From: adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss,talk.politics.misc,rec.arts.tv,alt.individualism,rec.arts.tv.uk,alt.activism,rec.arts.tv.soaps
Subject: Gayspace (was Re: Do You Remember... and Re: On Banning Private Discrimination)
Date: 26 Jul 1992 16:13:48 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mizar.usc.edu

Somewhere in the middle of the interminable Gay/Lesbian
characters on TV cross-posting from hell thread is article
<19024@fritz.filenet.com>, in which ung@felix.filenet.com 
(Bill Ung) writes:
> In article <1992Jul20.190203.21469@ccu.umanitoba.ca> 
> wyatt@ccu.umanitoba.ca writes:
> | [...] If you can recall any shows including regular,
> | semi-regular or recurring/occasional gay, lesbian or bisexual
> | characters, please post a follow-up, or e-mail them to me at:
> | wyatt@ccu.umanitoba.ca
>
> ABC's TV Soap Opera "Dynasty" had a gay character.  Steven/
> Stephen Carrington, son of multi-millionare (billionare?) Blake
> Carrington was gay.  He even had a gay lover whom Blake
> accidentally killed.  I never watched the show in any great
> detail. [...]

How *fascinating*!  

Last night I had dinner at my (West Hollywood) neighborhood
hangout.  It's a large, noisy, cruisy, gay Mexican restaurant
whose food is mediocre, but whose margaritas are *faaabulous*. 
As I stood at the bar waiting for a table, I noticed 4 young and
obviously heterosexual women.  "So what?" you might ask.  Well,
women are not often seen in this restaurant.  I've long since
grown used to this and so no longer notice how exceedingly odd it
is to sit in a large (35 tables, a room capacity of a little over
200) and busy (last night there was a 45 minute wait for a table)
restaurant with nary a woman in sight.  Oh, one occasionally sees
discreet lesbian couples, and, of course, fag hags <ahem> are
often there, but one rarely sees women who are not part of the
gay/lesbian community.  So, I was intrigued by these four mall-
garbed and coiffed women.  Why were they there?  But then I
started to wonder at my wonder: why should it matter that
straight women are in gay space?  And then I wondered why I took
such delight in their very obvious nervousness, for nervous they
were.  The sight of men kissing and fondling each other at the
bar did not go unnoticed by them, and they took great pains to
point out such occurrences to each other, oh so discreetly, in
that "Ohmigod, can you believe what those two guys are *doing*?"
way.  

I made my way over to where the women were huddled and proceeded
to eavesdrop.  I managed to piece together that one of them,
which one I couldn't figure out, was getting married today, and
her friends had decided to take her out for a "stag-ette" party. 
This only increased my curiosity: why would straight women chose
to ogle *gay* men?  And, what's more, gay men who, with the
exception of me, were completely oblivious to them.  Was I to
draw some sort of analogy between the crude heterosexuality
engaged in by men at stag parties -- boozing it up while watching
women strip -- and the odd sort of voyeurism engaged in here?  I
was seated soon after this and lost interest, but I've found
myself thinking about them quite a bit today.  Is there some
connection -- I feel there must be -- between my puzzlement over,
and irritation at, these 4 straight women and their reaction to
gay men being themselves in gayspace, and the ways in which gay
characters appear in TV programs?  What would that connection be?


This isn't connected to the preceding, but I'm on a roll.

In another cross-posting from hell thread, this one ostensibly
about libertarianism but actually about who knows what, appears
article <14t3neINN378@agate.berkeley.edu>, in which
jym@remarque.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer) writes:

> =o= This thread has gone on for many messages, and each message
> has been posted to plenty of newsgroups.  Very few of these
> messages have had anything to do with the newsgroups.

So when has that ever stopped anyone before?

So, anyway, in today's LA Times is a little article that my city
council (the West Hollywood City Council) last week approved a
monument commemorating last fall's street protests against
California governor Pete Wilson's veto of AB 101 (a gay-rights
bill).  I took part in most of the street protests, and I am
*very* glad to see that the city council stood up to some
homophobic resistance -- yes, even West Hollywood has its phobes. 
They, the phobes, complained that the city "places too much
emphasis on gay and lesbian issues".  I say a big "fuck you" to
them.  The city places emphasis on gay and lesbian issues because
we are the single largest voting block in the city.  And if the
phobes don't like it, they're welcome to move to a city 35% of
whose residents are not gay.  I'm sure they'd be able to find
such cities.

Anyway, the five-foot monument is going to be placed at the
intersection of Crescent Heights and Santa Monica boulevards --
around the corner from my apartment -- which is where Queer
Nationals held a hunger strike last year in the weeks leading up
to Wilson's veto of AB 101.  The Times described the monument as
"an inscribed bronze-and-steel triangle perched atop a gently
curving post.  The plaque will cite the protests over the bill,
known as AB 101, and declare: 'We will prevail.'"  

And we will.

-- Arne

Newsgroups: soc.motss,talk.politics.misc,alt.individualism,alt.activism