Onward

 I don't have anything to say about the State of the Union Address because I had to work and haven't watched it yet.  I may or may not watch it, ergo there may not be a post about my thoughts about it.

I will post about this article regarding some ads for Doritos that aren't going to air during the Superbowl (things that make you go bleugh) because...well I'll let you be the judge.  All I know is I find them entertaining and the one with the 2 guys by the pool caused me to laugh out loud, which doesn't often happen due to a commercial.  

Channeling the spirit of Carlin, I've been doing all this writing and haven't started complaining yet.  The following is something that I've been noticing for a long time and finally saying something about.

A disturbing trend I've noticed in gay personal ads is that there's an increasing number of "straight" (note the quotes) guys who want to have sex with other guys.  Sometimes even on a regular basis.  But they're not "gay", according to them.  Can I just make one thing clear?  If you like to have sex with men on a regular basis at the very least you should be able to admit that you're bi.  At the other end of the spectrum you're a self hating homo.  At least have the self respect and stop lying about it.  And another thing, there's all this "discreet" crap.  I'm sorry, before I came out it was called "closeted".  Discreet is just a nicer/fancier term for "being in the closet".  If I'm reading a personal ad, the biggest turn off for a guy looking for another guy is to say that he is discreet or requires his sex partner to be discreet.  HUGE turn off.  And lastly we have the proliferation of the masculine thing.  They want "masculine" guys, not "femmy" guys.  Who determines what is masculine and what is "femmy", may I ask?  Is there a certain way to look, talk, dress, etc that determines the difference between masculine guys and "femmy" guys?  And why don't straight guys ever say they want a butch woman?  Just some things to think about.  Gay men come in all shapes, sizes, and such.  For a community that effectively preaches about openness and tolerance we are a very judgmental and  intolerant community.

On a completely different note, it occurs to me that the reason that equality can't move forward is because of numbers.  We [the GLBT/LGBT/LGBTQIA] community are still looked at as a minority.  And no wonder with the increase of members of our own community to indulge in the very things that define our community and sets us apart from the majority, but refuse to accept the label of the community.  I wonder if it ever occurred to some people that if more people admitted and accepted that they are a member of this minority community, those in power would see that we are greater in number than anybody thinks, and equality could finally move forward for a greater number of oppressed US citizens.

On to more important issues, like censorship.  Great fun this censoring of words and images to protect the impressionable young children of these "United" States from the horrors of the "Gay Agenda".  Read this article, and tell me that things have not gotten out of hand.  Last time I checked a photo of 2 men and a baby (of which there's a movie that isn't censored about 3 men and a baby) is not censor worthy matieral.  And in no way is it "damaging".  Not to mention it's outrageous to subject a family photo to the same censorship levels as Maxim and Playboy, simply because the parents are the same sex.  2 loving parents and their child is in no way damaging to anyone. (Update: the shields have been taken down, but putting them up because "some customers complained" not only is censorship, but also takes away the rights of others, and doesn't address the larger problem.)

An additional censorship issue can be read about here.  Rather than fight to keep the video in an exhibit to show contributions to the world of Art by Gay artists, they caved to mounting pressure and their principles have eroded as far as artistic integrity.  But this article moves us into another interesting discussion I think.

Another discussion which is illustrated in this article is that how is the LGBT community supposed to fight for equality when our opposition has the funds of the republican party to draw on?  Not to mention the funds of various anti-gay churches who throw their support (and money) behind such people.  Meanwhile homosexual individuals who sue or what have you and attempt to make a stand for equality must pay for things out of their own pocket with little to no financial support.  Granted a few of them find help with pro gay organizations, such as the ACLU or the HRC, but still a vast number of them [gay individuals] are left with huge debt in the name of making a stand for equality.  Blog posts, Facebook posts, and other such forms of protest are good, but ultimately empty if we don't stick together as a community and support one another with the same fervor and sense of community that our opposition does.  Without that sense of cohesive community, is it any wonder that we can't advance the cause of equality?

Wow, this was a deep post.  I didn't expect to get that into these issue, but oh well.  Happy Wednesday.