It's all gay men's fault (chapter 19,255)

The Huffington Post has published a column titled Gay Dudes, Can You Just Not?, decrying the use of the word "tranny" by gay men. Note the focus specifically on gay men. I wouldn't mind seeing radical feminists held to the same standard.

Note also this line:

But it's OK, folks, because they're gay dudes and are therefore untouchable by the LGB-centric media.

That's a fine thing to tell us in the context of showing us the exact opposite.

Do as we say, not as we do.

Here a lesbian blogged about her sexual exploration. In the comments, someone wrote:

I’m sort of divided on this issue. If we’re going to be consistent, we shouldn’t celebrate the same activity for which lesbians have long (correctly, IMHO) rebuked gay men.

The original blogger responded that she was "all for gay men having the sex," but another commenter responded (emphasis added):

I could care less what dudes do, of course they will mate like rabbits, they are MEN for pete’s sakes!

Who tells lesbians to be “consistent”? hets? We are humans, we eat, we laugh, we love, sometimes if we are fortunate, we get laid every now and then.

I will let that last comment, particularly the bolded part, speak for itself.

Who has the lowest breakup rate: lesbians, heterosexuals, or gay men?

You know the answer already, right? The infallible dogmas that have been pounded into our heads over the last several decades have answered this question conclusively, right?

Maybe not. According to this:

In the UK, same sex couples can form legally recognized relationships, akin to marriages, and have had this right since the Civil Partnership Act came into effect in December 2005. Just like marriages these unions can be dissolved via a legal process similar to a divorce (which in the UK requires someone to be at fault).

The most recent evidence from the UK Office of National Statistics finds that homosexual couples that joined in 2005 were significantly less likely to have filed for dissolution four years later than heterosexual couples were to have filed for divorce: 2.5% compared to 5.5%.

As Hattersley points out, however, male couples were much less likely to dissolve their relationship than were female couples: By the end of 2010, 1.6 % of male civil partnerships had ended in dissolution compared to 3.3 % of female partnerships.

As you can see from both the article itself and the comments, everyone with an opinion proposes reasons — some backed by evidence, some not — for the different rates. Most amusingly, one commenter writes,

It is very clear from the social research that men like being taken care of, and do get taken care of in het relationships more than women. Women do more of the work. I suspect gay men are also in it for getting taken care of (what you are oversimplifying as "stability."

That comment makes gay male relationships sound like an Escher print.

But it's okay when we do it!

At least as long as I've been out, many lesbians have appointed themselves to be the queer community's Lady Whiteadders and have passed moral judgment on gay men for deviating from the ideal of sex only within long-term, monogamous, more-vanilla-than-Sealtest-ice-milk relationships. Now take a look at this (borderline NSFW: some explicit language). The lesbian liberation described in the second half of the article sounds an awful lot like the things that get gay men labeled as unworthy sinners. There can't possibly be a double standard at work, so there must be some other explanation.

It's all gay men's fault (chapter 12,709)

Here we go again. Yet another Washington Blade columnist lambastes gay men — and gay men specifically — for what I thought were issues of human beings generally, not gay men.

The author proposes an "extreme makeover" for gay men:

Rather, this makeover is all internal – it’s about how gay men relate to and interact with each other. I call it Extreme Makeover – Pride Edition.

So what have gay men done to need such a makeover?

However, as the community began to break down societal barriers, to make gains and take its place at the table, gay men lost an understanding of another side to the meaning of Pride. Beyond rainbow flags and bumper decals, Pride should also stem from our actions. We forget that sometimes. Having lived from Boston to Austin, Texas to Toronto, I’ve witnessed and experienced how gay men can behave. It isn’t always pretty. In a culture of “A-lists” and attitude, where chiseled bodies set the standards by which we are judged, some gay men have forgotten that real Pride is born from within, and not in a gym.

Okay, so gay men can get carried away with the whole gym thing, but are we the only ones who judge people on the wrong criteria? At least the author referred to "some gay men" instead of making the all too common politically correct generalization to all gay men.

What solutions does the author offer?

Make good on your longstanding intention to volunteer. Donate to a cause that’s dear to you. Say thanks to an LGBT elder for setting in motion the civil rights our community has gained over the past 40 years.

* * *

So go ahead. Next time you’re at a bar or club, put a new spin on attitude. Smile to someone you don’t even know. Yes, really. It’s just a smile. You can do it. It may not feel like an extreme makeover, but you may just be making someone’s day, and changing someone’s else’s attitude at the same time. And that’s something to feel proud about.

Obviously, gay men, and only gay men, should do these things. In particular, it wouldn't do to tell a lesbian to smile.

How to change the culture, and how not to do so

This article in today's New York Times Magazine compares and contrasts the hugely successful effort to abolish foot-binding in China with the largely failed attempt to eradicate female genital mutilation in Africa. Queer and HIV activists would do well to heed the lessons learned.

Missionaries seeking to end foot-binding in China operated within a framework of respect for Chinese culture and cooperation with the Qing Dynasty's opinion makers; they succeeded in eliminating foot-binding within a generation. By contrast, those seeking to end female genital mutilation in Africa have often taken the attitude of "We're going to tell you how it is" and have been greeted with cries of cultural imperialism. The article concludes,

First, begin with a dialogue of mutual respect, free of self-congratulation. Second, when you have a core of converts, organize a program of public commitment to new practices, which takes into account the traditions of the community. To end one practice, as the anti-foot-binding campaigners grasped, you need to start another.

I believe that our own activists can draw the following lessons. First, activists attempting to engage the Christian community have often operated from a combination of contempt for Christians and willful ignorance about what Christians actually believe. Two particularly frustrating examples were the HIV activist who dropped the Eucharist on the floor of the cathedral and the compatriot who defended him because the Eucharist somehow represented the cardinal rather than Christ. Christians have responded by circling the wagons. That is not Christian nature, but human nature.

Second, attempts to educate men who have sex with men on the dangers of barebacking and meth abuse have often proceeded from a condescending attitude toward the target audience. Too often, those discussing the matter have come across as joyless puritans rebuking gay men for some sort of moral failure peculiar to gay men. Then those puritans wonder why they are not getting their point across.

The latest transmission from The Blade to earth (2)

Here we go again. This article in The Washington Blade reads less like responsible journalism than like some sort of conservative-P.C. attack piece against gay men. The article opens:

Despite booming sales of the iPad, Kindle and other digital book readers, some see a disturbing trend among gay men: We are reading fewer books today than previous generations.

Yes, that's it exactly: Gay men, and only gay men, are reading fewer books. As evidence, the article cites the closure of gay bookstores. That phenomenon couldn't possibly have anything to do with the increased space given to queer literature in mainstream bookstores. Also, we know that it's completely gay men's fault because lesbian bookstores like Lammas have ... um, never mind.