I
was out for dinner last week with my straight friends (contrary to popular opinion,
I do have straight friends). They are, for the most part, smart, kinky
people -- lefty radical types, straight queers.
| eye - 01.25.01 |
| PINK PANTHER |
I
was out for dinner last week with my straight friends (contrary to popular opinion,
I do have straight friends). They are, for the most part, smart, kinky
people -- lefty radical types, straight queers.
I call them that because they're just about as devoted to sex as I am. And because they're dedicated to fighting the new fascism of multinational corporations and the governments that oppress "little people" like us.
Well, anyway, there we were, chatting at Café la Gaffe on Baldwin (I hope that doesn't make me sound too trendy for words -- I'm not) and gay politics came up -- hey, somehow it always does. And I was complaining about all the new stodgy, uptight gay conservatives -- like I always do.
Well, my straight friends were aghast. "You mean some gays actually vote Tory?"
I told them there were quite a number who definitely voted for Harris and his cronies.
"You're kidding! Why?" They just couldn't believe it. I told them Stockwell Day bragged about having a couple of fags on his campaign team and they just about choked on their mussels. "But that just doesn't make any sense!"
They were right, of course; but I tried to explain. I told them how queers didn't get any respect for years, and now some of them have this fantasy that they'll finally get it if they act like the most boring types of straights. My friends accepted my explanation, but I could tell they were troubled by my revelations.
I was troubled too. Could that many fags and dykes be so hungry for respectability that they would actually work for the enemy? An enemy who's -- among other atrocities -- actively seeking to destroy the rights they have gained so far?
Then a wild idea occurred to me. Everybody's so afraid of AIDS these days. In fact, most of the AIDS organizations are only increasing that fear by reminding us that AIDS isn't over. Could AIDS hysteria have something to do with all this sudden respectability? After all, AIDS is pretty scary. Maybe some fags and dykes actually think that they can get it just from from having fun (or voting NDP). After all, when we were all proud flower children in the '60s, and slutty disco bunnies in the '70s, most of us were voting lefty. And look what happened....
Just in case, I've made up a list of things that will give you AIDS and a list of things that won't. It's not the kind of list that ACT hands out -- does anybody read those boring pamphlets anyway? When was the last time you saw an erect cock in one of those safe-sex handouts, huh?
1. Hating Mike Harris or Stockwell Day, or voting NDP.
2. Crossdressing.
3. Telling all your wide-eyed, salivating friends about the fabulous sex you had last night while laughing in a loud and effeminate manner.
4. Thinking that condoms are an irritating inconvenience for anal sex.
5. Tying somebody up, biting their nipples, humiliating them, torturing their balls (and all the other fun S/M stuff that doesn't break the skin).
6. Saying, "I'm a slutty girly-girly who loves it up the bum and I just hate
the patriarchy and multinational corporations!"
7. Walking into a bathhouse, lying on the bed, showing everybody your butt, then jerking off with the prettiest boy (or girl) in the place.
8. Wearing pink socks.
9. Being happy about being a queer.
10. The disapproval you often get from church-going straights.
1. Taking all that disapproval to heart, and believing it.
2. Not liking yourself (the depression weakens your immune system).
3. Getting married to your significant same-sex other, promising to practise monogamy and then trusting the guy enough to abandon condoms for anal sex (because -- face it -- almost everybody cheats sometimes).
4. Stopping having sex altogether because you're afraid of it. (People need sex; it's bad for your system not to have that release.)
5. Voting for Mike Harris and then being unable to get affordable housing (worrying about the rent: a great immune-system weakener).
6. Hitting hard and early with the powerful AIDS chemotherapy drugs (cocktails) when you don't feel the least bit sick, and never have, really.
7. Thinking about AIDS all the time, and worrying about whether you have it.
8. Believing the propaganda that AIDS is 100 per cent lethal.
9. Trying to be a rich, respectable, middle-class banker when deep in your heart you're just a fabulous, poor drag queen with a heart of gold (bad for the immune system again!).
10. Openly working to support your oppressors (whether it's Julian Fantino, Stockwell Day or their minions) -- all that stress is definitely bad for your health.
Don't expect to see any of this advice in an ACT pamphlet. But hey, it's worked for me -- and many others -- for nearly 20 years. Why not give it a try?
Pink Panther appears every other week.