
I am no longer gay. I quit. But that doesn't mean I don't still adore
my pink high heels (and the questionable stains on them). In fact, my
unrepentant love for those smelly old shoes has very much to do with
why I am defecting and/or just resigning from the club.
No, it's not just because I'm old and tired (although I am); it's
because the love that dare not speak its name is now shouting it out
from the rooftops. Gay is everywhere and, paradoxically, gay is also
over. But the new gay that is simultaneously invisible and ubiquitous
is not the gay I once knew.
I think it was Modern Family that did it. I flicked on the
TV – as I always do when I hear of a new sitcom with gay characters –
and what a shock! Not only is the gay couple on the show completely
accepted by their family as a whole, but there is nothing the least bit
gay about them. They are a pair of nice, overweight, unattractive
middle-class men obsessed with their adopted Asian daughter. I found
myself searching for a camp moment, but I'm afraid neither of them is
any nellier than the straight husband on the show.
But, like most mainstream entertainment, Modern Family is
merely a symptom of what's really going on. For years, gay neo-con
Andrew Sullivan (he's the only gay man you are likely to see on CNN,
ever) has been telling us that being gay is all about being a good
citizen. In fact, if you speak to the leaders of most gay and lesbian
political groups about what it means to be gay today, they will
probably answer using the words “love” or “family” or “caring.”
Well, the world of pretty rainbows, church on Sunday, monogamy,
respectability and good citizenship is not the world I signed onto when
I filled out my gay card.
How did this happen? Well, we live in a cyber-reality of Twitter,
blogs and virtual sex. The great movements of the sixties – leftism,
feminism, gay liberation and civil rights – are over. That doesn't mean
we're done with class inequities, misogyny, racism or homophobia. But
political correctness makes us think they're gone – and besides, we
have the endlessly satisfying drug of technology to assuage any and all
insecurities. Heck, these days no one interacts with anyone in the real
world long enough to care about what goes on out there anyway.
In this contradictory era, there is a black U.S. president and yet
police officers are still being accused of racial profiling. And Adam
Lambert – the gayest American Idol
contestant ever – was recently criticized by the gay community for
wearing makeup and kissing a guy in his act. (Jennifer Vanasco,
editor-in-chief of website 365gay.com, said Mr. Lambert tarnished the
reputation of gays in the eyes of middle America, “who think gay life
is exactly what he portrayed on the American Music Awards.”)
The contradictions of postmodern culture don't stop there. Though
some real-life gay men are adopting Asian children, some are so pressed
by the new, perfect, sanitized gay ideal that they end up drowning
themselves in suicidal drugs and unsafe sex.
Here's my own personal solution. I reject the gay world. I have a
new identity: I'm an ESP (pronounced ESPIE). That means effeminate
sexual person. I'm committed to things that are no longer gay:
alternative sexual and romantic relationships (promiscuity) and gender
play (I prefer my women to act like men and my men to act like women).
Don't worry, you can be a butch woman and still be an ESPIE – all you
have to do is commit to gender-inappropriate behaviour of any kind and
enjoy sex for pleasure alone (please don't do it – yawn – just to beget
children).
Lately, Toronto's gay press has been bemoaning straight forecasts of
what some have called “the premature death of Church Street.” One gay
columnist says that, even if the condos drive the gays out of our
neighbourhood, we will always have Church Street (sigh) in our hearts.
But it isn't just Church Street that's on the wane. When being gay
is the same as being straight, there's no need for gay anything. Gay
bars, books, gay magazines, gay newspapers – gay culture as we know it
– will eventually disappear.
But, hey, I'm an ESPIE! So I don't care. And finally I can stop complaining.
Sky Gilbert is University Research Chair in Creative Writing and
Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. His latest poetry
collection is A Nice Place to Visit.