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Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.
Wednesday 01/29/2003
The overreacting straight couple
This straight couple went into a gay club last Friday. They were out on the dance floor, when the woman suddenly noticed two guys making out in the corner. This freaked her out and she started screaming "OH MY GOD! WE'RE SURROUNDED BY FAGS!" They could not get out of there fast enough.
This is why lately the bouncers at the bars have been asking if you know this is a gay establishment.
I heard this story years ago in college, where it was presented as truth. Several people swore that they knew people who had been at the bar that night, but no one could agree exactly which bar it had been. This confusion, and the friend of a friend aspect made me assume that it was a gay theme urban legend. It seemed far too much of a tall tale to be real.
There's also the apparent lack of intelligence in this straight couple. Of the various clubs this supposedly happened, the one I knew about was a video bar (this was the mid eighties after all) and well, only an idiot could have not noticed the almost complete lack of women there. Besides, at that place men making out with each other were a dime a dozen.
The stupidity and overreaction by the couple, or rather just the woman, since no one ever mentioned the man screaming (misogyny?), is probably common in stories where an oppressed minority jab fun at the expense of the majority. The feeling of "I may be discriminated against and trod upon, but at least I'm not a fool like you."
Urban legends are interesting. They are modern folk tales. Instead of pixies and banshees, we now have ghost hitchhikers and alligators in sewers. They are comedic stories of justice (the $50 Porsche). They are also short morality plays which teach fear (Aids Mary, who in a previous incarnation had merely left the message welcome to the world of herpes.)
I haven't found any references to it on line, so I doubt the story of the overreacting straight couple was ever popular, or if it ever made it out of the Orange County/Los Angeles area. In general, searching through Urban Legend sites for specifically gay tales and legends didn't reveal very much. Mainly just stories of gay men visiting emergency rooms with all manner of stuff crammed up their anuses, a thing about a gay college student using drugs to rape/sodomize his straight roommate, and references to paranoid online petitions to stop PBS from making Bert & Ernie get married.
What is it exactly do these stories serve to teach us? That gay men are vile and perverse? That they are dangerous, violent and not to be trusted? That they are out there recruiting children?
If these are the only queer legends out there, then it is time for us to start making up our own stories and myths. Stories that show the stupidity of discrimination, that allow us to laugh at homophobes. Perhaps even stories to teach these same homophobes caution.
I think we need the story of the drag queens revenge, maybe even the tale of the NRA fag and the would be queer basher.
I think we need to be the ones in control.
more later,
nico
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