03.24.03 That's So Gay.

I am finding that I am beginning to use the term, "That's so gay."

I have to admit, I first used the phrase cautiously. For obvious reasons, I felt guilty saying it, but then I realized after awhile that some things are just really 'gay.'

Now, I know it probably isn't PC for anyone to be using the word 'gay' in a negative way, especially someone who is gay, but I have come to realize that some parts of gay culture are kind of, well, gay. The fact that I would include myself in such a diverse 'we' and that this 'we' needs its own culture is pretty dumb, but yet there it is in all of its fabulous glory.

You know the old addage "I'll just take my tinker toys and go home." Well, I think that is what happens when whole groups of people are ostracized. They start their own reindeer games that are so much cooler than the games all of the other unhip reindeer are playing.

Seriously, though, 'gay culture' has become so elitist, I think in a way to make up for the years of shunning. Think about how 'cool' you are supposed to be when you are gay, or how hard some queens can be on the token good-looking straight guy who comes into the gay bar...or worse a non-cute gay boy. Oh, the pressure to be fashinable, or at least to own several pairs of good expensive shoes...Kenneth Cole?

For example...I was watching an episode of Will and Grace, a show I really don't want to like because of the perpetuating of strerotypes, but I can't help but laugh at the good writing, or myself.

Anyway, in the episode Karen's cousin has moved into the picture and he is recently out of the closet. Will and Jack, the seemingly only two sides of the proverbial gay coin, take it upon themselves to train the cousin to be a 'proper gay.'

They spend a lot of time coaching him on the proper clothes, what movies to like (Beaches, or anything musical,) and generally how to fit into the mold, because that is the only way to get a man in this crazy little world we have made for ourselves.

All I have to say is that is really gay.

I don't want to have to 'be' something in order to be myself. The sterotype is so old and tired and so not as cool as the stereotypes of the past. I mean, I would honestly take the San Francisco butch of the 70s or the tube socks, jogging shorts wearing image of the 80s over this plastic hollow archetype we have today.

I don't want to have the corner market on materialism. I just want a house, a yard, a dog, a cat, and a man in my bed. Nothing probably worthy of a techno anthem in the end, but then I never did quite fit the image. I am not soooo gay.

Peace...I am just rambling.