That was the same Daddy’s where Ryan and his straight buddy got drunk and danced topless on a box, right?
Yup. He looked pretty tasty, too.
Remember, it’s the Pride Parade we’re talking about. Pride Day is when gays, lesbians, transexuals and transgendered people celebrate their freedom. One point of the parade is that, for one day, they can be as outrageous as they want. It’s not like you see gay men acting like this all the time in the Castro district.
And furthermore, Pride is a carnival. Head down to Rio and tell me if you think carnival, or nightclub, behaviour is or is expected to be the same as regular behaviour – anyone’s regular behaviour.
Or at Mardi Gras or Carifiesta, for that matter.
I doubt there’s a factual answer here, so I’ll move this thread to IMHO.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
I don’t get the skimpy leather, either.
I mean, I find it incredibly hot, but I don’t get it. It doesn’t serve any real purpose.
As for the in-your-faceness, I think that it’s a mixture of being able to be so extreme, without fear of retribution, and the fact that no one will notice if there’s not some extremeness there. I mean, if the queers didn’t do things like this, and just lived lives like the heteros, no one would notice them. Which wouldn’t be good for… I don’t know what. I’m tired, but surely someone will be here shortly to explain where my words fail.
Personally I find the “in your faceness” of some gays distasteful, but at the same point I envy them. When you live in the provinces you get (query: can you say "sick and fucking tired in IMHO?, if not, then I’ll just say) irritated of having to conform, not being able to hold hands with a significant other, or much of anything else that says “I’m not straight and I don’t particularly care if you have a problem with it”. HELL- I’ve been asked in past jobs to remove an AIDS ribbon from a display on the Centers for Disease Control because it was “too political”.
I recently bought a stained glass rainbow flag but I won’t display it where it can be seen outside of my apartment because I have a dog. The relevance of that? I’ve known a lesbian couple and a gay man who have had their pets killed (in the case of the lesbian couple, a cat was nailed to the door) by people who “had issues with” their lifestyle. While I’m certainly not saying that’s the norm, this is the non-headline making shit that you have to think about if you’re gay in this country.
So when some people find freedom of expression they go overboard. Good for them. I would never wear a collar and leash and assless chaps (for which I have the thanks of the gay community) but a part of me says “God Bless America” that somebody out there can.
And as Matt pointed out above, Gay Pride marches in the U.S. are more akin to Mardi Gras than they are to anything else. Conformity is not the point at all. ( I was at the march in D.C. this year and frankly was sort of disappointed at how few scantily clad young men there were, but then D.C. is probably the most closeted metropolis in the nation.)
I totally understand that you mean no offense in the OP, but it’s a more charged issue than you might realize. To me, straight Goth kids and HOOTERS restaurants and straight (but never gay) porn mags in convenience stores and “straight only” entertainments like Elimidate or e-Harmony are in your face heterosexuality, but… c’est la vie. Also, for all the increased visibility in pop-culture and the news (like there’s a difference), the neverending stream of Santorums, Falwells, Moores, Limbaughs, Camerons and Eminems and the neverending use of bogus “statistics” and mangled logic editorials and pithy “Not Adam and Steve” church billboards and the like attest, it’s still one helluva lot easier to be openly homophobic than it is to be openly gay. That there are people who unashamedly flaunt it in a manner intentionally designed to get a rise from the Fundies is actually on some level refreshing.
I figure it’s the gay male equivalent of women flashing their boobs to strangers during spring break or Mardi Gras - a desire to throw away normal social constraints and act outrageous in a setting where it “doesn’t count”.
BUT as I think it was John Stewart said-
If you must march down main street in the Gay Parade wearing nothing but a
penis cup, PLEASE do some working out some time in advance. Nothing’s worse than seeing a middle-aged gay guy wearing only a penis cup flaunting his big pot belly.
If you’ll allow me to paint with a broad brush for a moment…
As a dyke who’s marched topless down Atlanta’s Peachtree Street during Pride…on more than one occasion…with hundreds of other women doing the same…some of what you see at Pride is more of a grass-roots movement to desensitize society than anything else. Society at large is hypersensative to things in such a way that societal rules are constructed and perpetrated to protect that hypersensativity. Those “rules” often manifest themselves in ways that infringe on the freedoms of some members of the very same society. And for what reason? Because society has been conditioned to be arroused or uncomfortable at the sight of certain clothing or anatomical regions or behavior, often with blatant double-standards thrown into the mix.
Women walking topless in public isn’t necessarily a “gay thing”, but neither is men walking around in studded leather. The motivation for doing such things at Pride, for some, is to illustrate that what people choose to wear (or not wear) or how they choose to behave, really doesn’t (and shouldn’t) impact anyone but themselves. If the observer is uncomfortable, it is not the fault of the individual being observed. The observer can choose not to observe if they are uncomfortable.
Why should I have to wear jeans and a t-shirt just so you’re more comfortable?
But aren’t you still letting society establish your attire? Opposing conventional standards of attire is just the flipside of conforming with those same standards. A real individualist would proclaim their independance by wearing whatever they want and not caring whether it was approved or condemned by those around them.
Why do you suppose this isn’t what she’s doing? People at Pride aren’t press-ganged into taking off their shirts.
Well, I was kinda hoping for a “Yes, I’ve dressed up like that, lemme tell you about it” response, actually.
I get annoyed by scantily-clad waitresses trolling the casinos of Las Vegas, so I don’t think it’s a double standard. And I think there’s a shade of difference between high heels and fishnet stockings vs. a leather face mask embossed with steel studs.
Yeah, that’s about it, I think. I have no problems with gay men holding hands in public, or kissing, or even making out in the bushes. It’s the “stuff you wouldn’t wear outside of your own bedroom” ensemble that puzzles me.
Okay, I think I get it. So it’s not “gays are into leather and studs” and more like “we’re trying to change your perceptions of what’s acceptable,” yes?
I’m not uncomfortable, merely curious. I put it all in the same mental bin as body piercing, tattoos, and “Bush '04” bumper stickers. 
Right. Gays certainly don’t have a corner on the leather and studs market, and such a lifestyle certainly doesn’t appeal to all gays.
I for one am much more interested in fighting the status quo in such a way that society is more generally accepting of diversity, as opposed to just getting society to accept women’s naked breasts and leather fetishwear.
You’d be surprised to see what some guys wear to the grocery store.
There’s a guy in a neighborhood I lived in about a year ago who is always head to toe in leather. I’ve never not seen him in a leather jacket and/or leather shirt, leather pants and boots. All of which is so well-fitting he appears to have been dipped in liquid leather (if there was such a thing) And that’s just his knocking around, going for groceries attire.
As for me, I’ve gone to the store at various times in chaps, and nobody said boo.
In your face? Pleazzzzzzzzzzzzze have you never heard of Hooters? It’s the same thing and why isn’t that in your face? I mean why don’t they have a restaurant called Bananas where the guys only wear thongs? Now that’s a place I’d eat at every day! 
-Hamish
Wow you mean to say that homosexuals also have sex in their bedrooms. This brings a whole new level to this.
Occasionally. Sometimes, they will have sex in their bedrooms.
There’s a reason why I’ve never stepped foot in a Hooters, and it’s got nothing to do with the food.