Sorry took an extra day to do this post I had the other wrote out but when I walked away came back and reread it I didn't like it. It seem I was being mean and hateful and really I'm not just I don't understand somethings in the gay community and guess I never will. All I know is when I step out of myself and look at myself I didn't liked what I saw and I'm making a change to what I am and what fits me.
I don't think anyone should be mad fun or bullied for who they are I have always believe in that and always will. I also think some people may bring it on themselves also. What I mean by that is flaunting when there is no need for it other than to get someone to say something to you. I have a friend that does that shot and it drives me crazy don't matter where were at he can turn it on and make people look.
I've told him many times knock that shit off you don't need to act that way and if says its who I am and I said no it's not your turning it on to piss people off. We have had many fights over this. I personally think when we flaunt are gay it upsets people and it makes the gay community look bad. Just be normally and maybe people would stop fighting us so much for equal rights.
I don't like being called a girl or a lady I'm a boy even if I do take it up the ass from time to time still don't me a girl. I have a cock and balls very nice one if I say so myself so don't refer to me as a girl. I don't like guys acting like girls and think that I find that attractive I'm gay if I want someone who acts like a girl I will be with a girl. I'll trying to deal with drag queens.
Like I said maybe I'll piss some people off but I have to be honest with myself and these girly boys really piss me off but I'm trying to understand. I want to say this again NOBODY SHOULD BE BULLIED FOR WHO THEY ARE OR HOW THEY ACT! I just think if we want equal rights then we need to act equal and stop acting like a group of ho's! Nudity I love and ya'll know that but it needs to be done in the right place to be beauty.
All I know is I am a Country Boy from Peachtree City Georgia and I'm gay but is a small part of me and it don't define who I am!
Happy 4th of July Weekend!
I don't think anyone should be mad fun or bullied for who they are I have always believe in that and always will. I also think some people may bring it on themselves also. What I mean by that is flaunting when there is no need for it other than to get someone to say something to you. I have a friend that does that shot and it drives me crazy don't matter where were at he can turn it on and make people look.
I've told him many times knock that shit off you don't need to act that way and if says its who I am and I said no it's not your turning it on to piss people off. We have had many fights over this. I personally think when we flaunt are gay it upsets people and it makes the gay community look bad. Just be normally and maybe people would stop fighting us so much for equal rights.
I don't like being called a girl or a lady I'm a boy even if I do take it up the ass from time to time still don't me a girl. I have a cock and balls very nice one if I say so myself so don't refer to me as a girl. I don't like guys acting like girls and think that I find that attractive I'm gay if I want someone who acts like a girl I will be with a girl. I'll trying to deal with drag queens.
Like I said maybe I'll piss some people off but I have to be honest with myself and these girly boys really piss me off but I'm trying to understand. I want to say this again NOBODY SHOULD BE BULLIED FOR WHO THEY ARE OR HOW THEY ACT! I just think if we want equal rights then we need to act equal and stop acting like a group of ho's! Nudity I love and ya'll know that but it needs to be done in the right place to be beauty.
All I know is I am a Country Boy from Peachtree City Georgia and I'm gay but is a small part of me and it don't define who I am!Happy 4th of July Weekend!
Geeze, Ryan, I was just talking with a friend about this on Tuesday and was thinking of posting a letter to our local ECHO mag here in Phoenix.... but I couldn't have said it better myself. We wonder why we're hated, and quite frankly, I think these displays of overt sexual behavior are often the cause. Well said, brutha!
AZ Denny
I must say Ryan that I agree with you. No one should be bullied for who they are. But it's sure hard to be taken seriously by "the general public" when Pride events seem to be taken over by the outlandish and the mostly undressed. To be accepted we need to be showing the world that we are just like everybody else...and keep our near-nakedness and costuming where it below gs: amongst our own kind.
Peace! <3
Jay
Ryan - I like what you've said. I've been out a long time - over 50 years. I think most of the fellows that are acting this way are doing it more to gain acceptance from their friends. However, it can be very irritating to those nearby. When they act up, many times they get a laugh and thus attention. They get the feeling that they belong. Sad.
I completely and totally disagree. In substance, this js no different than telling women, "well, if you don't want to get raped, don't dress provocatively."
Pardon my language, but fuck tnat shit.
People can not like how I dress or behave. They can bitch and moan and complain. But if they cross the line into violence, threats of violence, or abuse, that is their wrong, not mine.
Assuming that it is my fault assumes that they are stupid, irrational, animalistic cretins who can't cintrol their own behavior - and that is an assumption that society should not make, ever. Furthermore, it's a form of victim-blaming.
I'm not saying that every gay man has to act the same way or that you are wrong (or right) about your friend (though, frankly, it's not your place to tell someone else who they should be, well-intentioned or otherwise). But the seemingly "logical" notion of "we should behave differently so we don't make others behave badly" is really a nasty trap invoked by those in a position of privilege on the groups they want to dominate: conform, or suffer.
I haven't been to a Pride event in over a decade. The reason; in that crowded venue of like-minded people, I felt "all alone". No one said a word to me, even from people I knew (dammit, "spellcheck" doesn't work in this style comment box).
So I "dropped out" early in the parade,and hung out at my local eatery in the "ghetto". There, I felt comfortable chatting with the staff and the lone customer in the joint. After the parade was over and everyone went to the rally at the park, I went home.
So much for "Gay Pride" back then. I've been wondering what's it like now. Like the old saying goes,"United we stand. Divided we fall"
"BZ".......... "FOGGY"..........
I totally agree. When you see pictures of people at a gay pride event it's not a picture of the guy next door type, it's a drag queen or a leather daddy or a well defined guy in nothing but a pink g string. It's a picture of what heterosexuals stereo type gays as. It's pathetic in my opinion. It's not a gay pride parade it's a look at me freak show. In my opinion it dies nothing but bring more negative attention to the gay community. We are NOT all drag queens and leather daddies. We are NOT a freakshow. We ARE normal people that happen to be attracted to the same sex. I wish for once there could be a REAL gay pride parade and not a freakshow.
You know, maybe y'all should look up what that rainbow flag actually means. You should also look up June 28th, 1969, because none of you would be talking here if it weren't for those drag queens, leather daddies, and guys in g-strings.
It's fine that you don't like those sorts of things - but don't ever assume you have any kind of moral authority because you don't.
There are "morals", and then there is "authority". They are two separate entities. As a kid, I remember a "staunch Republican" telling my Dad at Sunday Mass that: "you cannot legislate morality". What "moral laws " are remaining on the books will slowly be overturned in time.
Yet morality plays a part in everyone's life. And morality surely plays a part in the establishment of a "nation of laws". Morality can also be flexible - like..... SLAVERY ..... for example. Same thing with sexuality. The one rule that seems solid and unchanging is the "Golden Rule".
.......That is all :)
"BZ".............. "FOGGY".........
I understand what Ryan is saying.
I "get" it. I've been there myself and felt completely out of place. And that's all I'm saying.
Ryan, most everyone has some kinda personal boundaries. Is it safe to say, you've found yours?
Oh, I get it too. I don't run around in my underwear at gay pride events - or really even go anymore - because it isn't me. I understand that. (Ironically, I've spent most of the day wandering around naked at a resort.)
At the same time, I don't think that sort of thing is wrong or use the people who enjoy it as handy scapegoats. If that's what they want to do, they have as much right to do is as you have to not do it.
And trying to blame them for bigot's negative perceptions of gays is assinine: the people who hate us hate us for existing regardless of what we do. And I, personally, won't hide or tell anyone else to hide just to make bigots less trigger-happy. If a badher bashes a drag queen, it's the basher's fault with no "buts" or qualifications.
It's a bit hypocritical to be fighting for the right to be ourselves - and then turn around and tell others they're somehow wrong for being themselves.
Ryan, you are coming of age at an interesting time within the gay community. You have to appreciate, a lot of the flamboyant stereotypes and hypersexualism arose during an era in which gays were not only persecuted but homosexuality was considered a mental illness. It never was the case that the stereotypes described all gays, but if you weren't in one of the gay ghettos in major cities you were mostly invisible, and deliberately so. The flamboyance and the displays were a "fuck you" to the bigotry of society.
Now days with increasing tolerance for diversity the gay ghettos are in decline. More and more gay kids stay closer to home, often doing so out of the closet and presenting an openly gay persona to the world. The social dynamics of being openly gay are changing before our eyes.
I think you can afford to cut your friend a little slack. Some guys are naturally more flamboyant than others, some are more naturally feminine than others, and it's not completely an act. And especially for someone who's under pressure to "blend in" professionally, in school, it can be liberating to relax and camp it up a bit when in a safe environment.
Pride can be overwhelming at times. I've gone. My kids have gone. You can find all sorts of things there. If you are looking for leather daddies in assless chaps you'll probably find them, but if that's ALL you see, you're probably not looking in the right places. In most places that type of stuff is a relatively minor component. Just saying....
Ryan, I've been to the St Pete parades several times and to the "it gets better" rally in Tampa. The rally got one TV stations coverage with an interview with a suicide survivor, The Parade gets coverage on all the stations with pics of the most extremes of the entire parade. Almost never showing an average person. Outlandish gets the attention.
Yes, many gay persons love to 'shove it in their faces'.. a way to show they are different and brag a bit in a relatively safe environment. While most of us prefer to blend in.
While I totally understand how you feel and kind of agree to some extent, we have to support the more outspoken ones because wether we like it or not they are they keep they issues in the news and moving forward.
Not male, not gay, BUT I want to say that there is a very similar aspect to the pagan community to what has been raised here.
There are those of us who have always been pagan, not come to it from any other belief system, not ever been in the "broom closet", and who just live it without any real visible sign of being pagan. Then there are others who throw themselves into public rituals, wearing (old velvet curtain) cloaks and pentacles the size of trash can lids, calling everyone Lord and Lady and clutching the latest Harry Potter or Silver RavenWolf book, and who frankly belong more to a Renaissance fayre than to any kind of pagan group.
Which ones get the media attention?
Neither group is *wrong* in what they do, but it would be nice if sometimes the curtain-wearing brigade showed some appreciation of how they make the rest of us look, and more importantly, how they are influencing other people's concept of the community.