I'm going to say something to gay DUers that's really going to bum you out

[Paragon]

Not everything has a gay subtext.

Bummer, I know. It might've been cute to suggest otherwise for a while, but I think that particular affectation died sometime in the '90's. Seriously, it's tired - if not completely dead now.

Lord of the Rings - no gay characters. Batman & Robin - surprisingly not gay (even if the movie of the same title was). And if I happen to like a "gay"-sounding song, surprise -- that doesn't make me gay, either.

With outlets like Will & Grace and Queer as Folk and The L Word and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy and on and on, isn't it a bit childish and stupid and to play the "that must be gay" card with your straight friends? It's somewhere now in the neighborhood of telling knock-knock jokes; they stopped being funny a long time ago, but we tolerate it because for some unknown reason, it still makes you happy to tell them.

Really, I'm only telling you this for your own good.

Your friend,

A Liberal Straight Person

[freetobegay]

1. So whats your point?

On edit: that we live in a straight world & we should abide by your rules? Nice try, I'm out of the closet & I ain't going back in.

On second edit: A liberal Gay person.

[Paragon]

5. Who asked you to go back into the closet?

Just asking everyone to be a little more imaginative.

Damn, sensitive much?

[freetobegay]

8. It always starts out little

[Paragon]

12. See, overreacting is SO gay

That's a joke, by the way.

[freetobegay]

13. It's only a joke when a certain type of person says it.

In the context of this thread, I don't think so.

[Paragon]

16. You mean, like...people with a sense of humor?

From someone who has an outstanding sense of humor (one of my very few redeeming qualities), it isn't funny by anyone's standards anymore.

What is kinda funny is if I started looking for "straight subtext" in gay-themed stories and entertainment. However, chances are you'd find that insulting. How's THAT for a double standard?

[freetobegay]

21. Oh so now your putting words in my mouth?

"chances are you'd find that insulting. How's THAT for a double standard?"

Honey give it up your true colors are flying for all to see.

[nofurylike]

24. don't you see that's the point? we live drowned in straight subtext.

ask some straights to give an inch and you gotta complain about it?

and i don't see the jokes dying in the 'straight' entertainment media. seems that's where it's really flying wild.

wouldn't you agree that the real source of this 'epidemic' of gay humor is most likely people's not having been able to adventure there in the past...

without someone always becoming too uptight...

eh-hem....


peace

[nofurylike]

15. it seems that you are the oversensitive one.

sexual inuendo abounds, and no one protests "too much hetero..."

even though it IS! all too hetero, that is.

so?


peace

[Droopy]

2. So what brought this on?

Who cares if people like to read into things a little too much. It's purely for entertainment purposes.

[Paragon]

3. Isn't entertainment, um...entertaining?

Maybe my finger is no longer on the pulse of what's still funny, but I think the gay-subtext-joke has long since gone the way of the dodo.

[St. Jarvitude]

6. Speaking of reading into things too much

Check out the ass on that subject line. Yowza.

[Droopy]

11. Yeah

Kinda Freudian.

[jukes]

34. Droop

i agree. thread smells like flame-bait, & there's *way* too much of that bullshit going around. we need to contribute, not concentrate on hurting others.

that's why i stopt baiting lib xians; started in fun, but quickly saw i was hurting people i admire. i felt ashamed, & now leave them in peace to discuss their beliefs.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

41. Hey a CIB, cool

my husband has one of those.

[RodneyCK2]

4. Well let me tell you something for you own good...

not all gay people do this. You are generalizing and that simply won't do.

Now to address your point, ironically, I guess, I agree with you. I am gay/bi/whatever you want to label me and I get sooooooooooo tired of my friends assuming everything and everyone is, well, gay.

I guess to understand it, one must look at gay culture in general. Many gays tend to be persecuted, especially when they are younger. Coming out is not easy and very few places have support groups. Many gays still live in fear and in many ways in the closet. I assume they want to feel like they are not the only ones, more connected with main stream media, society and other individuals. What a quick and easy way to accomplish this, just point and out something as being gay.

[Paragon]

10. Fair enough, because...

...straight people use this line of "humor", too -- sadly, as a defense mechanism. (i.e. "Say, Bob - if he swings around New York in a skintight costume, does that make Spider-Man gay? Ohahahaha" and variations on that theme)

I'm just saying - as a form of humor, a generational touchstone -- it's over. Done. Dead.

Let's move on. Dot org. Dot com.

[tedoll78]

7. Haha!

This post is sooooooo gay!

J/K, lol!

I'm gay, and I often agree.. SpiderMan is not having a secret affair with OctoMan..

[freetobegay]

9. Yep it's no secret!

LOL.

[jdonaldball]

14. Not everything has a straight subtext

As a straight man, I'm tired of my friends assuming everyone is straight just because I am.
Can't they let straight people just be unique individuals? Why does everyone have to think of me as "straight"? I do have my own personality you know, aside from being straight.

(From a straight man trying to get all hissy.

[RodneyCK2]

17. Because...

we live in a society of labelers. Everything must be defined and put in a neat little box to understand it fully.

I say BALLS!!! Humans are more complex, open the mind and give us more credit, yeah.

[freetobegay]

18. Not to add insult to injury but

"Batman & Robin - surprisingly not gay", hate to break it to you, Adam West is Gay.

[RodneyCK2]

20. Adam West is gay, but...

I think the reference was to the characters. Although the show was modeled on high camp, everyone knows from the comic books, unless I missed the special gay issue, they were NOT in a relationship.

[Paragon]

22. Not to add injury to insult, but...

I was referring to Batman & Robin as comic book characters, not the campy TV series, not the Joel Schumacher nipples-on-the-Batsuit movies.

And if Adam West is gay, he sure fooled his wives and all those groupies he and Burt Ward boned back in the day:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001842/bio

...His last year of college he also married 17-year-old Billie Lou Yeager. Adam got a job as a DJ at a local radio station, then enrolled at Stanford for post-grad courses. Drafted into the Army, he spent the next 2 years starting military TV stations, first at San Luis Obispo, CA, then at Fort Monmouth, NJ. Afterwards, Adam and his wife toured Europe, visiting Germany, Switzerland and Italy's Isle of Capri. When the money ran out, he joined a childhood and college buddy, Carl Hebenstreit, who was starring in the kiddie program "The Kini Popo Show" in Hawaii. Adam would eventually replace Carl, but not the other star, Peaches the Chimp. In 1956, he got a divorce, and married a beautiful girl originally from Tahiti, named Ngatokoruaimatauaia Frisbie Dawson (he called her "Nga" for short). They had a daughter, Jonelle in 1957, and a son Hunter in 1958. In 1959, Adam came to Hollywood. He adopted the stage name "Adam West" which fit his roles, as he was in some Westerns. After 7 years in tinseltown, he achieved fame in 1966, in his signature role as Batman, in the wildly popular ABC TV series. (Though he has over 60 movie and over 80 TV guest appearance credits, Batman is what the fans remember him for.) The Batman TV series, which lasted 3 seasons, made him not just nationally, but internationally famous. The movie version earned Adam the Most Promising New Star award in 1967. The downside was the Batman fame was partly responsible for ruining his marriage; and he would be typecast, and almost unemployable, for a while after the series ended (he did nothing but personal appearances for 2 years). In 1972 he met, and then married Marcelle Tagand Lear, so he got 2 stepkids Moya and Jill; in addition, they had 2 children of their own: Nina in 1976, and Perrin in 1979...

[freetobegay]

23. Rock Hudson fooled alot of people also

So did alot of other people from that era who couldn't come out because it was sociably unacceptable.

Your serve.

on edit: Or was Rock Hudson not Gay also?

[Paragon]

25. Rock Hudson: One divorced wife for show, no children

Adam West: legendary lethario in his heyday, children and ex-wives all over the place.

But let's say he has since turned gay -- I think he'd appreciate the benefit of the doubt until he outs himself.

Damn - I'm straight, and I understand the protocol better than you do.

[freetobegay]

26. Duh!

He has outed himself!

I guess you don't understand protocol like you think you do.

ANyways getting back on topic see post #21.

[Paragon]

27. Link, please.

I googled "Adam West gay", and nothin'.

[lumberingbear]

36. I have a cousin who is gay....

and is presently fooling wife No 4. Hate to see him ruin his and her lives but I'm not interferring. Tells wives he can't preform because of blood pressure medication, but goes out and find quickies with guys.

I'm gay and I tell him, he is the one giving gays a bad name.

[scottcsmith]

19. So...what does it matter to you?

People can believe what they want. End of story. And your job in life is to tell people how they should act or react to a particular situation? That's pretty arrogant.

[Neshanic]

35. Thank you, nicely said Scott.

[freetobegay]

28. One last statement then I'm outa here

It's bad enough when I have to face some one who is prejudice, it's worse when I have to deal with it by someone who denys it.

[Paragon]

30. That's a tad immature, not to mention poorly spelled

If I deny being prejudiced (with a "d"), that wouldn't automatically make me so -- in fact, the prejudice is YOURS for making assumptions about my character. And as we all know, "It's bad enough when I have to face some one who is prejudice, it's worse when I have to deal with it by someone who denys it."

Oops. Well, good night -- and nice attempt at a dramatic exit.

[Radical Activist]

29. I still think its funny

and I'm straight. But, not when network and cable TV does it. That got old a while ago. Gay LOTR stuff on DU is funny. Jack on Will & Grace being such a flaming stereotype has become old and boring.

The only thing that REALLY got on my nerves was a lesbian friend back in college who kept telling me certain women were gay. I believed her because I thought she actually knew what she was talking about, and there was a pretty well connected gay and lesbian community on campus. As it turns out, half the time it was just wishful thinking on her part, and it caused me to not approach some very nice attractive women I might have otherwise asked out. doh!

[Paragon]

31. Well, to each his own, I suppose...

...but as Steve Martin said when Jimmy Carter was in office, "I don't make fun of Nixon -- it's all so old...it'd be like making 'Ike jokes'."

[Bridget Burke]

32. Clue: Don't blame the gays for all the gay subtext!

Have you ever heard of "fanfiction"? Have you ever heard of the subgenre called "slash"? It has nothing to do with "Mad Slashers", but started long ago with certain StarTrek fans who wrote "Kirk/Spock" stories indicating a level of personal interaction not actually depicted on the screen. Slash flourished with the invention of the Internet & stories have been written featuring all sorts of pairings (& other combinations). Please, don't look for these stories--you'll really get your boxers in a twist.



Most Slash writers & readers are het women. Scholarly papers have been written about Slash & "female empowerment", etc. It's really a sort of playfulness with sex roles, not a matter of "us" (righteous oh-so-straight, boy-I'm-straight, hey-I'm-really-really-straight folks) versus "them" (gays).

[RodneyCK2]

33. I am just waiting for Tom Cruise...

to come out. OH COME ON, it's a bloody joke. We all know he couldn't possible be the next Rock Hudson. Right, right...?

*evil snicker*

[jukes]

37. i don't think scientologists

are allowed to be gay; they'd "program" it out of him.

[RodneyCK2]

38. HAHAHAHA.....

You are probably correct.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

39. Well I disagree

I'm a straight person and I see gay subtext EVERYWHERE.

Why? Here's my theory. Human sexuality is not an either-or propositon, but rather a spectrum, a continuum, if you will. People fall all along the line between totally straight and totally gay. And very few of us fall into the totally one or the other categories.

For instance, if it's a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being totally hetero and 10 being totally homo and 5 being completely and totally bi, most hetero ACTING people would fall somewhere between one and five and most GAY acting people (as in their actions, relationships) would fall somewhere between five and 10.

Because our society is straight oriented for the most part, that part of us straightees that is a 2 or 3 or 4 has to come out SOMEHOW, so it comes out in subliminal sub-context in our popular culture. Of course there is also the factor of gay people putting it there, too. But the part of straight people that ain't so straight is okey-dokey with the gay subtext, too, since it IS a part of us, albeit a small part.

You're welcome!

P.S. Yes, I drive homophobes INSANE with that kind of talk!

[Paragon]

42. Well, like most things, you get out of it what you put into it.

I don't have blinders on - I just prefer to see gay subtext when it's there on purpose, not something I or someone else might be reading into it.

Subtext actually does serve a purpose in some of your better books and shows and whatnot. Applying gay subtext to (like you said) everything cheapens it.

And boy, is it cheap and tired and exhausted by now. That was my point.

[RodneyCK2]

43. Actually, this is called...

the Kinsey Scale and I agree with it and your statements. Good post mate...

[Malikshah]

40. As a gay man, I never saw the LOTR subtext

Rather I saw a lot of uncomfortable straight people who could not understand that two men could have a strong platonic relationship, very much like the WWI era officers and batsmen.

So--I'm calling out all the uncomfortable straight people

[Moderator]

44. Locking

Please refrain from posting inflammatory items.