By Pat Parker (1944-1989)
You know, some people got a lot of nerve.
Sometimes I don’t believe the things I see and hear.
Have you met the woman who’s shocked by two women kissing
and in the same breath, tells you she is pregnant?
BUT gays, shouldn’t be so blatant.
Or this straight couple sits next to you in a movie and
you can’t hear the dialogue because of the sound effects.
BUT gays shouldn’t be so blatant.
And the woman in your office spends an entire lunch hour
talking about her new bikini drawers and how much
her husband likes them.
BUT gays shouldn’t be so blatant.
Or the “hip” chick in your class rattling like a mile a minute
while you’re trying to get stoned in the john, about the
camping trip she took with her musician boyfriend.
BUT gays shouldn’t be so blatant.
You go in a public bathroom and all over the walls there’s John loves
Mary, Janice digs Richard, Pepe loves Delores, etc., etc.
BUT gays shouldn’t be so blatant.
Or your go to an amusement park and there’s a tunnel of love
and pictures of straights painted on the front and grinning
couples are coming in and out.
BUT gays shouldn’t be so blatant.
Fact is, blatant heterosexuals are all over the place.
Supermarkets, movies, on your job, in church, in books, on television every day
day and night, every place-even- in gay bars and they want gay
men and woman to go and hide in the closet.
So to you straight folks I say, “Sure, I’ll go if you go too”
BUT I’m polite so, after you.
—Pat Parker.
Well, see– it’s obvious that if you see a same-sex couple holding hands and you never before had a desire to hold hands with somebody of the same sex yourself, the next time you see your same-sex pal in a social setting, you simply will not be able to rest for all your steamy fantasies of mutual hand-holding. You know, it’s catching. Like colds. :/
There’s a little “someone is going to misinterpret this again!” bird on my shoulder. But I’ll try one more time:
And can I just say how sick I am of everything being about “the children?” Okay, I get you’re a protective parent. My question: why are queer folks and our sexuality the thing you’re *so* concerned about protecting them from–I mean just *seeing* it, knowing it exists–out of everything in this universe that you might want to be protecting them from?
Actually, it’s funny you should say that. I REALLY think you’re misreading the post. Gay people and their relationships (gays kiss and hold hands just like everyone else) are not what I’m protecting them from at all. Neither is the fact that gays have sex They’re young enough not to really go down the “sex” road at all (which is to say they don’t think or probably realize that I have sex). So the gay sex issue hasn’t come up yet, but it probably will as they age.
But it comes up in a normal setting. My big sister is gay; it’s been “normal” for them all their lifew. We hang out with my sister all the time (she and her wife have kids the same age as ours) and they’re at thte top of our list for people who would take my kids if my wife and I croaked. I’ve lived with her before and we may well again. Gay doesn’t bother me, or my children, at all. She’s just like their other aunts, except there’s no uncle around.
and, too: y’know, queer folks once were kids, too; and some of us would’ve been thrilled to know that, oh, hey, these people exist and seem to be happy; maybe someday…
Well, yeah, duh. What do you think I’m trying to teach my kids? Why do think I’d want to take them to a pride parade in the first place? Why do you think I like the poem? You think I’m asking one of their favorite aunts to not kiss, hug, hold hands with, or sleep with her wife just because they’re around? Don’t be ridiculous.
There seems to be a real inability to understand that this is a general statement.
Hell, i’ll flip it:
EXAMPLE A:
*I think violent rapists are absolute fucking deviants.
*Violent rapists are almost all heterosexual males.
*RESULT: This thought DOES NOT get read as “I hate males” or even “I hate hetero males”. Which IS correct, because I don’t. I hate rapists.
EXAMPLE B:
* I think people who perform overly sexualized acts in public are damn obnoxious.
*Those people are probably mostly hetero, though some easily identifiable subset of them are gay.
*RESULT: This, however, DOES get read as “I hate gays”. Which is NOT correct, because I don’t. I hate people who perform overly sexualized acts in public.
You know, I don’t want to beat on a dead horse here in this conversation, but I have to say I’m with Sailorman’s last comment.
I’m queer as hell, and I go to Pride festivals for two reasons, really, and two only, and they’re tied together.
I went to my first Pride ever only three years ago. To have such a thing in my hometown in rural Oregon was unheard-of. The number of LGBT role models or friends I had growing up I could count on a hand. Just to see a bunch of us in one place, not scared to be out, means more to me than I can say. When I was a teenager, the Gay-Straight Alliance met in the locked back room of a Planned Parenthood in the middle of the night for safety. The main thoroughfare, in broad daylight? It’s just breathtaking.
My partner didn’t want to go to Pride this year, because, as a city girl who’s been out most of her life raised in a supportive family, she just doesn’t see the point in going to another overcommericalized, drunken party. Me, I’m willing to endure the drunks and sponsors just to know I’m not alone, and to be really, thoroughly reminded once a year.
The second? I go to see the families. Really, honestly. I haven’t ever been to San Francisco Pride or New York Pride or Sao Paulo Pride or whatever. I don’t know what they do there, though I’ve seen pictures. Things are pretty tame, here in Portland. I think of Pride as a family event, and acting as though our community’s events can never be or shouldn’t be family events is buying into the hype of people who don’t want us to be exposed to children. Many of us have families of our own. And when I have children, I damn well want to be able to take them to a Pride parade and show them just how many kinds of people can be happy in the world, and let them know that no matter how they grow up, they’ll be loved and have a place in their family and the world. It would have done me vast good as a proto-queer kid to go to a queer parade or festival, to simply be exposed to the fact of queer existence. I wasn’t and paid hard for it. So I get all gooey and teary-eyed when I see folks with their kids at Pride, every time.
Maybe I’m a bit of a prude, but the fact is, I’m uncomfortable with really blatantly sexualized displays in public, too–not out of homophobia, which would be silly, but out of a simple sense of propriety. Maybe I’m small-town and old-fashioned, but I’m queer, too, really very. I don’t believe in stuffing elements of our community back in the closet, either. I have no issues with BDSM culture, except that I don’t get invited to enough of their parties. But on the one day where we all get to turn out on the street and meet each other and wave at the world to remind them we exist, I’d like to think we’re also doing a bit of outreach: not displaying how much we can assimilate, certainly, but at least showing how many ways we contribute to our communities, how strong our families are, how much a positive part of the lives around us we are.
I want to be able to bring my kids to Pride someday, and I will. If I have to, I’ll shield their eyes for bits of it. I’d still rather not have to. I wish I could bring my parents, some year, too, but they’re as nervous about overly-sexualized public displays as anyone. They’re fence-sitters, ideologically pro-LGBT, viscerally kinda uncomfortable, especially with exhibitionism. I think there’re a lot of such people, and I want them to have our backs, not take off running.
Good post, Little Light, and I agree completely.
I have a slightly off topic comment, about something that I’ve noticed that’s kind of mystified me.
I’m a queer, kinky, polyamorous male. Being kinky is at least as big a part of my sexuality as being queer, and being poly is as important as either. I think of all three of these as being part of “who I am,” not just “what I do.” They are essential parts of me. Not action, but identity. Many people I’ve spoken with feel similarly.
Through this conversation, a sentiment that’s been expressed more than once is that, if the debate about making a gay pride parade childsafe is to be held, it should be held by the GLBTQ community itself or the parade organizers, not by straight folks or onlookers.
Leaving aside whether I agree with that stance or not, my question comes is why that same standard doesn’t seem to apply to BDSM or polyamory? I’ve seen debates here and elsewhere in which much was made of BDSM not being ‘off limits’ for discussion, and feminists who would take much affront at homosezuality being called ‘perverse’ seem to have no problem with BDSM being called ‘abuse.’ I’ve seen similar discussions of polyamory as well (although not here thank goodness).
I don’t think that a discussion of what behavior is appropriate at a pride parade needs to be restricted to the LGBTQ community (actually, I think that’s silly. Parades aren’t private), but if it is, then heck, I want the vanilla folks to butt out of discussions of BDSM and the mono folks to butt out of discussions of polyamory.
Really . . . it’s like some people think that it’s out of line to discuss what I do on a public street but totally within bounds to discuss what I do in my bedroom. What’s up with that?
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