peripathetic

Acceptance or Interest?
When I was still at university, I was sitting in the union one night when, for no particular reason, the talk turned to things gay. As these conversations among straight people will, it led to the only gay person at the table (ie. me) lifting my pint and remarking that I too was that way inclined - eliciting a spectacular lack of surprise from most of them. They already knew. But for a couple of people, who didn't know, what my linguistic disrobing created was... hmm, not acceptance exactly, but interest. "Oh, so you go to that weird place by the docks then?" Mmm, yeah, no argument there - after all, it was weird. "Cool." Whooooaa - wait a minute. Cool? Cool?! No, no, trust me, you're just meant to say something like "Faggot".

And then: "Actually..." (oh god no, please jesus, don't let him say it) "...I was thinking of..." (look, I said don't) "...going there myself sometime." Followed by a sort of uncertain smile which said "Will you take me?" Now, regardless of whether or not I wanted to, there was no way I'd've led him into that place, trailing an uncertain but wanting-to-be-stylish posse of lads. So I smiled back and said "Another pint?" and the evening ended with me having a raging erection and him having a snog with a girl in the corner. But anyway.

For a start, lads don't fit well into a place like that. A rundown, dirty, we-haven't-seen-a-straight-person-in-years, place like that. And second, to be stylish in Club 2000, you could have turned up in a clean outfit of jeans and white t-shirt and upstaged nearly everyone. For the rugby player in the union who thought I was brilliant, Club 2000 wouldn't have worked. If it didn't ring my bell, I thought, chances were it wouldn't have rung his. Anyway, it didn't matter because a few weeks later, a really stylish and sexually relaxed bar with nightclub attached opened on Union Street. All the straight guys went to it, and all the gay guys did too, wanting to be stylish themselves by going to a straight place en masse.

Julian Linley in today's Observer Magazine writes an interesting little article about how such straight interest and gay relaxation and willingness to please (or be pleased) can flourish in larger more varied cities.

The question I was asking, though, isn't answered too well... does it really lead to increased acceptance, or just more interest? Are gay people becoming the props for straight style? And why - if straight men just need to have a longterm relationship to relax their grip on their masculinity and go gay a few nights a week - why can't the camper variety of the gay man just, well, get hitched and similarly jettison his campness?

Reason: for straights, gay clubs are, well, an untroubling funfest. For gays, gay clubs are... a lot more serious. The straight man who goes to gay clubs has said "I'll have my freedom of choice, thanks" and is usually admired for it. The gay man who goes to straight places by similar choice has said "I'll have my freedom of choice, thanks" and is usually thought downright weird by his gay peers. Rant over. :o)