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Apparently some Balkan country recently had its first Pride Parade, small, and protected by the police from the unhappy and threatening populace. It's the strange paradox of gayness: to pull this off takes tenacity and courage, but when the event happens, it's full of guys dressed like fairies or girls.
This confluence of effeminacy and bravery has often led to the defiant axiom of the Drag Queen as Real Man: "I'm more woman than you'll ever have and more man than you'll ever be." A dress with bad makeup and hostile resentful attitude does not add up to masculine courage* anymore than does the desperate defiance of an adolescent. Gotta give it to queens, though. That combo of histrionics and sadism (and not a little masochism) gives them a way with words. But a very limited syntax and mood: usually either soothing or slashing. Classic unintegrated feminine.
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Speaking of gay pride, it is common to hear the response that being gay is just what happens to you, not an accomplishment, and so no reason to be proud. Well, yes and no. All I'll say at the moment is that groups which engage in "pride" activities, like Blacks, for instance, are simply trying to address the older cultural message that they should be ashamed of themselves and are saying No by asserting its opposite. Over and over, it seems.
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That reminds me of another complaint, btw, that gays are always making an issue of their sexuality, while straights don't, for instance, have "Pride Day". As my mother once blurted out in exasperation, "Why do gays have to be so....GAY!?" I sympathize. I really do. But what straight people can fail to realize is what fish fail to realize. How wet they are. That is, how massive and continuing and ubiquitous are the assumptions and promotions and celebrations of male/female attraction. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see it. A cat in a pond knows viscerally what the fish hardly suspect. I have no problem with that, no wish for heteros to tone it down. The differences between and the connections between the two sexes are fundamental. After all, it's really their planet and without them, there'd be no one left, gay or straight. But if homos over-react sometimes, it might be to that overwhelming, 24/7, almost inescapable energy.
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And speaking of cats and heterosexuality. I was confessing to a friend that even though Sonny was just a cat, he was a regular and pleasant presence in my house for the last fifteen years and when I woke up today, I was sad he is gone and I miss him. I felt somehow honored that he had "chosen" to spend his last few days and hours, literally, next to me. Even had that usual post-mortem guilt about what I might have done to keep him alive longer. My friend is not famous for sympathy about human troubles, much less animal bereavement, but he went out of his way to be kind: "Well, look at it this way. He's in a better place now, sort of a guardian angel. And you can be comforted by knowing that when you die, there's pussy waiting for you in Heaven."
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Here endeth the lesson.
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*Courage, of course, is not limited to males. Women certainly need it and have it. But it is not a defining characteristic of femininity. When was the last time you heard, "Woman up!" A fearful woman has defect of character, not a defect of gender. A fearful man can be called into question precisely as a man. Courage is a plus in a woman, a basic in a man. A fearful woman is a fearful woman, a fearful man...is he a man at all? And there's a difference between manly courage and queeny courage. Another post another time.
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