The Rainbow Connection

Last Saturday night, a few things happened that I didn't expect. I found myself in the local University bar, sitting at a table with my Lesbian friends and a few strangers, watching men and women dance in costume that is usually reserved for people of the opposite "gender". And I was shocked.

This experience was entirely cultural. I started out the evening, upon realizing how much culture surrounded me, by asking a friend if it was wrong to look at the event through the lens of an anthropologist. She laughed - and reminded me that gay culture has been around for a long time - that modern gay culture has been percolating for more than 60 years, and that I had a lot to get caught up on.

A couple notes: the environment was very supportive of the dancers. There is an established system of tipping the dancers. Dancing with your partner on the side while others dance is totally agreeable. Large paintings of penises and vaginas with holes in them are perfect places to take photos. Women are welcome to use the men's washroom - I'm not entirely certain if this is a two-way street. Comeradery is important - relationships are important; friends who have been friends for years sit together and have fun together. It isn't wrong to look around and see if anybody attractive is sitting at the table next to you, and then to strike up a conversation with them. Fun is the raison d'etre - make sure that you have it; and hold back, but don't be afraid to let loose a bit. Watching a man, dressed as Octomom, give birth to the forgotten ninth baby while on stage, lip-synching to a song about the saintly virtues of motherhood will never, ever get old. Laughter was the soup du jour.

It was refreshing to walk into a public environment where I wasn't in a minority; where humour about being gay never felt like a slander or off-handedly offensive slight. Where there were numerous straight people, with their partners, holding hands and enjoying themselves - sitting across the table from numerous gay people, with their partners, holding hands and enjoying themselves. Where the sexualities seemed to naturally blend in a communal revelry of the intricacies of humanity and sex. The room and its activities did not feel obscene or inappropriate; it was instead a celebration of people getting to be who it is that they naturally are.

I felt safe the entire time.

There were moments where it felt like a form of utopia. It was until I was covered in sweat, which was mostly my own, that I realized I was too tired to allow the night to continue.

Also, discovered that the most attractive man at the university is gay. I was pleased. Even more pleased to find he was in a steady relationship - because that was what the night seemed to be about: community, relationship, love, support. Sex, despite the dominance of sexuality as the night's theme, only popped up on the dance floor.




By the way, I danced with a boy. It was a nice experience. Entirely new. Looking forward to doing it again.

Also, life lesson from Saturday night - kissing women really isn't as bad as I have always made it out to be. Their lips are much, much softer.

Tomorrow night, I will be going to my first ever drag show.





I look forward to telling you all about it, when I return.

So much to say....

but not enough time.

I've got a lot of things to post about this week. Lots of ideas. Not enough time. Here's hoping I can get a couple out of the bag today.

I just found a new blog this past week, and started reading some its posts. It is written by a Canadian graduate student, though I do not know where or what he is studying. Regardless, he posted this recently:

"Commitment between two persons of the same sex is not inherently different from commitment between persons of different sexes. "Gay marriage" is a misnomer. A marriage is not gay (though the two persons may define themselves as gay). Being gay is just one dimension of a person, and marriage encompasses the whole person. (...) When people claim their right to marry, their sex or sexuality is not intrinsic to that right, although social prejudice makes it appear so."

-- Ruth Vanita in Love's Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005: 2)


I like this a lot.

The Olympic Dream

These past two weeks I have spent a great deal of time watching sport. The Winter Olympics somehow draw my attention away from everything else going on in my life and focus me on the accomplishments of athletes that I don't know at all. But the past couple days of the Olympics, despite Canada's incredible successes, have been quite frustrating for me. Because of women.

I often wonder if women are fully aware of how frequently they are objectified by men. Particularly those women who are on television - the ones that, somehow, we are convinced don't really exist. We (well, many men) talk about them as they perform their greatest skills for us; we say things that we would never say to their face, and somehow think this is ok.

But, this post is hardly about the Olympics, hardly about women, and certainly not about television. Like all other things on this blog, this post is about me - and how I have had to traverse the aisles of heterosexuality over the past couple weeks listening to my friends and my brother rave about the hot Canadian women's curling team, the ugly Finnish hockey team, and the incredible body of Lindsey Vonn.

There are times that it seems like a dick-waving competition to me at times. Like, "look at me, I still have a sex-drive, and so do you, and are drive is similar, so lets talk about it really loudly."

The story I am about to share with you is not a dick-waving competition so much as it was a subtle moment in a hetero-sexist environment that always reminds me that I am not like the rest of this planet.

Last night I was at a local bar with two close friends of mine. One is aware of my sexuality, the other isn't. While discussing the Olympics (it is the topic that has been on everybody's hearts and mind for the past two weeks), they manage to get onto the topic of Canada's two-woman bobsledding team. They managed to comment on their physical appearance, and both admitted (with more courtesy than most I have heard) that they were attracted to these athletes. And they discussed this for quite some time.

And I was quiet - for the 5 minute conversation on how attractive women in tight spandex suits are.

The entire time wishing I could chime in on what I thought about the two-man bobsledders. But I didn't, for fear of how the people sitting around us would act. And because I am very capable, and well-trained, in the game of hiding my sexuality from the world as the world discusses theirs. Because I have never really been able to talk about sexual desire with men before. And because the pub that we were in is, like most pubs, equally male-centric as it is beer-centric. Because I don't mind people talking about their sexual attractions, I just wish I could do so. Fearlessly.


After, while talking with my friend that knows that I am gay, I shared my momentary discomfort from when the two of them had discussed the physical assets of some women on some athletic team participating in some kind of big-deal international competition of sports. I told him I felt trapped in silence - as though I was choking on words that I wanted to share but couldn't.

And I don't think he understood. Because he responded by saying that he wanted to have me jump into these conversations... so that he could make-fun of me for my input. Offer some kind of humorous response.

I appreciate that friends make fun of each other - but all I could think was, 'but, you didn't make fun of our friend for his moment of sexual vanity...'


Like I said, a story of just one of those many reminders I experience everyday telling me that I am of the "other". I am not of this world.

Don't cry for me...

When you fall in love with a straight married man, you know you're in trouble.

And I am not going to lie, this is where I have been stuck for quite a while. And, somehow, we have developed a friendship that has allowed me to appreciate him for more than his ridiculous good looks. He is charming, funny, enjoyable to be around.

And straight.

And married.

(I don't know which of those I think is more important - they both pretty much rule out the possibility of relationship.)

So, I'm devising methods of ending our friendship in a way that involves me telling him that I am gay - and that I am fighting a conflict of interests in our relationship. And that it is better for me and him if we stop being friends.

Unless he can think of a way to stop being so damn attractive. Or stop being so charming that I occasionally perceive some kind of flirtation with him.

I've composed an e-mail that entreats him to go out for coffee (he is allergic to alcohol - tragic flaw). Have not thus far sent it. Probably will tomorrow.

I can't wait to be attracted to, and possibly develop a relationship with, somebody that has the possibility of being attracted to me. That will be a good day, when it happens.

How exciting to think about how that might actually happen.

Hopefully I am not entirely delirious.

Untitled, Unposted #2

I never asked to be gay. I'd actually rather be straight. I doubt that anybody in the entirety of existence has wanted so immensely to be normal from the outset of his life - and known that he couldn't be - quite as much as I do.

I will always be different.

Harper you dirtbag!

I'm trying to think of all the traits I like in my politicians - the aspects of individuals that make me want to vote for them.

First is a strong moral compass that is centered around attempts to view the world objectively. In doing so, a great politician would pursue the ideals of equality, liberty, and the creation of a safe society. Also, they would focus on improving the lives of everybody in its sovereign realm, with an interest in social programming that benefits those parts of society that struggle to experience the same levels of equality and economic opportunity as are viewed as desirable. They would be interested in the environment - whole-heartedly interested. They would strive to make international cooperation a possibility rather than just a pipe-dream.

A great politician would have a soul. A wholly human soul.

And this great politician does not exist. I know that.

I also know that the current Canadian political culture does not predispose it to these kind of peoples. I also am beginning to see why the Canadian system of government is more broken than I believed it to be only days ago.

Canadian senate appointments have been contentious since the sixties, but gained prominence in 2004 and 2005 as Harper, then the Primeministerial candidate of the Conservative Party, promised to legislate senate elections for the federal government's Upper House. At the time, I felt the extension of more democratic rights to the people of Canada was quite dangerous - and, in reality, I still do. I don't know if it is valuable to have an upper house whose senators are elected in by the same people that are electing the government into power - I like to think that those appointed by the previous government can act as a measure of accountability on the current government.

But then I saw this today, in the news.

Bob Runciman, one of Harper's most recent appointments to the senate (yes, the same Harper that was elected to office on a promise of changing Senate appointment laws), is not a good politician. The Liberal Party of Canada has explained why by using Runciman's own words.

“We believe all references to sexual orientation should be removed from the Human Rights Code.” - 1994

“Homosexuality is essentially anti-family. It encourages promiscuous sexuality, a self-centred morality and socially irresponsible behaviour that exacts huge costs from society. The law has every right to discourage people from entering into paths that are demonstratively destructive, physically and psychologically, first to the homosexuals and to society itself.” - 1986


This man worked three times to remove homosexuality from the Ontario Human Rights Code during his time as an MLA for Leeds, Ontario. I'm glad he is now a senator in Canada's government.

But this does not surprise me. If we look at who else has been employed by Harper's government and certainly not reprimanded for his beliefs (ok, admittedly, this man was voted in again after that video was leaked - so he is employed by the people... though there are few people that would argue that Conservative's MPs are actually following the interests of the people...).

It is good to know who Harper puts into the government that has been granted, through history, sovereign rule over me. Who knows, maybe the next time Harper attempts to remove my right to marriage he'll have enough conservative MPs and Senators to get it through the house...