Question: is the term "gay culture" acceptable? Example: In my old neighborhood, the gay culture helped local theatres and independently owned restaurants to flourish.
It would be much better phrasing that thought as "In my old neighborhood, the gay residents helped...".
I met a person about a year who appeared to be male and self-identified as Gold Star Queer. When I asked what that meant, I was told that his dick never entered any orifice! He liked sucking dick and really liked being fucked. My son's ex-wife, after they divorced, came out. However, she describes herself as bisexual. She was married to a man for 17 years, now she is married to a woman. I always thought that Bisexual meant someone who was attracted sexually to both men and women. Am I wrong? I understand that many people eschew labels today, but we need some language in order to talk about human behavior. Art from LI
I am now an older, single male. I enjoyed having sex with a woman. In recent years, I discovered I enjoy sucking dick. What am I? I am looking forward to having sex with a man, don't know whether I am a top or a bottom or both. I could see myself, one day, in a three-way with a man and woman and switching off. What am I? Art from LI
Question: is the term "gay culture" acceptable? Example: In my old neighborhood, the gay culture helped local theatres and independently owned restaurants to flourish.It would be much better phrasing that thought as "In my old neighborhood, the gay residents helped...".
Agreed.
It would be much better phrasing that thought as "In my old neighborhood, the gay residents helped...".
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind and avoid the term culture, especially as a synonym of lifestyle. However, my former neighborhood with its abundance of gay residents really did create a positive culture that drew others in. It wasn't only the gay residents who supported the neighborhood restaurants and theatres. Their energy that was edgy but classy, innovative but grounded. What I admired was how accepting the neighborhood was of diversity. My church (which also had a lot of gay parishioners) would welcome a 19 year serving in full military uniform with the same warmth as a homeless teen who was banished by their small town family after coming out. Amazing.
SteveInKona wrote:"Gay Lifestyle" is a rather freighted political term, brought into circulation by gay rights opponents to argue against the idea of homosexuality as something intrinsic to the person. This is generally recognized in the gay community - consider the tag line: "It's not a lifestyle, it's a life."
There's truth in that, but it's not the whole truth. A person does not choose to become gay or straight or in-between, but he or she can choose whether to participate in a life that may favor one sort of sexual behavior or another, or identify themself as a particular flavor of sexuality. That's the De Santis myth: that if kids don't know about gay people or youths struggling with their sexual identity, there won't be any gay people or youths struggling with their sexual identity. Problem solved, he says. But forcing an issue underground really does nothing to make it go away.
Another thing: the gay community was demonized for being more promiscuous than the straight community. Maybe they were, at one time, when sexual liaisons could be made without the consequences of pregnancy or dealing with birth control. But two things happened in the last century to overturn that state of affairs: better and more convenient forms of contraception, and the advent of HIV, which made unprotected sex no longer a matter of convenience. I think that there's more of a parity in sexual promiscuity now than there was before, and less stigma attached to it.
And to that the fact that the people you're more likely to become intimate with are the people with which you have some social connection, like mutual persecution. Thus, religious boundaries were more rigid, as were ethnic boundaries. If I was a gay guy in the first part of the last century, I would have wanted to be with a person that totally understood my social situation. Now those barriers are breaking down, with people having relationships with folks their grandparents would have been appalled at: Blacks marrying whites, Jews marrying Christians, guys marrying guys, and gals marrying gals. I'm not saying it's all good now, but it's better.
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