I can't believe I'm finding myself talking about this subject but after getting an interesting or two tweets from a young man from Tallahassee, FL aka Tallyho. He recalled that the first person he told he was gay was one of his straight friends, who go figure later on became a pastor. I liked this story and it's funny because I remember the first I told that I was gay, was another gay person. It felt good to have a commonality but there's something I guess different about being accepted by a straight person. Yes, gays have become more and more mainstream in media and entertainment but there are some areas where the weather is a little "gray or cloudy". In writing this I am not at all saying that we "need" to be accepted by straights to feel accepted however it definetely takes away from the incredible cultural taboo of "Oh my god, you're gay? How can you be gay" or "You're too cute to be gay". If you take away the strength of negativity it becomes something positive and for a long time being gay wasn't this Will & Grace kinda thing and when you saw us on TV they all acted like Jack from Will & Grace and if they were black they were usually flamboyant with permed hair and wore women clothing and accessories.
Look at it like this, I love that fashion particularly in cities like New York has made the line between gay and straight a lot more ambiguous. I actually do because being gay is not a fashion. I used to not like when people say that "its in season to be gay", no it is not because let me tell it I've always been in season whether it be Summer 2008 or Fall 2010. Straight boys are now walking around with nerd glasses, rocking skinny jeans with the pants sagging low with the colorful underwear, (some of them even elect to rock pressed faux-hawks, mohawks or just let the hair down with no cornrows) and just really stepping it up style wise and the ladies soon followed with their colorful jeans and high heels and cute backpacks. Some people hate it, I love it since it puts alot of these wanna-be "hardcore niggas" or "street thugs" to the fringes of the urban culture that has created so many ugly stereotypes about people from inner cities.
This past summer I attended this get together that my friend and I created called "Margarita Mondays" where the drinks are $3 all night but I promise you the service can be dumb shitty. I met a group of girls Tenille, Tamikha and a friend of theirs along with their (I'm not going to lie) attractive male friend. I was first of all embarrassed for hitting on him but I was even more delighted when he told he is 100% straight and that he is totally comfortable with his surroundings. You can't ask too many straight dudes to hang out with 15+ gay dudes hollaring and carrying and just being gay but he did with such grace and ease. I was even more surprised that they are all of west indian decent. That's huge for me. I guess maybe I am old school and fear the old school name-calling or bullying that I would receive for being comfortable in my own skin and my own sexuality. However, I don't wear my sexuality on my forehead or my sleeve, I don't make it a science project to hide either.
Now that this movement of Neo-Heterosexuals are somewhat sweeping from city to city. It makes me somewhat optimistic that there would be less hatred, less discrimination and more rights for gays and lesbians across the country as we are still in the battle over full gay rights. Any heterosexual male or woman who accepts a gay friend for who they are, hear this now. You do not know how much that means to that person to be fully embraced and accepted and the impact of the non judgements and hopefully someone who was not once open-minded can follow your lead and move in the forward direction.
I don't really have a closing statement but I hope I pretty much got the point across.
Leave me your comments, you know I love those
Drink of choice: Moscato on the rocks.
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THIS WAS A VERY GOOD PEICE I THINK YOU SHOULD SEND THIS TO A NEWSPAPER OR MAGAZINE OF SOME SORT.
ReplyDeleteLOL
I LIKE THE HONORABLE MENTION.
Interesting...there is definitely a 'cultural movement' and hopefully our community will continue to become more open-minded
ReplyDeleteThat's dope, because there have been too many times where I have seen guys shy away from being friends with gay dudes for fear of being labeled and chastised. Even though I'm out, I've been told I can't be clocked from just looking at me. But of course the same thing still happens to me where the straight guys around me get nervous. I can say that the straight male friends that I DO have are some of the most amazing men I have met in my life. I consider them all to be my brothers. I hope that society continues to evolve and things change so that it won't be taboo to be gay and GAY GUYS and STRAIGHT GUYS can be friends lmao. I feel like Martin Luther King Jr. a lil bit. I HAVE A DREAM....
ReplyDeleteMen live with that twisted definition of what it is to be a man.
ReplyDeleteA lot of guys were raised with that fear of not being enough of it and they always carry it with them... Really, dudes are doing SO much to prove their masculinity 24/7
All men, regardless of their sexual orientation need to come to term with that problem.
Those who are doing too much, should calm down and stop pointing at others to distract people away from their own insecurities... and those who have been led to believe that they're not enough should just man up and stop idolizing the closest "alpha-male"
This is definitely that time, especially in regions like mine, where there was once no tolerance for homosexuals.
ReplyDeleteAround my Junior year in high school (only 2-3 years ago) I became real close with a heterosexual male whom I believed was gay. I "outed" myself to him in hopes that he was "like me" and strangely wasn't disappointed when he told me he wasn't. It wasn't until after I told him about myself that we became even closer and thought of ourselves as family.
There were times where he was called gay because we were so tight, which didn't seem to phase him. He got his girls, and I got my guys, and we got along just fine.