What I Go To Pride
For
A lot of my life
these days involves trying very hard to be a decent person in the
wake of a very expensive education that taught me to be an entitled
prick. Mostly. I still vividly remember the assembly during my first
year of school, where a visiting priest told us about the magical
lake that God created to reward people for being good. Its waters
gave them beautiful pale, white, skin. But the lazy people, the
layabouts who got there last, only managed to get the palms of their
hands and the soles of their feet in, hence the dark skin on the rest
of their bodies. Because they were lazy. I was taught this at five,
in a Church of England Infant School in Surrey in 1982.
I
found this image on a US website helping LGBTQI christians to find
acceptance in the Church
I
like to think that means the world is a little less shitty then it
was in 1982
I had shit like this
drip-fed to me daily throughout my education, rarely as blatant as
that, but it was there, that vague undercurrent that different means
bad, that people 'like us' were inherently better. That femininity is
something to be ashamed of, that various things that all people do,
whether male, female or something inbetween are feminine (therefore
bad), and weak – like crying, or being kind to strangers (you know,
like Jesus did). Above all, that men are supposed to act in a certain
way, no deviation, no deviants. Well fuck that, if there's one thing
you can call me that I will always agree with, it's a deviant. Since
a fair chunk of this education was given to me by the generation that
gave you thalidomide and eugenics, I am happy to disregard all the
many distasteful bits.
I realise that this
is also the generation that fought and died for us in at least one
World War (two in a lot of cases) but it's worth remembering that
some of them must have been responsible for all of that being
necessary by starting the fucking things.
For the sake of
clarity, let me say here that I am a man, always have been male, very
happy to be male, and a heterosexual man to boot. A man who fancies
women (well, just the one woman, my wife.) So, a white, cishet,
monogamous, public-school educated man. You can refer to me as him
and he and I won't bat an eyelid. Nicely privileged, thank you very
much world, I do not need to make any effort and everything is tilted
in my favour.
That's becoming an
easy thing to forget in a world of shrinking wages and spam-faced
propaganda ranting that it is all being taken away from my kind.
Difficult to remember that 'my kind' are still very heavily in
control of pretty much everything, we're just having to share now,
like the angry red-faced boy from my class back at Cranleigh First
School who would punch you to the stony ground before letting you
have a go on one of his many Yo-Yos. I expect he writes angry letters
to the Daily Mail now about not wanting to share his universal health
care.
Oh
my god, I found this picture and it's a real thing and not ironic and
of course it's American
What
the fuck?
Toxic Masculinity is
a phrase being thrown about a lot at the moment. And it's a good
thing it's finally being talked about. One day, we will all just be
allowed to be referred to as 'people' without any need for labels,
worried questions or fear of accidentally fancying the 'wrong'
gender. And on that day I will finally stop using the phrase 'Gender
as a social construct,' in nearly every argument I have with a bigot
in the pub. That day is not today however.
Take, for instance,
the simple phrase, 'Get Fucked.' Why on earth is this used as an
insult? Surely the one thing most of us are trying to do all the time
in our day to day lives is to get fucked? What better prize than
consensual intercourse with some other willing human being? To be
honest, my current reply of 'Thank you, you too,' has not caught on
yet, but I'm hoping it does soon, and that 'Get Fucked,' will replace
'Have a Nice Day,' as the pleasantry of choice.
We are hung up on
the idea that having something enter you (a cock usually) is an act
of submission, that it implies the cock-wielder has some power over
you.
I would suggest,
that allowing somebody else to entirely engulf one of the most
sensitive parts of your anatomy is a little more submissive. We need
to change the narrative. Using two people having sex as a punchline
is ludicrous, particularly when we always, but always, portray the
fuckee as having been beaten by the fucker. The recent
Putin/Trump/Piers Morgan gay jokes are but the tip of the iceberg in
dehumanising 'humour' that leaves many of your fellow humans very
much unamused.
'When so-called “woke” people give homophobia a free pass because the effect on the target is more valuable than the effect on LITERALLY EVERY OTHER LGBTQ PERSON I want to take a bath with my toaster.
When I see things like this, it reminds me – like I‘d ever forget – that my status as a citizen can be downgraded or revoked at any time if the use of my sexuality as a punchline requires it. If you’re LGBTQ and don’t see the issue, jam your eyes open with matches and look again.'
I heartily endorse
this, and would add, if you're not a total bellend and can't see the
issue, do likewise.
I recently spent a
day in a hot sweaty car with some proper blokey blokes, and had to
make small talk about sport and cars. I can just about blag it now,
but I'd rather not, and there's always that look they get that I am
not a proper bloke because I don't want to talk about that, or laugh
along at their snide jokes about women and gays not being able to
drive.
I am by no means a
manly man, I never have been. I've always been a bit of an outsider,
I liked playing with dolls (managed to bypass the worst of that by
using Action Force, Mask and Transformers, but I also had a big thing
for Wuzzles, and a brief obsession with Care Bears) and cared not one
jot for sport in any way. Still don't. On the first day of school,
any school (I went to quite a few different ones), I would always be
asked what football team I supported, eventually I learned not to
say, 'I don't like football' as it would be met with incomprehension
and banishment. I remembered that my father and brother are avid
Chelsea supporters, and proudly said 'I support Chelsea,' and
subsequently spent four years of school banished by a class full of
Manchester United supporters.
I really can't get a
fucking break. There's a reason a lot of my best friends at school
were girls. I was not just trying to get into their pants.
Seriously,
I loved these, I had an Eleroo, and finished the Panini sticker album
despite
nobody else at school having any swaps.
I did spend a few
years faking it to get acceptance, I like pubs, I like drinking, and
I like camaraderie and shouting. I went to watch football in the pub
(it was a good way to spend time with my dad) until I could take it
no more. If the game went the wrong way, nobody wanted to stay out
drinking, or if they did they were miserable as sin. I can't live
like that, my happiness is dependent on things I have done, not 11
strangers in their underwear. I even spent four years watching
cricket, out of a vague intellectual interest. It took me that long
to figure out the rules, at which point I was bored of that too. I do
like the idea of a game that lasts so long you won't miss much if you
nip to the shops for an hour or two though.
But I like LGBTQI
Pride events. I like hanging out with people who feel that outside
otherness on a completely different level. I'm often dismissed as a
bit weird, but I don't get abuse thrown at me on a regular basis that
makes me feel less than human. These people do, from people like me,
yet if I come down to party with them they accept me – a straight
white male – and it's all good. I am not in any way claiming that
my struggle as a long-haired, flamboyant dresser with a new-found
penchant for nail varnish equates with theirs – I don't want a
letter added to the end or my own stripe on the flag. I have it
pretty damn good thanks, remember I'm male, stale and pale baby.
But it is a safe
space for me, so my reasons for attending are not entirely
altruistic.
Safe spaces are
getting a bad rap these days, from people who like to call everybody
snowflakes. These are the same people who burst every
cholesterol-engorged blood vessel in their body if you don't wear a
poppy, or if a chocolate egg doesn't have the word Easter on it, or
if a brown person wins a TV talent show. People so threatened by
having to share that they will almost certainly punch you to the
gravelly ground, where you will cut your knee and have to endure the
agony of having iodine poured over it by your mum, before letting you
have a go on their Yo-Yo. Even though they have a massive box full of
Yo-Yos at home, and the means to get as many more as they like.
There are people who
are scared that a man might hit on them if they go to a gay club. But
to them I say, what do you do when a woman you don't fancy hits on
you in a nightclub? Take it as the compliment it is, say 'Sorry, no
thanks,' and carry on dancing – easy. If you're worried that he's
bigger than you and you might get attacked, then congratulations, you
just learned a little bit of what it's like for actual women EVERY
FUCKING TIME THEY GO OUT.
I admit, when I
first started going to LGBTQI events, I clung to my wife, terrified
people might think I was gay.
Before I realised
how dumb that was.
It doesn't matter.
I used to say
'Sorry, I'm straight,' to turn down prospective suitors – in case
it wasn't obvious, but now I just wave my wedding ring, and say,
'Sorry, I'm taken,' because my sexuality is not an issue. My monogamy
is.
Masculinity is a
long complex, thing with no rules, no conditions that need to be met
in order to be allowed in the man club. If you aren't secure enough
in your own to go to an awesome parade and march with your fellow
human beings to help ensure they feel validated for once then piss
off home snowflake*.
I shall be being
fabulous at Brighton Pride this weekend if anyone is about and
fancies a good time (in the non-sexy version of the phrase) see you
there.
*I do not for one
minute endorse the use of the term snowflake, although being told
that you are a special, unique, beautiful construct with an
incredibly finite lifetime in an increasingly dangerous universe is,
of course, quite the compliment. Remember that next time a large
joint of meat refers to you as such.
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