In Which Our Pride is Gay

 

Here is a an important secret about gay pride: gays, queers, homos, Nancy boys, whatever you want to call the members of the LGBTQIA+ community (and I knocked that whole acronym out without looking it up. I am a genius) grow up with the shame of being a sexual deviant drummed into our ears from a very early age. The earliest insult you could have thrown at you on the playground is to be called a sissy. So we have to learn to overcome.that stigma, or at least try to.  It's hard. And so the concept of."Gay Pride" was developed not so much to show pride in being gay (although, truth be told, I am rather smug about it,) but because pride is the opposite of shame and it's important for the community to understand that.

Anyway, here's this year's pride story:

I was out having a latte and a bit of pastry when my idyll was interrupted by the mewling sound of Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.  Decades ago, when the world was young and new and so was mrpeenee, my friends and I all despised Wham.  We were fierce partisans of the new wave rock movement.  Bands like the b-52s, Depeche Mode, The Human League, Eurythmics, the Buzzcocks, and New Order were what we'd dance the night away to.  It was certainly not the sunny, bubble gummy pop of Wham. 

As part of our growing queer sensibilities, we saved our particular scorn for the lead singer George Michael.  Long before the all-knowing internet gave us access to every hidden gem of a celeb's life, we had absolutely no question that Michael was a big ol' poof.

It was hardly a difficult mystery to crack. We even had very firm opinions about his sexual proclivities. We all took one look is at his butch leather/tight jeans/sneering/sunglasses and pronounced our verdict:  "Bottom." Of course time proved us completely correct. How gratifying.  I have to admit, even as we dismissed him and his music, we were all secretly, or not so secretly, swooning over him like some middle school tween girl reading Tiger Beat magazine.

Because he certainly was pretty. 

And that's what made the whole lurid story of his being busted in a tea room for "public lewdness"  all the more thrilling.  The idea that George Michaels' beautiful pouty lips might be the receiving end of a glory hole was so much more than any of us could have ever hoped for. Also, I just love the phrase "public lewdness." I long dreamed of visiting the restroom where he was arrested just to see the George Michael Memorial Toilet Stall. In poking around his Wikipedia article and the details about his being pinched by the pigs, I discovered that the park where the glory hole is located is in the middle of Beverly Hills and I have actually been there without even knowing I was treading on hallowed ground.  I realize with this audience, I have to rush to assure you all I was not in the restroom for dick, for once.

Anyway, that's our history lesson for Gay Pride. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. As part of this year's celebration, why don't you go stick your dick through a glory hole and imagine that the vacuum seal on the other side is the long gone but always beautiful George Michael.

Guys I wish I could meet through a hole carved in a stall wall:

Visitors to San Francisco for the World Cup games we're hosting have complained about a lack of enthusiasm locally for the games. They should understand we are simply pacing ourselves for gay pride which is this upcoming Sunday. It's our own World Cup of Queerness.

I have run into that ridiculous piece of jewelry known as a Prince Albert by knocking my teeth into it. I was not expecting it, and I did not appreciate it.

I never attend the pride festivities. As I say every year, I'm already gay enough.

I just love boys with skin as white as a freshly peeled potato.

Of course, I also love olive-skinned boys.

Bent.

I always feature this guy whenever I run across him. I think his beefiness is admirable.

Also, here's my salute to the summer solstice.

In Which We Stroll

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In Which We Are Still Gay

 

Every year, volunteers erect a giant pink triangle on Twin Peaks, the biggest mountain here in town right above the Castro.  I dig it.

Allow me to be nostalgic and to gripe, two of my favorite pastimes.  This weekend is Gay Pride in San Francisco.  It's been pretty quiet today, but I'm sure this weekend will see my neighborhood, the Castro, the queerest hood in the world, will be stuffed with out of towners wandering around looking for the gay rides.  The Castro isn't really that different from any other nice part of town except for maybe the various sex toy emporiums (dildo stores in the local parlance) and the bakery that sells dick shaped cookies.  People think that's just hilarious. 

It wasn't always that way.  40 years ago, the Pride parade kicked off up here and ambled down Market Street to the Civic Center for the big party afterwards.  Eventually the parade just got too big to be staged here and instead moved down to the other end of Market Street where it could set up in the big streets there that were empty on Sundays anyway.  Part and parcel of the parade moving away from its community origins.  Here's a bit of trivia for you: when it started in the Castro, since the parade had to cross Van Ness Street to get down to the Civic Center, and since Van Ness is technically part of highway 101 and since you can't block a federal highway, getting the whole damn parade past that choke point was always a problem.  Also I'm pretty sure most of the people here in town don't know Van Ness is highway 101. 

Running up against laws was always part of the parade, just like most other aspects of gay life.  The parade was not only a celebration, it was also a protest, a determined effort to show people the gay world is here and we're not going anywhere.  Representation matters.  So it was probably inevitable that the growing presence in the parade of corporations and entities formerly opposed to queers and now embracing us was not a comfortable fit for a lot of the people the parade was supposed to be representing.  A group of lesbians (and who better to oppose the conformist attitude to parade was adopting) organized their own Dyke March, held the day before the actual pride parade, up here in the neighborhood to sort of return to their roots.

An impromptu party sprang up following the march and eventually it got big enough and organized enough to warrant its own name and that's how Pink Saturday was born.  It was a big, rowdy, casual event, very much along the subversive vein of the protests that sparked the original parade.  I liked it.

Of course, under the heading of Why We Can't Have Nice Things, poor little Pink Saturday became yet another victim of its own success.  As it got bigger and more well-known, knuckleheads started showing up and causing trouble, assaulting organizers and robbing party goers.  Eventually, in 2016, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who were running it, gave up and shut it down.  I was sorry to see it go, it seems like there's little enough of the old timey rebellious queer life left.  I understand acceptance is important and we should celebrate it, but it's also important to remember that we achieved it by struggling.

But you know what?  As I was writing this, and feeling sort of glum, I suddenly heard people laughing and somebody whacking away on a drum kit downstairs, enjoying the nice weather and being young during San Francisco Pride, which reminds me that the struggle I was talking about is important, but so is celebrating.  So much of the fight for equality is just showing up and refusing to be invisible.  So yeah, I need to remember that I'm an old man and cynical and that things do change, but that doesn't mean queers are giving up.  So good for them.  And good for me, and good for the random tourists getting in my way in my own neighborhood.  Yay.  Pride.

Guys who should be proud: 

The admirable William Mann, squirting.

Dimitry Averyanov looking all meaty.

Deserves his own parade.

Queer sports, another aspect of this life I do not understand.

I, for one, would welcome an all naked, all hot guy parade.

More of this and less of the politicians trying to suck up the gay vote.

Give this guy a baton and let him lead the parade.

In Which We Are Gay

 

Every June I mention here how struck I am by the sudden appearance all up and down Market Street, the main street of San Francisco and the street on which I live, of these gay pride banners.  They go up overnight; one day they're not there, the next, boom, they're everywhere.  It's magic.  Fairy magic even.

Every year I also admit to my shameful plans to avoid the actual Pride Parade.  I am plenty old enough to realize fully how astonishing the evolution of public acceptance of gay people is, even if it is not as accepting as I would like.  I can only imagine how amazed my 20 year old self would have been at a modern parade.  Enormous corporations lining up to participate? Queer cops? "I'm Proud of My Gay Son"?  Drag queens on TV? None of those things would have seemed possible to a young me. And yet here we are, surrounded by them and instead of celebrating them, I am looking forward to staying home with my cat and scrolling through naked guy Tumblr.  But that's a kind of gay pride, right?

Jon, from over at the Give em the Old Razzle Dazzle blog, participates every year in the London version.  He is a Good Gay and I stand in awe of him.  But speaking of standing, the very idea of spending all afternoon on my feet at the ginormous celebration that follows the parade makes my back ache.  Over the years, I've watched plenty of parades, marched in parades, helped organize them, and now I'm ok with just staying out of the way and letting anybody else who wants to enjoy themselves.

I understand acceptance of gay people is under attack and fighting back is important.  I have led my adult life unabashedly out and I'm glad of it.  It's just that hanging out down wind of the ongoing grease fire that is a fajita stand and wondering why anything as meticulously planned as SF Pride doesn't have any goddam seating isn't the answer.  San Francisco has a population of less than 800,000 but the attendance at the whole pride shebang clocks in at over a million people.  Surely they won't miss me.

If these guys were going to be there, I might reconsider: 

Salute.

Whoever this guy is, he should certainly be proud of his buttchops.

The always adorable Valentin with his boyish charms.

Tanlines are always a fashionable accessory.

You know what else is always an effective accessory?  A great big whacker and a hairy pussy.

Don't fall off sweetie.

I like smooth boys and hairy daddies and everything in between.  That's my idea of gay pride.

I suppose I should clarify San Francisco Pride Parade isn't until June 30.  Let's celebrate.