OKAY GAY BOYS, GIVE ME A BREAK!
Barbara Burton
Do you ever get a real clear moment in your head when something that you read a while back finally makes its way into your frontal lobe? You know, its one of those moments that you realize that you have been completely offended by something that you thought was funny or not really important when you read it and now when you think about it it�s kind of mean and petty. I recently had one of those moments when I read a column about lesbians embracing all things ugly. Actually that�s not true. I had the moment when I was at the tea dance at a new midtown restaurant on the Sunday of the dogwood festival at Piedmont Park. My realizations are not about festivals or restaurants, it�s about the gay male culture that is- -Atlanta.
Sunday evening as I stood on the patio and looked out over the sea of chiseled, tanned, over inflated boys that were milling around I came to some conclusions: the gay rights movement will never gain the momentum of the women's movement or the civil rights movement because more than half of the people in our cause spend most of their time having sex, thinking about sex, working out so they can get sex or talking about whose having sex with whom.
A columnist in Southern Voice, a local gay and lesbian newspaper, recently wrote that lesbians tend to embrace ugliness in all its forms. I actually agree with allot of what he said. We girls do tend to need a little fashion policing, but guys, there has to be some middle ground between ignoring beauty and obsessing about it. I also noticed that within the male community there are very specific guidelines for beauty and for most men in the general population they are unattainable. It�s not unlike the pain many straight women go through to try to live up to the standard of the fashion industry. Honestly, how many women do you actually know that are six feet tall and weigh 117 lbs? I have heard friends of mine truthfully say that HIV wasn�t so bad if you get to take the steroids!!! You guys want it all...youth, beauty, love, money and lots and lots and lots of sex, and I think that wanting that is great...but living you life in pursuit of only narcissistic pleasure leads to a lonely life.
But I stray off course. I noticed several things that might be interesting to ponder. As I looked at the patio and the top floor inside the restaurant I imagined that if I could remove the roof and hover over the crowd it would look like a swirl. A constantly moving line of men meeting and greeting each other. I'm not sure how they recognize each other because they are all dressed and groomed the same. Same Abercrombie and Fitch tank top, kaki or jean shorts, the beginnings of a tan, a slightly tousled Caesar haircut, and strange and disturbingly well-groomed eyebrows. They walk in pairs or in groups (rarely alone) and as they meet someone they know they have about a 1.5 -- 3 minute conversation, all the while they are scanning the room to see who is looking at them and who else is there. If you have any gay friends who are part of the culture in Atlanta you will notice that even their everyday conversations tend to be very dramatic and very short and superficial. Its because its all about the outer layer. If you talk for too long you might actually say something meaningful or truthful and that might involve feeling something and that is too hard and too much work so move on move on.
Guys, I know that allot of you think of lesbians as only useful if you need to build a deck or change a tire or to bring as a date to your homophobic office functions--but you also seem to think that we�re for picking up your prescriptions, taking you to the doctor, cleaning your house and holding your hands while you die. So the next time that you�re at one of your circuit parties and someone starts making fun of lesbians and how they are too fat, too ugly, or too political, maybe you should think about whether it would be the person who is making fun --or your best lesbian friend--who would be there if you needed someone to hold you hand or fight city hall on your behalf. Maybe making a disparaging comment about their looks might not seem so funny. |
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