My boyfriend is such a pop-culture whore. From the way he was squealing about Paris Hilton’s disinheritance, you’d think he’d just been crowned Miss Drag Queen of America on his birthday. [insert headshake here]
Late start today, but sometimes the combination of pillows + snooze button is just too damned seductive. It took paws batting at my face (my cat hates my alarm) and the prospect of French roast to get me out of bed and browsing the headlines to see just who’s spilling crazy all over the news today.
So…I have a question for you. How would you feel knowing that your sexuality is now a matter for national security?
Unfortunately, that’s not a hypothetical question. Travelers in the U.S. and the European Union may soon be required to vouchsafe such information for the sake of passenger safety and counterterrorism initiatives.
The United States and the European Union have agreed to expand a security program that shares personal data about millions of U.S.-bound airline passengers a year, potentially including information about a person’s race, ethnicity, religion and health.
Under the agreement, airlines flying from Europe to the United States are required to provide data related to these matters to U.S. authorities if it exists in their reservation systems. The deal allows Washington to retain and use it only “where the life of a data subject or of others could be imperiled or seriously impaired,” such as in a counterterrorism investigation.
According to the deal, the information that can be used in such exceptional circumstances includes “racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership” and data about an individual’s health, traveling partners and sexual orientation.
This is taking paranoia too far. The article goes on to cite that a simple request for a wheelchair for a handicapped passenger could be recorded in their file, with the explanation that passengers could use wheelchairs or casts to hide explosives. Suddenly anyone who doesn’t fit the profile of the perfect, healthy passenger of X race and Y faith is a potential terrorist.
Now…I can understand some of those criteria, even if they do involve racial profiling; it can still be an unfortunate necessity. But the data on health and sexual orientation is just ridiculous. What, are they afraid a fag with a McDonald’s addiction is going to bring down an airplane because he’s upset about his high cholesterol and loss of his girlish figure, and wants to destroy the capitalist pigs that made McDonald’s possible?
Uh-huh. Sure.
Someone explain to me how your health or sexual orientation could increase the possibility of terrorist activity. Please. I’d just love to hear this one.
There I was, minding my own business in the Wal-Mart checkout line, when it attacked: the Yaoi Fangirl. Normally only dangerous online or at anime conventions, this dreaded beast has the same fascination with gay men as your average heterosexual male drooling over a lesbian porno. Not to be confused with the (slightly) more sane Slashficcer, the Yaoi Fangirl fixates rabidly on anything attractive and male within sight and immediately begins aggressive reconnaissance, in search of signs of homosexuality. The majority of her life revolves around contriving ways to make her favorite male/male pairing possible regardless of the sexuality of the people/characters involved, or squealing over anything she can find with existing male on male erotica. What little free time remains is often spent either stalking any gay men of her acquaintance or wishing she was a gay man.
All right, maybe I’m being a little harsh. Not all yaoi/shounen ai fangirls are rabid, screaming maniacs, but every once in a while you run across the ones that scare the holy living crap out of you. Unfortunately, I was lucky enough to have that little surreal encounter yesterday morning, while waiting to pay for my grapes, milk, and granola bars and get the hell out of the store.
And yes, her hair really was up like that and she really was wearing all that…stuff.
Some days I wonder if I woke up in some freakish alternate universe, I really do. Seriously. I only wish I was making this crap up.
…I’m out of coffee and battling a fever that’s been jerking me around like a yo-yo for the past week, so you’re getting a very short post today. The less I say, the less chance there is of me spouting something wholly nonsensical and not realizing it until days later. First, a brief “Ask Adri” letter that I received earlier this week, and an even more brief response:
hey
r u single??? do u like sportz????? mayb we can hook up
hit me up
-horny in houston
To answer your questions in order, dear HiH: no, no, and oh heeeeeeeeeell no. I’m sorry, but you’ve been disqualified. Thanks for playing, but those aren’t exactly the kinds of questions people submit around here.
Second: Stephen Cable is a smug, self-satisfied ass. Some of the things he says about Vermont’s discussions of gay marriage are just unbelievably condescending, not to mention self-delusional. I hope, if Vermont ever succeeds in its succession movement, that immigration laws prevent Cable from ever crossing borders back into the U.S. The rest of us sure as hell don’t want his mouthy little arse.
Third: I really enjoyed reading this interview with Mike Jones, former gay companion of evangelist (and prominent detractor of gay rights) Ted Haggard. In it he explains why he felt the need to write his book, even if it cost him his job and threatened his personal safety, as well as his view on Haggard’s stances and current behavior. It’s really quite insightful, even if the interviewer looked to be trying to bait him with a few of those questions.
I’m going to go crawl my sick butt back into bed now. Have a good weekend, and I’ll see you Monday with a new comic.
You know, when you spend so much time covering news of discrimination and violence against gays and the absolutely horrid things that people do to try to prevent us from having equal rights, it’s easy to gain the strange impression of gays as martyrs and saints, utterly blameless, guilty of nothing save for a desire to be treated like human beings and perhaps a few diva-style temper tantrums now and then. It’s not hard to create the illusion that we’re somehow above the rest of humanity, more highly evolved, flawless.
Let me be the first to tell you that we sure as hell ain’t, sugar.
We can be cruel, vindictive, petty, bigoted, hateful, prejudiced, and downright hypocritical. We’re just as flawed as the rest of humanity, and like the rest of humanity we’ve got our share of cold-hearted, violent, scheming crazies, too. Want proof? Take a gander at this:
(Reno, Nevada) Police have charged a Reno, Nevada man with trying to hire a hit-man to kill his wife so he could avoid a messy divorce and be able to live with his same-sex partner.
Reno Police say that James Gau, 50, sought to have his estranged wife murdered so that his gay relationship would not become public and possibly lead to his being denied custody of the couple’s six children.
Police Sgt. Dave Evans tells the Reno Gazette-Journal that Gau had spent weeks trying to convince a man to commit the murder, even providing him with a picture of Sheryl Gau and their children.
Sounds like something out of your average soap opera, doesn’t it? If you want your proof that gays can be just as sleazy as any other average Joe on the street, you’ve got it right there.
That’s some pretty twisted logic, anyway, and takes one warped mind to think that actually makes sense. I think a murder rap would have a hell of a lot more impact on the judge’s custody decision than a gay lover, honey. How do you think Junior and the others would feel if they found out that you had Mommy offed by a hitman, hm?
I’m just having serious problems wrapping my mind around this. “I’m going to kill my wife so I get to stay in the closet and keep my kids.” I’ve heard of being devoted to your rugrats, but that’s taking it a bit far - to the point where it’s breaking my brain trying to comprehend it.
Oh, sure, I could go out on a limb and say “If the U.S. judicial system didn’t discriminate so much against gays, he wouldn’t have been driven to such extremes” but that’s the kind of blame-shifting that makes people think child molesters and rapists aren’t responsible for their own actions just because Mummy didn’t hug them enough. Nuh-uh. I don’t cotton towards that BS. That right there is one cold-hearted crock of crap that just eats away a little more at the dying fragments of my faith in humanity.
I feel quite sorry for that woman, knowing that her husband would do that to her for such shallow and self-serving reasons. It’s got to have quite an impact on her…and it’s going to be difficult, explaining to six children why their father is now serving hard time.
I wish her all the strength in the world…and wish her husband a little karmic justice at the hands of the U.S. penal system. I imagine he’s not going to be particularly pleased with his lot once he trades in one ball and chain for the other.
One of my friends gave me a good laugh last night; she and I were talking on AIM, and I asked if she and her wife were going to register for domestic partner benefits since they live in Seattle. Her response?
“We didn’t even know about that… O.o Shows just how much we pay attention to things.”
Sometimes I forget that not everyone keeps up with these things as avidly as I do, since it’s my job. Ah, well, that’s why I love her. Adorable thing.
Today I’m going to go out on a limb and get a little bit personal, and I’m going to have to ask in advance that my Darling BoyfriendTM (formerly known as The ExTM) doesn’t kill me for it. Darling Boyfriend and I both have a couple of bad habits in relationships, ones that drive each other crazy but that thankfully aren’t prevalent enough to affect our relationship on a day-to-day basis or create enormously insurmountable issues that make us wholly incompatible. They’re the kind of little twitch-point that everyone has with their partner or spouse, and learning to deal with those things and love your partner despite them is the basis for just about any long-term relationship. You can bet that no marriage would survive if people constantly divorced because he keeps forgetting anniversaries or she has an addiction to designer handbags (or vice-versa, in some cases).
The other night, however, we got into a rip-roaring fight that I freely admit was my fault, because here’s my major bad habit: I get a little upset and accusatory over things rather than just talking them out. This might not seem like such a big deal, but when I say ‘upset and accusatory’, I’m talking diva style, and you can bet that’s part of the reason I scored a 60% on the Diva Test. Sometimes he calls me Scarlett, and unfortunately I’ve earned the name. I’ve grown up a bit and I’m not nearly as bad as I used to be, and I’m working on getting better. My catty little tantrums usually last for a minute or two, and then I calm down and act like a rational human being.
This time, though, one of his bad habits tripped me off and I, feeling wounded and aggrieved, went to bed not speaking to him and sulking quite thoroughly about it. The next day he came to me wanting to talk things out; he’s the peacemaker in our relationship, and I love him for it and for how he can make me smile no matter how angry I am. Over the course of me explaining (in adult fashion, this time, though we can all be a bit childish when we’re upset) just what it was that upset me, the following exchange ensued:
“I’ll try to change that, Adri.”
“Men don’t change. If you need to change a man, then you shouldn’t be with him.”
Some of that was my guilt over being a brat talking, but that really got me thinking, you know? Because sometimes that’s true, sometimes it isn’t. I’m trying to change my bad habits for him, he’s trying to change his bad habits for me, and on both sides the things we’re trying to change would be bad in any relationship - not just with each other. We aren’t trying to change each other as people; we’re willingly acknowledging our own flaws and saying “I know this bothers you, so I’ll work on it if you’ll be patient with me.”
But it got me wondering: how much change is too much? You hear stories of people in relationships where their partner basically took them on as a project, making over not only their look and style but their entire personality and daily routine. Sometimes you hear of these people being grateful for it. More often, however, the beleaguered significant other feels trapped, caged, as if he or she cannot even be themselves and must be on performance always in front of their partner, only relaxing when their taskmaster/mistress is not around. That sort of situation, whether it’s a total makeover or just the reformation of a single trait, can lead to resentment and one miserable partner.
Where do you draw the line between healthy change and forced-march reformation? How do you know if the changes you’re discussing are compromises for the sake of yourselves, each other, and the relationship…or if you and your partner are forcing each other into unnatural behavior in order to make each other happy, while making yourselves miserable? I’d like to think that my boyfriend and I make each other happy, and that these little habitual changes that we’re both working on are safe, comfortable compromises. But how can one tell?
I can only tell you the criteria by which I judge. First, if the behavior is harmful to your partner, harmful to you, or harmful to your relationship, it most likely needs to be evaluated and discussed with your partner. No matter what you do, you can’t force change on your partner; they have to assess the situation themselves, decide if they agree or not, and be willing to change on their own. Ultimatums are not the way to go; “fix this or I’ll leave” is just another way of forcing something unwanted down your partner’s throat. If the two of you can have a mutual exchange about the issue and your other half willingly says, “I know this bothers you and understand that it’s harmful, and I want to change this habit for the sake of our relationship” (or something similar) then you’re in the clear.
Keep in mind that it’s going to be slow going, and they can’t ditch a habit overnight. Keep in mind, also, that they may have a habit or two they’ll want to talk to you about, as well. Be open and willing to consider. Hell, working on your bad habits together can even help to bring you closer. It works for me and for Darling Boyfriend. At this point we even have inside jokes about it, although obviously we still get in the expected kerfluffle now and then.
Also keep in mind that changing that habit can’t be the central focus of your relationship, and you can’t watch them like a hawk and make them feel as if they’re being judged every moment on whether or not they’re really trying to ditch the little behavioral trait. If all you can focus on is that one bad habit without appreciating the good things, then there are bigger issues in your relationship that you need to pay attention to. The issue of the bad habit should only be an issue when they do it again. Otherwise, forget about it.
You’ll notice the key word I’m using here, over and over again, is habit. I’m talking about changing something your partner does, not changing who your partner is. You can’t really change one person into another person, and you’re just going to make them unhappy if you try. If you need to change your partner into another person, then really, you just need to be with another person. Asking them to do something like show a little more affection now and then shouldn’t be a big deal. Asking them to completely change their life goals to suit your idea of what they should be?
Big deal.
Those are just examples, but they illustrate the basic idea. The main factors here are scale and impact. How big of an issue is this, and what impact does it have on you and your partner? How much change will this issue require, and what impact will the attempted change have on your other half? In the end you have to take each situation one at a time, pick your battles, and always - always - be willing to talk these things out with your partner before turning a minor twitch into a fatal and criminal flaw for which you constantly berate them. Remember that you aren’t perfect, either, so before you start judging your partner…as the saying goes, “physician, know thyself”.
I’ve been phrasing this in the contexts of gay and lesbian relationships, but in the end that applies to all relationships. Some change can be healthy, and compromise is required in all relationships. Are you willing to compromise? Is your partner willing to compromise for you? Do you try to change your partner?
Do you think you can - and do you think you should?
As we are wont to do around here, before we get down to ranting about today’s topic, let’s take a moment to pause and tip our hats in respect to Tammy Faye Messner. She had the soul of a great humanitarian and the make-up of an utterly fabulous drag queen. What more could anyone want out of a human being?
(Madrid) A Spanish judge has ordered a woman to either enter a relationship with a man or turn her children over to her former husband after the court was told the woman is a lesbian.
Judge Fernando Ferrin Calamita said that having a lesbian mother would harm the children and “raised the risk” that the girls would also become gay the EFE news agency reported Monday.
“It is understood that [a parent’s] drug addiction, child abuse, prostitution, belonging to a satanic sect or heterosexual affair would negatively affect the children and serve as a reason for a change of custody. Well, it’s the same with homosexuality,” EFE quoted him as saying.”
Everyone say it with me now: no.
I don’t even know where to begin saying how wrong this is - and this in a country that has fully legalized same-sex marriage and adoption, too. Hell, forget adoption issues - these girls are the woman’s own children and she’s being told she’ll lose them unless she runs out and shacks up with the first guy available?
What year is this again? How do people like that judge still exist in civilized countries in the twenty-first century? To compare homosexuality to drug addiction, child abuse, prostitution, and satanism is insulting, bigoted, and more than anything else, downright ignorant. It’s sheer ignorance to continue to perpetuate these views that homosexuality is both a sin and a fatal flaw rather than a result of biology. It’s neither a good thing nor a bad thing; it’s just there. It happens, it’s part of who you are, and it’s no more a positive or negative trait than your bloody effin’ shoe size. The only bad thing about not having the average shoe size is that it can be hard to find nice shoes in your size. The only bad thing about not having the average sexual orientation is that it can be hard to find nice partners in your preferred gender. Get it? Got it? Good.
Furthering that ignorance by thinking that having a lesbian mother will make the children gay is downright preposterous. The only way that her lesbianism could influence the children to be gay is if it’s a genetic trait (it could be, we don’t know) and in that case, you could inundate them with all the heterosexuality that you want and they would still grow up to be lesbians if the genetic predisposition is there. Just seeing their mother as a lesbian isn’t going to do it. Hell, seeing my parents in a hetero relationship (and seeing my sisters in multiple hetero relationships, oi, those girls) didn’t make me straight, did it?
Hell, let’s twist things a bit. I grew up as the only guy in a household of women, since my dad wasn’t around much during my childhood. I spent my life watching my family members get into romantic relationships with men. Who’s to say that that didn’t influence me into thinking that since everyone in my family gets involved with men, I should too?
There. Exposure to heterosexuality in the home as a child made me gay. Seems silly and nonsensical, doesn’t it? So why can’t people grasp that the same argument for homosexuality is just as ridiculous?
Does this judge even realize that he’s basically forcing this woman to prostitute herself? She finds a man, she gets paid - only not in cash, but in the custody of her children. So even while likening homosexuality to prostitution, he’s basically creating a situation of enforced prostitution. That’s great. Bet he thought that one through real well.
And let’s not forget how this is going to impact the children. Is that going to be a happy home, in which those children are forced to see their mother in an involuntary relationship? The man may be a friend, an old lover, or a total stranger, but the end result is still the same: a fraudulent and unhappy relationship that will bring someone into those children’s lives that has no business being there. This man will interact with these children every day, possibly aid in raising them, and who’s to say what kind of person he might be? He may be a great guy, perfect father type, nurturing, sheltering…or he could be some shiftless loser that the mother picked up out of sheer desperation - someone who could harm those girls in many ways. It’s a risk, one that threatens the safety and happiness of the girls far more than the mere “abomination” of allowing them to grow up in a home with an openly lesbian mother.
Good lord, people. I will never understand anyone so hateful and hidebound that they can’t let go of prejudices to see common sense. These sort of people are wont to say that we, homosexuals and our advocates, are blind and if we would only open our hearts to God, we would see the truth of our actions and our sins.
I’m telling you right now that my heart is open. My heart is open not to any god, but to the people around me. And my heart doesn’t need a set of rules telling me who is or is not worthy of my compassion, or who is or is not worthy of my respect for another human being.
And my heart can see, very simply, that homosexuality is not a sin, not an abomination, not a harmful choice such as drug abuse or prostitution…or vile and violent hatred of another sect of humanity on such bigoted and baseless grounds.
I only wish that more could understand that - not only for the sake of this mother and her children, but for the sake of people of all orientations, everywhere.
All right, maybe that’s a bit of a lie. I just didn’t find I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry to be all that great, although I always find Kevin James to be adorable (I loved him in Hitch). Even without Sandler the film would have been predictable slapstick humor. With Sandler? It was just downright annoying, but that’s personal bias. I hate Adam Sandler - while the boyfriend, featured telling me to stop talking in the bloody theatre, loves him. I don’t know what it is; it’s not the crude slapstick humor that is his trademark, as that kind of thing really doesn’t bug me. Something about his voice just grates on me, and only love (and a little bribery) will actually get me into the theatre to see one of his films.
The film wasn’t a complete and total waste of time, and you’ll find some parts enjoyable (no spoilers here)…but overall it didn’t elicit a very strong reaction. I wasn’t horribly amused, I wasn’t horribly offended, I wasn’t horribly touched, I wasn’t really much of anything other than bored and horribly annoyed by Sandler’s voice. If I were you, I’d save my money and rent it when it hits BlockBuster/Netflix/whatever.
Oh, man, I haven’t done one of these in a while, have I? I’ve had a bunch of letters sitting on the back burner and they kept getting pushed aside for various current events. Well, it’s a bit of a slow news day (or it’s the Friday of a long week and I’m feeling too lazy and burnt-out to trawl the headlines or create my own), so let’s root around in the mailbag and see who today’s victim topic is.
Adrien,
I’m not sure, but I think I might be gay or bi. I’ve dated girls all my life, but keep looking at men. It’s not that girls turn me off, but men turn me on more sometimes. But sometimes they don’t. I get confused there. The men I’m attracted to are feminine and very pretty. Maybe I’m straight and attracted to feminine things. But I like dick too. I’ve experimented a little and girly guys get me off but I like butch girls. I don’t like butch guys. I’m really confused and don’t know if I’m gay. How did you know you were gay?
-Mix in NY
Weeeeeell, that’s kind of a funny story that I’ll try to keep brief so we can focus on you instead, mmkay, Mixy m’boy?
My best friend told me.
I sh*t you not.
I was thirteen years old and my best friend was this girl named Trish. Pretty, popular, annoyingly perky as all hell with a tongue that could cut like razors. Me? I was working my way towards being a teenygoth, bad poetry and all, although I never went for the makeup and the spikes (that phase came later). Just the dark clothing, long hair, sullen looks, and the floridly awful “my soul is dark” writing. She belonged out in the light. I belonged pressed up against the wall glaring at everyone who tried to talk to me because I was utterly socially maladjusted and far too shy for social interaction, so I hid it behind defensive anger. We’d never have been friends if she hadn’t decided, one day in P.E. class, that we would be. Just like that, she sat down next to me and said that she liked my attitude, and we were going to be friends.
Trish…was not someone that you said no to. And I tried. Oh, gods, did I try. The girl practically stalked me until I gave in, and you know, we turned out to get along really damned well once I stopped being a surly arse and she stopped nattering at me all the time. And that was when she told me “hey, you. I think you’re cute, so we’re going on a date.”
Again, Trish was not someone that you said no to. And so despite my absolute flabbergasted confusion and reluctance, we went on a date. We went to a movie, we held hands, she dropped a million hints at me to kiss her in the movie theatre and I missed every last one of them until she smacked me upside the head with a cluebat and kissed me.
And I felt nothing. Except a little panic, maybe, but my toes didn’t curl, my little budding teenage hormones didn’t bubble and froth, my little…well, you get the idea. I tried to kiss her back, but she might as well have been kissed by a cardboard cutout. I just wasn’t into it. It had been something I’d run up against rather often when other boys were talking about girls as they started growing out of their “girls are icky” phase. I didn’t think girls were icky, but I wasn’t that interested in the blossoming contents of their training bras, either. I wasn’t quite sure what I was into, and although I’d glanced at a few boys before, I was too sheltered to know that it was even possible to be attracted to other boys. I thought I was just looking at them because they might be nice to draw, sometimes. I had sketchbooks full of profiles.
Well, Trish shattered that illusion. She kissed me once, she kissed me twice, then she gave up in frustration and said, “I knew it. You’re gay. Damn it, I had to try anyway.”
“I’m…what?”
That’s right, kids, I had no idea what homosexuality was. At thirteen years old, in the early nineties. I told you I was sheltered. Trish had to explain it to me, while I squirmed and blushed and tried to deny it even as I thought back to the number of other boys I’d quietly studied and conceded that she was probably right.
I didn’t accept her verdict blindly; I spent a long time thinking it over, and for years after tried to remain flexible about the idea until my hormones stabilized and I knew what it was that I was really attracted to. It took a little experimentation on the side, too. Kiss a few more girls, kiss a few boys, see which one set off the butterflies in the stomach. But Trish was the one who opened me up to the idea, and made me stop and take a good look at myself to realize.
So there you go. There’s your answer as to how I knew; now let’s talk about you.
Yours sounds like a very iffy situation in which I don’t want to concretely tell you that I think you swing one way or the other. Most solid and safe thing to go with is bisexual - in other words, stop worrying about if you’re gay or straight and just do what you want with the people you’re attracted to regardless of gender. We place too much importance on sticking ourselves in one box or the other. Forget the bloody effin’ label, man, seriously. You like what you like. Stop worrying.
I mean, c’mon. I say I’m gay, because mostly I’m into men. But every once in a while a girl can turn my head, and it doesn’t rock my world because the adhesive on my label may be peeling just a little bit. If you need the label of bisexual to help stabilize your world so you can come to grips with the fact that you’re not 100% hetero, that’s fine. It helps some people to have a specific way to identify themselves until they get comfortable with their own identity and can stop focusing on it as a world-turning issue. But don’t cling to that label so hard that any tiny shift of it causes your world to go completely off-kilter.
Date your girly boys. Date your butch girls. Enjoy whatever it is that draws you to either of them. If you’re worried about one day settling down with one gender but being worried that you’ll still have a desire for the other, thus making your long-term relationship inadequate…9/10, you won’t face that problem. If you’re comfortable enough with someone that you settle with them for the long term, then they’re most likely fulfilling your needs adequately enough that unless something in your relationship dynamic changes drastically, you won’t need to seek fulfillment elsewhere.
And you know, maybe you are gay and you’re just starting to find your way towards that, leaning away from women and taking slow, progressive steps towards men, and the fact that you’re attracted to more feminine men is confusing you there. If that’s the case, that’s fine, too. Just keep in mind that you don’t have to jump in with both feet and you can keep playing both fields until you’re 100% sure exactly what it is you want. No one’s judging you but you, so it’s okay to be a bit lenient on yourself, be a bit confused, experiment a bit, and change your mind if you feel like it…but do have a bit of consideration for those that you experiment with as you try to find yourself. Don’t break too many hearts on your way to learning your sexual orientation.
The basic gist of all of those is to just let things happen naturally. Destress, Mix. Don’t worry about issues of attraction until you’re faced with someone you’re attracted to, and then take it on a case-by-case basis. Deciding something arbitrarily is just going to confuse you even more, anyway, because no matter what your head says your body’s going to make up its mind without consulting your primary thought processes - and then you’ll be stuck in a war between the two, trying to force your cock to adhere to what your brain has decided when it really doesn’t want to.
Most women will probably kill me for telling you this, but y’know…sometimes it’s okay to let the little head lead. It knows what it wants even when you can’t consciously figure it out.
Still confused? Yeah. So am I. It’s a brain-burning issue, trying to sort out what goes where and with whom, and it’s different for everyone. The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter at what moment you know that you are or aren’t gay, because you and your life are changing every second and something might just come along to rock that later.
So don’t worry about that defining moment. Worry about this moment, right here, right now…and just live in it.
Have a good weekend, because I am out.
~Adri
Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.
Sorry I’m so late in updating today; it’s been a bit of a rough morning on the Adri front - and while I found it quite interesting that Yasser Arafat apparently died of AIDS most likely contracted during a homosexual relationship, I did not need to cruise the news to see this:
“MATTHEW SHEPARD, Entered Hell October 12, 1998, at age 21, in Defiance of God’s Warning: ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.’ Leviticus 18:22.”
Three guesses as to who that came from, first two wrong ones get you smacked with a frozen trout.
That’s right, our wonderful Reverend Fred Phelps. That right there is the proposed text of a monument that he keeps trying to have erected in Casper, Wyoming, alongside the new city monument representing various historical governing documents. Apparently desecrating the dead ranks right up there with the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and other texts that have become borderline sacred on U.S. soil.
That man can’t stay out of the news and he just can’t stop beating a dead horse, can he? Why is Phelps so desperate to deface the memory of a boy who lost his life so tragically? Does he have no compassion for his family, or even for the loss of another human being?
Nevermind. This is Phelps we’re talking about here. Of course he doesn’t. That man is a scourge upon the face of mankind, a rotting chancre of hatred festering upon the flesh of the earth. He is everything that he decries, and then some: a hypocrite advocating hatred, advocating atrocities against human beings, in the name of his idea of what a Christian God wants. The man is severely twisted and I only hope that one day, somehow, he wakes up enough to understand the madness that he’s been perpetuating through his acts and through what he teaches his family and followers.
Let Matthew Shepard rest in peace. Let the VA Tech victims rest in peace. Stop being a coward, Phelps, and attacking the dead who cannot fight back…or you may come to regret it more than you think. Cross the wrong lines, and the living will fight back on their behalf, and one day you may incite backlash that you cannot handle, no matter how richly deserved.
And frankly, I don’t want to besmirch my karma by wishing that on you.
(Montgomery, Ala.) The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the owner of the Wales West RV park in Silverhill, Ala., today demanding that it stop discriminating against people with HIV. The RV park banned a child with the disease from using the swimming pool, showers and other common areas of the park without his parent’s obtaining a letter from a doctor.
We’re going to avoid the wailing “but it’s just a chiiiiiiiild” angle since that’s just a cheap ploy on emotional heartstrings, although I doubt if this were an adult case it would have gained as much attention. The main issue that I’m focused on is the fact that an HIV+ positive person is, yet again, being treated like a leper due to ignorance.
You would think, in this day in age, people would be more educated about the reality of HIV and AIDs. HIV/AIDS requires concentration in hospitable bodily fluids for transmission - the primary fluids being blood and sexual emissions. You can not contract HIV/AIDS from:
holding hands;
kissing;
touching a handrail touched by an HIV+ individual;
using the same toilet as an HIV+ individual;
using the same shower as an HIV+ individual;
even kissing an HIV+ individual.
Considering the devastating effects that HIV has on the human body, it is surprisingly weak outside of a hospitable environment. Skin cells, saliva, and water do not count as a hospitable environment; there is almost 0% concentration of HIV in your average HIV+ patient’s saliva or skin, and HIV is not an airborne or waterborne pathogen. In the air, in plain water (don’t even get me started on chemical-inundated water), HIV will die.
Sexually transmitted disease. Do you understand this concept? There must be blood-to-blood contact or inundation of major bodily fluids on mucus membranes. So frankly you should not be worried about an HIV+ two-year-old in an RV park unless you really think some of your tenants are that interested in having sex with a two-year-old…and in that case, you’ve got much bigger problems. There is a very thin possibility of blood-to-blood infection; children are prone to falling and injuring themselves, especially when playing with other children. But do you really think this child’s foster parents are going to let that happen? Do you really think they won’t shadow that child everywhere and make sure that he doesn’t suffer so much as a single scratch? HIV+ children are in an already fragile state of health and require constant supervision.
So what are you afraid of? Are you so swayed by the propaganda about HIV/AIDS, the so-called “gay sex disease”, that you’re going to discriminate against someone who contracted this disease through no action of their own without truly understanding what you’re “protecting” people from? Do you even know what it is that you’re guarding against, or just following blind prejudice under the guise of playing the CYA game? Yes, you’ve got to cover your arse and think about liability and the safety of other tenants, as well as think of any possible legal angles. I understand that perfectly well, and in that case I can understand asking the parents of the child to take certain precautions.
But to bar the child from public areas of the park until the parents obtain a doctor’s letter? I don’t see that doctor’s letter as an olive branch, or even any sort of compromise. It’s an insult. It’s a bloody effin’ accusation.
The HIV+ are not lepers, and they shouldn’t be treated that way.
Educate yourselves. You’ll be a better person for it.
I’ve heard it a dozen times. This time I was in an all-night diner down the street from my apartment, sating a random three a.m. craving for something hot and greasy. At a table behind me, three guys and a girl were talking about “those gays”. Nothing particularly bothersome; just a little gossip about “Well you heard about what Isaiah Washington said” and “did you hear now they think _______ is gay”? The typical celebrity-centered discussion that you expect to hear in a pop culture society.
Then one line caught my attention, however. I don’t know which one of them said it; I had my back turned to them, and wasn’t that into their business. I had a book, coffee, and hash browns; my world didn’t need to expand beyond that sphere. Therefore I would have been quite happy not to hear,
“I ain’t got no problem with them gays as long as they don’t hit on me.”
My eyes stopped on the page, freezing on a line of C.S. Friedman’s eloquent prose with little mind left to appreciate it. I knew I should keep my mouth shut; it wasn’t my conversation, wasn’t my business, and his views didn’t affect me. But you know me - sometimes I just can’t bite my tongue. The best I could do was keep my voice down to a grudging mutter as I glanced over my shoulder.
“Trust me, you don’t have to worry about that.”
I didn’t think it would be heard. It was. Even as I turned around, snickers rose as that same voice said, “What? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You figure it out.”
Thankfully their waiter returned right then and cut things off, or I could have been in trouble: a lone man against four unknown entities who might want to engage in intelligent debate or might want to drag me into a back alley and pistol-whip me. It probably would have served me right if I got yelled at for opening my big mouth and butting into someone else’s conversation, in truth. I just couldn’t hold back, because what I heard was an echo of a sentiment that drives me out of my bloody mind.
“I don’t have any problem with gays as long as they don’t flirt with me.”
This completely baffles me, and yet I’ve seen reflections of it everywhere. I know women who are perfectly fine with gay men but who are terrified of lesbians because they think the girls are going to lose control and start pawing all over them. The same with some guys; they’re fine with lesbians (in fact, they only wish they could get between that for a little fun) but the second you bring a gay male in range, they’re guarding their arses and loudly proclaiming that they have girlfriends/wives/blowup dolls with the requisite three loving rubber holes instead of two.
It really makes me wonder what these people are thinking. Do they think there’s a shortage of people of our own sexual orientation for us to flirt with? Do they think we’re somehow subhuman, that being gay removes any sense of social restraint and the moment we lock eyes with something of the same sex we lose all control and attack? Do they think they’re that gorgeous that the mere sight of them triggers the leg-humping instinct?
Whatever’s going on in their minds, I wish I could just break the news to them:
You’re just not that hot.
No matter how attractive you are, you aren’t so amazing that anyone is going to lose control of themselves around you, gay or straight. Sure, you may get flirted with. That’s part of being human; you aren’t wearing a big sign on your forehead that proclaims your sexual orientation, so every once in a while you may get noticed by a gay person - same as a gay person will inevitably be on the receiving end of flirtatious attention from members of the opposite sex. It happens. It shouldn’t be a matter for the national news.
I sincerely doubt that anyone’s pelvis will be gravitating towards your Achilles tendon any time soon; believe it or not, gays do have enough dignity not to engage in wanton leg-humping even when the attention is invited. We’re just like everyone else; make eye contact, flirt a little, and if interest isn’t reciprocated or the object of our curiosity doesn’t swing our way, we move on. We don’t attack. We’re people, not rabid animals in heat, and we can hang out with members of the same sex regardless of orientation without sex or attraction being an issue. It’s called being friends.
So get over yourselves, will ya? You’re not the only fish in the sea. Plenty of straight people who receive flirtatious attention from members of the same sex take it as a compliment. “Hey, I’m really flattered you find me attractive, but I’m into the opposite sex.” That’s the graceful response. That’s the normal response. “OHMIGAWD HE’S LOOKIN’ AT ME HIDE ME BEFORE HE TOUCHES MAH BUTT!!!”, however, is not.
So grow up, get over it, and learn to say thank you. We’re all adults here. If you’re so insecure in your own sexuality that you can’t handle innocent, curious flirting, then you’ve got bigger problems to deal with than someone saying “hey, he’s/she’s cute.”
I know I already ragged on this one verbally a bit, but I couldn’t resist taking one more little stab at it. There’s your sleepless nights, buddy.
Sorry for the crap art, but I wasn’t feeling well last night and when Adri feels like crap, he draws like crap. Hopefully the color makes up for it at least a little.
It is so hard for me to even pretend to be a good person when the grand play of American politics loves to give me things to cackle over in malicious glee. Although frankly, on more sober reflection, that glee turns out to be short-lived.
(Titusville, Florida) A co-chair of Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in Florida has been busted for trying to pick up an undercover male police officer.
State Rep. Bob Allen (R), a foe of LGBT rights in Florida, is charged with offering the cop $20 for oral sex in a washroom at Veteran’s Memorial Park in Titusville.
Police said that Allen, 48, was seen coming in and out of a restroom three times before approaching the officer.
Anyone else having flashbacks to Ted Haggard?
It never ceases to amaze me that those who protest the loudest are often the ones who have the most to hide. Wise up, fellas. You aren’t fooling anyone and you aren’t diverting attention away from you; instead you’re drawing yourself under more scrutiny, and that’s why you eventually get shown up as hypocrites in a fashion that brings perverse satisfaction to all of the people that you’ve unjustly reviled.
There’s an old saying whose source I can’t remember, but it’s something like “you are what you fear the most”. That’s certainly beginning to prove true for a growing number of conservative politicians and leaders who decry homosexuality. Illicit activities have ranged from soliciting teenage boys in chat rooms to the famous line snorted from the phallus of some boy-toy or another.
I’m starting to wonder if the reason that this same group of people can’t distinguish between homosexuality, pedophilia, and drug usage is because they lump all of their personal transgressions into a single sin and label it homosexuality. The politician who solicited teenage boys online (why can I not remember his name?) no doubt labeled his attraction to young males as representative of all homosexual behavior, rather than his own pedophilia laid atop homosexuality. Ted Haggard denounced homosexuality as a sin that led to indiscriminate, unsafe sex and drug use - when instead those were his own personal crimes that he tried to blame on homosexuality as the cause. It’s a case of “the devil made me do it”, where the devil is the otherwise harmless trait of homosexuality. Hell, some people are even buying into that and making some insane arguments about Big Sodomy as an evil akin to Big Tobacco.
The truth is that personal accountability is falling by the wayside. Everyone wants someone or something else to blame for their own choices. No one wants to step up and say “I did drugs because I was weak and gave in to temptation, and made stupid choices”. No one wants to say “I have a sexually transmitted disease because I had indiscriminate, unsafe sex with multiple partners even though I was well aware of the dangers”. Instead they’d rather say “The evil of homosexuality made me do it. The devil came to me and tempted me, exploited my weakness, and used homosexuality to lead me down the dark path into deeper temptation”. And what does that give them? More ammunition to vilify homosexuality. Instead of saying “this person isn’t nearly as moral and upstanding as he/she claimed”, instead they say “this moral and upstanding person woefully fell victim to the demon of homosexuality”. No personal culpability at all, as long a there’s a convenient scapegoat that suits one’s personal ideology.
It’s hard to separate the truth about one issue when it’s constantly being conveniently tangled with a million others, regardless of causation. When detractors of gay and lesbian lifestyles only present our lifestyle in conjunction with negative acts that were the choice of the person, not their sexuality, it becomes impossible for an observing general public to judge that lifestyle objectively.
Bah. Now Jim Naugle has ammunition to claim that if Republicans are soliciting gay oral sex in Titusville bathrooms, then we gays must be having hot, raunchy orgies in his bathrooms, too.
There’s a down side to everything.
And one of the down sides to being American is that sometimes you don’t realize just how sheltered you are, or how good you have it. No, our country isn’t perfect. Yes, we do still have a long way to go in the area of civil liberties for those of all walks of life. But at least in this country we have the right to speak out to demand equality. At least we can live openly with our natural sexuality, should we choose…and even if we may not have all of the equal rights that we want, we can still openly say “I’m gay, and this is my partner” without engendering more than a little discomfort among those uncomfortable, some jeering, and threats of physical violence that thankfully only erupt into real violence in rare instances (though I would be happier if “rare” was closer to “nonexistent”). We rarely have to fear anything this terrible, though:
(Cape Town, South Africa) LGBT civil rights activists in South Africa are calling on the government to do more to end the growing number of attacks on lesbians in the Black townships following the brutal murders on the weekend of two women.
Sizakele Sigasa, 30, an outreach coordinator at the Positive Women’s Network and a lesbian and gay rights activist, and her friend Salome Masooa, 23, were tortured and murdered in Soweto.
Sigasa was found with her hands tied with her underpants and her ankles tied with her shoelaces, with three bullet holes in her head and three in her collarbone.
Masooa also had been shot to death.
Even while you’re bemoaning what you don’t have, remember to be grateful for what you do have. Be grateful that you live in a country where your way of life may not be universally accepted, but you do have basic rights that protect you, as a human being, from this sort of violence. You have protections under the law that discourage people who might otherwise act out against you, or we might have far more hate crimes than the current statistics report. In America, ours isn’t a perfect world. But there’s something called perspective, and the fact that we have the freedom to complain so loudly about our lot without more than verbal retribution reminds me to keep my actions and my arguments for the fight for gay and lesbian equality in a realistic and mature perspective.
Apologies if this post has been a tad rambling and disjointed. I’ve been writing it in snatches between running four loads of laundry (it’s been far too long since I washed, and I may not be single but I still live like a bachelor and the sniff test is still quite effective), being mildly freaked out that I almost ate a rather large spider on the way to the laundry room, and trying to sort out various morning thoughts without the aid of coffee. I’m all out of French Roast, folks, and don’t have time to run get more right now. Let’s hope I make time before Monday’s post or you may be treated to another deluge of mental effluvium.
Some days I seriously wonder what the hell is wrong with people. We’ve developed into a culture of blame, in which we seek fault with everything that doesn’t suit our world view simply for its existence and then demand recompense, regardless of any true damages, without facing the fact that the fault may well lie in ourselves.
A Bentonville, Ark., man is seeking $20,000 from the city after his two teenage sons found a book on lesbian sex on a public library bookshelf.
He also wants the library director fired.
Earl Adams said his 14- and 16-year-old sons were “greatly disturbed” after finding the book, titled “The Whole Lesbian Sex Book.” Adams said the book caused “many sleepless nights in our house.”
Some people are just looking for things to get pissed off about, I think. Especially if they think they can get a little cash out of it.
Considering the heterosexual male fascination with girl-on-girl action (which I really don’t get, but whatever floats your boat), trust me, honey, I really doubt that your sons were all that traumatized by what they were doing when they weren’t sleeping. If they’re anything like your typical teenage boys you can bet they were probably thinking about it already, and the book just gave them more food for thought. Why wasn’t he keeping an eye on what his kids checked out from the library, anyway? At that age it’s not necessary to police their every move, but it would take five seconds to skim the stack of books and check for any objectionable titles. Also, since when are the sex education books filed anywhere near the reference materials on military academies?
There are a few things in this that just boggle me. First, you can’t fault the library for making the book available to the public. That’s what libraries do, and to try to dictate which books are and aren’t allowed is a very common issue called censorship. There are plenty of books in your average library that someone will find offensive due to subject matter that conflicts with their personal beliefs - but if the book’s topic is clearly stated in the title and the synopsis and a person picks up the book and reads it anyway, then it is not the library’s fault if they’re offended. It’s theirs.
I will concede that you can’t exactly expect teenagers to exercise that judgment, but riddle me this: why were they looking at a lesbian sex book anyway? I sincerely doubt that’s what they went to the library for. If lesbian sex traumatizes them so much, then I imagine that they might pick up the title, glance at it for a second, then put it back and run to find Daddy. They wouldn’t keep looking through it long enough to cause…ah…’sleepless nights’. This just doesn’t fit. Placing blame on a public library for carrying books on every topic is like placing blame on Starbuck’s for carrying multiple flavors of coffee. Are you going to demand $20,000 from Starbuck’s because they gave your kids mocha coffee and you’re offended by the flavor?
Actually…pretend I didn’t say that. People like to sue because coffee is hot and I might give someone ideas they don’t need to be having.
Another thing that bugs me is that there are sex guides all over your average library. Marital aides, the Kama Sutra…oh, and let’s not forget the entire romance section, which does exist for sheer pornographic purposes. And yet Adams isn’t demanding the removal of any of these books. I get the sneaking suspicion (yes, you may laud my brilliance at grasping the obvious) that the sexual content isn’t the problem at all. It’s the homosexual content. If the boys had found back issues of Playboy in the library’s archives, the father would probably be laughing and calling them rascals. But since the books is about lesbians, apparently “God spoke to his heart” and told him to get it removed from the library.
This really touches on a pet peeve of mine. It drives me nuts when people take the approach that “wrong for me = wrong for everyone”. Adams doesn’t like a book on lesbian sex and so rather than choosing not to read it and telling his family that they shouldn’t read it, he instead wants to make sure that no one has access to it and therefore no one can read it, regardless of if the content is objectionable to them or not. It isn’t his right to make that choice for other people. That would be like me running around telling Christians that because I’m an atheist, they have to stop believing in God as well, for my own personal reasons. That’s not right. My choice was my choice - but just as I have my reasons for not believing, people who do believe have their reasons for that belief and they’re no less valid and no less worthy of respect than my own.
Just because Adams has his reasons for not wanting to read that book, others have their reasons for wanting to read it and wanting to keep it publicly accessible. Both of those reasons are valid. Both of those reasons can coexist without infringing on each others’ rights.
Now, to be fair: libraries do carry many books with adult content, even if it isn’t specifically pornographic in intent. But even if the books are intended for reference, they may contain content too graphic for young eyes, and yet they’re shelved within easy reach right next to all other reference materials. Many libraries have started putting stickers on the spine to mark what has graphic content, but perhaps it would be feasible to remove the books not from the library, but to an adults-only section of the library. That way they are still available to the general public, censorship-free, but can only be accessed by people of an age where if they pick up the book and get pissed off by it, no one can say anything other than that it was their own damn fault for not exercising a little control over their rampant train-wreck syndrome.
Richard H. Carmona apparently held back nothing when he spoke before a Congressional panel, telling of critical reports on issues ranging from second-hand smoke to abstinence-only sex education that he was prevented from releasing for political reasons. He faced ridiculous requirements such as the necessity to mention President Bush’s name three times on every page of his speeches, and was even discouraged from attending the Special Olympics because of a family that the organization is tied to. He was even told, “Why would you want to help those people?”
Read the full article if you want to continue being outraged. Apparently the Surgeon General’s office is no longer to be concerned with the general health and safety of the American public. Instead its purpose is to act as a mouthpiece for the administration, and to say whatever it takes to best sway American politics in the direction it “should” go.
A friend of mine responded to this with “America, wtf are you doing?”
I’d kind of like an answer to that, myself.
Before we sign off, please take a moment of silence to honor the passing of a fine former first lady, Lady Bird Johnson. May she rest in peace, and hopefully not turn over in her grave at the path that this country is veering down.
Anyone remember that whimsical little song? They’re coming to take me away, ha-ha; they’re coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-ha! To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time and I’ll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats! With any luck, members of the GBLTQ community will no longer have to worry about those nice young men just for discussing their sexuality with their mental health professionals. The American Psychological Association has a decade-old policy that has allowed for mental health professionals to view homosexuality as something that can and, at the discretion of the psychiatrist, should be ‘cured’ even if it isn’t classified as a mental illness. This is known as reparative or conversion therapy. The policy, however, is thankfully coming under review:
(New York City) The American Psychological Association is embarking on the first review of its 10-year-old policy on counseling gays and lesbians, a step that gay-rights activists hope will end with a denunciation of any attempt by therapists to change sexual orientation.
[...]The current APA policy, adopted in 1997, opposes any counseling that treats homosexuality as a mental illness, but does not explicitly denounce reparative therapy. The APA has decided to review the policy at a time when gay-rights groups are increasingly critical of such treatment and groups that support it.
Conservatives contend that the review’s outcome is preordained because the task force is dominated by gay-rights supporters.
I, for one, could not be more relieved. For the American Psychological Association to emphasize that homosexuality is not something that can or that needs to be ‘fixed’ should go a long way towards fostering acceptance in the United States. We are born this way, and we shouldn’t have to feel as if there’s something wrong with us for being the way that nature (or God, depending on your beliefs) made us. It would also be a slap in the face of ex-gay ministries…which is probably why many conservative and religious organizations are up in arms about this.
I don’t understand why they insist that reparative/conversion therapy remain a viable option; their argument is that therapists and other psychological professionals should retain practices that respect patients whose religious views conflict with homosexuality. I think it’s quite possible to retain a respect of those views in mental health/counseling practices without actually enacting conversion. It’s quite possible for a therapist to counsel a religious homosexual on their sexuality without engaging in possibly harmful therapy to turn them straight. A balance can be struck here; it just requires a willingness to consider both sides and a basic understanding of human rights.
I only hope that the review yields favorable results.
Moving on - if you’re not doing anything on the evening of August 9th, I hope you’ll be parked in front of your TV or your computer tuned into either the LOGO network or LOGO website. Both the channel and website will be broadcasting the very first ever presidential candidate debate dedicated solely to GBLTQ issues. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards will be participating; other Democratic candidates may also be involved. The broadcast is at 9 p.m. ET (6:00 p.m. ET) and I know I’ll be glued to LOGOonline, watching the streaming broadcast.
Anyone else wondering why the Republican candidates won’t be involved in that debate? [snrk]
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