i ma just about coming to terms with my sexual identity...the politics will no doubt come later

Joel does bring up an interesting point in his original post though. "Gay culture" is that commercial, packaged deal that drives gay media, gay merchandising, and many gay clubs and bars. It is the most visible part of the gay community that has come to dominate and define us because it is the part of the gay community that the straight community holds up to represent us all. Because our culture doesn't allow us to grown naturally into our identities from childhood, we learn about these identities in these prepackaged categories. If we don't how to connect to the community on a personal level, we enter into through this commercial, media driven lens that distorts, stereotypes and create caricatures of homosexual men.

I know what you mean Joel that you don't feel like you fit in with the gay community. But what I've really come to find is that there are a lot of guys that are just like you. They consider themselves really normal, average guys that are like any straight guy, but they are homosexual. The biggest problem is, how do you find each other.

Michael

Thank You Micheal! You got me.I'm just a guy who is queer, what's the big deal ? Why oh why does it have to be an issue for everyone else ? I just get so tired of the standard question - Are you Gay Joel ? I always answer, no I'm not. I like who I am and I'm not in anyway ashamed of my sexuality, but Gay Pride ? I'm sorry fellas but that I don't get. Never have I allowed anyone or anything to stop me from what I want simply because I'm into guys. I've never had to fight for my rights because I simply don't allow anyone to trounce them.Besides the person that I may be having sex with, just the hell whose business is it ? Ya Know ? Yeah, Micheal, you do know ! Thanks man !

No "gays" or "straights" - just human beings. Thanks, Dan. From your mouth to God's ears.

My difficulty is that I more easily identify (and fall in love with) dead gay writers instead of living homosexual men. I've never had a dead gay writer try to take advantage of me (well, maybe Capote). I've tried to overcome this by joining a gay community organization, and to my surprise, I've found living men to be as varied and complex as their predecessors-- if I give them a chance. Now I have GAY friends that, although they watch Project Runway and Top Model, have more than two dimensions. It seems I've been objectifying gay men into a stereotype, diminishing them so as not to feel threatened by them. I'm pretty sure I'm a bisexual man, but I very well may be GAY. At least, my inner boy likes playing dress-up and prancing around!

Michael (M3) has a point in that "gay culture" is what is held up to revile us with. Many take pride in flaunting this perception, which does nothing but reinforce it in the minds of others.

I do think, however, that many small towns have such small communities that the media is the only place they have had to "learn" how to be gay. I find it sad that they think they had to learn how when all they need to do is be themselves, but there it is.

I could wish for the money to pack up and move elsewhere, but for many trapped in small towns by the economy there just isn't a choice.

Dusty42 has deleted this message. I no longer feel safe here.

Marry me!!! OK, I'm teasing. But thank you for getting it. It seems that everytime I express that I'm just queer and not Gay, some fag gets up in my face about how I just don't accept myself, about how hard they have had to fight for their rights etc.

These little P***ks don't realize that I'm of the generation when I guy like me could legally be arrested for being a C***sucker, ya know?

But because I'm a guy whose into men I'm supposed to have a rainbow enbroirdred to my pack back? I don't think so.

I think Gay is a perfectly fine thing to be, if that's what a guy is. It's just that most homosexual men do not define themselves as Gay, in spite of what the militants want society to believe. Oh geez, I'm doing it again - ranting. I'll shut up now...

Dusty42 has deleted this message. I no longer feel safe here.