The Gay Man Culture (Fridae interview with graham)
Totally agree with this response below. I don't fit into the main stream gay culture, and sometimes I feel that this is what makes me feel lonely and isolated
Neither gay or straight, and adopting neither cultures in Singapore - which means I don't blend with either group. A lonely choice that can sometimes lead to isolation when the diversity of gay culture is not developed to a state of true identity.
I'm gay, and i love to club and dance to hip hop and rnb , suck at sports but would love to play it (and rugby), love musicals yet don't have a thing for madonna or kylie (or mariah etc), and love speaking like an ah beng.
Sure hard to find that a norm for any straight or gay men.
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æ: I've seen Kheng on stage for the first time when I was 17. I love her! Anyway, you lived in Japan for ten years. And you’ve been in and out of Singapore for the past seven. Are there any differences you’ve observed between the Asian and Western gay culture?
Graham: Asian gay culture is young. When a young Asian man, for example, discovers that he is gay, he tends to adopt this whole gay culture - the music, the language, the fashion, the attitude, the haircut - so that he can belong to a group, so he doesn’t have to be alone in that painful journey of self-discovery. He becomes a “culturally gay” person who likes stuff like Madonna or Faye Wong. But those things have absolutely nothing to do with his sexuality - nothing. He ends up accepting the whole lifestyle package just because the other gay men around him do.
In the Western/European gay culture, there’s a little more freedom and diversity because the gay culture is older. There’s a clear separation between homosexuality and homo-culture. I can pick my sexuality and I can pick my culture - and the two of them don’t have to be the same. I can be a gay man and I can still like football. I can be a gay man but I don’t have to like Madonna. I can be a gay man but I don’t have to like Elton John. There’s more freedom to be whatever you want to be.
After all, why do I want to be like everyone else when I have an opportunity to be an individual? By saying that I’m gay, I’m already putting my neck on the line. I’m already staking my life, my work and my reputation to tell people that I’m different. Why do I want to cower back into another inclusive group? I might as well be heterosexual.