QUEER:
Look, I can't be arsed working out how to do a cut, but I got sucked into this debate on gay culture and if it exists. Some of this won't make sense out of context, but let me know if you (NIAMH) think it makes any sense:


The lack of lesbian or bisexual involvement, or even that of (what I would, for easiness sake) 'queered' individuals - such as Kari for example, really does shake down the argument. It's why I brough up the term queer as an umbrella term to begin with. Like I say, I count people from across the spectrum among my closest friends and certianly where we're all concerned, sexuality seems to be low on the list of priority. However, the fact that these straight men and women have found many of their good friends under the 'queer umbrella' points to, for me, this certain openess and progressive way of thinking that is - if I were going to say queer culture exists - the bones of what a queer cultureal group is about. I can't really talk just for gay men, becuase the gay men that I am close to really spread across the spectrum. I have very few good friends existing deep in the ghetto, but most of the gay guys I know do know a lot of gay guys.

I might have to qualify here though, in MY experience in Ireland, that we only have two gay clubs in this city. Going there is not like going to a pick up bar, rather than going to a local. Having seen a three floor club in New York where we were the ONLY non-Asian people, and being accompanied by the only non-homosexual people, I have to assume that where the gay populace is higher, even more specific splinter groups arise. And I guess that I am part of a less clearly defined splinter group, that being a group of people who strive for openess in all aspects of our lives. When it comes down to it, we're really pretty hippy about it.

On the spectrum of how my sexuality defines me, it comes very low in my case. Most people I know don;t care that I'm gay. I will sit with my straight male and female friends and sex will be discussed openly with no importence put on the gender of who you're screwing. And very often it's the relationship to that person that will be most important. In my life, sex plays a big part socially, but I don't relaly consider that part of my life to be particularly 'gay,' even if I make use of a gay arena to do that, when I choose to do it. For a lot of people. having a lot of sex may make you view them differently, but then again, I think that really come from your own way of presenting this. On here for example, I'll often bring it up to throw a fox among the chickens, becuase I do think a lot of the guys on here choose to rile against stereotypical ideas in order to define themselves against them. I don't really feel the need to do that becuase I don't define myself within or outside of 'gay culture,' I really don't think about what 'being gay' has done to make my life all that different becuase I can't actually conceive of not being gay. It's something that's obviously deeply ingrained, but by that same token, something that really doesn't mean a lot to me.

So far as what I was saying about gay men and overemotionality... I retract that somewhat. Though there is no doubt that, coming back to the fact that stereotypes exist fora reason, this has become the iconography of 'gay.' Take Jack from Will and Grace for example. I riled against that show for years and refused to give it the time of day becuase I felt it was feeding the stereotype rather than doing anything constructive to introduce a more (dare I say it) normalised idea of gay into the media. Now i understand that what it did, particularly for America, was make these exteremes acceptable in the mainstream, and that these can now be played off and deconstructed with character types and stereotypes already available to those who may not have previously been exposed to them. Pretty dim of me to miss with a Media A level behind me, but I did.

Though when it comes to Queer as Folk, those characters are lacking in monogamy the way any characters in an entertainment show are going to be. No one is going to tune in to watch 5 monogomous couples do fuck all for an hour - and the strange thing is though- comapring the US version to the UK version brings up more issues, becuase US tv is, by its nature, more sensationalised than gritty and realistic. I mean, if you compare, say Sexa dn the City to a show like No Angels, which is the only real comparision I can think of, you're getting a very different deal.

Finally, I think ebby makes a good point comparing our progression to that of the 60's. If anyone's ever seen Dirk Bogarde in 'Victim,' a late 60's Brit flick about a man on trila for his sexuality, and a barrister hiding his own, you can simply see the change. What we now watch instead is about brutality, rather than repression. Boys Don't Cry, Mysterious Skin, The Laramie Project even Hedwig focus, at one point or another, violence, an outward attack, rather than a need to crack the silence on an issue. Gay man may, possibly, be living out a stunted adolecence. At the same time though, I was experimenting with friends as early as the age of 6 and that was pretty constant throughout my life, so though I wasn't going to bars and scoring people openly, I was certainly getting my kicks. I don't think, say a nerdy kid who didn't get to play dares or kiss girls in school, is suddenly particulay going to burst out and become a sex fiend in their 20's. However, put them in a highly sexualised environment, as most gay guys are thown into when the come out, it being the only option, and the mixture of not being able to be sexually free, and having it readilly available may create that sort of explosive reaction. Then again, we are talking about a slutty stereotype - and I don't really think that is so prevelent - 40somethings who are sill fucking around are more lilely to be suffering from social repurcussions of coming up entirely repressed, rather than, as I feel I was, part of the first generation where one could, from a fairly early age, express tjemselves - even if it did mean taking a certain amount of flack.

Where we are now with the gay rights movment is in a place where people are less and less identifying with the pride flag, with the parade, with the campy characters. They find it quite disgusting to be lumped in. But what we must bare in mind is that before now that was the only OPTION available if one wanted to live the most full gay life one could. With the slow introduction of things like civil partnerships, this is no longer the only option. And so far as gay culture is concerned, the more diverse options that open up to gay people as a group, the less easilly they can be defined by stereotypes. The thing is, we must use stereotypes, like Jack, say, as a starting point, and only then can we create others- no different than brining a new character into a soap opera - the 'bad' familly start as comic relief, or whatever, but over years the audience will warm to the heart of them, and any social group will do the same. Girls no longer say to me, at parties "Oh, gay men are fabulous! We should goshopping!" But there was a time when they did, and I used those moments to show that maybe that's not all I was about (or, actually, what I was about at all).

Gay 'culture' as it is being discussed, is a part of a movement that is slowly allowing integration. We don't need rainbow flags and drag queens. But those things have helped us cast off the moral bindings that were for so long wrapped tightly around society, that made the kind of 'love' we as a group indulge in, illegal. I think the main reason we're all coming at different points into this discussion is becuase gay culture is being deconstructed, and weather you identify as gay before Irish/American, weather you're really put off by flamboyence, we have to accpet that this is what got us here, and all we can do now is create more and more smaller off shoots from this or against it, until being 'gay' itself is no longer the defining feature of a person, the way it once was. We are very much in a revolution as far as that's concerned and we have to be aware of where we've come from, and the value of it, as we grow or progress further from it.

I never joined an LGB group. I never felt I could identify with people who came together soley for that purpose, but I understand the need for them and I also feel a kind of nostalgiac pride about the things that are now becoming gay relics to the kids coming up on 2007.