I'm gay, so why do I find the LGBT community more offensive than supportive

[SolemnBoy]

Depends on your notion of extreme flamboyancy, Solemboy,

Annoy? More like make me go ape-shit berserk! (I'm not getting at you lad, I'm getting at the event... Sorry if it comes across otherwise).

(As in my case) With placards stating "Give us your children, we don't "eat" them we fuck them", which very nearly destroyed my foster application? (you'r 17, put yourself in my son's shoes.. 14, No parents, in a home for over 7 years, 3 previous broken placements, and a last chance to make a family for yourself... Then pass judgement.

Sometime I'll do a story... Never mind...

Parading with strap on dildos?, naked? or otherwise sexually / fetish explicit?
Is that also acceptable?

What about youngster's who are grappling with coming out to their folks who sit in front of the TV and pour derision on queers poefter's, moffies arse F*#@kers and the like because that is what they see and therefore believe all of us are like?

Where does the line get drawn?

I very much doubt that any kind of behavioral "standards" can be set or even enforced. There is only one solution The event must go. As part of gaining true acceptance & pride in ourselves we should distance ourselves from the event entirely.

Trial by error

Oh, that's the kind of stuff you meant - I wouldn't generally associate the word "flamboyant" with the things you described.

I can see why you're upset though and I agree that it's in bad taste.

[SolemnBoy]

As I said in one of my posts earlier when I was talking about 'flamboyancy', sex and overt displays of sex/sexuality belong in the privacy of your home. I don't care if you are gay, straight or a fucking green martian, sexualising an event and public displays of overt sexuality do favours for no one.

Growing up in a city that Holds one of the biggest Mardis Gras events each year kinda jades your idea on these events when most people believe this to be 'normal' gay behaviour and hence their opinion of gays is 'Little fucking limp wristed glitterball princes demanding attention'...yes, people do generalise so we all get lumped in that bag.

I can understand your rage but isn't that a problem with the generalizations from other people and not the behaviour itself? I mean, after all, you can't teach people who aren't breaking any laws to change their ways whilst allowing obviously prejudiced bystanders to make generalizing assumptions that "all homosexual people are like this".

[bluefox4000]

I left my first and last parade because i did not want to be represented by that event Which I think is a ball and chain around all our ankles.

Mick

[SolemnBoy]

Rage? what rage?

teaching? who the fuck is teaching?

you are misunderstanding me.

Haha you just seemed kind of angry and I was just wondering why the anger SEEMED to be aimed towards the flamboyant over-sexualizing people and not the bystanders who make generalized assumptions :3

[KawaiiKitty]

And judging by the way you treat people in previous discussions as well as here, you would be the first person most of us here at Gayspeak would come to to verify that

lol oh Im sorry I forgot you like to live in an opposite world where everything that is good is bad and bad is good like lying to your partner about cheating. Here in the real world we like to live in reality and not some fairytale world where the whole universe doesnt revolve around you. Here in the real world we dont like to lie, even to ourselves.

You should really check yourself before trying to give advice to anyone about anything.

I just realized that you want to bash other gays for showing off their pride yet you are fine with them being promiscuous and lying to this SO about cheating. How would that make us look to the straights? To know that someone is sleeping around outside of a committed partnership? Do you really think thats gonna do more for the gay movement than someone attending a pride event?

[SolemnBoy]

Someone close this thread before history repeats itself O_O

[KawaiiKitty]

I swear Im glad we are not in the 11th century. I could totally see some of you foaming at the mouth while you are scribbling away on your parchment with ink writing about how much of a whore Lady Godiva was for riding down the street on a horse while naked! OH THE HUMANITY!

[SolemnBoy]

I'm a racing car passing byyyyyyy like Lady Godiva, I'm gonna go go GO there's no stopping meeee.... raise the mood, raise the mood, that's right keep singing to raise the mood O_O

I'm gonna go go go there's no stopping meeeeeeee
I'm burning through the sky, yeah
Two hundred degrees that's why they call me Mr. Fahrenheit

Please don't hurt each other :c

[princealbertofb]

First some background. I'm out, I have been for years. My partner and I have been together for over 10 years and, now that Prop 8 and DOMA have been defeated, are planning to get married. I don't own a rainbow anything, have never gone to a PRide event or made it a point to tell everyone I'm gay. I've always just been me and if someone asked, I told them. Otherwise I just never brought it up.

This past Saturday my partner and I went to San Francisco for Pride. I honestly did not want to go. I was expecting it to be over the top/border line offensive and much to my dismay, was right. Needless to say I was miserable the entire time, but put up with it as best I could for the sake of my partner.

This led to a bit of a fight and he asked me why it made me so angry/uncomfortable. So I started thinking about it and broke it down into the most angering pieces and made a list of ACTUAL events that day:
1. Naked people - If you're comfortable in your skin, great, more power to you. There were a lot more people though that were practically parading around. It's a bit much, especially when you're walking around and BAM! There it is.

2. Barely clothed people - This too seems to be much more prevalent in the LGBT community and "gay friendly" areas. Granted, it happens in the hetero community too but those women and/or guys tend to cluster together while everyone else largely ignores them. To me though it seems like the LGBT community encourages it.

3. Hyped up sexual behavior - I honestly don't even know where to begin with this. Aside from the occasional "gay" shop, every bar and district I've ever been in has posters/ads for adult themed locker rooms, dance clubs, toys, etc. etc. etc. I get it, some LGBT men and women like sex but is it REALLY necessary to have it constantly forced on you?

4. Rainbow EVERYTHING - Really this is just too much for me. I understand the symbolism, I really do. The LGBT community as a whole has not had equal rights. The flag is a symbol of unity, but when something isn't considered gay friendly without being drenched in rainbow sherbet colors, it's ridiculous and borderline offensive to me. The defeat of DOMA and Proposition 8 were HUGE! Seriously though why does gay = cover it in rainbows?

Yesterday was my first, and quite honestly probably my last, Pride event. The above reasons plus the fact that even accepting hetero people feel the above is normal LGBT behavior makes me want to distance myself from the LGBT community even more. I'm not even comfortable with public displays of affection (my parents didn't really hold hands or kiss in public while I was growing up) so walking through an area filled with people half (and sometimes fully) naked pawing at each other freaks me out.

I honestly feel like I'm an anomaly, like I can't really call myself gay. I only have 2 gay friends, another couple whom we get along great with. Aside from that, all of my other friends are hetero, several of them married. All of them know I'm gay and whenever they have a get together or want to go to dinner/movies/etc. they invite us both, always.

All that leads to the question....why. Am I just too conservative to get it? Is it wrong that I find things like Pride and LGBT bars/districts/events offensive? Or have I spent so long around hetero people trying to be "normal" ("So Randy and I decided to go, just the two of us, to the aquarium. 'Oh, you're..gay?' "Yeah. We went and it was amazing. There's so many exhibits....") that I've turned into the very thing the LGBT community fights against?

First, is it fair to bag the whole LGBT community in one bag as if there was you on the one hand and the whole of the gay community in the other (referring to your title)?

Secondly, yes it is possible that you feel estranged of all the overtly sexual nature of the Pride.... but, also to be fair, after all you did go to SAN FRANCISCO pride, probably one of the most (if not THE most) liberal (and highly sexualised) of all pride parades.

Thirdly, you were already going with the preconception that you wouldn't like it. Therefore your mood was down and probably only open to witnessing (maybe) that it wasn't as bad as you'd anticipated. You obviously didn't expect it to be worse. Your very mood could have made the experience a disastrous one, especially if you are uncomfortable around public nudity etc... There, I think your partner should have been more sensitive to your worries and discomfort and I'm sorry he talked you into going. Would you have considered letting him go by himself or with friends, since it was obviously something he needed to experience?

Conselor has a point in saying that something centred around sexuality will celebrate the freedom of that sexuality. Why do we make of love and sexuality such a big taboo? They are the salt of life. I would love to make wars and guns a huge taboo, but it's not working. Gays are, on the whole, I guess, less puritan than the average person, especially in American society, which doesn't mean that all American gays or gays in general are permissive and wild. Just more permissive generally speaking. It's probably a good idea to take that into account when going to a gay event.

For those of us who consider that we've got it made, and that these Prides are no longer necessary (I note that a lot of the younger generation seem to feel that way, for whatever reason they feel that), we need to consider this: people around the world are still being shunned, pushed away, discriminated, disowned, imprisoned, hated and even killed for being gay, which is not a choice of theirs (I think we'll mostly all agree about that). Like changing a leopard's spots, being gay is something that may be curbed by normative hetero behaviour ( a good 90-95% of all the behaviour we see daily) but it's going to continue to haunt us, make us unhappy, unfulfilled and self-loathing if we can't manage to be at peace with who we are inside. Pride marches (which are not all as sexualised as the one in San Francisco) are there to assert what the LGBT community needs to assert all around the world, which is basically the right to be who we are with the freedom to lead our lives (sexual, romantic or otherwise) freely. I daresay with time, they will become less sexed, and more family friendly, if they are still necessary.

It would be great to have a world where neither Prides, nor Martin Luther King Days or Women's Days are necessary. We're not there yet. Pride marches are beacons, as such, much as the Olympic Games are beacons for high standard athletes. It's all about visibility, which visibility has served us well up to now, thanks to the likes of Stonewall drag queens.

[trialbyerror]

For those of us who consider that we've got it made, and that these Prides are no longer necessary (I note that a lot of the younger generation seem to feel that way, for whatever reason they feel that), we need to consider this: people around the world are still being shunned, pushed away, discriminated, disowned, imprisoned, hated and even killed for being gay, which is not a choice of theirs (I think we'll mostly all agree about that). Like changing a leopard's spots, being gay is something that may be curbed by normative hetero behavior ( a good 90-95% of all the behavior we see daily) but it's going to continue to haunt us, make us unhappy, unfulfilled and self-loathing if we can't manage to be at peace with who we are inside. Pride marches (which are not all as sexualised as the one in San Francisco) are there to assert what the LGBT community needs to assert all around the world, which is basically the right to be who we are with the freedom to lead our lives (sexual, romantic or otherwise) freely. I daresay with time, they will become less sexed, and more family friendly, if they are still necessary.

I'm going to weigh in again.

Obviously this debate needs to be out. A good thread.

Excuse me for pointing out: -
We live in a very strong Calvinistic country
Yet we have the most progressive constitution in the world. Thanks Madiba,

Our rights before the law are protected

Read that again protected

Do you or anyone for one moment think that idiotic embarrassing function had a damn thing to do with it?

Get real, I't's got nothing to do with same sex pride AT ALL.

In fact, truth be told, it could well be a contributing factor to the withdrawal of those rights.

I'm Out even at work
I did a quick poll on the factory floor 4 white people and 4 people of color
Question "What do you think of the "pride parade"
Anyone want the answers? you won't like them trust me...

Trial