was familiar with many of the Ohio suburbs that I had been to, year after year, for track meets. I mentioned how there was one town that I found very charming except for the fact that its university had a square track. Not ovular, not slightly oblong, but square. Her response?

“That’s because it’s Jewish!” (With a guttural emphasis on the final word, the way you’d scream, “That’s what SHE SAID at a bar with your friends.)

The town was a sort of a Buckeye State equivalent to Skokie or Scarsdale, yes, but I didn’t see how the number of Menorahs in the surrounding windows affected a school’s ability to confuse curves and right angles. Before this happened, I would’ve said that nothing could offend me as deeply as the “AIDS class” comment. Not because it was stupid or insensitive, but because it shows such a deep lack of awareness for the people around you and the basic tact most human beings employ to get themselves through public life. I’d gotten so focused on the prevalence of stupid gay-related comments in the world that I forgot that’s not my only identity.

Without realizing it, my relationship to my own gay culture has mirrored that of my parent’s slow descent into deep (if not quasi-militant) cultural Judaism. I used to chuckle at their near-paranoid level of commitment.  They subscribed to the Forward (nee’ Forverts), peppered their conversations with Yiddish, compared every other ethnic group to the Jews,  (“Italians are just like the Jews.” “The Irish are just like the Jews.”)  and most tellingly, viewed every reported incident of anti-semitism with a deep, dreadful gravity.

Take a step back, though, and look at me. I not only read The Blade, but I worked there. My everyday speech is littered with such foreign descriptors as “otter,” “power-bottom” and “indie-twink.” I can go on hour long discourses on the ways that the alt kids, the dorks and punks, can sympathize with the gay experience no matter what their orientation. And my sensors for anti-gay speech are as finely honed as my dog’s ear for a vacuum cleaner running two blocks away.

Nose, hair and penis aside, I’d be hard-pressed to call myself a visible minority. My kind of intersectionality comes with much more privilege than most. In contemporary times, at least, and in this country, being Jewish is not a liability. This wasn’t the case for my parents. Born in the shadow of the holocaust, at a time when casual anti-semitism was as prevalent as poodle-skirts, they had to build up defenses that last to this day.

That’s a good thing. I may live to see a world when gay folks can do whatever they want without persecution, but if that happens it’ll be my duty to remember how a small word or deed can herald larger iniquities down the road. Even when I was little, and my sense of “gay” had more to do with a game of doctor than a march on the White House, I knew how frustrating it was for people to say ignorant things about being Jewish. While I never had anyone ask about my horns, I did have to deal with my invisibility come Christmas time or worse, people telling me not to worry about it because I already “had my Christmas.” I had to deal with my college track captain saying my mom was “Sooo prowd” of my last race in an accent rivaling Bette Midler’s in Meet the Fockers.

The difference then is that people knew I was Jewish, but didn’t know I was gay. I could excuse the homophobic remarks around me because the people saying them didn’t know why they’d be offending me, and because I didn’t want to stick my neck out and risk exposure. Now that I’m both, I’m realizing how much I let one part my identity go while embracing the other one. I’ve tried to do some queer Jewish writing, but it doesn’t always roll off the keyboard. The same way I let annoying gay jokes slide with my straight friends, I’ve started to let unneccesary Jewish comments slid with my gentile gay buddies.

I figured that gay folks have enough in common with me and my marginalia that I can let them slide on the occasional baffling, left-field Jewish joke. I’m among family, right? So I can let some slights on my other family slide. I’ve really been remembering later, though, that I am two things. I am gay and I am Jewish. The twain don’t meet as often as I would like, but they’re both there.  My intersectional identity might not be as frustrating, othering or prevalently-excluding in my life as individuals of more visible or subjugated minorities, but it’s something I’m aware of.

When I ran open-armed into gay culture, it was a great excuse to leave aspects of my old life aside. I broke with many of my straight acquaintances, ensuring that miserable nights out in Adams Morgan fratboy hell were a thing of the past. I told my family that I would no longer be attending each and every family event, cutting my annual trips to New York and Chicago down from about 13 to 4. Hell, I skipped Yom Kippur in 2008 to see a Hot Chip show.

But now that I’m secure enough in who I am fag-wise I’ve started reassamble those foundations. I see my family quite frequently now, attending Bris‘ and weddings with reckless abandon. My old straight friends are back in my life, and they serve to remind me of the other parts of life instead of tearing me screaming from night after night of man-on-man-on-whiskey debauchery. I’m realizing just how much I miss being a Jew. Dipping apples into honey at home while I cuddle my boyfriend just isn’t enough for me anymore. Short of getting recircumsised (which I’m picturing as a sort medieval rabbinical torture), I think the best thing I can do is be just as out about being Jewish, and taking it just as seriously, as I am about being gay.

So back to the Ohio girl that made me uncomfortable. I stopped the conversation to shoot her a withering “Excuse me, what does that mean?” and kept her stammering with questions until she realized she’d made an ass of herself and I was thoroughly sure that she’d think twice before saying something that stupid in public again. It felt good.

c. TCJ2020

With regard to whether my father’s lessons in masculinity made me queer or if he just was really lucky to get a burgeoning tomboy, it doesn’t really matter.  His previous marriage had produced two daughters, then he and my mother produced another female; wanting a son, he took his last opportunity with me.  Due to a wrenching divorce and several behavioral problems, his lessons were sporadic and ended early.  Nevertheless, he still taught me how to boat, fish, carpent (that’s the verb form of “carpenter” right?), swim, clean knives and guns, and ride my bike.  And then he left.

Only when I began to use those skills toward the end of college did I realize how unusual and wonderful it was that he, particularly as an Evangelical Lutheran, had taught me those things.  Those skills have become invaluable not only as self-sustenance in general, but also as justifiers in self-advocating my genderqueer identity.  Who would argue that I’m just a confused bitch when I can clean my pocketknife, which my father gave me, better than you?

Now that I need more masculine skills, though, his absense is chafing. Business skills? Conflict skills (granted, he wouldn’t be the best person for that…)?  Mentoring and other programs of bringing “lessons in manhood” to the fatherless are strictly for men. Donald Miller, author of Fatherless Fiction, emphasizes that men should be masculine and women should be feminine; only through Christian marriage, he and many others argue, of the two can the next generations be protected from fatherlessness.  Where’s a queer to go for lessons in masculinity?

• January
• February

There were so many freakin’ club parties in March that I’m almost embarrassed that I only managed to get to three of them. Trans Am’s DJ Dirty Knees spun another edition of Heeey Sailor! at Club 93. That same night, perhaps one of March’s most anticipated club parties unfolded in the Mission. Longtime San Francisco DJ, Steve Fabus, partnered with Honey Soundsystem to celebrate the opening of the GLBT Historical Society in the Castro. Bears, gay hipsters and the like assembled at the latest gay hotspot, Public Works, for a night of dancing, art and reminiscing about San Francisco’s disco scene. Surely new memories were made that night. The following week, Stay Gold and Hard French dialed up a dance party at the Dial Up 415-935-GOSH ext. Stay Gold. Dance crews strutted their stuff on the dancefloor…

• Heeey Sailor! at Club 93 on Saturday, March 12.
• SPKR: Benefit for the GLBT Historical Society at Public Works on Saturday, March 12.
• Dial Up 415-935-GOSH ext. Stay Gold at Public Works on Thursday, March 17.

Unless otherwise noted, all images are the property of Bryan Garcia and The New Gay.

DJ Dirty Knees @ Heeey Sailor!

SPKR Wall Text

SPKR: Old Club Photos

SPKR: DJ Steve Fabus

SPKR: DJ Sergio

SPKR: Vintage Club Flyer

DJ @ Dial Up Party

Spandex Dance Crew

Dial Up a Dancefloor