What's Up

   There is an obvious and "old trend", if you will, to identify ourselves,
as gay people, purely by our sexual differences from straights.
Look at the graphic images in some of the advertising explicitly
targeting the gay consumer. What do you see? --mostly for men;
near nudity, ready for action, "studs".

   I'm a man, and I can only speculate, but I think men are naturally,
automatically stimulated by the image of an attractive person more
than women are. Still, you see a little bit of this for what I think is the
fringe within the lesbian circle too. No pun intended.

   I feel left out! I'm not at all attracted to the muscle hunks or the twinks.
Furthermore, I don't like the idea that being gay is only a matter of who
I get a woody for.

   One of the most beautiful things about a large collection of gay people
is the vast diversity within that group. Being gay is not cultural, racial, or
gender or age oriented. Gay people are as different from each other as
we are from anyone else on Earth. Yet, we share a common understanding
of what it means to be an invisible minority --a sub-culture. We all know
how it feels to hear anti gay comments in conversation, as though we
weren't even there. For as many different kinds of gay people there are,
there are as many different ideas of what is beautiful in other gay people.
Are all of those magazine ads attractive to you? If so, you are in a
sub-culture, within a sub-culture! More than likely, you view an ad for
what it is; a metaphor for your own sexual interests.

   Think of gay targeted advertising as the most visible means of gay
cultural identity to the straight population. As a whole, we constitute
around 6 to 10% of the population. Those ads depict only a tiny fraction
of what we are all about. A tiny fraction of a tiny fraction isn't much
representation is it? Wouldn't you rather see ads that shed a more general,
positive light on gay culture?

There are two comments I actually heard myself that I think are worth noting.

"Honey, I'm only gay when I jump into bed with another man!" --"What!?"

"This gay thing seems to be pretty popular. Didn't that start in California
in the late 60s?" --to which I replied, "It started at the beginning of time."
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