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.

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Pride

�Pride is my favorite holiday.�
-A friend from college

�Pride festivals are for closeted people.�
-A different friend from college


The Los Angeles GLBT pride festival was this weekend, which leads me to a not so simple question:

What is Gay pride?

Is it paying money to get into a festival with numerous merchant and food booths, community organization information booths, a performance stage, and three different dance tents (country, Latin, and dance)?

Is it not paying money to get into a free version of the above?

Is it going to a festival, making out with a cute stranger while in line for the port-a-potty, getting drunk and/or high, then thinking of a good excuse to tell coworkers when they ask about your sunburn at work the following Monday?

Is it an all-lesbian rock band on a festival stage? A drag act lip-syncing to old standards? An eighties one hit wonder doing the pride festival circuit?

Is it going to the right gym, having the right look, wearing the right clothes and sleeping with people who look exactly like you?

Is it the existence of gay freebie weekly papers that stay afloat because half of the page count is personals and escort service ads?

Is it being an �Active Person� volunteering for various community organizations, attending meeting, leading workshops, organizing and donating to fundraisers, both for the sake of the community and so that you can keep abreast of community gossip?

Is it being a S.O.A.P. (Spouse Of Active Person), simultaneously supporting your husband/wife/partner in their efforts, while also managing to keep up with gossip?

Is it selling and or buying any and all conceivable manner of retail items plastered in rainbow colors, from a rainbow colored plastic wind chimes to rainbow colored tampon applicator?

Is it watching a pride parade? Being part of a pride parade? Protesting a pride parade? Telling everyone who will listen that you are sooo over pride parades?

Is it looking on in awe at the Dykes on bikes? Looking on in horror at the Dykes on bikes? Wishing you were a Dyke on a bike?

Is it participating in the Dyke March? Is it not supporting the Dyke March? Is it never having heard of the Dyke March?

Is it being a fan of a TV show where the gay male lead is incapable of maintaining a long term romantic relationship with anyone other than his fag hag best friend?

Is it not being silent and mentioning your girlfriend/boyfriend/partner when the talk at work turns to the foibles of everyone's husbands/wives/girlfriends/boyfriends?

Is it being a fan of a TV show about a group of queer folks who are only meant to represent a certain fictitious group of friends and not the entire GLBT community as a whole, and where the most heinous attack possible on gay rights is an assault against a person�s right to public sex?

Is it wearing a rainbow pin? Or a pink triangle, a black triangle, a lambda, or a labrys?

Is it having a perfectly decorated home with a multitude of mirrors and picture perfect display of silver colored glass balls in a crystal bowl on a vintage serving tray on an oversized and overstuffed ottoman cum coffee table?

Is it fighting for your right to marry your partner? It is not fighting for the right to marry your partner because marriage is an archaic, patriarchal, heterosexual institution on it�s last legs which has no real meaning in this modern age? Is it fighting for your right to not marry because marriage is for hets not fags, and besides gay weddings are embarrassing?

Is it being �out� to everyone you know and in every facet of your life? Is it being largely �out,� depending on your level of comfort, safety, and if circumstances warrant it? Is it not being �out� at all, except for in your private life because your private life is exactly that?

Tell me, please.

I have no idea anymore.



more later,

nico

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