The Wake

First and foremost, let me say that I am, in fact, a gay man. I like the cock.

With that out of the way, let me propose this: the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender movement has ruined everything for itself. Gay people have forced themselves into a horrendous caricature of a community.

I’ll just go ahead and assume that you think I’m talking about traditionally “gay” mannerisms. I’m not. I have no problem with “girly” men or “manly” girls. I have never and will never hate anyone for what they are, flamboyant or not. I certainly will reserve judgment, however, for what they have made of themselves.

It seems to me that some members of the community parade around (excuse the pun) trying to project an image that I can only describe as a Paris Hilton-esque mystique, or in the case of lesbians, a skanked-out Punky Brewster. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been accused of being a whore at times, but I don’t consider it to be encoded down into my homo DNA. If, when having to write up a description of the core values of your little niche in society, you use the words “skin tight” and “platinum blonde,” then you’re in trouble. Who’s going to take us seriously if we don’t take ourselves seriously?

While embarrassing yourself in the privacy of a cheap, dirty nightclub can be on the whole socially acceptable, when television cameras get introduced things take on a whole new level of idiocy. In mass media, we gays are portrayed as narcissistic, shallow, curtain-appraising nightmares. In shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk, and (to a much less enraging extent) Will and Grace, gays are grouped, stamped, and packaged as ridiculous and catty before they are sent off for the consumption of the American public.

I don’t even know where to begin tackling the representation of lesbians on Bravo’s Work Out, or the same-sex date episodes of MTV’s ridiculously scripted “reality dating show,” Next. Next specifically needs to be cancelled simply because if the show continues I will be forced to start beating myself up.

Instead of battling against this horrible movement in American media, the gays just sit in their living room, sipping chardonnay and laughing along as Carson wears a rainbow thong and, according to an ad for the show, “[drives] straight men into their closets.” Ironically, this cute little ad signifies a much larger problem among gay people. Because “gay” mannerisms are so specific, it becomes that much harder for a closeted man or woman to come out if he or she doesn’t match the mold. If you aren’t a walking, talking rainbow, people will just assume you are heterosexual, making it that much easier to live the lie. I know people who have lied to nearly all of their family and friends their entire lives, just so they would never be “that gay guy” or “that gay girl.”

Now, I’m not angry that everyone thinks that I’m going to be their best new shopping buddy. That’s perfectly harmless in and of itself. But when it’s okay to accept even the most innocuous stereotypes as truth it would then acceptable to assume that even the worst are true. If someone is allowed to assume that I can color coordinate my way out of even the most bland-toned of circumstances, then someone could just as easily assume that I have AIDS, or that I’m addicted to meth or that I’m a pedophile. When, on the gay-embraced show Queer as Folk, character Brian Kinney touts that gay couples aren’t like their heterosexual counterparts—the difference being that gay people could never get married and eventually become boring and monogamous—how can you say that we as a movement deserve the right to marry each other? Every character on that show is either a whore, an idiot or prone to infidelity. I watch the credits after every episode, expecting to see “Special Guest Writer: Jerry Falwell” appear on the screen. Why are we doing this to ourselves? When gay people are promoting the very same image as the right wing, we will forever be the saucy wedding planner and never the bride.

Even when the GLBT community fights for its rights, it goes about doing everything backwards. Gay advocacy focuses entirely on the prejudice that specifically addresses homosexuals and, if they’re lucky bisexuals, transgender people and everyone else in our little brat pack of dysfunctional gender statuses. This is focusing on the symptom rather than the problem itself.

Homophobia is a side effect of a greater sexism that affects the world. If people weren’t so preoccupied with gender (to the point where gender essentially defines you as a person) then there would be no problem between us gays and you crazy straight folks.

But gay activists, while obviously very sensitive and educated on the topic of gender, decide to focus instead on trying to defeat the fundamentalist religious ideals—a ridiculous prospect. If you’re going to set out and try and change someone’s mind about something you should never ever pick religion. Religion is a matter of personal faith, and however false you might think it is when a Baptist minister tells you you’re going to hell for being a dyke (possibly on a bike) you can’t tell him he’s wrong. He can’t be. It’s his faith. Instead of hitting our heads against a wall that Jesus built, we should be trying to actually make people see that we aren’t the horrible drug-addicted, STD-riddled fashionistas we tend to make ourselves out to be.

Now, with a small portion of my rage written out, let me just say that I know all gay people aren’t vapid whores with a Macy’s catalogue where their brains should be, or flannel toting, mullet loving vegetarian hippies for that matter. If that were actually true, I’m sure I’d be at a club somewhere shaking my ass for rich, old businessmen, or sewing dresses for debutantes instead of writing a hard-hitting piece of topical journalism. And there is nothing wrong with a well-defined community. But there is a problem with an oppressed minority that is so easily placated by the Bravo network and the half-assed acting of Eric McCormack.

We need to stop allowing ourselves to be put into little boxes. We can’t put most of the blame on straight people anymore, either. We have to change the way we think about ourselves in order to make everyone else think any differently than they do now. If we can’t stand up for the most basic of principles (namely that no, we aren’t all exactly the same) then we will end up being exactly what everyone assumes us to be: a bunch of silly fags and angry bull dykes.