Saturday 9 May 2009

Gay Community? Virtually Gone? Or Gone Virtual!


This is my third article for GSCENE and will appear in the JULY issue.....

Brighton’s Gay Community isn’t what it was!

Like all things in this world it is impermanent and will inevitably change. But those of us attached to how things were will mourn its loss. There was something cosy and straightforward about how it used to be.

If you were queer you were oppressed. If you could find your way through into the secret underworld of pubs, clubs and meeting places there was an instant community waiting for you based on the shared experience of “persecution out there” and “acceptance in here”.

Things changed with the advent of the ‘Pink Pound’. Our consumer economy realised that we were a lucrative demographic to be exploited. Gay culture in general and the gay scene in particular became commercialised and mainstreamed.

It is probably easy to idealise the community spirit which pervaded the scene in the old days but that sense of shared oppression went a long way towards helping people overlook their differences so they could develop caring acquaintanceships, friendships and even loving relationships.

Paradoxically with the advent of freedom comes the recognition by ourselves that we no longer share much in common. We are almost as different from each other as straight people are! Finding likeminded people to share our lives isn’t now as easy as walking into the nearest gay bar.

So what do we have in common now?

At least most of us still have a shared experience of what it was/is to grow and develop within an invalidating early family and school environment. This gives us all a range of emotional wounds we can share and compare.

Maybe because of our shared vantage point we will continue to be communally outraged about homophobia and transphobia in all its forms not just in Brighton or the UK but wherever rears its ugly head on our planet.

But none of this really amounts to much for most of us, yet, as a community newly released and blinking in the bright daylight of freedom, we are still vulnerable and in need of some kind of support from somewhere.

So where will that support come from? I believe it can come from two important sources.

Firstly, we all know how the internetification of cruising has revolutionized the world for our sexually active gay male brethren. But this is just one dimension of how the LGBT community has started to take advantage of cyberspace. If you check out here you’ll see how LGBTers are seizing this means of expression and using it to come out to the world in a more intimate way than ever before, connecting with others at a much deeper level than usual.

And secondly, maybe, just maybe it is time for our community to feel confident enough to get our strength and support by just signing up to the straight world- or at least the more gay friendly aspects of it.

So reach into yourselves and develop your sense of shameless self. And with the strength that gives you reach out to the straight world and let them see just how fabulous you really are!

3 comments:

  1. I was thinking just today how useful a medium blogging is for gay guys coming out, seeking relationships etc. Ironically I need the internet because I am always reaching out to the straight world so have no other real means to meet other gayers!

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  2. You hit a number of major issues on the head!

    I do think cultural identity is important in establishing the 'self' and 'gay' is a part of our own personal culture.

    By achieving what we ask for we do risk losing our identity. Is that a good thing? Time will tell.

    I'm not anti-internet, but I do see it as a dangerous substitute for social interaction when there are other options.

    A friend of mine never goes out socially anymore. Part of it's cost saving (!) and part of it is that all the guys he likes are only 'online' so if he wants to meet them he has to use gaydar etc.

    I'm old school. I prefer meeting people IRL :-)

    I do think hook-up sites are addictive, though. You can basically log on, choose from an entire menu of guys, and rejection is painless.

    It's all a bit too 'efficient' for me, though.

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  3. Hey Mike and Nine
    Thanks for your comment on my last blog. Suppose what I'm saying is that the 'community' is now much more elusive than it used to be- no longer located in the nice friendly local gat bar any more. Our mutually felt oppression allowed us to let our guards down with each other and be more accepting of our differences. With equality and 'acceptance' comes relative estrangement and a recognition that most gay people now have much less in common with each other than we used to think we had! Thus the real world community vanishes in a puff of er ........puffs so to speak :-)
    So to access a community of real people with real feelings and real soul- paradoxically you're more likely to find that through virtual relationships via blogs where people are daring to come out to the world in an albeit safe but more fine print and less caricaturized way than ever before. So you end up getting a connection more real than IRL via an URL :-)
    I love developing my sense of who I am via the creative process of writing my blog and I love witnessing others- like yourselves- develop your creativity too.
    Keep on bloging!
    Love

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