Historic Day for Gay Rights, but a Twinge of Loss for Gay Culture

[Smarmie Doofus]

(Long.... but worth the read. Yes, I wonder about this too.)

From yesterday's NY Times:


>>>>From Capitol Hill in Seattle to Dupont Circle in Washington, gay bars and nightclubs have turned into vitamin stores, frozen yogurt shops and memories. Some of those that remain are filled increasingly with straight patrons, while many former customers say their social lives now revolve around preschools and playgrounds.

Rainbow-hued “Just Be You” messages have been flashing across Chase A.T.M. screens in honor of Pride month, conveying acceptance but also corporate blandness. Directors, filmmakers and artists are talking about moving past themes of sexual orientation, which they say no longer generate as much dramatic energy.




The Supreme Court on Friday expanded same-sex marriage rights across the country, a crowning achievement but also a confounding challenge to a group that has often prided itself on being different. The more victories that accumulate for gay rights, the faster some gay institutions, rituals and markers are fading out. And so just as the gay marriage movement peaks, so does a debate about whether gay identity is dimming, overtaken by its own success.



“What do gay men have in common when they don’t have oppression?” asked Andrew Sullivan, one of the intellectual architects of the marriage movement. “I don’t know the answer to that yet.”

John Waters, the film director and patron saint of the American marginal, warned graduates to heed the shift in a recent commencement speech at the Rhode Island School of Design. “Refuse to isolate yourself. Separatism is for losers,” he said, adding, “Gay is not enough anymore.”

No one is arguing that prejudice has come close to disappearing, especially outside major American cities, as waves of hate crimes, suicides by gay teenagers and workplace discrimination attest. Far from everyone agrees that marriage rights are the apotheosis of liberation. But even many who raced to the altar say they feel loss amid the celebrations, a bittersweet sense that there was something valuable about the creativity and grit with which gay people responded to stigma and persecution.

For decades, they built sanctuaries of their own: neighborhoods and vacation retreats where they could escape after workdays in the closet; bookstores where young people could find their true selves and one another. S>>>> (the rest at link)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/scotus-same-sex-marriage-gay-culture.html?_r=0

[closeupready]

1. Sorry, but in general, I don't like heterosexuals. So

I will continue to choose the camaraderie of my own kind.

I don't want to be heterosexual, I enjoy being gay and there will ALWAYS be people who hate me and condemn me for being someone who is is romantically drawn towards people who share my gender. And to be honest, it's not always heterosexuals who hate me - sometimes, it's other gay men.

I need straight people to complete me in the same way that straight people have always felt they needed gay people to complete them.

When I fled that little village, I left all that accommodation to bigoted pigs behind, and I don't feel I'm missing ANYTHING.

Addressing one of the snippets in the OP, on the notion of remaining separate, John Waters is a super-rich gay man who lives a life of luxury in which he can be the sole decider of who comes and who goes. It's in his commercial interest to play this 'big tent' song - appealing to a narrow market is not a profitable as a mainstream one.

Just some random, discombobulated thoughts I'm throwing out there for now.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. You're fascinating... as usual.

I'm beginning to think you're my bizarro world twin where it comes to these things.

We start out with completely opposite premises but end up meeting... or pretty close to meeting ... in the same place.

I've traditionally thought of myself as essentially an assimilationist in the sense of.... I really never believed that my sexual orientation was THE way I wanted to be perceived by the rest of the world. I never felt there was anything WRONG about it, resented the straight world's assumptions and presumptions concerning it , but simply felt there was MORE to me than sexual orientation. ( There IS, BTW.)

I just never thought that it ( sexual orientation) is... or OUGHT to be that important. Even if everyone else seems to think it is.

But I never felt that I wanted to be LIKE straight people. ( At least not since I was 15 y.o. or so. ) Example: I never felt that I wanted or needed to model my life or relationships on the hetero "marriage model".

Truth: to me it's still bizarro-land. I get that the political issue is way bigger than that and that there are all sorts of political and legal complexities involved w. marriage, guardianship, etc. etc. etc. But there's still something wrong.

I think I may have just discovered why it is that I'm not more elated about the SCOTUS decision: it's not "marriage" that bugs me... it's WEDDINGS. I find gay/lesbian weddings embarrassing attempts to ape a heterosexual tradition that we in NO WAY own or should WANT to own.

SHeeeeeeeeez. We are "supposed" to be smart, edgy, survivors; oulaws; artistic and inventive outliers. Can't we think of something more original than the cake and the rice and the vows ( Do NOT get me started on the clergy!) and the cliched blah, blah blah ad nauseum.

My own set of discombobulations. Lap 'em up......... or not.

.

[closeupready]

3. well how sweet - thx hon

I'm going to reply in more detail later - enjoying myself for a change I think I deserve this.

[closeupready]

4. To follow up, think of my view as a personal detente ...

An agreement to disagree with the majority's ideas.

There are all kinds of theories as to why people have the personalities they possess - indoctrination; birth order; culture; whatever it is. There are some deeply personal reasons why I am the way I am, but I will share this: that despite some really tough obstacles, I survived and thrived in part to SPITE those who wanted to keep me down. So at this point after all these gay victories, for me to now seek to fit in to an oppressively heterosexual culture whose agents have been losing battle after battle ... it's unthinkable. There would be ZERO upside for me. More of my life is behind me than ahead of me, so I'm essentially settled.

SHeeeeeeeeez. We are "supposed" to be smart, edgy, survivors; oulaws; artistic and inventive outliers. Can't we think of something more original than the cake and the rice and the vows ( Do NOT get me started on the clergy!) and the cliched blah, blah blah ad nauseum.

Completely agree; we are those whose thinking, by necessity, had to be "outside the box", because the box never fit our kind.

And agree about edginess and outliers in our community, but many of them (who I knew) are deceased, or sold out/moved on. If all the queens in San Francisco who'd bought those old Victorians had stayed put, or sold to other gay people, it'd still be the San Francisco everybody loved. Now look at it. Ditto Chelsea or the West Village.

[nomorenomore08]

8. To be honest I don't blame you. Certainly there's no shortage of narrowminded assholes in the world.

And everyone should be able to exist where, and with whom, they're most comfortable.

[Bagsgroove]

5. Thought provoking stuff

Thanks to both of you for really interesting perspectives. I'm a little late to this discussion but thought I'd throw in another 2 cents.

I came out at 18, in 1975. I wan't living in any gay mecca, but in Des Moines, Iowa. Old guys like me like to say things like, "I came out back when it wasn't that easy." Except...actually it was that easy. Maybe I've been lucky, but in my adult life I've never felt like an outsider. I've only rarely felt hostility or rejection. I've never felt like an "edgy survivor." I've never felt like there was any essential human difference between myself and my straight friends, and they've never (or almost never) treated me as if they felt that way. To me a statement like "I don't like heterosexuals" makes about as much sense as saying I don't like people from Peoria.

I know who I am. I know the ways I'm different from the heterosexual majority, and from the age of 18 I've never felt a need to pretend to be someone I'm not. On the other hand, I've never felt that my gay-different-self somehow places me in a unique category of humanity, and I have no urge to to surround myself with only those who are like myself.

I know there is hate and discrimination. I can't say that I've never experienced that. But I'm not a victim. In my life there have been far more truly good and accepting straight folks than there are bigots. I've run in to quite a few of them here on DU as well as in "real life." I treasure their friendship as much as I treasure my gay friends.

Anyway, thanks for one of the most thoughtful posts and set of comments I've seen on this subject.

[nomorenomore08]

7. Sounds like you've been lucky enough to surround yourself with mostly good people.

I'm not gay - just a bit different from the norm, in terms of my personality and brain structure - but what you've said resonates with me to a certain extent. I've also been fortunate, in the sense of finding a group of friends who don't judge me for my differences, or act like there's something wrong with me. Being a born outsider myself, is perhaps why I've always identified with "outsiders" of other kinds.

[Smarmie Doofus]

10. Good post. I sometimes wonder whether a lot of hostility/revulsion/prejudice... whatever....

.... is being submerged for social or political reasons.

People like to sweep things "under the rug". ( Upper- Midwesterners , in particular, are suspected of this sort of thing... I hope you don't mind my pointing that out; I've spent some time in Iowa, btw.)

In NYC , the gov't.... in part as a concession to it's "liberal" image... legally forbids any variety of violence/hostility/discrimination toward people on the basis of sexual orientation.

Do I believe that a lot of heterosexuals nonetheless have attitudes of hostility/revulsion/superiority that make themselves manifest in the workplace, on the street, in the back of the taxi-cab, at the hospital, at Thanksgiving dinner at one's sister-in-law's house, etc. ?

Well.... we all know the answer to that, don't we?

[nomorenomore08]

6. People should, absolutely, only "assimilate" to the degree they desire and are comfortable with.

This false dichotomy, between human difference and human equality, implies that the two are mutually exclusive - which is bullshit, of course. "Different" shouldn't mean "better" or "worse," and - ideally -we should all be able to acknowledge and even celebrate our differences, without having to "rank" them in any way.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. "Assimilation" has a somewhat different terminological pedigree in gay urban subculture.

A subculture which is.... it would appear... on the way out ; if not out already.

The quarrel.... 20 yrs ago... was between urban gay separatists who built up ghettos in usually larger cities and networked and socialized ( and politicized) in that milieu and gay people who felt part of the mainstream in most respects. ( In ALL respects, really, except for sexual/affectional).

To a degree it depended ( i.e. which side of the argument you were on) on how thoroughly one had internalized the homophobia of the culture at large. ( But really there were/are more variables than that.) Yeah... if your experience as an LGBT kid in a a hostile world has been *horrendous* ( as opposed to just difficult or problematic) the inclination as an adult is to wall oneself off.

Lots of people felt this way... and still do. And they've created safe havens for themselves ... as well as for people who came after them. So, believe me , I'm not disparaging that.

But that's not how I *wanted* to live. Though to a certain extent that's how I HAVE lived. But on the EDGE of it.

[Fearless]

11. Times change and so does our culture

The rise of internet chat forums (such as this group) and web/app-based dating systems negates the need for bars. The desire is still there for many regardless to visit these establishments, but not to the extent it used to be.

For me personally, I'm not much of a bar person in general, as I'm not a drinker in general. It's easier to sit at home or go about my day and chat with someone on an app then it is to devote an evening to a club or bar. Plus the crowd is bigger.

[Smarmie Doofus]

12. There's fall-out from that, though.

People don't see each other in the flesh. There's no face to face contact.

There's less real *community*.

When community is virtual..... it leaves the political power ( and the work) in the hands of corporate behemoths like HRC,GLAAD and GLSEN.

These groups... they're really sites more than they are groups...have never failed to disappoint, as far as I'm concerned. I only hear from them when they want money. ( Which I no longer give them, btw. ) Lotsa luck getting an email answered if you have a specific problem or question.

Better, lasting work is done in PERSON, by people who sit down in the same room and talk to each other.

[Fearless]

13. And yet greater numbers of people are able to communicate than ever before

There are positives and negatives of all changes. We should embrace the positives and negate the negatives. We now have a mode of communication that brings hope to people and unites people across the world and that is an amazing thing. To shine light on a worldwide stage of atrocities committed against us and to affect real change throughout that world, is not something to take for granted, and, perhaps not something that would have happened so quickly had we not had the ability to communicate as we do now. Aside from that, few if none of us would have ever known each other, and that would be a sad thing indeed.