Pride....
I don't need a parade, or a festival to be proud of who I am. I appreciate the desire to go hang out with friends, and to see old friends, but do we really need a special event to get together?
What happened to socializing with your friends on weekends, or in the afternoon/evening over coffee?
Why the parade? Am I so old that now I see it for what it is? Why are we advertising things that really I wouldn't let my own kids watch?
D's on Bikes...I love you, but really? DO you need to go bare boobed and put black electrical tape across the bits?
Leather men, I keep my practices in my own home, and on occasion the bars, but ass open chaps? Granted there are a few men out there that my god can they fill out chaps but really...its like a nude beach anymore. The people you want to see nekked you never do and those you do, you never want to see nekked.
What happened to being strong for who and what we are?
I guess I just dont get it anymore. Maybe thats why Im single.
I find as I am getting older I like parades more! It doesn't mater if it is a pride parade or UFO fest here in town or a Christmas parade. I love to sit in a camping chair and watch weird things pass in front of me for my amusement. I will gladly camp out for 2 hours or more to get a good spot. That said, I missed Pride this year. My biggest problem with Portland Pride has always been the stupid date it falls on. Father's Day weekend? I have explained my problems with the holiday conflicts to more than one gay friend only to get a vacant "Huh?" as a response.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem to be that hard to understand to me. It seems counter productive to say we strive for acceptance by our families, but then Portland makes you decide between seeing your dad and slutting around in bars and watching naked people debauch in the streets.
Sis: Where is Thomas this year dad? Isn't he coming to visit for Father's Day?
Dad: Oh he couldn't make it. He is marching for PFLAG.
This year I was hoping to get to go but had car problems. The reasons I COULD attend are not the happiest. My dad died in 2009. I think it is very sad that in order for me to be able to attend the pride parade I had to not have a dad anymore. Y'know, I think I'm gonna write a letter.
On your point of the over the top nature of it:
Yes, it's confusing to me too. I used to think that the reason for the balls out nature of some gay's personality (both figuratively and literally) was a side effect of all the repression. I would come back from Seattle Pride (since that fell on a weekend that WASN'T a family holiday) feeling all refreshed and gayed up. It was for me like church camp was for Evangelicals. Spend a couple of day with a bunch of people that share your sensibilities and feel like you are not such a minority. Maybe this is because I have always lived in small towns. I still have only two gay friends here after living here for 10 years. But going to Pride was SO refreshing for me. I'm sure it is like that for others, and they use it as an opportunity to cut loose and say "I can do whatever I want and you can deal with it!" Well, all politics, religion, and activism aside, if you are a grizzled old man with a foot long beard, wearing a harness, walking around out of doors with your wang waving hello to passers by, I think that transcends the concepts of pride and freedom and treads into fetishistic exhibitionist territory which, as you were saying, is fine in the comfort of your home. I think that out of that context it is sociopathic to demand that others have to see that.
Ugh. Maybe it's my conservative upbringing but I don't understand why gays can't represent themselves as people who like the same sex as themselves and....that's just it. We're just men who like men or women who like women. Lets work on that first before we try to get society to accept men who like men with saline injected into their scrotums. And as far as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence go, Yuck. Gross guys. Just gross.
There's my rant. Hope it doesn't sound to snarky. I sit at a phone all day talking to insane old women about their email and that changes a man.