{"id":179,"date":"2000-06-21T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2000-06-21T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2000\/06\/21\/gay_shame\/"},"modified":"2024-11-28T09:14:23","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T14:14:23","slug":"gay_shame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2000\/06\/21\/gay_shame\/","title":{"rendered":"Gay Shame"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Homo Overload<\/strong>…whoops, I mean Gay Pride<\/a> Week here in New York, so I guess it’s only fitting that I chime in on the subject. But before I do, I just want y\u2019all to think about this question posed by the Paris ACT UP chapter: \u201cProud of what?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Gay Pride doesn\u2019t inspire any particular pride in me. In fact, it makes me cringe with embarrassment and loathing. Not the idea of it, but the actual event in all its glitzy, our-way-or-the-highway madness. I don\u2019t even know where to begin. (Paul Baker\u2019s Burn Your Jockstrap<\/a> site articulates my frustrations with gay culture much better than I ever could, anyway, so go look at that.) The homos are pretty homogenous \u2014 at least within each of their cliques \u2014 and it irritates me that there\u2019s a parade to prove it.<\/p>\n

The thing to keep in mind is that I love being gay. I mean, there\u2019s no question about it. I\u2019m really, really gay. And yes, I\u2019m proud of it. I don\u2019t mean that I\u2019m a prancing nancy, or a pumped-up pretty boy, or straight-acting bear (all of which are terms that could be used to describe people I love). I\u2019m Sparky. I am, among other things, an enthusiatic lover of other fellas. And goddamn I\u2019m proud of that! It\u2019s a part of me, and a pretty significant part, one which influences a lot of the other parts.<\/p>\n

Coming out wasn\u2019t a huge dilemma for me, even though I did it at the ripe old age of 21. I did it when the time was right for me, when I had the insight and energy to deal with that aspect of life. No trauma, just a couple of awkward conversations. But to get to that point, I had to figure out some stuff about my life and the world around me, and that\u2019s good. If I weren\u2019t gay, I may not have thought as much about what makes me the person I am. I\u2019m proud that I had to ask myself difficult questions, and proud that I sorted out some sort of direction in a sea of conflicting opinions. I\u2019m proud that I chose for myself what I want, and didn\u2019t hold myself to what my folks or my school or my friends naturally assumed would be the way things worked.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t shut off that way of thinking when I confronted gay culture, which is why I get so incensed by this feeling that the so-called gay counter-culture would, if it could, impose the same kind of rigorous expectations on me as the so-called mainstream. screw it. I\u2019m not any more likely to go to the gym to beef up my tits than I am to marry the girl next door and settle down in a house in Nutley, New Jersey, or shoot heroin in a crack den. I said \u201cno\u201d to all that. And I don\u2018t wish to be told I\u2019m a loser for not making any one of those things a priority.<\/p>\n

For me, gay pride is an everyday fact of life. An excuse to say, \u201cThat\u2019s me, dig it or ditch it,\u201d just like any other aspect of myself. I don\u2019t want to be like every other gay person in the world, especially not if they\u2019re trying to be just like everyone else (except, of course, for more inherently fabulous because they\u2019re gay). If I were to let that happen, I\u2019d be a whole let less Sparky, wouldn\u2019t I?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Homo Overload…whoops, I mean Gay Pride Week here in New York, so I guess it’s only fitting that I chime in on the subject. But before I do, I just want y\u2019all to think about this question posed by the Paris ACT UP chapter: \u201cProud of what?\u201d Gay Pride doesn\u2019t inspire any particular pride … Continue reading “Gay Shame”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultragay","category-ultrapersonal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71753,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/71753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}