Lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenred and queer people (LGBTQ) have been publicly advotg for equal rights and rponsibili wh U.S. society sce the late 1960’s. The Uned Stat has ma nsirable progrs s acceptance of sexual diversy, as has racial and relig diversy. As of June 2015, all stat the U.S. perm…
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A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN
Gay culture is not jt an affectatn. It is an exprsn of difference through style — a way of rvg out space for an alternate way of life. * description of gay culture *
AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTOp-Ed ContributorNormal as FolkJune 21, 2012Ann Arbor, ’S gay pri month aga, and that means ’s time for the straight media to liver s annual state-of-the-gay experience is any gui, this exercise will volve a lot of triumphalism about the progrs of the gay movement, as measured by the creasg cultural assiatn of young lbians and gay men to Amerin society as a men particular, who ed to ighten the hors wh flamboyant displays of sexual outlawry, genr treason and fabulons, have supposedly dropped their signia of tribal belongg and joed the mastream. Gay men, seems, have bee distguishable om normal folk. Back the Bad Old Days, or so the story go, there was such a thg as an edgy, subversive gay male culture.
But was an artifact of homophobia.
Olr gay men may still thrill to torch songs, show tun, classic Hollywood melodramas and Lalique; they may still spend hours arrangg the furnure jt all that foofy stuff looks irrelevant to morn gay men, who don’t see themselv as belongg to a separate culture, let alone such a queeny one.
The gay world is often reprented as some sort of monolhic whole that has the same culture. That is a lie. It is actually broken down to a handful of substrata to which each gay belongs. Here they are. * description of gay culture *
For today’s gay men, life is posed of PTA meetgs, church socials and Nasr problem wh such a claim — bis s nial of the Lady Gaga phenomenon — is that we’ve heard for so many s now that n’t possibly be te. At least sce the 1970s, gay men have been drawg vid generatnal parisons between gay boys their teens and 20s — morn, liberated, enlightened, untouched by gay culture, “utterly distguishable om straight boys” and “pletely lm about beg gay” (as Andrew Holleran put his 1978 novel, “Dancer From the Dance”) — and olr gay men, fanatilly attached to an outdated gay culture and nvced that is the only gay culture there is.
(Of urse, those sorry gay men their 30s and 40s, who allegedly clg to an outmod, passé versn of gay culture, mt be the very same people who, only a few years earlier, were those pneerg gay teenagers, takg their first nocent steps a brave new world whout homophobia, ignorant of gay culture and different to . Jennifer HerBut let’s set asi whether the mors of the ath of gay culture are really te or greatly exaggerated. Why is so important, particularly at this moment, that gay culture be pronounced, if not ad, then on s way out?