I had a gay friend who said he slept with "everyone possible" in Detroit, so he went to Chicago to look for more lovers. In a bitter irony, he committed suicide because he was lonely.
Lord have mercy!
I am not one to pile on to people who are already suffering, so I really hope this won't come off that way. I find it strange that we are told that such things are a result of a lack of acceptance of gay people as people or of their relationships as 'real' relationships or whatever. Such was the narrative surrounding the acceptance of gay marriage. Interestingly, I remember at the time one of my friends who declares herself lesbian (quite, uh...
loudly, too, if you know what I mean; she's the type who wouldn't get mad at me for saying that, but agree and probably want to high-five over it) went on a giant tirade about how she hopes gay marriage will remain illegal because marriage is the worst possible thing the gay community could ever embrace. I was very shocked -- living in California as I did, I had never heard anyone say something like that, let alone a young self-identified gay person. She explained that for her segment of the community, the more radicalized/political/louder 'queer' people or whatever they call themselves (I have a feeling that word has also shifted in meaning since she used it, but I don't know), gay 'marriage' was almost universally seen as a tool of straight, patriarchal society to make gays conform to straight norms of behavior. In essence, they want gay marriage to be straight marriage that
just so happens to be gay, because there are a lot of 'less radical' gay-identifying people (generally older) who have always wanted basically that. These people, according to her, want to be marketed to by big corporations like Campbell's Soup and Ikea furniture and whatever else on the basis of their 'gayness', because for that group that signifies that they've finally 'made it'; they've finally achieved societal acceptance. They just want to be the 'gay' Ozzie and Harriet or something. But apparently there's an entirely different faction of the sex and gender alphabet squad who want to burn all that down, and have their own norms of their own relationships instead, and if straight society doesn't like it, then too bad for them, because they're not interested in appealing to whatever straight society likes anyway.
I wonder about that sort of thing when I hear things like this; how much of that "whatever; we have our own standards" thinking is also found in the communities of people who identify as this or that type of sexual or gender minority, even if they don't
explicitly identify themselves as political radicals. Even if they're famous filmmakers.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
William Butler Yeats,
The Second Coming (1920)
Hmmm...
[Edit: I should say here I love my friend as a friend. I've literally known her since kindergarten, years before she ever got involved in any of this stuff, and do not mean to imply that she is the worst.
Her political opinions and general way of life, however, I cannot for even one second agree with, just as I'm sure she would not agree with mine. So be it. The truth is still the truth.]