The Amazing, Engaging, Technicolor World of Homosexuality Or just a sex act?
By Rory Lapointe

I'm angry. If you ever met me you probably couldn't imagine it. So normal looking, cute by some standards, funny by others. Young, out and proud, with blonde hair and blue eyes, a place on the next Pride float. But underneath the surface I'm angry, disenchanted, awakened...I can't hold it inside. I grew up the way most queers of my generation did; if you do the right things then it will all be good. I learned from all the available resources that if you were strong and believed in yourself, that by coming out a whole new world would open for you. All the magazines, books, and films showed a world of fun and engaging people; a lifestyle based on a sense of community and belonging that was fit for anyone who wanted to claim it. That by the virtues of honesty and truth, that somehow your life would be amazing, filled with joy and good things. Then reality hit like a bitch slap. Once everyone reacted, mostly positive, to my homosexuality then I was ready for my "gay" life to begin. I went to all the hip bars, the best clubs, the trendy support groups, the loudest gay rights' organizations. I volunteered for dance-thons, worked the party circuit, read the Joy of Gay Sex, went to the most popular gay rights rallies. I learned who made the best Madonna remixes, the right drinks, the rules of the dating game and how to be the most positive and fun gay male I could be. Over time though, I developed a sense of disenchantment. A feeling like all was not going to be "Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss" or, Lord forbid, "Queer as Folk". That all my time spent reading "Tales of the City" might have been better spent reading Helter Skelter. The disappointments began to build up and began to rattle around inside me and, in return, I began to wake up. Instead of some magical, San Francisco version Oz what I found was a place that, unless drunk or drugged up, left me with a sad, drained feeling. I found out that bars weren't these happy friendly places where people enjoyed themselves, they're places where all those games you thought ended in high school were still being played. That what was considered witty is just bitchy with a punch line and smile attached. How everyone is scared of approaching, much less addressing, anyone else which is ironic because we all want to be so straight acting.... (Guess what, real straight men have to approach their objects of desire!) That sex wasn't free wheeling good time, that even if you slept with someone it didn't mean they liked or respected you. That if you wanted to wait and not have sex on the first date then you weren't gonna have a second and that wasn't the only rule to this game. Dating was all based on the food chain, eat and be eaten and even then you weren't fit to be on some people's menus. That trying to make friends in most bars was like trying to give Jesse Helms a blow job-it ain't gonna happen. I learned being part of an organization didn't mean that we were all working for the same cause or that we even got along. It wasn't even meant for all of us, it was a world divided by the most shallow of things; age, race and gender do count when you're working for equality. I now know how much time it can take to pick a name for a group and how many different themes a protest can have-then not everyone participates becomes someone's pissed. I guess I feel like I was sold a bad bill of goods, an Armstead Maupin built illusion based on a "Will & Grace" mirage. "Out is what it's about!" All the books by the sexy sophisticated authors, the albums by the pretty boy songwriters, all this junk that was available to me at sixteen was just some big cover up. That somehow the gay community picked the perfect age, race, social status to be and that's what we all are. I don't see any poor, any Black, any twelve years' olds in the brochure and if you ask they'll tell you that they're the fucking leprechauns of the gay community. Except they don't exist at the end of any rainbow banner. And maybe part of it is the straight world's fault but we're the ones still lining up for the dream. The world said we were sad so the community threw a fucking parade for ourselves and gave it a flashy one word name. "Pride!" We took a lifestyle and gave it a soundtrack, some strong casting and suddenly we couldn't tell the different between the stage and audience. So maybe Gore Vidal had it right when he said that homosexuality was just a sex act and not a lifestyle-that we've all been building a movement out of the concept of waking up next to another penis driven mammal. That it's all really about the day to day of human existence-about paying bills, being lonely even when you're sharing a bed, not knowing if anything is ever going to change. That sex is just like phys ed, sweaty and tough and sometimes you're gonna be afraid to hit the showers. I just wish someone had bothered to tell me this instead of giving me some Spike Jonez directed, MTV spewing, Technicolor dream. Because in the end, I'm angry about this, this crap that we somehow are selling, not only to the straight world, but to ourselves. And it would be fine if we all wanted to be a community of Cleopatras, queens of denial, but it's about those kids coming up behind us. From their little teenage closets they're all seeing Oz when all we're really offering is fucking Kansas.