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Apr. 29th, 2007 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phredddI often think that gay male "culture" has less to offer me as I get older (and a bit more dysfunction) - yet at the same time I want to grab hold of it that much more when it seems to disappoint me the most, since the alternative would be to place far more of my faith in "straight," blah society than I think is deserved.
When I first realized I was gay at 16, I felt like I was embarking on the first scary steps of a journey toward something new and a little exclusive - and feeling even then that, culturally, there was something different and wild about this life story that I wasn't necessarily going to find in the mostly African-American/Caribbean neighborhoods of my childhood in Brooklyn unless I looked hard (the aesthetic/cultural concept of the "down low" not exactly being a new thing in communities of color in urban America). Frankly, if I hadn't figured my sexuality out to some serious extent by that point, I think I might have ended up staying in New York for college, for what that was worth. Considering that staying in New York would probably mean tending to my dad during my free time (not a happy thought considering how high-maintenance his health issues and his drinking were becoming by then, and also considering how contentious the communication was between us when he merely thought I might be gay), I feel like I ended up taking the better route in life.
In the years since that decision to leave home for good, I somehow became a college graduate; made just enough money to get me through some low points; made a little love with a lot of men (and had just-plain sex with many more); and learned that the things you assume about the world and the people around you are only right enough to (1) not apply most of the time and to (2) fool you into a false sense of security on the infrequent occasions when they do apply. I generalized about some folks when I should have just sat back and let them be, and I let some others do their thing when "their thing" ended up nearly damaging me. Back to my original point about gay male "culture," I've seen us at our best (supporting each other in joy and pain, at commitment ceremonies and funerals, generally helping each other get to better places in life whether friends, lovers, or complete strangers) and worst (Retaining - at times magnifying - some of the pettier points of heterosexual upbringing, up to/including trying to retain certain types/models of relationships over others - I know the right to marry is a big deal, but can you accept that marriage isn't for everybody? Also, the bareback sex that some of you are a little too openly seeking puts all of us in a lousy light, since HIV and other fine STDs are still out there - just a thought.), and I know that's just how it goes sometimes. I just wonder what's up in some guys' heads sometimes, and some of who reading this who happen to be men who love other men get even a little confounded by some of the same thoughts sometimes.
OK, done ranting and venting...
When I first realized I was gay at 16, I felt like I was embarking on the first scary steps of a journey toward something new and a little exclusive - and feeling even then that, culturally, there was something different and wild about this life story that I wasn't necessarily going to find in the mostly African-American/Caribbean neighborhoods of my childhood in Brooklyn unless I looked hard (the aesthetic/cultural concept of the "down low" not exactly being a new thing in communities of color in urban America). Frankly, if I hadn't figured my sexuality out to some serious extent by that point, I think I might have ended up staying in New York for college, for what that was worth. Considering that staying in New York would probably mean tending to my dad during my free time (not a happy thought considering how high-maintenance his health issues and his drinking were becoming by then, and also considering how contentious the communication was between us when he merely thought I might be gay), I feel like I ended up taking the better route in life.
In the years since that decision to leave home for good, I somehow became a college graduate; made just enough money to get me through some low points; made a little love with a lot of men (and had just-plain sex with many more); and learned that the things you assume about the world and the people around you are only right enough to (1) not apply most of the time and to (2) fool you into a false sense of security on the infrequent occasions when they do apply. I generalized about some folks when I should have just sat back and let them be, and I let some others do their thing when "their thing" ended up nearly damaging me. Back to my original point about gay male "culture," I've seen us at our best (supporting each other in joy and pain, at commitment ceremonies and funerals, generally helping each other get to better places in life whether friends, lovers, or complete strangers) and worst (Retaining - at times magnifying - some of the pettier points of heterosexual upbringing, up to/including trying to retain certain types/models of relationships over others - I know the right to marry is a big deal, but can you accept that marriage isn't for everybody? Also, the bareback sex that some of you are a little too openly seeking puts all of us in a lousy light, since HIV and other fine STDs are still out there - just a thought.), and I know that's just how it goes sometimes. I just wonder what's up in some guys' heads sometimes, and some of who reading this who happen to be men who love other men get even a little confounded by some of the same thoughts sometimes.
OK, done ranting and venting...
