HOMOSEXUALITY IS NO LAUGHING MATTER...

A few weeks ago I was @ one of our local banks and while sitting and waiting to served, I couldn’t help but overhear a group women enjoy themselves a GREAT laugh. It was SO funny that they kept on repeating the conversation and laughing uncontrollably and when the laughing stopped I came to realize that they were actually mimicking a co-worker of theirs who is actually gay. What amazed me is that that they kept calling his name, imitating him in such a feminine fashion not knowing that I know of the gentleman that was the butt of their jokes. This made me see how AND why SO many GAY have such an ambivalent attitude towards their sexuality. Situations like this shows how gay men privately worry they are somehow deficient in the manliness department, no matter how unfeminine they appear to be. So what is homosexuality anyway? Is it the mere mockery of a group of persons due to a set behavioral characteristic? Is it simply reduced to the sexual activities of the persons involved? Or is it a group of persons that has a one-way ticket to hell? Whatever you choose, it pays to note that NONE of these could ever paint fair picture of who we are. So when I think about how much FUN they were having @ their co-workers expense, I couldn’t help but feel that they are ASSUMING that we SECRETLY want to be women. I wonder if we somehow encourage this type of behavior when we call one another GIRL or SHE? Or is this OUR way of DEFUSING the hate directed toward us? I remember growing up and being taunted with words like SISSY, which imply that I am deficient in the masculinity department. Which brings me to another point; do the images of gay men in the media create this joke where we are the punch line? It is SO easy to over-generalize when it comes to us that I think that people FORGET that we are indeed human. It is SO sad that they wound us AND themselves when they act in this manner. How can society think of masculinity as something that resides outside of they gay man? THIS SITUATION SHOWED ME THAT SOCIETY’S VIEW HAS BECOME TOO NARROW & TOO FOCUSED ON THE PHYSICAL AS WELL THE BEHAVIORAL ASPECTS OF MOST GAY MEN. IT IS MY BELIEF THAT A BROADER SENSE OF WHAT IT MEANT TO BE GAY CAN CULTIVATE WHAT IT MEANS TO BE JUST A MAN…IF ONLY WE COULD STOP LAUGHING LONG TO RECOGNIZE THIS…