Oh, grow up!

[muckefuck]

Many thanks to alfaboy, who led me by the nose ring to Andrew Sullivan's take on the Bear movement. Amazingly for an outsider, he seems to get it and discusses it without smarm or snide humour. In fact, if anything, his view seems a little too rosy:

They're cheerful; they don't give a shit what others think of them; they're more overtly social than sexual; they drink rather than do drugs; they seem, on the whole, older and far more grown-up than their party-boy cousins.

If only. If there's one complaint I've heard about bear gatherings more than any other, it's that the bears are cliquish and unfriendly. Once, I was willing to attribute that to shyness resulting from a lifetime of rejection, but that excuse becomes less and less valid as time goes on. Older bears should be gaining confidence and younger ones come out directly into the warm embrace of bear culture.

It's all relative, I suppose, and I confess to not knowing much about the circuit party boy culture Sullivan invokes as a foil. Sullivan goes so far as to call the bear movement "the maturation of gay male culture", something he ascribes to the higher average age of the participants. But as the bear identity becomes more widely available to a younger audience, it attracts more young-uns who are just as juvenile and unreflexive as the party boy twinks I can't stand.

There's a scene in Parting Glances (one of the best and most underrated films about American gay life ever) in which Nick, the older (i.e. late 20's--gah!) hipster and Peter, the beautiful young college student, have the following exchange:

Peter: First, you have to admit that I am eminently irresistable.
Nick: Bullshit, you're a ditzball twinkie.

It sums up a lot of what's unappealing about urban gay life: It's littered with ditzball twinkies who think they're irresistable.

One of them is finally leaving my department, thank god. When he started some months ago, he got off on completely the wrong foot with me. We were riding together in the train and said, "Don't you work for my department?" We introduced ourselves and he immediately asked me to do him the favour of telling his boss he wouldn't be in that morning since he had his staff orientation that day. Um, he thought it was that day.

First he reveals that his entire interest in me can be reduced to what I can do for him, then he admits that he can't even keep a simple appointment straight in his head. As it turned out, his orientation was scheduled for later in the week. Since then, my interaction with him has been limited primarily to tensing up when I hear him yapping on and on about trivialities to his dyke fag-hag buddy in the department (his supervisor eventually moved in order to cut down on the chatter--you know, like teacher did to us 4th grade?) or on the train. The legal status of homosexuals in society is a hot topic even for straight people right now, but his concept of "current events" seems to be reducible to the celebrity news.

Good bye, young man, you will not be missed.

Comments

How To Know He's A Bear When You Meet Him

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

If you ask, "but what is a Bear?", and he gets a face like there's a nasty smell in the room, then, darlin', he's a Bear.

[alfaboy.livejournal.com]

Poor andrew is having a major religious crisis on his blog since the vatican's recent pronouncements. I was raised as a roman catholic, but departed the flock when i recognized that their beliefs and mine didn't mesh. But i always took the attitude that they're entitled to believe what they do and if i don't agree, it's not the club for me. But i never thought the church was supposed to change to accommodate my views. If the point of religion is to reveal the will of god to humankind, it can hardly be a democracy. But Andrew is just agonized that a church he loves and wants to belong to is so at odds with his own beliefs. Poor guy. It keeps him from being his usual brilliant and sarcastic self.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I can understand where he's coming from. It's hard to imagine myself being a Christian without being a Catholic. It's like that old Northern Ireland joke:

Ulsterman: Are you Catholic or Protestant?American tourist: I'm an atheist.Ulsterman: Which God don't you believe in, the Catholic one or the Protestant one?

The God I don't believe in is the Catholic one. And I see others in the same boat, particularly my mother and some gay ex-priests that monshu knows. They're all of the pre-Vatican II generation and I imagine it's even harder for them to let go of the Church, no matter how intolerant it is of them.

[alfaboy.livejournal.com]

i know exactly where you're coming from... my visceral reaction to the episcopal church is to resent them for being all smug about how enlightened they are. I guess deep down i figure if a religion doesn't expect you to lie awake all night weeping over your sinful imperfect nature... they must have a real pushover for a deity. Buncha wimps.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I always have been curmudgeonly for my age.