I'm not sure why you refer to it as "sex culture" but I suppose I take some of your point, but I respect that you don't bear any animosity towards those who choose to live differently to you.
That's exactly what Dublin Pride was/is like. Indeed any Pride event I'm familiar with is like that, and we should caution that we only have a single (self admittedly rather prejudiced) person's word that Cologne Pride is any different.
So to reject norms and choose to live in an alternative manner to that prescribed by culturally dominant majorities is maladjusted in your view?
I would have thought an American of all people would celebrate that any healthy society has an abundance of different ways of life, and that people who choose a different mode of life (whatever that mode of life may be) to that which is prevalent are pioneers who should respected for being a part of the engine of cultural innovation which renews and strengthens a society?
I don't know what "straight values" are, can you enlighten me? Mind you I'm not aware of the existence of Gay values, and if they exist what they consist of...
Acceptance and integration are terms loaded with a variety of unpleasant implications. My right to live freely and equally and in diginity with everyone else is not in the gift of social acceptance or conditional upon my integration (which is to say camouflage) in some kind of socially acceptable guise. My right to live freely and equally and with dignity are mine as a human being, the only precondition that exists for recognition of these rights is my humanity, every human being on earth has these rights completely regardless of what others think of how they live, how they dress, whom they sleep with, what sex they are, what gods they worship, what colour their skin is, what ethnicity they are etc.
Where a society refuses to recognise people in these rights, either through systematic governmental discrimination or social and cultural pressure of an informal interpersonal nature that society is failing in its basic duty to respect the essential humanity of all of its people.
I have no interest in being accepted, or integrating as preconditions for my diginity, liberty and equality to be respected.
Whether or not I conform with a culturally dominant archetype or not, if you refuse to offer me respect as a human being then you have denied and insulted the most important common characteristic we share; our humanity.
By "straight" values, I'm referring to values we have been taught and learned in socializing children in a straight family and society. Most gay men were raised in straight families and continue to embody and live by those values taught to us by our parents. It is different from the gay values and activities surrounding sex and the pursuit of sex. My parents didn't teach me to snub unattractive men nor how to party and play.
I posted this in a previous thread a few years ago. I'm older than you and have been out of the urban gay loop for about 20 years now so some of these comments may not apply anymore but they were my experiences and feelings at the time.
There are many neighborhoods within cities where gays have created their own communities - the Castro, Chelsea, Boystown, WeHo, Hillcrest, South Beach, Provincetown....etc. and a gay culture has developed. These concentrations of gay men have led the way for gay rights, visibility and gay consciousness but there is another side that isn't so desirable. The "culture" is an exclusionary culture of sex, and all the empty superficiality and petty discrimination that goes along with it. Racism, "lookism" and ageism are pervasive within these communities where sex is the primary reason for being.
I have found many gay men become victims of this culture and the cult of beauty. They often are over sexed, over drugged, over gym toned, over surgically enhanced, and over accessorized in the pursuit of trying to fit in and attact sexual partners. Many enjoy this culture and find it fulfilling. I unfortunately do not. I don't have much in common with my gay city cousins. Although I have been happily active in gay organizations I never was a part of this culture nor care to be. I think most gay men in this country live outside this culture by their choosing or grow out of it because it ultimately isn't who they really are. Some adopt it wholeheartedly.
I suppose I should clarify what I meant by "gay culture" - it is everything in the gay community that revolves around the pursuit of sex. It includes all the fashions, boutiques, attitudes, sexual cliques, bars, clubs, gyms, tanning salons, day spas, dance clubs, and gay newspapers and magazines all which feel off each other. Surprisingly it isn't very different from city to city or from country to country for that matter.
It is a culture based solely on sex and the pursuit of sex. So naturally it creates and perpetuates its own value system based on superficial things like looks, age, race, dick size...etc. It tends to exclude straight people and divides gay men into meat types, twinkmeat, bearmeat, musclemeat, blackmeat, asianmeat, leathermeat..etc. So it is not at all inclusive or generous. It is a culture that's held together by sexual attraction. Ironically that glue that holds us together is the same glue that keeps us apart.
I do, however, respect it and I am glad it's there because it has given me a lot of freedoms as a gay man, a place to play and has carved out a niche for us in society, but I've come to realize, especially getting older that it's not a very nurturing or fulfilling place. And after realizing that sex wasn't the most important thing in my life, the culture had very little to offer.
