I Had A Dream…

This post was submitted by TNG Editorial Assistant, Gem.

I had a dream last night where my best friends from childhood (more commonly referred to as my “brothers”) were holding an alumni party for my high school with their dad. It was a continuation of a dream from another night where they did the same thing and in both dreams at the end of the night, their father offered sober rides home to people.

It was strange, first, because my “brothers” didn’t go to my high school and yet, here they were hosting an alumni party for my Alma Matter. It was also ironic because their family is fairly conservative and would never serve liquor in their house to anyone under the age of probably about 30. However, parents opening up their homes for high-schoolers to get drunk were not shocking occurrences at my high school by any means. (Which, to give you a better idea of who we’re dealing with here, was one of the three prep schools in which the Obama family considered enrolling their children.) I once went to a party my senior year where at the beginning of the night, our friend’s mother collected car keys at the door and made an announcement to everyone to not get too trashed and to keep drinking water.

Really, all of this is beyond the point, because the part of the dream that stuck out to me most was the fact that when my friends’ father offered us all rides, he mentioned two people he gave rides to in the previous dream. He didn’t remember their names, so he referred to them as “this white kid... oh, and a black guy, too.” Their race had absolutely nothing to do with them getting a ride home, but both in the dream and once I had woken up, I understood exactly why he phrased it the way he did.

I knew that the reason this man, a black man, stated that the first guy was white was because he simply wanted to describe the boy. I also knew that he mentioned the other kid was black as an afterthought to make sure he wasn’t coming off as sounding judgmental or assuming that the white kids at the party were the only ones who would be so irresponsible as to not be able to drive home at the end of the night. I realized after some reflection that the thought process behind these conclusions were very unique and probably not so typical.

First of all, as a black person, I find it interesting when other black people get offended when they hear a white person make a racial distinction for similar purposes. And I quietly find it amusing when I notice a white person stuttering to do so. If you ask a black person, “Who did you talk to at the front desk?” and he says, “This white guy,” it is often not as looked down upon as when the white guy at the front desk says, “I saw a black guy walk in the door.” For all of us, although we may not be saying something that is intended to be disrespectful, it is almost inevitable that we identify with our own whether we like it or not. So when we make statements like this, it becomes problematic because we come off as treating those we with whom we do not identify as the “other,” despite our intentions. Consequently, many of us avoid race description altogether and try to practice “colorblindness.”

I have come to realize over the past couple of years that my urge to ignore race and practice “colorblindness” was only my way of running away from my blackness as a kid. I grew up in Prince George’s County, and went to private schools there until high school, when I entered a prep school in Northwest, DC. Although Prince George’s County is the wealthiest black county in the nation, when it is mentioned to a rich white kid from Bethesda, as many of my peers in high school could be labeled, it was not looked upon highly. I was inadvertently taught to believe by the reactions of my peers that other than Bowie, MD (which would secede and become a part of Anne Arundel County if it could), Prince George’s County and where I lived in Largo, MD was seen as “the boonies” despite the fact that it took me ten minutes to drive to the MD/ DC border. It was seen as void of anything worthy to make someone want to travel out there, and nearly invisible. Not surprisingly, Bowie, MD probably has the highest concentration of whites that I know of in the county, which says a lot considering the Historically Black University I attend in Bowie. In retrospect, it has not been difficult to figure out what kinds of messages were being sent, whether they were intentional or not.

The other thing that makes my conclusions about this dreamt statement unique was the fact that he didn’t want to make the generalization that the white guy was the more irresponsible of the two he drove home. Having grown up in P.G. and having had the education I had in high school combined with my experience as a student at a Historically Black University has made me realize the standards that continue to be set for most young black people I’ve grown up with. For many of us, it has been expected that we are not to fall into the traps of drinking or smoking or drug use and to also have any expectation of success in the future. Many of my white peers and friends have been allowed to fall back into their privilege and are nearly expected to “experiment” and party in their college years, whereas perfection is expected from many black students who intend on ever making their families proud.

With all of that said, let me make clear that none of the above is absolute truth by any means, but let’s be honest, most generalizations and labels are not formed based on utter falsities. Honestly, I think that there are times when stating labels are important in story-telling because they clarify. The moment that label implies judgment or negativity is when the line is crossed. And really, we all have our moments of ignorance when we are unaware of crossing that line. Still, making mistakes is often how we learn the most important lessons in life. And anyhow, "Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist", right?

Now, I rarely identify with any stereotypes whether they have to do with the fact that I am black or the fact that I am a lesbian for that matter. Nevertheless, I can often understand why they exist, even when some of these generalizations have painful histories and offensive connotations. The subjects of both race and sexual orientation can be painful even when we don’t want them to be. At the end of the day, we have to learn to accept the fact that, especially in communities like The New Gay, what makes us different cannot be ignored, but should embraced.

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I Love Boners

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I Love Grey Hair

TNG co-founder Zack spent some time over Valentines Day reevaluating what inconsequential things he loves. All this week he will tell you what he came up with. Check in tomorrow for "Things I Love" pt. 4.

There's a thin line between turn-on and fetish. I'm pretty certain that my all-abiding love of young guys with grey hair falls firmly on the side of turn-on. I don't want to eat silver-toned razor clippings or play "hide the bedpan" at the closest retirement home. However, about as long as I've had access to sex I've found guys with salt and pepper locks (not Salt N' Pepa lox, unfortunately) to be the hottest things since sliced Butt Magazines. It's not a daddy issue or some weird erotic reaction to Lois Lowry's "The Giver." It's just a confession of my membership in the too-small "Silver Chasers" club.

I remember my awakening. My college hosted an event called "Freshman Sing" where the new class earns the respect of the older kids by singing a bunch of Alma Mater songs to the entire student body. Most of the upperclassmen just go to see who's cute. I was no exception. Three days into my sophomore year I was watching the whole class of '07 file by when someone caught my eye. He was of my standard type — tall, skinny, horn-rimmed glasses —but was sporting a full mane of grey hair. He was 18. We did something just under dating, on and off, for the next three years. No matter if we were making out at a given point of time, or even acknowledging each other in public, I always got a thrill at having landed the guy with grey hair.

This was a year after I made an ass of myself in front of Mo Rocca following a speaking engagement at my college, and a year before I saw him on the street in New York and barked "Oh hi there!" as if he was a long lost best friend. Silverfoxes do that to me.

Flash forward four years from that. Guess what my boyfriend has? Yup, the works. Silver in this hair. Silver in his beard. I love it. Once the guy who cuts our hair (yeah, we get our hair cut together. What of it?) suggested a dye-job and I almost assaulted him with his own clippers. It's just too important to me. It would be like telling a hard-core breast man that his girlfriend should have a reduction. Or informing an exclusive top that his boyfriend was having something called a "corking surgery" which is only legal in Scandinavia. It's unacceptable.

Of course I do have to field a fair share of insensitive questions. No, my boyfriend doesn't have white nose, chest or ball hair. No, I don't spend inordinate amounts of time on Lemon Party. (Link NSFW.) No, I don't have any kind of submission, leather or muscle fetishes. I just really like grey hair.

What about you, TNG readers? Any weird turn-ons that everyone else gives you shit for?

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I Love Euphemistic Hygiene Commercials

TNG co-founder Zack spent some time over Valentines Day reevaluating what inconsequential things he loves. All this week he will tell you what he came up with. Check in tomorrow for "Things I Love" pt. 3.

I was cleaning my bathroom this weekend (a rare occurrence) when I started reading the fine print on a package of toilet paper (a less rare-occurrence, as I have some awful procrastination tendencies.) Instead of just calling the stuff "toilet paper" or "thin sheets you rub on your ass," the good folks at Whole Foods had decided to emblazon their packaging with the moniker of "bathroom tissues."

The word "bathroom" is itself a sugar coat — When's the last time you ran into a filthy McDonalds thinking "I'm going to bathe in my pants if I don't find a urinal right now?— so to invoke it on toilet paper packaging is doubly misleading. The actual tissue that makes up my bathroom consists of tile,porcelain and a plastic shower curtain. If I used any of those things for the intended purpose of the prepackaged "bathroom tissue" my boyfriend would kick me out and make me pay a hazmat crew to clean up after me.

Normally this wouldn't bother me so much but I've been overly sensitive lately to the euphemisms that marketers use to sell us the most objectively vile of consumer products. You can blame this all on those goddamn Charmin Bears. I understand that a company wouldn't sell very much of anything if their TV commercials consisted solely of some guy sitting on the toilet. But there's no reason to swing so far in the direction of palatability that you're paying some poor animator by the hour to create cuddly woodland creatures who exist solely to instruct the American public on the best ways to clean up their own waste.

There's one ad, which I should tell you airs at dinnertime, for an extra-thick "bathroom tissue" that won't stick to your rear quarters during use. Fair enough. No one wants souvenirs of their toilet paper. But the Charmin ad goes the extra mile by showing a bear with little bits of paper sticking to the backside of its fur. What's next? Ms. Butterworth teaming up with KY to combat vaginal dryness? The Geico caveman finding new and funny ways to treat a UTI?

That is why, despite all my protestation, I really do enjoy the creative heights that advertising executives must scale to in making it family-friendly to go number 2. There job must be neither easy nor desirable. I wouldn't want it.

And in case anyone is still reading this: any suggestions as to what that mysterious blue liquid is? At the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney, it's in every diaper commercial and I can never figure out what it is. All I know is that you want your hygiene products to absorb it. Everything else about it is a mystery.

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I Love T-Shirts

TNG co-founder Zack spent some time over Valentines Day reevaluating what inconsequential things he loves. All this week he will tell you what he came up with. Check in tomorrow for "Things I Love" pt. 2.

Yesterday I received a press list announcing that Playboy was unveiling its annual "Rock the Rabbit" line of clothing. The gimmick is that contemporary indie artists design shirts based on the Playboy logo and the magazine sells them for a limited amount of time. By the time I finished reading this I was sporting a sartorial erection which threatened to tear though my Levi's and knock over my desk. Its not that the prospect of Yelle (pictured) or Diplo making a shirt was overly exciting for me. Instead, it just made me realize what I've been trying to deny for too long: I fucking love t-shirts.

I love t-shirts the way parents love their children. I collect t-shirts the way some folks collect stamps. I am as protective of them as a mother hen. And I should be embarrassed of this but I'm not. Most of my close friends know of my addiction. And now its time to shout it from rooftop to size-small, faded cotton, rock band or random-sloganed vintage rooftop.

Counting baseball tees, and not counting what I've given to my boyfriend, I own 65 t-shirts. 65. I don't own 65 of anything else. What if I had 65 forks or 65 cats? You'd ship me to Belleview. I'd pay for the stamps. But yet I don't bat an eye at owning that volume of cloth torso-covers. I don't generally like to concede that an object can make me happy. (Because that's what money and being attractive are for.) But I can spend five hours wading through the dankest bowels of a central Ohio thrift store only to emerge with one shirt, one single, solitary reward for my efforts, and spend the next six hours grinning because it fit right or had a v-neck. It's wrong. But it feels so right.

Several years ago someone introduced me to the concept of the OGT, or Obvious Gay Trait. Many people are quick to say that a love of clothes is mine. But I'm still reluctant to somehow connect my overflowing dresser drawers to my propensity to put penises in my mouth. I don't want us to get too far into another stereotype discussion, but I really would love to know who started the rumor that gay men and clothing go together like peanut butter and rama lama ding dong.

I guess it doesn't matter. It's just smokescreen to divert attention from my most ridiculous obsession. I know, however, that I'm not alone. People who don't appreciate t-shirts won't like this post. But people who do? I know they're reading. They want to compare notes on the merits of long sleeve vs. ringers. They can tell the texture of a shirt from six feet away. They're purists like me who see those Urban Outfitters faux-retro designs as a mass-produced abomination. They've seen the same black and pink "Taste of Chicago" shirt at four different Salvation Army's and learned to believe in a higher power.

And maybe they want to take me thrifting this weekend? Even though I'll buy 6 $2 t-shirts at a pop I still can't justify the expense of a zip car.

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Law and Order for Women?

This post was written by TNG founder Zack, who watches way too many Law & Order reruns.

Tuesday night was very atypical for me because I actually got off my ass and left the house. My boyfriend and I went down to the 6th and I Synagogue to see queer band Antony and The Johnsons. Despite the venue's piss poor sightlines (it was better to stand against the wall than sit in the far left wing) I found the show to be pretty incredible. Antony's singing voice is just as magical as it is on his CDs. His talking voice was exercised quite a bit too. After I got over my initial shock that he speaks like an ordinary guy (no quivering, no wavering and his octave level was normal) I started to listen to what he was saying.

Among many long diatribes was a resonant thought on the modern roles of men and women. Wondering why we still make nuclear bombs and propagate war, Antony lamented the plight of the contemporary man. I am paraphrasing, but he said something along the lines of "Cavemen were wired to troll the perimeter of the camp to protect the women and children from Woolly Mammoths or other threats. Now they don't have to do that any more but still can't shake their impulse to fight. However, they have forgotten that the impulse was there in the first place to protect, not to harm."

He phrased it much more poignantly but I took his point. The Masculine Archetype should exist to guard, not to attack. But that's clearly not the case anymore. I thought about this until the show's end.

Then, in a much more typical fashion, my boyfriend and I came home and watched Law and Order. We have a crippling addiction to the standard iteration of that program but I cannot stand Law and Order: SVU. It makes me bristle. There's something about it that I find insulting. Now, thanks to Antony, I can finally articulate why.

Law and Order, for the uninitiated, has a very universal appeal. Every episode opens with someone stumbling across a body as they go about their daily grind. Two detectives show up and make a wisecrack before the opening credits. Then they chase after a couple red herrings. Once arrested, the correct suspect appears to be evading prosecution due to a legal loophole. But then one of Jack McCoy's interchangeable dark-haired assistants (excepting Serena Southerly) finds an overlooked detail that breaks the case. Then Jack, cookie-cutter brunette or Bill Richardson makes a closing wisecrack and the "Dick Wolf" final credits come up. It's as predictable as your favorite Mexican restaurant or someone yelling "Shut the fuck up" at one of my family's Thanksgiving dinners.

Does that sound like a formula that needed to be messed with? I think not. But Law and Order: Special Victims Unit is a whole different beast. The program focuses on rapes, sex crimes and seemingly anything involving a little girl in danger. The main characters are Olivia Benson, the striking take-no-shit lady detective with strong lesbian overtones. Her partner Elliott Stabler is a handsome family man who never shuts up about his children and is the subject of inumerable gratuitous nude scenes.

If I didn't know better, I would say that some NBC bigwig thought to himself "Hmm... Regular Law and Order is a detective show. Only men like detectives. How can I exploit the broadest female stereotypes to get more viewers?"

Am I the only one who thinks that SVU panders to the lowest common denominator of what marketers think that women like? I want to play a drinking game sometime with SVU. Whenever someone says "Protect" or "violate," I take a shot. When a little girl is in danger and Stable bursts through the door to save her, I take a shot. When Olivia exchanges a more-than-passing glance with a female colleague, I take a shot. I'd have my stomach pumped by the third commercial break.

I know that SVU is just mindless entertainment. It shouldn't bother me that it insults the intelligence of women. Who knows? Maybe it doesn't. But I know that my mom and my sister and my friends and the women that write for this site are interested in more than pretty faces and the sanctity of the female body. The latter is and always will be a respected priority in my life. But with actualy people on the streets fighting for abortion rights and stronger laws against sexual abuse, doesn't it cheapen the cause a little to focus an entire show on their entertainment values?

I think there are some truth to men/women stereotypes. As a matter of biology, men are wired to have as much sex as possible. That explains the success of manhunt. Women are more wired to seek one partner, which could account for all the lesbian nesting stereotypes. But I think most stereotypes beyond that are hooey. In this day and age, why is it decided still that men inherently care about trucks and women are overly concerned with yogurt? Is anyone with kids, nieces or nephews aware if the blue/pink rules of dressing a child are still staunchly followed?

More than anything, it reminds me too much of the way that gay men are marketed to. I suspect the same guy at the NBC writers' table who decided to try a "cop show for women" had a hand in the insulting beer ads and travel agency posters that are supposed to grab a gay man's eye with all their sweet exposed flesh and over-gelled hair. They are probably the same people who decided Will and Grace would only be appealing if its gay characters had no sex lives, but were over the top in every other behavior that the straight world thought gay men engaged in.

That said, Olivia is pretty hot and I never object to seeing Stabler in the buff. But it takes more than that for a show to hold my attention. Now if only they could somehow use CGI technology to make Briscoe and Green have sex on regular Law and Order. That would be... pretty disgusting, actually. I'm sorry for bringing it up.

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Sorry, I Don't Think Johnny McGovern is Funny

This post is submitted by TNG reader Jeremy.

There were a lot of reasons to be in a bad mood last night. The temperature was 40 degrees, and to us Florida boys, it meant ice cold toes in our cowboy boots. I also find little amusement in my city being overtaken by Super Bowl fever. I could care less that Paris Hilton is in town, and the three hundred other "celebrities" I've never heard of. The next set of lips to even whisper the words "V.I.P. Party" in my presence are going to get sewn shut, if they are lucky.

As grouchy and cold as I was, I could not resist doing a walk through Ybor City. At best, I could get a glimpse of Janet Jackson coming out of the Maxim Party. Unfortunately, Miss Jackson eluded me all evening, and by 1 a.m., I ended up at our good old local gay club.

The gay club was dreadfully packed. The cute guy we came with was paying more attention to my best friend than me. By 1:30, I was ready to go home.

Then the lights dimmed. It was then I realized why a makeshift V.I.P. area was created on the stage. Our beloved "gay pimp" Johnny McGovern was in our midst. "The Gay Pimp" is a character McGovern has created, best known for the club song "Soccer Practice."

Johnny McGovern the person might be rad. He might be a great conversationalist. He might be a sincere friend. All of this aside, when Mr. McGovern started performing, my grouchiness accelerated quickly to inflammatory rage.

I understand "The Gay Pimp" is a creation. I understand the whole act is supposed to be camp. I understand I'm supposed to laugh at the joke and think it's amazing. But I don't.

The performance culminated with a lovely ditty about "bottom boys." The misery I felt can only be expressed by Ruth Pointer's face eight seconds into the "Jump (For My Love)" music video.

I felt like I was in fourth grade again. Back when the "Miss Susie Had a Steamboat" song really was still funny and shocking. The only problem was that I wasn't in fourth grade, and neither was anyone else in that club. It made me angry to see how entertained people were by this crap. Will stupid low brow songs about gay sex always amuse people? Grown, mature men? It's not clever. It's not even quirky. It's obvious. Listening to Johnny McGovern accentuate gay stereotypes to glee of almost everyone in that club thrilled me just as much as the drag queens who make "straight people" jokes. Enough already.

I do agree that everyone should be laughing at Johnny McGovern — only for a different reason than they are.

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The Greatest Gay Lie Ever Told?

This post was written by TNG founder Zack.


In Ben's recent post, The Single Guy, he presented a fairly objective account of a single gay guy's foray into oodles of unemotional sex. The narrative withheld most judgments on the experience. Our readers did not. Commenter after commenter indicated that experience sounded "bleak" or "like looking into hell with the lid off."

This opinion is not just limited to some off-handed comments on a website. Most guys I know who are in serious relationships talk about their frivolous single phase as if it was a stint in a Cambodian jail. Like the strains and indignities of the unattached gay life were so miserable that their end is as relieving as a hemorrhoid removal.

I don't think I've had the traditional gay single life, a fact of which most longtime readers of this site are aware. Because I bitch about it all the damn time. But still, even though it can be lonely or frustrating there are aspects of wanton sluttery that sound really appealing to me. It sounds like a part of one's life that, disgusting as it might be, needs to be gotten out of the way. I wouldn't even trade my boyfriend's little toe for a night of Manhunt fun or JR's cruising but I am curious what the experience was like for others. My friends that have done such things never speak of them fondly when I ask them to tell their stories.

"I'm so glad those days are over." "It was the worst." "Trust me, you're lucky to have skipped all that."

I don't buy it.

It makes me imagine some guy meeting his friends for brunch one morning and saying "Uch, the worst thing happened to me last night. I met a guy at a bar and he gave me a blowjob. I'll never be the same."

As one friend rubs his back in consolation, his other buddy says "You think that's bad? I have three dates next week. Three dates! It's...It's...."

As he struggles to properly express his horror at the prospect, their fourth friend, heretofore quiet, begins to let out wrenching, shuddering sobs. As his chest shakes and the tears trickle down his cheeks, he manages to choke out "I fucked a guy last week. He had really nice arms. Then I fucked him again in the morning!" As the group wallows in their own misfortune, the waitress hurries back to the kitchen for a round of chocolate ice cream and xanax.

Does this sound accurate? It is really easy to say in retrospect that a lot of dating and random sex sucks. At the time, though, I think men get something out of it. They wouldn't do it if they didn't. They get sex or comfort or conquest or validation or any of the billion possible medallions that one hangs invisibly around their neck as they walk back home in the morning from a house they've never been to before and will never go to again.

There are very few instances where someone holds a gun to your head or a dick to your mouth. The "Queer as Folk" life isn't for everyone and I know many people that have skipped it all together. But for those that did make a choice to go out and sample the local fruits: Why are you so quick to turn your back on it?

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Wallace Steven's "The Snowman" and the DC cult of productivity

The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Since we're having our first real snow day of the winter, I felt compelled to post the above poem for a couple reasons. Foremost, I was an English major. Our nerd-dom could rival that of Lord of the Rings fans and a pocket protector salesman combined. Most of us keep this under wraps, due to a desire to lead normal lives, but its the truth. I generally try to suppress that fact that I know a relevant poem for most occasions. The prettiness of snow must be overriding my embarrassment.

While everyone takes something different out of a work of art, my lasting impression of this poem comes from "[beholding] the nothing that is." In short, when a whole landscape gets covered by snow you can stop noticing all the things that have been taken away — leaves, warmth— and think of "nothing" as its own substantial concept.

Without making any "in our fast paced modern world" generalizations, I think there are a lot of people in DC that might benefit from reading this poem once or twice. In honor of the weather, I propose a challenge to the TNG readership: Today, why not spend half an hour doing nothing?

Don't check your iPhone or blackberry on the metro today after work. Don't apologize to anyone for having spent the weekend on the couch. Take half an hour to stare out the window of your office and wish you were outside... not that you aren't all doing that anyway. Combat the notion that everyone in this city measures your worth by how you spend your time.

I don't bristle at the "what do you do" question like some of my friends — before I moved here I counted "what's your name, where are you from, what do you do" as my three icebreaker questions —but there is something to the theory that everyone in DC is serving some sort of cause. Whether its your life's passion (like fighting animal cruelty) or a means to a paycheck (like accepting a job at the state department because it pays well) there are large sections of the district that are actively or passively supporting an Important Cause.

And this isn't necessarily a bad thing. There is a general buzz around DC of people who care about what they do. Artist or accountant, there are many local folks that see a grander plan for their lives than just clocking out and going home. Compare this to a city like Philadelphia that, in some ways, has more of an aimlessness to it. Both vibes have their advantages, but DC's is more suited to the life I want to live.

The problem comes when a person gets the impression that every hour of every day must be filled with purposeful tasks. How dare you watch TV when human rights are at stake? How dare you take a walk in the park when emission levels are rising? Worst of all is the "pissing contest of important causes," when a person decides that what they have dedicated their time to trumps every other social dedication.

I see this most in the gay community. A backlash began at the height of the prop 8 protest. People began to question why all our attention and resources should go to granting marriage privileges when ENDA, hate crimes acts, DADT and number of other important issues remain unresolved.

The gay community is not one man in a fedora operating a switchboard. It is a large network of people of people with different beliefs, causes and backgrounds who are united by a simple desire to be who they are, and practice as they want to, without harassment or persecution.

I think that marriage can be legalized without jeopardizing the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. One person can fight for ENDA while another raises money for sex workers and a third gets a good nights sleep. It's not either/or.

So I hope that everyone can balance the things that keep them busy with the things that make them happy. And that their shoes stay dry today as they wait for the bus.

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iPhone Widows, Unite!

After nearly a year and a half of dating, my boyfriend and I have weathered most of the problems resulting from two men in love trying to figure each other out. We've survived the petty indiscretions that come at a relationship's very beginning and the odd domestic squabble over laundry and dishes. We've met each others families. He was still there for me after I ate bad Thai food and spent an audible two hours locked in our bathroom with a book and a strip of leather to bite on.

Lately, though, our bonds have been tested by an insidious outside force that has come between us like the urgent need to vomit between two shots of Jameson. It is a wandering eye, of sorts, that threatens to wrench us apart. At dinner, while in bed and even on the bus my boyfriend is eternally choosing to spend his time with someone else instead of me.

If you couldn't guess from this posts' title, the name of my cuckolder is iPhone. Am I the only one in TNG-ville who has felt spurned for an appliance? I can't so much as wonder aloud what tomorrow's weather will be like without having to wait five minutes for my boyfriend to look it up on his phone. If we don't know the name of the song blaring from the 18th and Columbia McDonalds I'll have to guide him like a blind man for blocks while he e-solves the mystery.

I can't be the only homo out there playing second fiddle to a non-battery-operated piece of plastic. What other horror stories do you out there in TNG-ville have? Has your girlfriend done a crossword puzzle while you were doing her? Did you catch your new fuckbuddy perusing facebook during a post-coital cigarette? I too know the cold sting of a quiet, conversation-free lovers' moment during brunch interrupted by the clacking of a touch-screen keyboard or an ill-timed text message.

I'm going to sound crotchety for this, but I'll say it anyway: It irks the living twitter out of me that people would rather experience their existence through portable technology than actually living it.

For those who went to Saturday's Prop 8 protest: How many people did you see live-blogging the event on an iPhone? How many pissed off homos spent as much time looking through their camera lenses as they did looking at the people around them?

I do understand that Saturday was an isolated case and that the resulting historical record of the march is more important than the full attention of all its participants. It's not like I'm innocent either. I can complain till the cows come home about a rude 9:30 club patron watching a show through their camera's viewfinder, but that doesn't mean I've never looked at digital camera pics the second they were taken or filmed myself getting a BJ. As someone who prides themselves at least attempting to live in the moment, though, I fear that we're all living our lives through a wi-fi haze.

The worst offender in this is the iPhone. I don't want to sound like a luddite (or worse, the unibomber) but that particular appliance makes it so easy to check out of your immediate surroundings and spend 24 hours a day plugged into the internet. Does anyone really need to find a low fat pasta primavera recipe on a greyhound bus at 4 in the morning? Do you need to check your email one last time in the elevator on the way out of the office? I think there's a line to be drawn between informed and addicted.

Of course, the second I can afford one of those suckers I'll be just as plugged in as anyone else. I anticipate a hot foursome between my boyfriend, myself and two little phones that will never love us back.

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Calling Bullshit on The Washington Post

On Saturday, the same day that as many as 5,000 - 6,000 people marched from the Capitol Building to the White House in opposition of Prop 8, The Washington Post chose to focus their gay-energies on this article, "Protesters Target Supporters of Gay Marriage Ban," highlighting how some supporters of Proposition 8 have received backlash for their support of the ban on same-sex marriage. That's right, while ignoring any news about the thousands of people across the U.S. peacefully rallying against the passing of Prop 8 on Saturday, The Washington Post chose to lend some support to the supporters of Prop 8!

As I searched for articles about the march on Sunday, I was literally speechless when this article was all I stumbled across. True, vandalism and personal harassment are certainly not most civil way to deal with our anger. However, what about the fact that thousands of people held non-violent protests all around the country as part of a fight for equality? Furthermore, what about the fact that gay people are subjected to vandalism, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and threats on a daily basis, not because of anything we support, but because of who we are? Can I expect more front-page coverage of gay-bashings in The Washington Post? Finally, regardless of their decision to carry the story about pro-Prop 8 backlash, why did The Washington Post stay so mute about the march?

I don't know about you gays, but I'm so baffled by the silence of my favorite newspaper that I may just switch my homepage to the NY Times.

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Assimilation Does Not Lead to Victory

These days in America, gay men and women enjoy a visibility unequaled by any other time in our short history. We host talk shows and make movies. We have our own TV and radio channels. Our fundamental rights have become swing issues in the biggest presidential campaigns of our generation. We were heralded in the acceptance speech of the new president-elect. We come out in never-before-seen numbers, so that everyone has a gay cousin or classmate or best friend. Thanks to our newfound ubiquity, we now have full civil rights including marriage, employment protection and increased protection from hate crimes.

Oops, my mistake. We don't have any of that. If gay causes are supposedly the next wave of civil rights battles, if being gay is supposedly so acceptable in progressive society, where are the results? The truth is that no one is looking out for us. For as long as I've been out I've operated under the theory that that being a proud, vocal "that gay guy" in a group of straight friends would humanize our cause and lead to first class citizenship. This might be the case in 20 or 30 years, but gay rights should not be a slow drip of water eating away at the rock of establishment. In the name of building allies, it's important that we don't lose site of our own queer identities.

Stephanie's World War Gay post makes the case that it is time to stand up and be counted (or at least stand up and stop being marginalized) among straight society. This is true, but I often feel that we're doing this the wrong way. The solution to full rights, and eventual acceptance, is to get the world to accept us as we are. Not as whitewashed, sexless caricatures. We have to be unapologetic about every aspect of our gay lives and make it absolutely clear that these qualities must be tolerated.

I often get scared that the gay people with the most access to straights are often the ones who are most likely to conform to some ideal of what a straight person can handle. So we rarely talk about our sex life, or our anger, or the actual things that make us imperfect like everybody else. Instead we are forced to represent every gay person, and in doing so we give up ourselves. If straight people see us as ashamed and repressed, how will they see the real us as deserving of their support?

I think the best way to actually be accepted for who we are, not for who people wish we were, is to fully embrace our gay identities. This does not mean a certain style of music or way of dressing. Rather, I believe people should try to function as fully within gay culture (whatever that may be) as they do outside of it. We can no longer afford to claim that being gay is just a part of who we are, or that sexuality shouldn't matter. Being gay is everything. There is a middle path between ghettoization and assimilation. If we want full rights, we'll have to tread it.

I was not alive in the '70s, but as I understand it gay culture operated in a vacuum. People either lived in it completely or put on their hetero suit for the day before rejoining it at the nightclubs, house parties or bath houses that served their purposes. AIDS then galvanized us and we were angry. Larry Kramer and others ensured that we were sincerely, unapologetically gay and that we were not ignored. Then somehow after the ACTUP movements of the 90s, gay ire fell out of fashion. Will and Grace happened. Ellen came out. Suddenly everyone had a friendly gay face in their living room, right there on their TV. They thought we were happy. The disenfranchisement and rage that we have every right to feel became an anomaly. The activists merely became upstarts — Nuisances to those that already had all their needs met.

These days, the days I am actually qualified to talk about, I feel that people treat gay culture as either a way-station or some sort of home for wounded birds: when you first come out you take succor from gay culture, and use it to build a group of friends or lovers or simply just to feel accepted. And then once people have gotten all they need, they fly the coop for the greener pastures of assimilation. They've been greenlighted to function in greater society and they turn their back on what made them. People return from time to time when they feel unaccepted or when they're looking for ass, but otherwise they're quick to say that being gay doesn't define everything about them.

Newsflash: It does. It might not define what kind of alcohol you drink or what kind of haircut you have. But it does define how you are treated and what kind of rights you are granted. It defines whether or not you can get married. It defines why you get beaten up on the street for expressing who you are.

Does any straight person apologize for only reading books with straight main characters? Or for only seeing "straight" movies? Have you ever heard a straight person brag that the bars they go to are usually predominantly gay? Is there such a thing as the straight ghetto?

The answer to all those questions is no. So why do so many of us take pride in belonging more to the straight world than to our own? I am not saying that everything has to be political or cause-oriented: Next Thursday's "Apolitical Woman's Party" shows that. Nor should life be one endless homo party. I think we need to to take our gay culture, for good or for bad, and show straight people that its real and its thriving. Show them that they need to accept it as it is.

I once said that the only thing that all gay people inherently had in common was having sex with members of the same sex. I spoke to soon, because I left out our other universal commonality: We all share a history of oppression. We all need to embrace this history, to reconcile the party and the search for assimilation that defines so much of gay life, and be a people. A collection of individuals has little power to change society. A pissed-off, unified culture? Now that can get something done.

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An Open Letter to the Patrons of the 9:30 Club

This is the second in my highly irregular series of open letters. The first addressed some odd behavior practiced by the men at my gym.

Dear Patrons of the 9:30 Club,

I put up with a lot from you because we have so many shared loves. A love of good music, a love of the U St./Shaw area, a love of $5 gin and tonics. But lately I think you're taking our relationship for granted. I recognize that a standing-room-only concert experience will never be a polite affair, but some behavior I witnessed at the October 13th Yelle show means we have to have a little chat.

No matter how dancey a concert gets, it is NEVER a dance floor. On a dance floor you can move wherever you want, in whatever patterns and directions, without doing a whole lot to disrupt anyone else's experience. At a concert, one thousand people are given a relatively small bit of floor space to watch something on a stage. When you and your stiletto-wearing friend clasp hands and crash sideways through ten people before trampling my feet, you are acting like you're on a dance floor. That's why so many people were yelling at you and "accidentally"
spilling drinks in your hair.

At a concert, you should pretend that there is a little box around you. Its walls are three inches behind, in front and on either side of you. This box extends to the ceiling. That is your dancing box. You can jump up and down in it, you can move your feet in it, you can bop to the left and to the right. But if any part of your body leaves this box you are probably annoying the people around you. For instance: At the Hot Chip show, the guy who leaned back into my chest every time the band sang "Laid back..." left his box. The girl at Of Montreal who waved her hands around like she was being attacked by bees? She left her box. And her ring finger went into my mouth three times. It was disgusting.

(Special note to couples: Even if you are standing together, your box does not get any bigger. If you make out, grind or otherwise simulate intercourse during a show you have probably left your box. And the back/forward pelvis action of your humping motions actually affect the people behind and in front of you. It's a double infraction.)

The choice to dance at a show is a personal one. I will support any dancing that doesn't cause bodily injury to the people around you. However, I myself prefer not to let my body move at shows. I am way too tall and way too gangly. If I move my feet I step on toes and if I raise my arms I obstruct sightlines. This is why I express my joy by bobbing in place and singing along. No one gets hurt. So please, random straight girl, do not spend the first four songs tugging on my arm and manually moving my hips so that I will dance with you. Similarly, don't track down my friends after the show and tell them that you hate me. When I told you to "Leave me alone" it was for good reason.

On the subject of height: Though I am 6'2, I will do everything in my power to make sure the person directly behind me can see. If I say to you "Hey, would you like to stand in front of me" do not call me a jerk. I am actually trying to be considerate. If you choose not to stand in front of me when I offer, do not spend the rest of the show glowering at me or whispering to your companions while pointing at me and making stabbing motions.

Please watch what you say at the show. You, random straight guy, created an uncomfortable situation at the last Hercules and Love Affair concert when you ascertained which of the band's vocalists was a lesbian and then screamed "I'm just glad the smoking hot one isn't a lesbian." No, dude, the smoking hot one is an MTF. And is so far out of your league that you're lucky to be in the same room as her.

If you want a souvenir from your concert experience, you can buy a t-shirt or give the bass player a blowjob (lord knows I've tried.) Do not record the entire show on your camera or cell phone. Because that means I have to watch the entire show through your camera or cell phone. I'm tall, remember? When you hold something up above your head it will usually rest at my eye level. Plus it can be really distracting when the security guard tromps through the audience to kick you out during my favorite song.

Finally, please don't steal my clothes. It creates an awkward moment when I catch you leaving the club in the highly distinctive red, white and blue Adidas jacket that I lost 30 minutes prior. Although I would have enjoyed it when you had to throw out all the used kleenexes in the pockets.

So in summation: You are not in your living room listening to a CD. Please have as much fun as you want to when you go the 9:30 Club. Dance until your uterus drops, or your backwards "Cocks" baseball cap fuses to your skull. But keep in mind that there are a lot of other people around you who are trying to have fun too.

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Is Sarah Palin Really Pro-Family?

I confess that I'm generally apolitical. I know that no one will ever measure up to my standards for a leader, so I just duck out of the whole process and vote for the lesser of the evils during the general elections. This condition is especially understandable considering that I'm a voter in the District of Columbia, where our primaries always go Democrat. Why should I bother getting all excited about the election when there's very little I can do to effect its outcome?

That being said, I did stop into the Duplex Diner last night to catch the end of the vice-presidential debate, have a drink and listen to Robert spin some tunes. (Nice job, Robert, starting off your post-debate set with The Beatles' Revolution!) Again, I caught very little of the debate, and that which I did catch was muffled and hard to hear. But I did see one thing that caught my eye, and that convinced me that Sarah Palin's "pro-family" stance is a big hoax.

After the debate was over, and everyone was shaking hands on the stage, she pulled out her ace-in-the-hole: her Down Syndrome baby, Trig Palin!

It was around 9:45 PM Central Time. Sarah was working late. Her baby should have been at home and in bed. Instead, she was carting him around like some sort of badge of honor. If she really cared about this little life-form, this fruit of her womb, she'd have the little one at home and asleep.

I tried fishing around for an image to prove that she paraded him around after the debates, but was unable to find one (yet). However, I did find this interesting bulletin board post, where someone viewing the debate after-party expressed shock that the veep candidate was dragging her special needs kid around a very loud party at 11 PM.

I'm waiting for an SNL skit portraying Sarah Palin as president of the US, after McCain succumbs to whatever ailment hits him one week after inauguration day. In this skit, she'll have little Trig slung over her shoulder while she's signing peace accords with Iran. Cut to her burping Trig while giving the state of the union address. Cut to her taking a break from inspecting the site of the next terrorist attack against the US to wipe Trig's ass and put on a fresh diaper. Cut to her reading "The Pet Goat" to him while the Russians, whose land she can see from her house, invade the US with the help of the Mexicans, the Afghans and the Canadians (who are just sick of our snobbery).

I have nothing against Sarah Palin being a woman running for the vice-presidential seat. I would have supported Hillary in her bid for president if she'd gotten the nomination. What I take objection to is how she's using her motherhood for political gain, at the expense of the welfare of her family. I appreciate her family-first attitude, but that's not the sort of attitude I want in a political leader who might be one heartbeat away from the presidency. Wouldn't her family and our country be better served if she focused on her potential job of protecting our collective future?

Sarah, we know you're a mother of 5. Leave the infant at home.

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Too Picky: O RLY?

I like being single, this I admit. Mostly, I like it because I like having my options open and don't know if I trust myself to ever feel settled. Like most adults, however, I have my moments of singledom-weakness where I gush out to friends about how I worry that I will never find someone to be with, and that I will grow old sipping PBR alone and signing my name solo on jealousy-stuffed happy anniversary cards. Whenever I throw these pity parties, I almost always get the same response: "Stephanie, you could have a girlfriend; you’re just too picky!" Always, I disagree. While some people seem to relish in the accusation that they are "too picky," I take umbrage at this suggestion as it implies that I am somehow acting foolish. Yes, I am picky; however, I don’t think that I’m being too picky, nor do I think that being picky is some abnormal behavior that should be avoided.

If not somewhat choosy, what else would my quest for companionship look like? Am I supposed to open my arms to every podunk lesbot that walks past me on the sidewalk? Should I make room in my schedule for every lady sporting a faux-hawk and a leather cuff? If so, then, yes, I suppose I am too picky.

I see things differently, though. Just like straight people get to pick and choose from all the thousands of fish in the sea, I, too, should be allowed to shop around the fish market (no vag-pun intended). Just because a one-finned, three-eyed goldfish happens to be a lesbian and in my twenty mile radius doesn’t mean I should like her. I’d usually rather just swim alone. In fact, even if a pretty little lez-trout flutters on past, if we have nothing in common, I'm not going to be interested.

It’s kind of like how people are always telling me about their friend that they’d really like to hook me up with. The following is a dialogue that happens approximately once a month in my life:
Friend: I have this friend I really think you should meet.
Me: Oh, why? Is she funny? Is she cute? Does she like education? public policy? running? sneakers? Matchbox 20? Sparks? Amy's frozen breakfast burritos?
Friend: Hrm, I’m not sure what she's into – but she’s gay!

Oh, really? Because I know this guy that maybe you should date, too – you know that nice loudmouth on the corner; I'm not sure what he's into aside from street harassment and crack, but he always hollers at me on the sidewalk, so I know he likes girls. You like boys, right?

Point being: I am not going to be physically and/or emotionally attracted to about 85-90% of the lesbians I meet, just like straight folks aren't attracted to every member of the opposite sex they meet, or like gay men aren't attracted to every man they pass while walking down U Street.

At times, the fact that I stick to my guns on this issue can make for some lonely moments. Sure, I could possibly fix this by just going on dates with my friends' friends to give myself some short-lived dating validation. However, I honestly feel that I'm too busy to hassle with pointless crap dating; further, I believe that if I do ever stumble across a girl I really care for, the "wow, this is what I waited for" feeling will more than make up for the craptastic missed opportunities I failed to fill the gaps with.

Basically, I like to read non-fiction books; however, I would never just go into a bookstore and buy any random book in the non-fiction section. That doesn't make me an overly picky consumer does it? When it comes to dating, I don’t think I’m too picky. However, I guess if being too picky means having standards and preferences, despite being a lesbian - guilty as charged.

PSA: Coupled people, please, stop gratuitously telling your single friends that they are too picky. After all, it may be that you're just desperate.

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I May Not be Straight, but I Don't Want a Curve

There are few things I really remember about the academic side of my study abroad experience at Stockholm University; that is, of course, except for my completely shitastic women's studies class. Who knows why I took the class, probably because I had just come out the previous year, arrived in Sweden still sporting white girl dreads, and knew I would never waste a precious credit at my actual U.S. college on some hocus-pocus gender studying. Whatever my thinking was, I found myself in this women's studies class with a Finnish profesor who refused to call people men, women, or anything besides, "the body" (pronounced: the boady), reading Judith Butler and a bunch of other texts that, if packaged a little bit differently, could probably put Ambien out of business.

I really got nothing out of the class except for two things: 1. A great stash of memories of me and my roommate - both who happened to be lady gay members of our respective US college improv troupes - bounding around our elderly, suburban apartment spouting impromptu and factually inaccurate, yet hilarious, stories about "the boady"; and 2. A hard-nosed dislike for the "lesbian magazine," Curve. Mind you, I put lesbian magazine in quotes not because the Finnish body convinced me that there really are no lesbots, just different types of bodies, but because I think it's a joke to call Curve a lesbian magazine. In my opinion, Curve would be better advertised as Curve: The Magazine for People Who Like Pictures of Subarus, and Scrapbookers who Only Scrapbook about the Olivia Cruise Line.

My dislike began when, for my final project, I decided to compare the popular American dyke magazine Curve to the popular European dyke magazine Diva, specifically looking at how inclusive each magazine is of different genders and sexualities. I'm pretty sure I decided on this topic for two reasons: I thought it would let my professor know I was a gay body and, thus, hopefully give me a grading edge over my straight classmates, and also because I had been doing a lot of traveling and had a fair share of Divas stacked around my apartment and enjoyed ogling the euro-chic ladies inside of them. Perfect.

What did I find? Basically, I concluded that Curve is inclusive of NO ONE (aside from marketing reps for all things lesbionic stereotype). The crap that covers the pages of Curve is so bad that I'm convinced I could pick up a National Enquirer, replace all occurances of the words "alien" and "Oprah" with "lesbian" and "Katherine Moennig," and come out with amazingly similar content. Of course, this isn't exactly what I wrote in my final paper. I don't even really remember what I wrote my paper on - I think it was something about how Diva has content that interests gay, bi, and trans readers, while Curve only caters to the boring-as-fuck straight-up homas.

This is not to say that Diva is perfect, but comparatively it's pretty damn splendid. It's a little more expensive than Curve, and, like Curve, its covers might make the ignorant think that the L Word stars are the only famous lesbians; however, the extra dollars and front-cover repetition are worth it, because the content is actually interesting. For example, the August issue - the "gender issue" - had a huge variety of content, discussing everything from choosing a perfume that suits you to the campaign to end gender divisions in toy stores to "lesbophobia" in women's sports. Plus, the issue is 114 pages, and I would venture to say that less than 10 of them are adverts for bizarre sex toys and lesbian cruise lines.

Having lived in DC for over a year now, I am coming to terms with the fact that I will never find a magazine for lesbians on the shelves of any drug store or bookstore in the city, and that if I want some lazy lesbot reading, I will have to trek over to Lambda Rising in Dupont. Unless I'm blind, or an anomaly in my aversion to "women's magazines" that only feature gingerbread houses and blow job advice, this must be the case for many other lesbians in DC. So, tell me fellow dykes: Do any of you actually buy Curve after making a special trip just for some glossy reading? (Or maybe you get it mailed to you in a CIA-esque envelope that says, "Mr.Postman, I'm gay.") Am I the only one who would rather go to a Subaru dealer and just grab a handful of pamphlets than actually pay for a Curve?

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Hey Mr. DJ...

... why are you here? This isn't a dance club!

I was sitting at Nellie's the other evening, a Friday, talking with some friends. We were originally out on their roof deck, but as the crowd got denser and denser, we decided to move it in to the nearly empty downstairs area. The bar area was pretty quiet save some nameless white-label house music playing in the background. We immediately found an empty table and sat around it and resumed our conversation. Within 5 minutes of being seated, the volume of the music increased dramatically, and all of a sudden we could no longer hear each other talking across the table. The six of us had to split up into 2 or 3 smaller conversations in order to be able to lean in and actually communicate. I'm pretty sure the topic of conversation also immediately shifted to how loud and how bad the music was.

A few minutes later, I walked through the main downstairs room on the way to the bathroom and saw they had an actual live DJ spinning. They were paying for a DJ to play music at a bar that doesn't have a dance floor?

I'm not going to start up a rant about my distaste for gay dance music. That's already been covered previously. Instead, I want to pose this question: why do bars and clubs play serious house/dance music at venues where you can't dance?

Nellie's is a sports bar. It has a cozy interior with lots of wood and tile: a very classic feel. Why would they want to fill that quaint space with window-rattling BOOM-chick-BOOM-chick thumping dance music? And at volumes that a group of four can't carry a conversation around a table?

Wouldn't it be natural to think that they should play music NOT for dancing? Doesn't the management realize that perhaps, if they play loud dance music, patrons might actually leave their bar and go somewhere that they can dance? Why can't one single gay bar cater to those of us who AREN'T going to Town later?

This leads me to another tangentially related question: why are other venues (BeBar, Cobalt) trying to out-Town Town? When it comes to gay super-disco clubs, Town has the rest of DC's gay venues beat. No contest. So why are they trying to redo themselves to be more like Town? They can never steal away the Town audience because they don't have the budget, the performance space, the square footage. So why try? Why does BeBar now have boy strippers and drag shows on Friday nights? Town. Why does Cobalt smell of fresh paint? Town. Why?

Why not cater to other facets of the gay community who are at a loss for fun options on weekend nights. Why doesn't BeBar shift Be:XX to a Saturday? Why can't their hip hop night be on Fridays? There are thousands of "second class citizens" in the gay nightlife world waiting to have fun options on a weekend night. Instead of having more choices, the clubs that have lost customers to Town are now trying to reclaim the Town crowd through remodeling and expensive ad campaigns... Who would have thought that when Town opened, we'd end up with 3 of them?

So, what can be done about this? Aside from waiting for the next Taint, Solly's Party, Guerilla Queer Bar or Homo/Sonic, what can we do? No wonder I spend so much time at the Black Cat.

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Homos, Hold Hands: Some Words in Defense of PDA

Yesterday after brunch, my boyfriend and I decided to nap off a hangover in Kalorama Park. So on a perfect afternoon I was lying with my head on my boyfriends stomach while his hand rested on mine. And thats when the trio of 13 year-olds starting calling us "gaylord fuckers" from all the way across the park. They kept this up for close to ten minutes. They walked right by us, saying "Man, thats not right. What they need is some pussy." They stopped and stared at us. I just ignored them and tried to enjoy my afternoon, which seemed much less idyllic. We left shortly after.

My boyfriend and I are never shy about holding hands in public. As a result, I could regale you with a hundred stories like the one above. We've been mocked on the SEPTA in Philly. Called fags in Rehoboth. Gayrods in Chicago. An 8 year-old girl on 18th St. whispered to her little brother "Look, they're gay" and walked behind us giggling for half a block. Yet we still do it. Partly because we love each other and partly because there is more to holding hands than just being cute.

Gay Public Displays of Affection are an occasional topic of debate on this site. The argument generally boils down to "it is our right to display affection just like straight people" vs. "PDA is gross no matter who does it," with a smidgen of "Gays who get harassed for public affection deserve it for not being more discreet." I think the issue is a little more complicated than that.

Gay PDA is about visibility. It's about making sure that everyone person who sees you and your same-sex significant other holding hands or cuddling or kissing will realize "oh, those people are gay." They won't think you're sisters or cousins or overly expressive best friends. You'll take the abstract concept of homosexuality and make it alive for them, simply by being yourself. By showing that we are real people and that we are everywhere.

My boyfriend and I don't look like a typical gay couple. No one does. The "typical gay couple" has as much basis in reality as any other ridiculous cultural stereotype. Yet so many passersby do double-takes when they see us holding hands that we're currently researching hidden cameras to capture their expressions. Men and woman alike gape at our hands as if they're on fire. They stare at us from across the street and look over their shoulders when the pass us.

But we hope that, eventually, they'll get used to it. You see one person walking a unicorn in the park and it's headline news. Three months later you'll see 200 people walking unicorns in the park and call it a Thursday. As noted earlier today, coming out isn't just something you do once. It has to happen every day of your life or else you might as well not be out at all.

So homos, hold hands. Hold hands on the subway or at the supermarket. Kiss goodbye on the street corner. Tell waiters that your boyfriend went to the bathroom, but will be back to order in a second. Don't put yourself back in the closet by using gender neutral pronouns or avoiding qualifiers. You'll get rude looks and callous comments, but eventually people will deal with it.

Like those kids in the park. They continued to harass my boyfriend and I for several minutes, until one of them told the other two to "leave them alone, they're a happy couple."

Eventually, people learn.

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Am I Not Supposed to Like This Song?

Oops! I did it again!

I fell for another Britney song, and it's not even a remix. Oh the shame! Should I take my headphones out and check to make sure the volume isn't so loud that the people around me can hear the hip-shaking, booty-popping sounds that are emerging from laptop? Probably, but only because it's a generally obnoxious behavior to make the people around you listen to whatever you're listening to. I will not, however, check simply because I am ashamed of my pop listening ways. If I want to listen to Piece of Me, I will. Furthermore, if I want to admit that Bootylicious makes me happier than any Peter, Bjorn and John song ever will, I will. Why? Because I'm sick of indie-music snobbery and am ready to shamelessly admit that I really enjoy pop music. I'm coming out of the Clear Channel closet and am here to say: Pop(ular) music, is popular for a reason - people like to listen to it. Independent music can be equally or more enjoyable; it's simply harder to find. Indie music does not, however, equal cool.

Too often, I feel like "alternative" people and scenes are quick to dismiss any song that makes it on Billboard's top ten list, simply because the masses like it. To me, this elitist attitude is nothing more than a delusional, holier-than-thou attempt to make oneself a better person than most. Short on personality? Claim not to like pop music. Can't dance? Claim not to like pop music. Feel bad about working at a job that benefits no one but yourself? Claim not to like pop music. Couldn't quite make it through Intro to Philosophy, but know that inside you're a deep and enlightened person? It's okay - just claim not to like pop music!


This has been a verbal battle that I've been fighting for over five years, ever since I found myself in a friend circle comprised mostly of my liberal arts college's radio djs. Oh how they loved to joke about my fondness for Matchbox 20, Nelly, and Madonna. What had my parents done to me when I was young? Why couldn't I erase these artists from my iTunes and replace their low-class sounds with more independent, Casio-produced tunes by artists who really know how to inspire the soul? My answer was two-fold. First, I don't see why so many people feel like in order to like indie music (of any genre) you must stop listening to pop music; music preferences are not mutually exclusive. Second, I strongly believe that some people will waste away a lifetime of hearing and dancing abilities listening to cacophonous crap-music if they think that it's making them seem more authentically alternative, and I simply refuse to be one of those people.

What really irritates me are the pop-shunning indie folk who just love Motown, Pink Floyd, and any Michael Jackson album made before 1994. Folks - ahem - individuals, don't you know? All that music was once pop music, too. (What I wonder is whether all these independent souls will one day pump Madonna and Third Eye Blind in the rooms of their retirement homes, while listening to Kasey Kasem's grandchildren over a game of bridge and a glass of ginger ale.) I mean, there are certain modern exceptions that these indie-snobs have seemingly agreed to, and this is how I've interpreted them:

It is okay for an alternative to like a pop song if:

1. The artist is from another continent (not necessarily Asia/Euro-Russia).
2. ...

Well, yep, that seems to be the only rule; I guess Europe and South America are just really alternative and chic.

Overall, I'm pretty sure that the world would be a happier place and most "alternative" scenes would feel a lot less stuck up and judgmental if people could just admit, without the liberating effects of several shots of whiskey, that they do, in fact, enjoy a nice Christina Aguilera song or two. It's okay - no one will shoot you, ask you to hand over your Gang of Four collection, or demand that you take off your hipster/not-hipster skinny jeans!

Oh, and while I'm ranting, here are some other things people should start admitting to:
- Reading Pitchfork
- Peeing in the shower
- Reading In Touch in the grocery store line
- Not actually having read 75% of the books on their bookshelves
- That the best lyrics ever written are, "Can you pay my bills? Can you pay my telephone bills? Can you pay my automo-bills?"

Did I miss anything?

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Are You "Gay Like That?"

Recently, a straight guy told my boyfriend how much he loved him for not letting his gayness define him as a person. In short, he was really excited that my boyfriend was gay, but not "gay like that." So what do you think this means? Many readers of this site would say that it signifies being proud of your sexuality, but not giving up your individuality to fit into a larger gay community. Other would say that it means you don't lisp, or gesticulate too much when you talk. But how many straight people would appreciate this distinction?

While my hetero friends might be excited to talk with me about events and ideas that fall outside of immediate gay interest, they probably can't appreciate how hard it is for a gay man to walk into Cobalt and feel no commonality with any of its other patrons. So I believe that a straight guy saying that one isn't "gay like that" means he isn't some flaming queen, not that he's retained his own personality in the face of a pervasive homosexual mainstream.

I think that straight people tend to see us gays in two distinct camps. There are the homos they are friends with: smart, articulate people with varied interests and willingness to do things outside of a gay ghetto. Then, in their opinion, there are those other fags: Fey, lisping fellows who have never held football. Stereotypes and caricatures they would want nothing to do with.

But most gay men are nothing like their stereotypes. In fact, I don't know if a cohesive gay stereotype even exists these days. Are we hypermasculine muscle queens with beards and flannels? Frail party twinks who OD in between Donna Summer remixes? Shaggy American Apparel models in matching pastel jeans? To think that there is someone out there letting their gayness define them is just as laughable as the assertion that someone else is defined by their straightness. Would anyone accuse a guy of being "too hetero" for spending all his time watching sports and going out on M Street?

There is still this opinion that gay isn't what we are, it's what we do. The assertion that my boyfriend isn't defined by being gay implies that, for most of the day, he is straight. Except on Saturday night, he puts on a special gay shirt for a couple hours to go to Nellie's. Or he's straight when he's brushing his teeth and when he's sleeping, but opens a special bottle of gay lube when have sex.

Here's the real question: If my boyfriend were some flaming queen who liked sports and indie rock, would his friend still have the same opinion of him? If he were the exact same person, but happened to have a taste for lycra and Cher, would his straight admirer still be so quick to sing his praises? All the friends I've had who think I'm not "gay like that" are very quick to pick up on my supposed "gay traits." We could spend a whole day together just being people, but the second I give them fashion advice or admit to a childhood fondness for Ramona Quimby books I can see a little lightbulb go off above their heads. One that says "aha, gay people actually are different than me."

I think that straight people should have gay friends, take it or leave it. While I spend a lot of time here critiquing gay culture, I am doing it from an insiders perspective. That is different than reducing an entire sexuality and culture into two easy poles.

Do any of you feel that your straight friends have you compartmentalized into a gay identity that you disagree with? Do you feel any pressure to act "less gay" around your straight friends?

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