Struggling with marriage equality and IML
Just got back from IML to hear the (unsurprising) decision of the Cali Supreme Court denying equal marrige rights to LGBT's. Maybe it's just the timing, but the two events seem inter-related in my mind. The question I'm struggling with is, right or wrong, how much does an event like IML contribute to our being denied equal rights under the law?
I can't help but feel conflicted about my IML experience. I will admit upfront that, sexually, I am a very conservative person (Captain Vanilla as one ex dubbed me). But intellectually, I am extremely liberal. I believe strongly that anything two consenting adults want to do in the privacy of their homes is completely their business. But it's the privacy part that I am struggling with. Watching guys walk down the streets around IML, into restaurants, museums, public parks etc. I couldn't help but feel embarrassed. Sitting shirtless in buttless chaps in a public venue where children are - well I just find it inappropriate. There is a part of me that respects the freedom of expression, and the unwillingness to be marginalized by society’s 'norms'. I agree that governments should not have the power to edit us as humans beings and dictate how we should express ourselves, but I guess that I also feel that inherent in that believe is the understanding that mature adults will 'self-edit' their behavior when necessary. And I can't help but wonder how much that failure to do so contributes to the fear and hate which fuelled Prop 8.
Each year at the Vendor Mart at IML there is one display that is truly and utterly shocking - it's (IMHO) intentional and meant to be challenging. This year it was a large screen TV playing an endless loop of extremely graphic bestiality porn. Again, it's not the act itself I object to (although it probably fails my 'two consenting adults' test.) It's more that I feel a little like a hypocrite when I am explaining to my family and friends that gays are just like everyone else and not perverts and freaks, while watching videos of gay men doing stuff that I'd be appalled if they ever saw.
I reminded of the questions that form the core of Edward Albee's recent Broadway shocker "The Goat". How tolerant am I? How tolerant should I be? If I like to consider myself open-minded - does that mean I have to accept everything? Is there a line? Where is it and who decided where to draw it? Should we as a community try to present ourselves as more 'mainstream' in order to garner approval and acceptance? And if we decide that we should not self -edit, is it naive to demand that society accept us no matter what our behavior (especially - when not even all of us are comfortable with certain things)?
These are all difficult questions and I'm struggling today.
I can't help but feel conflicted about my IML experience. I will admit upfront that, sexually, I am a very conservative person (Captain Vanilla as one ex dubbed me). But intellectually, I am extremely liberal. I believe strongly that anything two consenting adults want to do in the privacy of their homes is completely their business. But it's the privacy part that I am struggling with. Watching guys walk down the streets around IML, into restaurants, museums, public parks etc. I couldn't help but feel embarrassed. Sitting shirtless in buttless chaps in a public venue where children are - well I just find it inappropriate. There is a part of me that respects the freedom of expression, and the unwillingness to be marginalized by society’s 'norms'. I agree that governments should not have the power to edit us as humans beings and dictate how we should express ourselves, but I guess that I also feel that inherent in that believe is the understanding that mature adults will 'self-edit' their behavior when necessary. And I can't help but wonder how much that failure to do so contributes to the fear and hate which fuelled Prop 8.
Each year at the Vendor Mart at IML there is one display that is truly and utterly shocking - it's (IMHO) intentional and meant to be challenging. This year it was a large screen TV playing an endless loop of extremely graphic bestiality porn. Again, it's not the act itself I object to (although it probably fails my 'two consenting adults' test.) It's more that I feel a little like a hypocrite when I am explaining to my family and friends that gays are just like everyone else and not perverts and freaks, while watching videos of gay men doing stuff that I'd be appalled if they ever saw.
I reminded of the questions that form the core of Edward Albee's recent Broadway shocker "The Goat". How tolerant am I? How tolerant should I be? If I like to consider myself open-minded - does that mean I have to accept everything? Is there a line? Where is it and who decided where to draw it? Should we as a community try to present ourselves as more 'mainstream' in order to garner approval and acceptance? And if we decide that we should not self -edit, is it naive to demand that society accept us no matter what our behavior (especially - when not even all of us are comfortable with certain things)?
These are all difficult questions and I'm struggling today.