:: Closing Time ::

:: Tuesday, December 24, 2002 ::

Interesting point about heterosexual advertising, Drew, although I think you use the word "we" a little liberally. I hadn't though from the advertising front, but to be honest I really dislike that -too-. I mean, how many times have you turned a page in a magazine, or to a lesser extent seen an ad on TV, and you see a practically naked hot girl ... and the add is for something like whiskey, TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. I think society as a whole generally looks down on this type of advertisment - despite the fact that it works, so it will never go away. That doesn't mean I support it, and it sure as hell doesn't mean "we" do it.

As for the use of the word gay as a negative adjective, well, I couldn't be clear on this one. Slap anybody who does it, verbally, physically, however you have to. It's just bullshit. Saying that something is "gay" is pretty much like referring to a form of street slang as "nigger talk." It's totally fucking unacceptable, incredibly negative, and just makes no sense.

Finally, we get to the fear issue. Again I think your clarification is good - people are more afraid of BEING gay than of gays themselves, but only in the northeast. I know I've said to a lot of people I'm going to school in the south and everybody acts like they know better than me and tells me I'm not, but I'm a 5 minute drive from Virginia. And I'm telling you, I fucking hear it. And I hear people who honestly are afraid that being around gays is somehow going to make them gay, or doing something they associate with gays is going to make them gay, or "gayer" if there's even such a concept. At the root that does come down to people being afraid of becoming gay, but that's why I say that a lot of people are actually afraid of gays. They think it's, for lack of a better less negative sounding word, contagious. This at a school where my roomate is gay, and I have a gay neighbor two doors down in one direction and two living together two doors down in the other. And that's basically a representative sample, there must be at least 10 gays on my floor alone. There are a lot of gays... and yet people still manage to be afraid of them, even when they've befriended gays, even when they're living with gays. It's born and bred for some people.

On a positive note, I have -seen- gay men here make remarks about attractive men basically along the lines of what Drew said, and most of the time they don't get a second look, or any kind of weird impression. At that level, people's comfort level with homosexuality is way, way up. To some extent, there's always going to be a kneejerk reaction whether you're gay or straight - whenever Kevin makes a sexual remark about a guy, it takes me a split second to realize that he's talking about a guy, whereas another roomate would be talking about a girl, and I'm only interested in one of them. To that extent, there will always be a reaction, but that's roughly equivilent to a Ford person pointing out a nice Mustang and a Chevy person taking a split second to realize he doesn't give a shit. It's so basic.

I don't think anybody's TRYING to annoy anyone. I just think, and still think, there's a point that's rarely crossed (but -often- crossed at my school) where it stops being progressive and starts being imposing. And if you want homphobic people to lose that feeling... imposing on their lives is absolutely not the way to do it. Making them feel attacked is not the way to do it - that only strengthens their belief that there's something wrong with gay people.

That was my point. Some people got it.
:: Peter 2:34 AM [+] ::
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