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  1. Valentine’s Day Edition: Amsterdam, Gay Politicians, and Tolerance for PDA

    February 14, 2011 by admin

               

    On a recent weekend trip to Amsterdam, I figured a responsible fag hag like me should swing by something called the Homomonument.  Located amidst the picturesque canal-front homes of the Keizersgracht,  the Homomonument is a subtle, barely noticeable collection of three stone triangles, one flush with the surface of the sidewalk, one slightly raised above the ground, one jutting into the nearby canal.  I nearly missed it when I wandered past.

    What, you were expecting something gaudy and garish, with flashing pink lights, mirror balls, and a recording of Barbra Streisand belting out showtunes as you walk over it?   

    Ok, fine:  the triangles are made out of pink granite.   But that’s about as camp as the Homomonument gets.

    The fact is, gays can be subtle when they need to be, and the Homomonument is appropriately subtle, given its somber significance.  The official placard reads:

     “The objective of the monument was two-fold: to serve as a memorial for the gay men and women who were persecuted and killed in the Second World War, and as a source of inspiration for gay men and women who ‘continue to suffer persecution today.’”

    Under the Third Reich, roughly 100,000 men were arrested in Germany for being homosexual, and up to 15,000 of them were sent to concentration camps, where they were subjected to hard labor and medical experimentation  (read: castration).  In the concentration camps, homosexuals were forced to wear pink triangle badges — a symbol and color which the gay community has since appropriated to mark a collective gay pride.

    In fact, right next to the Homomonument stands the Pink Point, a free information booth about gay and lesbian life in Amsterdam.  The Pink Point waves a rainbow flag from its roof, and right behind it looms the Westerkerk, the largest and one of the oldest Protestant churches in Holland, opened in 1631.   And there you have an example of Amsterdam’s legendary social tolerance:  the Church and the gay community co-existing peacefully, side by side.

    Stepping back from the explanation of the Homomonument, I noticed it was flanked by a poster for The Torture Museum, advertising a “Medieval Exhibition:  Punishment and Instruments.”  Hmmm…  so in one image, we had the Church, medieval instruments of punishment, and a memorial commemorating the persecution, torture, and killing of homosexuals by the Nazis…  You could have one heck of a BDSM fetish club right here, next to the Keizersgracht.  

            

    But that’s what I love about Amsterdam.  It’s a city which does not shy away from the sorts of unexpected juxtapositions crowding our contemporary, liberal world – religion, gays, medieval torture, Holocaust memorials, all next to each other.   

    In another part of town, the infamous red light district, the 14th-century Oude Kerk (Old Church) rang its 2:00pm bells just as I walked past.  On the other side of me, directly opposite the church, the lit windows of a brothel displayed a few bored-looking prostitutes .   I accidentally made eye contact with one of them, but I don’t think I was her target clientele….  (Like most red-light districts, the one in Amsterdam is largely male-oriented.)   

    But this is a country where prostitution was legalized in 1988, brothels in 2000, and gay marriage in 2001. It seems odd for me to even group gay marriage in the same category as prostitution,  but I guess by the standards of “normal” straight society, both fall into the seamy classification of “deviant sexuality.”

    This is also a country whose most influential right-wing politician in 2002 was openly gay.  I repeat: its most influential right-wing politician was a faggot.  Could you ever see that happening in the United States?  Pim Fortuyn rode to popularity on his anti-immigration, strongly anti-Muslim viewpoints.   The fact that he was even able to gather a socially conservative following despite being gay speaks miles about how advanced Dutch society is in terms of homosexual tolerance.  (Multicultural tolerance is another matter, given how popular Fortuyn’s anti-Muslim policies were.)  

    Pim Fortuyn was later assassinated in 2002 by a man who was a vegan animal rights activist.  He killed Fortuyn not because Fortuyn was gay but because he was arguably racist.  Now that’s what I call progressive.  

    What I mean is that in Holland, you don’t have vegans, feminists, gay rights activists, and multicultural activists all grouped together under the same pan-liberal banner.    They’ve advanced to the point where being publicly gay isn’t even a political issue anymore.   In the US, there are Republicans like Fred Karger, who is openly gay and launching a bid for the presidency.   But his chances are slim, since the Republican establishment is, um, not very gay rights-friendly.  But heck – even Barack Obama defines marriage as strictly heterosexual, even though he advocates same-sex civil unions with all the same benefits as a straight marriage.    

    Here in the UK, the same hetero definition of marriage still legally stands, although gay civil partnerships have been recognized since 2005.  Just yesterday, it was announced that the British government would work towards enabling gay civil partnership ceremonies to take place in religious settings.  Perhaps this will one day pave the way towards gay marriage in the UK… 

            

    But enough about politics.  One of my gay friends, “V,” explains that in Amsterdam, he feels much more comfortable with Public Displays of Affection (PDA) than in London.  Really?   This prompted me to run an informal poll amongst my gay Londoner friends: “Would you feel comfortable holding your partner’s hand in public in ALL parts of London?”  Answers ranged from “Not really” to “No!” to “OMG I’ve had beer bottles thrown at me in Bermondsey.”

    And it’s true.   A few years ago,  “V” and his boyfriend were holding hands in a popular pub in Piccadilly Circus.   Eventually, the bouncer came up to them and said: “I’ve had complaints that you’re making people uncomfortable, so I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

    Really?  In 21st century London?  Christ, if they did that to all straight couples holding hands, they’d be out of business.  

    Now that just strikes me as sad.  And rather hypocritical, because I’ve seen straight couples shoving their tongues down each other’s throats on the Underground and nobody seems to bat an eye.

    In contrast, I’d like to bring up the shocking story of Ian Baynham, a 62-year-old gay man, beaten to death in Trafalgar Square by drunk teenage girls.  They saw him holding hands with his partner and began to hurl homophobic abuse at him.  When their friend knocked him to the ground, the two girls, aged 18 and 19 at the time, kicked and stomped on Ian’s head and chest.  He died later of brain damage.   

    This took place in 2009, in the touristy heart of London.  I know the Third Reich was over fifty years ago, but those drunk English teenagers would have been prime candidates for the Nazi Youth.    Yes, we can all agree the Nazis were evil  and today’s current European governments  much more accepting of homosexuality, but it seems the public still has far to go in terms of tolerance.   The Metropolitan Police believe homophobic attacks are on the rise in London.  And gay civil unions may be legal, but if gay couples still get attacked in central London for holding hands in public, how tolerant are we really?

    I’d like to highlight the irony of all this on Valentine’s Day, a day when we’re all encouraged / brainwashed to publicly show our affection for our romantic partners.  In the same way that the Third Reich pushed a conformist love of the Aryan nation, retailers around Valentine’s Day push a conformist purchasing of champagne, chocolates, jewelry, expensive dinners, and tacky stuffed animals bearing unoriginal messages.   You WILL spend money on the one you love!!!, shout the Valentine’s Day Nazis.  You WILL gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes!!!  You WILL hold hands in public!!!!

    That is, of course, unless you’re gay.  Straight PDA is generally expected on Valentine’s Day.  Gay PDA is another matter.

    “It’s just hard to be romantic in public,” “V” says. “When other people start reacting weirdly to seeing an openly gay couple.  You want it to just be personal, between you and your boyfriend, but every public display of affection become politicized.”

    So yes, as I wrote in Paragraph Four, gays can be subtle when they need to be.  Often my gay friends feel they need to be subtle in showing their love for each other, even if they’ve been married for years, even if the straight couple next to them can get away with public handholding, kissing, and more.   I’m hoping Valentine’s Day might be a bit of an amnesty,  a day when we can strive to be more tolerant of romantic love in all forms, even while we’re hemmorhaging stupid amounts of money on gifts and dining out.  The one day in the calendar year when both straight and gay couples can get away with public displays of affection and not worry about getting kicked in the head by drunken teenagers.   

    Then again, on Valentine’s Day, all the disgusted single people might stage a mass revolt and start thrashing all the couples.  I find that concept rather satisfying….  Wait, did I say that?  I think I need to get myself to Amsterdam again.   After all, as a single person, I too must learn to be tolerant of couples.   Especially on Valentine’s Day.

    Category Gay Rights, Gays and Straights, Travel | Tags: | 2 Comments

  2. San Francisco: Cat Allergies and Black Swans

    January 17, 2011 by admin

                

    Over New Years, I was in San Francisco for a week.  I had the choice of staying with a straight couple with cats or a gay couple with a dog.  I opted for the straight cat-owners, who live in the hip-but-affordable area of the city known as “the Mission.”   By the end of trip, I had moved in with the homosexual dog-owners. 

    The truth is, I am horribly allergic to cats.  This in NO WAY MEANS that I, a fag hag, am also allergic to the straight coupled lifestyle.  Although, well, maybe — ahem…. Sorry, what was I saying? 

    But yes, I am genetically pre-dispositioned to sneeze when I am near cats, just as I am genetically predispositioned to HATE CILANTRO because it is EVIL.  (For you Brits, cilantro = coriander.)  And so after three days and nights of watery eyes and non-stop sneezing, I had to move in with a lovely gay couple and their fabulous rescue dog.

    Now on the last day of 2010, I accompanied my cat-owning friend and her boyfriend to one of those fashionable San Francisco boutique bike shops in the Mission, where can you mix and match the various colored parts of your very own made-to-order designer bike.  While they spent the better part of an hour designing a mock-up of a $1300 bike, I wandered into the curious store next door, which prides itself in selling a “nostalgic assortment of Toys and Games inspired by the Natural World and the Pre-digital era.” 

    This strikes me as an odd niche to specialize in.  As honorable as its intentions, I doubt how much a nine-year-old will appreciate his very own nostalgic Victorian wind-up monkey when all his friends are virtual-jetskiing on their Wii systems.  But maybe in San Francisco.

    Curiouser yet was the “vegan taxidermy” on display at the front of the store.  The creator of said vegan taxidermy had somehow used plant materials to build very lifelike models of extinct birds, such as the dodo, the passenger pigeon, etc. Placards explained the sad demise of each species of bird, no doubt providing a poignant commentary on the role we wicked humans play in sealing the fate of other animal species through our wasteful consumption and pollution.

    However, there was one bird species on display which had not yet become extinct.  This was the black swan.   Here I found a rather bizarre placard:

    “An estimated one-quarter of all pairings are homosexual, mostly between males.  They steal nests, or form temporary threesomes with females to obtain eggs, driving away the female after she lays the eggs.”

    What?!   When I first saw this, I had to make sure I wasn’t tripping.  (It was San Francisco, after all.)  Initially, I wondered if there was a homophobic subtext to this placard, as if to say: “Watch out for gay couples.  They will try to steal your kids.”   But wait — it was San Francisco, after all.  So more likely the store owner, vegan taxidermist, and clientele would be gay or gay-friendly.

    In which case, these foregrounded details on the black swan lifestyle had a different purpose.   As if to say: “See, look, homosexual behavior occurs in nature too!  And if they could, gay black swan couples would also try to hire a surrogate mother… only they can’t, so they just have threesomes and scare the woman away afterwards.”

    Some scientists believe that the off-spring of homosexual black swan couples survive better than those of heterosexual pairings.  And black swans are only one in hundreds of animal species which demonstrate homosexual behavior.  Others include sheep (easily impressionable), dolphins (see, look, intelligent!), lions (virile!), and of course, our highly-sexed fellow primates, the bonobos (will sleep with anything!).  There are a number of scientific books on homosexual behavior in animals, and one such book was even cited in a legal brief submitted to the US Supreme Court in the Lawrence v. Texas case in 2003, as evidence that homosexuality is not, in fact, “a sin against nature.”  As a result of that case, sodomy laws were eventually struck down in Texas and 13 other states.  So score one for the homosexuals!

    However, anti-gay rights groups often easily turn that argument around and claim that because homosexual behavior occurs in the animal world, this is proof that homosexuality is animalistic, and therefore un-befitting of humans. Score one for the homophobes! 

    Now to take things further, I’ll also mention the current film Black Swan by the indie wunderkind Darren Aronofsky. I’ve seen it, and since this is not a movie column, I’m not going to review it right here.  But there is of course a homosexual undercurrent running throughout the film, culminating in a notorious lesbian make-out scene between rival ballerinas Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.  (Steady now, straight male readers.)

    Maybe this scene was only there for titillation, a sort of arthouse “Girls Gone Wild” masquerading under Freudian psychodrama.  But in the context of the film, this scene is  Natalie Portman’s repressed fantasy, so deeply has she hidden her (homo)sexual desires in her strict, disciplined lifestyle as a perfectionist ballerina.  According to pervy-but-French ballet master Vincent Cassel, it is these desires which she needs to embrace if she wants to successfully dance the role of the evil seductive Black Swan on stage.

    Black Swan lays on the dualities very thick.  It’s full of doppelgangers, evil twins, mirrors, all that stuff.  White Swan is virginal, timid, innocent Natalie Portman.  Black Swan is sexy, confident, tattooed Mila Kunis (whose character comes from crazy, experimental San Francisco).  By the end of the movie, Natalie Portman’s increasingly psychotic character has sprouted black swan wings and taken metaphorical flight.

    Has she become evil?  Has she become sexual?  Has she become homosexual?  Will she try to steal an egg from a straight couple and raise it as her own perfect little anorexic ballerina?

    I don’t think the film is so reductionist as to claim that Black Swan = evil = homosexual.  This is Aronofsky, not Palin, after all.  But the concept of his Black Swan is about embracing sexuality, and perhaps accepting those instinctive drives which were so drummed out by hours of sadistic ballet training or any kind of disciplined, repressive socialization.  

    In which case we can conclude….homosexual behavior is naturally occurring among classical ballerinas!  And Navy recruits!  But it is, too, among prison inmates!  And dog-owners!

    In fact, it’s everywhere!  Whether you repress it or not!  So the homophobes will just have to learn to live with that. 

    Most San Franciscans these days have learned to live with that.  And realized that homosexuality is perfectly natural.  In fact, as natural as being allergic to cats.   Is it a sin against nature to be allergic to cats, to be genetically pre-dispositioned to sneeze around cats, the way some boys are genetically pre-dispositioned to get hard around other boys?  Of course not. 

    Now, I’ll tell you what’s a sin against nature.  CILANTRO.  That shit is evil.

    Category Films, Gay Rights, Gays and Straights, Travel | Tags: | 4 Comments

  3. A blog as gay as Christmas…

    December 26, 2010 by admin

    I thought this might be an appropriate time of year to finally launch my blog on being a fag hag, given the popularity of the phrase “as gay as Christmas.”  You may also know the common variant “as camp as Christmas.”  Though by implication, the two phrases mean virtually the same thing. As in, “Oh my god, Ryan Seacrest.  He’s as camp as Christmas.”  (He is.  Don’t deny it.  It‘s in the OED.)

    So in this equation: 

    Christmas  =  fun glittery stuff, merrymaking, good cheer  =  gay men

    (Apologies to the lesbians, this equation probably implies gay men, not women.)

    There is some truth to this coarse piece of pop cultural algebra.  For example, I’d be hard-pressed to find a bar in London which does Christmas better than The Yard , a popular gay watering-hole in Soho.  (Watering-hole… good word choice.)   The Yard is — in a word — fabulous.   You have your usual twinkling Christmas lights and fake, cottony snow and random branches of evergreen sticking out of the wall to recreate a wintry forest glade (read: elves, reindeer, sleigh bells).  And yes, the seasonal beverage menu includes the mulled wine and rum-spiked cocoa and other such delights for the festive alcoholic.  And because it’s a gay establishment, you don’t encounter the raucous drunken louts or the over-mascaraed short-skirted floozies who make you lament being in a straight bar.  Instead, as the gold star at the top of the tree, you have the ueber-virile bartenders: tall, bare-chested, muscular men, wearing either regulation Russian fur hats or plush reindeer horns.

    Now that, my dear, is camp as Christmas.

    But there is some irony to the phrase, given that the holiday of Christmas is a mainstay for heterosexual, reproducing families, church, God, etc.  In fact, what would the devout Christian right have to say about the phrase “gay as Christmas”?   Is it sacrilege to compare the holy birth of our Saviour with a way of life which is immoral, unnatural, impure?   You could say this phrase is the worst possible insult to the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.  But then you would have to retract that statement when you remembered Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas II You album, which some sixteen-year-old demanded you buy her to celebrate Jesus’ birthday.

     

    I think the phrase “gay as Christmas” is rather a good one because it emphasizes all the positive aspects of this holiday — and many of the positive aspects of the gay stereotype.  For once, being camp — or gay — isn’t necessary perjorative, or frowned upon.  It’s joyous, it’s full of life and light and celebration.  For once, it’s part of the mainstream, the accepted holiday which you see blazoned all over the place in sparkling letters.  

    So in this equation, being gay is as mainstream as Christmas — and being straight is, well, the other side, the not-Christmas. 

    In which case, I want in! …If only for a day.  The Little Match Girl with her face pressed up against the cold window, looking in on this fabulous party, amidst the winter of straight discontent.  Think of me as that Jewish kid who always wanted to celebrate Christmas because it seemed so much more fun than the dreidels and the latkes and the muttering in Hebrew.   Don’t get me wrong – I don’t deny who I am. I’m straight, I can hang with straight people, I’ll hopefully marry within my Tribe one day. 

    But oh, to be part of that glittery kind of Christmas  – the sparkling wit and high spirits and the perfect sculpted men in the plush reindeer horns who just want to provide amusing, respectful, gorgeous company.   That, of course, is the universal dilemma of the fag hag.

    So enjoy Christmas when it rolls around… wherever you are, with or without family, with or without friends who count as family.  After all, Christmas is supposedly about love and acceptance and understanding.  And it’s the one time all year when you can get away with being unabashedly camp.  That goes for you Jews and non-believers in the audience, too!

    Category Gays and Straights | Tags: | 5 Comments

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