The Idiots Who Don't Know Themselves

I suppose the first thing I should say is that this article is riddled with generalisations, and I apologise in advance for that. But given the topic, it is impossible not to use these generalisations, such as ‘gay people have a particular sense of humour, often heavy on innuendo’. Sure, some gay people don’t, but these are generalisations, so please forgive me for using them here. Actually, there’s another bugbear of mine right there – people being offended by generalisations when it suits their agenda. And usually their agenda is ‘I want to shout abuse at someone, so I’m gonna call everyone racist over the slightest thing’. I’ve covered this topic before here.

My point today is about sexuality, or at least perceptions of it. I like gay people, I like gay humour (their innuendo-laden stand-up is often brilliant, for example), I’ve nothing against gay marriages, I don’t care if my actors, pop stars or politicians are gay, I couldn’t care less, that’s their business. I have gay friends. And yet I can’t find one gay man anywhere who thinks that a straight guy is just that – a straight guy. Gay men, at least the ones I meet, are, to a man, convinced that everyone is hiding at-least-a-little something in the closet, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Why?

Now take this guy here. Chris Crocker, a gay, YouTube phenomenon. Let me get one thing straight. This guy is great. I wish more people would dress more outrageously, and express themselves, especially out here in Korea where clothing is homogenous in the extreme – every teenager looks like their Mum’s just gave them fifty quid to spend in ‘JJB Sports’ yesterday, i.e. everyone wears brand new jeans and t-shirts. You never see a pair of ripped jeans, or a punk, or someone in a biker’s leather jacket, or a Goth, or someone who died their hair pink. New-looking Jeans. New-looking t-shirt. New-looking trainers. And a haircut your mum would be proud of. With a few rare exceptions in Seoul – that’s a Korean’s idea of self expression, but I digress.

Chris Crocker is talking about clothes in that video, and how he thinks gender boundaries ought to be a little more blurred, especially when it comes to clothing. I can’t say I disagree as such, although I’ve no desire to don a frock. What took me though is his opening line:

“When are people gonna wake up and realize, that there’s no such thing as just boy, or just girl?”

Where do you start with this? ‘

When are people gonna wake up and realize…?’ He’s clearly gay and a cross dresser, and I’ve no problem with that. But we, non-gay non-cross-dressing people are all in the dark are we? We’re all just a bit thick and naïve for believing what we believe? That’s unfair, and patronising to us, and ‘us’, is straight men here.

“There’s no such thing as just boy”…well, actually, yes there is. I’m one. My brother is one. Most of my friends are ‘just boys’. There’s no doubt that some of my friends may be hiding something – I recently had a friend ‘come out’, who was 42 years old at the time, and had/has a teenage daughter. So it happens, there are people in the closet, but don’t patronise us genuine heteros by saying ‘you’re all just a bit stoopid really, and you don’t realise what’s really going on. We know you’re hiding something, you can’t kid us’. We know, generally at least, what’s going on. We’re just not part of it, we're happy enough with our sexual identities, and above all, we’re not, generally, hiding anything.

So please, lovely gay people that you are, stop assuming we’ve ALL got something in the closet. It’s very, very, patronising. Some, a few, may well have, and maybe you cite this as your ‘proof’ whenever someone comes out, but I can assure you that most, the majority, the bulk, do not. We’re happy who we are, we’re happy who you are, but don’t tell us we’re just idiots who don't know ourselves.