Finding someone who is genuinely outside your network is getting harder all the time
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Shallow and stupid. You, not him
I’ve noticed two things about gay life in London recently.
Exactly how to go about making gay public life better for us all, however, is a tricky question. On a small, intimate level, I think a good start would be to try treating each other with more respect, kindness and tolerance. While there is a lot of generosity and mutual support out there among gay people – I experience it daily, in part from people who read this site – I can’t help feeling we could all approach each other with a little more love and a little less judgement. I need to do this as much as anyone. In the past I’ve been quick to reject and slow to forgive, happy to dis people I didn’t know because they made me feel insecure, ugly or out of touch (even in print).
But if you want to change, where do you start? From my own viewpoint, here are some phrases and standpoints not all that uncommon among gays that I think we could all do with ditching.
1. “No Asians please: no offence, just not my type” on Internet profiles.
Totally unsexy. You, not him.
What so out of over a million Asian men in the world, you can confidently say that you don’t find a single one attractive? And are you really so constantly inundated with offers of Asian loving that you need to make an excluding banner statement making sure that Asian men don’t dare to join your club?
2.“Muscleboys are all vacuous idiots”
Really? So you’ve given every single one a personality and IQ test? Demonising a whole group of people because you suspect they don’t want to sleep with you is hardly a sign of intelligence.
3.“I have no respect for people who don’t look after themselves”
There are a thousand ways to “look after yourself” – say, spending time with your friends, enjoying food or studying – that have no visible effect on your body. To assume that exercise is the only way people can boost their health and happiness suggests that you are doing a poor job of it yourself.
4.“Why do so many Lesbians want to be men?”
Because they don’t. That some lesbians want to ditch a conventional feminine image that they find both oppressive and a bit silly on them is one thing, changing sex is another entirely. Just because some find female gender stereotypes a cage doesn’t mean they want to swap theirs for ours.
Wants to be a man. You, not her.
5.“I can’t stand politics, I just want to have fun”
Don’t we all want to have fun? Politics can sickening and dull, but ignore them and you may find yourself chewed up and spat out by the people who have chosen to act on your behalf.
6.“I can’t stand queeny gays. I only like real men”
Everyone has their fetishes, but stigmatising people you consider to be less than butch smacks of projected self-loathing– especially as so many “fem-haters” have a hint of campness to their behaviour that they’re unwilling to accept.
7. “Ewwww, this place is full of Breeders!”
Granted, it was straight people who started it on the prejudice front, but stigmatising people for fancying the opposite sex and having kids makes no one look big or clever.
8. “You don’t know the tracklist for Kylie’s new album and you dare to call yourself a gay man?!?”
For the record I AM familiar with the track list for Kylie’s new album (and quite like it), but the assumption that being gay automatically means a love of mainstream gay icons is a pain in the arse for the thousands who couldn’t give a toss about Liza or Gaga. Likewise the belief that all gays have an innate aesthetic sense makes shabby gays like me, with razor cuts, magnolia walls and beaten up furniture, feel inadequate.
9. “He/she’s such a fag hag / chicken hawk / muscle mary / rice queen etc”
There’s a venerable camp tradition behind a lot of these terms and no one wants gay chat to turn bloodless – but it’s depressing that, whoever you are and whatever you do, gay slang will find a way to make you sound ugly.
10. “Gays are just so shallow and dysfunctional – except my friends and me, we’re all lovely”
Bullshit – there is plenty of love and kindness out there. Seek and you shall find.
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