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From: on@hpda.UUCP (Owen Rowley)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: No Wonder We Look Bad
Message-ID: <1328@hpda.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Feb-86 17:30:24 EST
Article-I.D.: hpda.1328
Posted: Mon Feb 10 17:30:24 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Feb-86 04:33:15 EST
References: <500@drutx.UUCP>
Reply-To: on@hpda.UUCP (Owen Rowley)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 91

In article <500@drutx.UUCP> bal@drutx.UUCP (LesebergB) writes:
>        I  was  looking  at  this  week's  issue   of   OUTFRONT,
>Colorado's  #1  gay  publication,  and  it occured to me how such
>things are giving gays a bad reputation.  There are many ads  for

You make a judgement here that requires us to adopt your standards 
of good and bad and what constitutes a "bad reputation"

>There are many ads  for
>X-rated  theatres  and  bookstores,  a  leather  bar  ad, and the
>PERSONNAL ADS.  These personnal ads are  very  specific  in  what
>these guys are looking for.  I'm not saying that these ads should

So, you find adds for sexually explicit media and PERSONNAL ADS
with specific sexual desires spelled out to be of questionable taste
and you think that "such things" make us all look "bad"
You also find Leather Bars offensive by their existence?

>I'm not saying that these ads should
>be taken out or anything, but can't there  be  any  positive  gay
>publications  to show society we are not sex crazy 24 hours a day
>(though  some  of  us  might  be).   This  is   "Colorado's   #1"
>publication.   I  see  copies  of  it littered in the street.  My
>straight friends see it and they say, "How can this filth  be  #1
>?!?!?" "Your friends aren't like this."

What you are revealing here is the fact that there is a marked difference
in the culturally acceptable behavior of the Gay world and the BP (breeding
population). I think that there are several factors involved heresome of which
are not being addressed by your posting. Plainly, Sex and the explicit 
display of Sex is OK to a lot of Gay men, and its not to the BP. The "Family"
role and the societal rules that govern it need strict control to maintain
an even keel. The Gay role gives access to a more hedonic lifestyle, and I
suspect that there is a lot of jealosy involved in the condemnation of our 
Gay culture by Non-Gays. 

Are Gay men any more Sex crazy than any other men ?? Do you honestly believe 
that there isn't just as much fucking around in the BP as there is in the Gay 
community... give me a break. 

I think that there are very few metroplolitan 
areas with a large enough Gay audience to support multiple Gay publications
and that as a result you will find the widest spectrum of tastes being 
addressed in the average Gay publication. These Pub's also serve as the 
only outlet of Gay identity for many many men. Its not easy for a lot of Guys
to "do anything" about being gay and so the fantasy of the "magazine lover"
must suffice. 
Your whining  friends can get validation and stimulation of their sexual 
preferance in a lot of places and a lot of ways. we are often given damn little
choice of where to get ours. Personally I resent the BP attempting to dictate
my moral choices .

>        Oh sure, it's fun to read, but  it  just  gives  the  gay
>society  as  a "whole" a bad picture, and misleading.  In my home
>country, Lincoln, Nebraska, the most popular publication was  the
>VOICE.  This was a very attractive, magazine style newspaper with
>regular columns and very good articles and ADS !  I am trying  to
>get a subscription out here for it, since it was a good source of
>the news for the local gay scene there.

I suspect that this reflects a higher level of intolerance for alternative
lifestyle and the not so subtle pressure to "at least outwardly"
conform or die.

Here in the Bay Area we are fortunate to have a paper like the BAR (Bay Area
Reporter) which has  Lots of informative reporting and less sexually
explicit content. However its often depressing to wade through 40 pages
of how much we've been beat up in the last week.

>        I'd be interested if other  communities  have  impressive
>gay  newspapers  that  are  not  so  misleading  as  the sex rags
>circulated in the Denver.                                          

Again I suggest that you look real closely at your own attitudes about 
Sex and being Gay, and your reasons for judging The Gay lifestyule  the way
you do.
We have no need to apologise to anyone for being who and what we are, we 
have no need for social patterns that are designed to keep a Breeding Population
stable, we have no need for moral indignation based on the dogmatic tabus
of the Yahweh cults. We do need to discover our own standards and develop
healthy attitudes that support our choises, we do need to stick up for our
right to be different, we especially need to be steadfast in our determination 
to be treated as human beings with the same rights as everyone else.

Don't buy the media lie that we are some kind of aberation, we are NOT..
Even those of us who like to go to leather Bars  ;-)


Lux .. on
Owen Rowley
hplabs!hpda!on