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From: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: GAY SATIRE FOR GAYS BUT ALL ARE WELCOME
Message-ID: <1124@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 8-Nov-84 22:32:59 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.1124
Posted: Thu Nov  8 22:32:59 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Nov-84 04:32:39 EST
References: <4159@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 31

I am trying to examine exactly why I disliked this so-called "satire"
so much.  I found a small part mildly amusing, most of it pretty lame,
and the remainder really sad.  It reminded me of the articles and
columns found in the throw-away "newspapers" available free in some
gay bars; dishy/swishy stuff which captures a certain subculture of
the gay community.

And I realized: this is a kind of "ghetto humor."  This is the self-
denigrating satire of the 50's and early 60's, which still lingers on
today.

I think it is important to reaffirm that this ghetto, the worlds of
closets, Bette Davis, opera divas, "queens", "fairies", "queers" and
drag, or leather harnesses, baths and VD, are but a small part of the
gay community, that membership in this ghetto is *NOT* necessary as a
gay person.  That these are cultural artifices come from terrible
decades of oppression and discrimination, and that every gay person is
free not to buy into their distortions and lies.

I wondered whether I was being humorless.  Then I thought about the kind
of stereotypes it traded in, if not wholeheartedly embraced: we must choose,
as it were, between the swish or the slut.  Indeed, though I feel the
intentions of the author and poster are well-meaning, the fact remains
thay they have presented a gay "BLKTRAN", a similarly demeaning presentation
of black people presented on the net a while ago which drew an enormous
negative response.  It is sad, too, that it comes from within the gay
community.
-- 
/Steve Dyer
{decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbncca.ARPA