Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 6, 2003)
B itter feuds. Name-calling. Behind-the- scenes intrigue. Time again for Gay Pride! It happens every year. As sure as swallows return to Capistrano (incidental ly, do Capistranos swallow?), when it’s time to blow up the rainbow ballcxms, someone always gets their panties in a twist about overt displays of sexuality at Pride. They’ll argue that the media and our oppo nents ignore the scores of “normal” people marching and only focus on the most outra geous behavior. They’ll plead with the radical fringe to behave “decently” so we present an image that’s acceptable to straight society. And they’ll condemn anyone who doesn’t look and act as if they were going to a Methodist church picnic. Not me. Imagine, if you will, that I’m a mere gayling of 20. OK, imagine harder. It’s 1986, and I’m standing among thousands of queers gathered for my first Pride rally, held at the Chelsea Piers in New York City. A swishy little Latino guy, all of 5-foot-nothin’, takes the stage to warm up the crowd. He shouts, “Waddya call a gay dinosaur F I’m thinking, “I dunno, Paul Lynde?” when he calls out the answer. “A megasoreass!” Here we are at the height of the A ID S cri sis— men are dying every day, the rest of us don’t even know whether it is safe to kiss— and this queen’s cracking dirty jokes. “Waddya call a lesbian dinosaur?” Now it’s one thing to make a sex joke in the middle of a plague, it’s another to mock les bians. A guy could get hurt. “A lickalotapuss!” Brave man. He probably weighed 120 Sexually inactive The neutering of Gay Pride THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARC b y M a r c A cito SPECIAL PRIDE ED ITIO N pounds tops, hut 100 of them must have been his balls. That night I went hack to my seedy little sublet (alone, if you’re interested) feeling invigorated and empowered, like I’d been initi ated into a huge subversive society. The following Monday the Supreme Court announced its decision in the Bowers vs. Hardwick case, upholding Georgia’s sodomy law and the right for the government to arrest us in our own homes for committing consen sual sexual acts. I’m still angry about it. Seventeen Gay Prides later we are once again anxiously waiting to see whether the Supreme Court will finally see reason and find sodomy laws unconstitutional. But even if we are victorious, we still live in a world where the third-highest-ranking Republican senator, Rick “Sanctimony” Santorum, thinks it’s OK to imprison us just for having sex, which is pre cisely why those who call for restraint at Pride have it backward. See, what that daring little queen in Chelsea understood was that, even under siege, we must show the world not just who we are, hut what we do. In bed, that is. (Or in the backroom, as the case may be.) Neu tering ourselves is exactly what our opponents want, and they won’t be satisfied until we become like real dinosaurs— extinct. So while I’m proud of our model citizens— the gay par ents, gay teachers, gay cops and, most of all, PFLAG par ents— I’m also proud of the lesbians here in Oregon who march bare-breasted and shout, “2-4-6-8, proud to be the Beaver State!” I’m proud of the leatherman who shows up with his slave on a leash. (This actually makes sense, if you think about it— it’s so easy to'lose one’s slave in a crowd.) And I’m proud of any gym rat who has the good sense to show off all his assets by appearing in public wear ing nothing but a thong and a smile. I’m reminded of the words of that other bril liant gay columnist, Michael Alvear, who writes in his latest book, Men Are Pigs, But We Love Bacon: “I believe in total sexual freedom. You get the freedom to do whatever the hell you want; I get the freedom , to make fun of whatever the | hell you’re doing.” Alvear is a man after my own hard-on, not just because of the shirtless pix of him at www.menarepigsbutwelovebacon .com, but because he’s a clever trash-mouth who enjoys “whacking the piety piñata”— someone who’s made a mission of providing straight talk about gay sex. (Plus you’ve got to love someone who, when asked what two bottoms do in bed together, answers, “Hair and makeup.” ) So to those of you who want to monitor our behavior in pub lic, think for a moment about what happens when the govern ment wants to monitor your behavior in private, then join me in my mission to loosen up all those hetero tight-asses (metaphorically, of course). Frankly, I think half the reason our enemies hate us is that we look like we’re hav ing so much more fun than they are. And that, my friends, is The Gospel According to Marc. in Write M a r c ACITO at rnarcadto@ im rrcadto.com or meet him live and in person at the Just Out booth during Portland Pride 2003 from 2 to 4 p m. June 15 and 16.
