Good morning witches
It’s pride month! As I’m sure I’ve said before there are times when I feel like I should really had in my Gay card, and I think I properly would if I didn’t like playing with male dangly bits so much, although there has been very little of that so far this year. Must admit I’m starting to feel about pride the same as I do about Christmas, how it’s all been commercialised and every retail/corporate jumps on our band wagon for the month telling us how wonderful we are (we already know that, thanks) and how they will always be here to support us…..as long we keep buying their products and services that is. And I know all the arguments about visibility and how important it is that we are shown in a positive light on the telly and on the media, well I think Dr Ranj and Rupaul have that pretty much sown up these days. And I’m glad that Heartstoppers has been given a second session, although as any gay who went through the UK school system in the 80’s will tell you, it’s so wasn’t like that in anyway what so ever! I now it’s meant to be fiction and it’s a what if story but for people that don’t know what it was like….. More power to Russell T Davies, at least he tells it like it was back in the day. But I would love to see something that reflected my experience a bit more than those who found the “community” and everything was hunky dory for them. That wasn’t the case for me. I did find the community but they took one look at me called me a fat blob and we’ve never really spoken since. And that’s properly what’s lead to my attraction to Bi married guys who are “discreet”, at least I got laid and found men that don’t shave off every pubic hair in sight. So for a community that is meant to encourage and embrace diversity it still helps if you have a waist line smaller than your chest size. And have enough product in your hair that if anyone went close to you with a light cigarette, you’d go up like a Christmas tree.
So if I don’t get on with the community why do I have at least 3 podcast’s in my list that are purely amid at the “community”? And does it count as internal homophobia because skinny queens can all go and sit on traffic cones with out lube?
I think this is when I first worked out that I had my own path to walk, I wasn’t going to conform to the wants of any one “community” (I’m going to stop using that word is this context as there is no such thing as a community in the gay world). I didn’t fit in with the clubbing crowd, I wasn’t camp enough or in to fashion to play with the queens and at the time when I came out, Plus size guys where the lowest of the low and we only got lucky at the end of the night when the club lights came on and you grabbed the nearest guy at the club door on your way home. I was on the edge of the gay world and on the edge of the Hetro world, not feeling at home in one or the other. Listening to Man kind and Homo Sapiens podcast’s has taught me that that is actually more of the experience for most of us. (the other gay themed pod is “like minded friends” Tom Allan and Susy Ruffle, but that’s for the comedy aspect) Most of us never really felt like we belonged to the what the media and Clubbing world would call “The community” Most of us are just doing our thing, trying to make are way in the world, trying to make our version of happy come true. And that goes for straight and queer alike. Am I still a bad gay? no I’m not. I’m my version of gay and staying to that version and not bending my self out of shape to fit in is what it’s all about for all of us.
And once I’d worked that bit out I started to feel more comfortable in my whole life. As RuPauls says, we’re not born to fit in. He finish’s that bit of with “we’re born to stand out” and that is perhaps the area I’ve not yet reached my peak. Im only 48, there is still time.
For this pride month, I’m going to be working on accepting more of my own unique gayness and working that in to my daily life.
There are lots of Rituals and spells for self love and self acceptance out on the interweb, and some may ring with you and you can use them. But there is nothing wrong with making up your own. So go goggle and see what you can find.
Have a blessed week. Laters witches