Again, I need to note that I haven’t called anyone in this thread “post-gay”. I’m reacting to my understanding of the term, and think some people are putting too much emphasis on the “doesn’t go to Pride” part of the definition. Maybe we’re dealing with a misunderstanding (talking past each other or something)…“post-gay” is more than “doesn’t go to Pride”. And again, “post-gay” doesn’t really refer to people who’ve “retired” from the gay scene…veterans of the fight don’t fit the definition.
It’s not that people who aren’t going full-tilt for gay rights 24/7 are spitting on those who are fighting. It’s that “post-gay” tend to not concern themselves with the state of gay rights, period. It’s an attitude of “I live somewhere I can kiss my partner on the lips right out in front of the house and not worry…I’m in good shape socially…what does the guy in rural Mississippi who gets beaten with shovels and dumped in the river have to do with me?” It’s that shoulder shrug when you tell them that there are still more places where kissing your date/partner/trick in public is a death sentence or at least a physical danger than there are where it’s not. “So? I don’t live there.” Or worse, “That’s what they get for being stupid and trying to be gay in places like that.”
That’s where I have the problem. Again, I’m not saying anyone in this thread (or even on this message board) feels that way. I’m reacting to “post-gay” as a concept, not Dopers who feel they identify as it (mostly because I’m not sure the definition as it’s understood at the moment here is accurate).
May I ask how old you are? And again, I don’t mean that as an insult or an implication…I’m genuinely curious how our experiences are so different, since it’s almost been invariable when speaking to gay men in my cohort (30-40 years old (and older, of course)) that my experience was the norm. I’m assuming that you are younger, and thus grew up in a completely different world than I did (and that could very well come down to the difference in gay acceptance between the 70s-80s and the 90s-00s).
That’s probably part of the difference in your experience and mine. For one, you’re a good bit younger and have grown up in a lot gay friendlier world. Two, I’ve known (not in the right words and not knowing it had anything to do with sex) since I was about 5. Growing up with that feeling of ‘Something about me that no one talks about is different then the people around me’ has an effect on people. I’m glad you didn’t have to go through that and hope it can be that way for other gay kids.
JayJay, I would submit to you that the experience of growing up without having to go through what we did is what the struggle is all about. Not that it’s over, but I find this a good sign.
I owe you a shiny penny, Antinor, for calling this earlier.
shy guy, I get it now. It really IS the difference in time. I first consciously realized I was gay when I was about the same age, maybe a bit younger (12 or 13). And I kept a lid locked down on it for almost a decade after, because gays were not who you wanted to be, period. Gays were dirty, nasty, predatory, perverted, pedophiles who preyed on young boys. Yes, even in the 80s. If they weren’t pedophiles, they were silly comic relief. There were NO positive gay role models in the 70s and 80s. There was no internet to make connections with other gay teens. You didn’t have anonymous chat…you ran the risk of exposing your horrible secret if you told anyone about it, even other teens who might also be gay.
It’s hard to believe it was this way less than 40 years ago, but it was…that’s why my first encounter with multiple gay people my own age was so awesome (in the original meaning of the word).
You ARE post-gay, in the sense that you came through adolescence and adulthood in an era where a lot of the stigma had already been wiped off of the concept. That’s an okay definition of post-gay…not the definition I tend to think of it as.
It is a good sign. It’s also a bad sign, in the sense that there is going to be a generation gap between us oldsters and the young’uns that will make the generation gap of the 60s look like a love-in. The whole frame of reference is different…
Call me an oldster again and I’ll beat you with a wire hanger.
The generation gap is fine with me. I don’t want the new generation to have to have our frame of reference. I don’t want them to forget, but I don’t want them to have to dwell on the past either.
Part of not forgetting though, is realizing that it’s not over. As a gay person you don’t have the same rights in the US that straight folk do. Until that is corrected, we can’t be complacent.
It doesn’t sound like you and Collard are using the same definition of “post gay.” And, to hearken back to my earlier rhetorical question, you are sounding like Jesse Jackson talking about Barack Obama and cannot get yourself out of a struggle mindset.
(Added after I caught up with the thread) I am not saying that the fight is over or that there aren’t significant strides that need to be made, but if you look backwards and then at kids like shy guy or my daughters’ friends you’ll see how much has been accomplished. Full equality may be not be here yet, but it is not nearly as distant as it once was. As for social acceptance, while giant steps have been made toward it, it is not always or even usually a precursor to legal equality–just ask our African-American friends. It is sometimes easier to change laws than it is to change minds.
And yeah, jay jay, there will be always a generation gap between the old and the young. Accept it as inevitable, try not to get in the kids’ way, and don’t take it personally when they don’t seem as grateful as you’d like. And be thankful that, because of what you, your cohort, and those who came before you did, shy guy and his brothers are more inconvenienced than threatened by society’s view of them.
Sexuality is not only about who you wanna “git wit’,” it’s also about how you see yourself while you’re doing it. Even for such couples who buy and use strap-ons, this comes into the equation.
This is one of the most irritating things about the “straight acting gays— and damned proud of it!” folk. It would be similar to black actors who revile Hattie McDaniel and Stepin Fetchit without realizing those actors led to Denzel and Halle Berry. The queers who couldn’t hide it- or chose not to- led directly to why gay marriage and anti-discrimination bills are even being debated.
I do totally understand that, even if, as I said, I really have no idea what the feeling itself that you had was like. And certainly, there were huge strides made over the last half of 20th century; I’m far from a queer history buff, but I do know a little (I wrote a paper on anti-sodomy laws back in college, even).
I’d be interested in knowing more about your undestanding of the term and where you’ve heard it. My understanding of it comes from friends and, I think, like, an article in a magazine or something, but I’m not exactly up on queer terminology or anything.
Agreed completely. In fact, I have a sister five years my junior, and I’ve noticed that some of her gay friends are even more detached from what you’d call the gay community than I am. She had openly gay classmates all through high school (for her, 2003 - 2007), for example, and that wasn’t the case even when I went to the same school (1998 - 2002).
Of course, both of us have friends who went through what I suppose you’d call a more “traditional” gay experience.
But yes, certainly there are still goals to be acheived regarding equality. My undersanding of the term “post-gay” didn’t preclude acknowledging that, nor all the work that various people did before I “came out” (another term which I don’t think realy applies to me that well). In fact, I sort of looked at it more like Antinor did; more of a “we’ve come so far that homosexuals don’t necessarily have to assume the identity of ‘gay’” thing.
But you, like your old-fart brothers, are using only that definition of “post-gay,” which is NOT the same as the one used by the freakin’ editor in chief of Out, who probably has a better idea of trends and definitions. Can we cut the generalized hostility and and let “post-gay” refer to the people who understand what they owe but do not feel they need to focus on The Struggle? That will not prevent you from detesting the people you described, who can be pretty obnoxious.
Accept that you are winning the war and be happy that you have been so successful that some people can feel they don’t need to fight because they live in a secured area. The whole point of the war was to make it like that for everybody, right? Tarring everybody who is reasonably happy with his life and feels he can be who he is with little fear of attack with the brush of “sexual identity traitor” can leave you sounding like a bitter, cranky old man.
I’m really not sure why you’re addressing this to me as I never said any of these things, claimed to detest anybody, or expressed generalized hostitility, or even referred to the term “post gay” in the words you cited. Perhaps you have me confused with another poster. I said only, and this is less my opinion than unarguable fact, that modern gays owe their freedoms to the nellies/drag queens/openly-gay-before-it-was-accepted-or-even-safe factions (none of which include me, incidentally- I’m 41 and have never been what you’d call especially active in the gay movement save for being open and the occasional editorial or GSA activity).
In a way, I like that there’s a generation gap among gays. It’s heartening to know there are [del]little brats[/del] young people running around wondering what the old farts are jabbering on about. “Hey, in my high school, I can sit with my boyfriend and it’s no big deal.”
If that’s what more and more young people are experiencing, great!
I just don’t really think we’re there yet. I don’t know how to phrase it delicately, so I won’t. A lot of the kids who feel brave and safe enough to come out at earlier ages are the nelly girly boys. Cool, we’re making progress. Don’t beat up the nelly boys.
But, there’s still what I think is the majority of gay guys who don’t want to adopt a faux effeminate voice and demeanor. It’s still not safe for the football quarterbacks to ask another boy to the prom.
I hear that resentment sometimes. Sure, if you’re a little Carson Kressley and proud of it, good. But if you’re not, and you don’t live in a big city, “what’s the gay community ever done for me? I’m a fireman in a small town and I’d lose my job and get my ass kicked. So I’m post-gay. Me and my boyfriend will keep our separate apartments and never show any affection in public. We don’t want to be labeled or defined by a word.”
That of course isn’t post gay. We already have a perfectly good word. Closeted.
dropzone :As to the editor of Out Magazine’s definition, I’m not sure what the hell he’s talking about. He makes it sound like gays have been doing nothing but hide out in gay bars planning gay parades and writing letters to their congressman and excluding women from their bars. That’s so typical of someone living in his isolated gay oriented world. That’s all he sees, and oh how nice, he’s realized there’s a world out there. Sooo typical of his type.
Hey, there’s a world out here, and most gays live in it and don’t hide in gay bars. I guess we’ve always been post gay.
I apparently misunderstood the thrust of your post that I quoted. It sounded like you were classifying those people as “post gay,” since that was what jay jay, in the post you quoted and agreed with, appeared to do.
I don’t know anybody who defines themselves solely by their sexuality. Going to Pride doesn’t mean you define yourself solely by your sexuality anymore than not going to pride means the opposite. People go or don’t go to Pride for all sorts of reasons, ranging from significant to mundane. I don’t go to Pride because I don’t like waiting 1/2 hour for a beer or an hour to use the restroom. I guess that makes me “post-gay” too, huh?
Hey, and you know what? I’ve always taken a job based on benefits, salary, commute and interest. I’ve never looked around for the “gayest” job I could find. I guess I’ve been post-gay for twenty years now. Because, all those other gays, they would actually turn down their dream job simply because it wasn’t full of gay people!
But leaving the sarcasm aside, the “spitting on” part is telling people to “calm down.” There are serious problems that gay people face in this country and around the world, and people should get excited about them. Someone telling other people to “calm down” is someone who’s lead a noodle-salad life and thinks the world is exactly like that. If you don’t want to spend all your time working on gay issues, don’t. The extent of my political activism is donating to candidates who I agree with (who also tend to be very good on gay issues). But I don’t go around telling other people to “calm down” because they take the time and effort to work on issues in a more concrete way then I do.
