Alienated

[SLIMES]

It was some time ago that I was in Brum (Birmingham, UK) and they were having the anual gay pride parades.

Now before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I have a lot of respect for gay/bi rights activists. They've achieved a lot and are much braver than I am. So please see the following more as feelings rather than opinions.

But I couldn't help feelng that the whole thing had nothing to do with me. There were a few half naked guys running round spanking each other and people dressed up in things that seemed pretty irrelevant. I mean, what has a giant multi-coloured bird costume got to do with being sexually attracted to other guys!!?

What struck me was that the people watching this parade (predominantly str8 ppl), were looking at this with a very bemused look. (but not hostile). Many of them would have children who new they were gay/bi and would one day come out. Would the image of that parade that the parents had seen a few years back help? - I very much doubt it.

As bisexuals we have a lot of socialy constructed stereotypes to overcome. But why do so many people seem to be determind to support those stereotypes. IMO shows that star Julian Clary (British camp commedian), seem to make things worse. in Victorian times they had freak shows. Now we have The Graham Norton Show. Gay/bi people seem to be used as public entertainment and the views I hear in my family (I'm in the closet) seem to have been partially formed as a result of this.

'Big Brother' (UK)strikes me as another example of this. I can't remember his name but there was one guy who was obviously only there because he was the campest gay on earth and loads of peopel thought he was hilarious. What am I supposed to do? -Just make a little anouncement after my families' finnished roling over laughing at a poof? :(

Anyway, i've got nothing against camp people Some of my str8 friends are camp/effeminate and have suffered as a result of this. (homophobia can be directed at str8 ppl :rolleyes: ) It's just that there seems to be this general trend of pandering to sterotypes in search of acceptence.



[A discussion I had with one of my str8 friends was very revealing. He didn't like 'Broke Back Mountain' because the guys weren't effeminate. when I asked him why that mattered he said: "but I don't like it when they show gay people who are more masculine than me. I feel far more comfortable when they're squeeling little queens like in Will and Grace".

Penny for your thoughts. (God I've been rambling). Please don't be offended by this.

[cand86]

Slimes (whata name!),

I think this is a great thread! It calls to me because I've been trying to intellectually grapple with the subject matter you've brought up. I often feel as you do- not so much now, but still, occassionally- and have decided that, in me, at least, it is partially internalized homophobia. Long before I explicitly realized I was something other than straight, I felt slightly offended by 'stereotypical gays'- effeminate gay men and masculine women. Why couldn't they just be normal? It wasn't even that I saw anything wrong with it, I just felt it was so stupid and detrimental; it's as if gay men graduate to their homosexuality with lisps and limp wrists and fabulousness.

Somehow, somewhere, I've had a miraculous revolution in thought, probably aided by discovering 'non-stereotypical gays' out there. Thank God I've been able to get past where I was and celebrate the ways people express themselves and form relationships, whatever they be. But vestiges still remain: I love everyone who breaks stereotypes (straight effeminate men, wonderfully butch straight or bisexual girls, gay transsexuals, the deliciously queer image of ubermasculine gay musclemen and bears, and the list goes on). More and more I am loving campy 'queerness', but I know where you're coming from.

I think it comes down to why we continue to equate camp with homosexuality. They're two separate spheres, ones that often overlap, but just as much never touch. There are gay men out there who absolutely detest that, would never dream of getting into drag, etc., etc.. And there are those who couldn't live without it, but both sleep with the same sex. I don't know when people will start differentiating between 1) sexual orientation, 2) gender identity, and 3) personality/behavior. Once we do, things will get immensely easier. But until then, we have to deal with the fact that camp and homosexuality are tightly interwoven. Although it's getting better, I still feel that stereotype fits in most people's minds, and even shapes their behavior. One of my favorite MadTv spoofs features two guys who make out a bit, decide they must be gay, and the dialogue goes: "Should I light some scented candles? Should we . . . . should we go to a gay bar? I don't know. I don't know! I'm new, I'm a new gay. Can you go when you're new?". Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and a million other stereotypical gays are blasting that image at us.

But I suppose therein lies the rub: how do you tell a straight guy from a gay/bisexual one without the camp? Hence the terms 'straight-acting', etc.. Without camp or concentrated efforts to make up for its loss, non-camp gay people melt into invisibility and obscurity in a heteronormative world that assumes everyone is straight until proven gay. (And imminently worse for bisexuals, as we know). In some ways, camp is the sole alternative to visibility, etc. unless you tell everyone your sexual orientation the minute you meet them. Unfortunately, this presents a problem for a lot of people who don't belong to that campy community. Like you've said perfectly: "I mean, what has a giant multi-coloured bird costume got to do with being sexually attracted to other guys!!?"

In the end, I think it's something that will slowly be remedied. We really can't deny that camp is out there and present in the gay/bisexual community (or straight, for that matter); a lot of people ARE the stereotype. It's how they get started, after all. But more and more, we're starting to see great examples of the fact that many people can be non campy while being gay/bisexual, like Brokeback Mountain has demonstrated. And it's probably going to upset and make uncomfortable quite a few straights, because more often than not, they can differentiate themselves from homosexuals by the camp factor. For the homophobic, how scary must it be to know that anyone- anyone- near you might be gay?

I know that somewhere on here, someone in a post said something to the likes of "My parents asked if I was gay as a kid, and I said no. I thought that gay men liked to dress up as women. If they had asked me if I ever had crushes on the guys in my class, the answer would have been yes.". I'll leave that as my final statement.

Well, I've been rambling. Hopefully I've made some sense.

[shameless agitator]

I've been railing on this same subject myself. In my view, if somebody is campy by nature, then more power to 'em they should get down with their fab self. Where I have a problem is when people feel compelled to conform themselves to these stereotypes. I don't think this really helps anybody. As far as the visibility thing goes & being able to identify each other, that can be an issue. Personally I'm a fairly masculine guy (call me "straight acting" if you must, though that's not what it's about) & so I've noticed that I only seem to get attention from men when I wear something that identifies me, such as my pride t-shirt, gay rights pin etc. I was actually in denial about my sexuality for much longer than I should have been because of these stupid stereotypes. I was stuck in the gay/straight binary and I didn't fit iether caricature of gay men, so I figured I must be straight.

[gh05t]

DUDE!

I can relate to that about stereotypes because I just don't fit into that crap at all.

A gay pride parade in Birmingham just conjures up this mental image of a pack of wild poodles roaming the plains of Africa!

[Long Duck Dong]

oh the stereotypes lol.........

ask around many people and mention gay sex and they immediately say * anal sex *...ask they why they say that, and they will say its the only way gay people can have sex .......* BULLSHIT *

stereotyping is used by people as a basis for their beliefs lol... and the LBGT community is no better than the rest of the world.... we often stereotype other groups according to our beliefs and to reinforce our opinions of the world around us

if 10,000 people walk down the main centre of town and they are all straight acting LBGT, then it doesn't stand out.... it doesn't catch the public eye... and more times than not, its the LBGT saying * look at me as a person * and not look at the LBGT community as *normal * people with good jobs, attitudes and self respect

without stereotyping, we would be watching gueer eye for the straight guy, with 5 straight acting nondescript people acting in the same manner as the straight person.......... wanna see a ratings crash ?????

the feminine acting males in the LBGT community are used to set apart the LBGT from the straight..... and as the straight community perfers to use the bed hopping, macho, sport watching, beer drinking straights as their stereotype....well the LBGT uses the feminine, facial care freak, fashion fiend with a mincing walk stereotype to set us apart lol

most people that first meet me, see the ex armed services / ex martial artist & instructor, ex power lifter / body builder.......then they learn that I am also a male witch / spiritualist / therapist etc
they struggle to equate me as a person who can massage a persons foot using reflexology and also a person that can break every bone in their foot with 2 fingers lol

to stereotype me ( as a friend once put it ) put arnie schwarnegger, bruce lee, ghandi and raven silverwolf ( a female witch who writes many books about witchcraft for teens ) and throw them all in a blender.....pour that into a mould and you have a rough instant ME

[ambi53mm]

to stereotype me ( as a friend once put it ) put arnie schwarnegger, bruce lee, ghandi and raven silverwolf ( a female witch who writes many books about witchcraft for teens ) and throw them all in a blender.....pour that into a mould and you have a rough instant ME

Well I have a blender...and I admire the ingredients of the recipe...but my gut feeling is ..that when they made you.... they broke the mould...

An advid fan of the duck :bigrin:
Ambi :)

[Tynary]

I think gay/bi pride parades are just supposed to be a good time. not just about gay/bi rights but also colourful and pretty. A parade is a parade no matter whats its in support of and parades should be fun and colourful and cool to look at.

um people shouldn't stereotype 'oh god that guy if gay' cas hes femme. couldn't he be str8t and femme. y is it bad to be a st8t femme or a butch gay or half and half and one does happen to be a bit of a steroetype is that bad?
um no all those are good interesting varieties which I lv.
i used to get called butch which is odd cas I'm an emotional, slim, petite drama queen who sucks at sports.
It was somethingabout my attitude which conservatives weren't used to. I see myself as bi with many traits that r mascu;ine anf emme which I like and hope others like.
people can be femme, butch, both, str8t, gay, bi a mixture whatever and all of those should be respected.

oh yeah who ever quoted their friend saying he h8t brokeback mountain cas they were masculine and he likes squeeling queens what a jerk-hes got issues.

[izzfan]

I don't have any problems with 'camp' in itself but I do get annoyed when it is portrayed as THE gay/bi lifestyle. I mean that is nothing more than a stereotype - just because I usually prefer men to women doesn't mean that I obsess about designer clothes, listen to Kylie Minogue/ The Scissor Sisters , know everything about 'The Wizard of Oz', constantly go on diets and obsess about my 'body image' lol. There are a lot of stereotypes that need to be broken, I mean I am often mistaken for a straight person and I would probably say that I am very 'straight acting' (so are 75-80% of the gay ppl that I know) which kind of shocks straight ppl when they realise that I am Bi/TV (yes, even though I occasionally like to look like a woman at times, I am not 'effeminate' in everyday life or even when I am dressed up lol)... I think the most 'effeminate' thing I do is to wear black nail varnish (and quite a few straight goth/emo men seem to be doing that these days).
As for your point about pride parades, count yourself lucky that you have been able to go to one lol. I only 'came out' 2 months or so ago when I arrived at university and I have yet to go to a pride parade. But yeah I have to agree about some of the more excessive aspects of pride parades... but at least we have pride parades these days which shows that society is a lot less homophobic than it was a few decades ago (I was born in the late 80s, so I only know about this through history books/websites lol). But looking at photos of some of the early pride marches... there were lots of rather 'ordinary' looking poeple with homemade signs, marching the streets... those days it was something bold and shocking. But I think it has far much more impact than modern, commercialised pride parades in their brightly coloured excesses... I mean, the early pride parades showed that gay/bi people were 'ordinary' people who you might pass on the street without even noticing. Unlike modern pride parades where gay/bi people are set apart as a 'different' group because of of all the giant bird costumes, semi-nudity etc.... I mean if ppl at pride parades just showed up in ordinary, casual clothes (be they male or female clothes) then it would send out a message that we are 'ordinary' people just like everyone else and not a different group and to show that (to quote a line from a film which I saw a while back... I think it was from 'Transamerica'....) "We walk among you". By showing LGBT people to be 'ordinary' members of the community (as opposed to a totally separate and 'different' or 'alien' group) we could really achieve a lot and break down a lot of stereotypes.

Just my :2cents:

Izzfan

As for Long Duck Dong's point about the misconception that gay/bi men only have anal sex.... I agree, it is somewhat of a misconception (anal sex is just uncomfortable regardless of whether you are 'top' or 'bottom')

[LoveLion]

I think the reason for this is that Homosexuals have been descriminated for so long and homosexuality has been seen as a terrible disease for so long that now that it is suddenly becoming accepted its almost a novelty. Also now that more homosexuals are comming out and communicating then ever before they feel a sudden need to build a totally unique culture. I suspect that this will die away in the years to come homosexuality continues to grow into the main stream of life.