Gay Marriage VS. Gay Identity
by pinkagendist
Not bad, right? Above is my post-gay-marriage suburban home. I live in Southern Europe, in a place modelled on Palm Springs by an American millionaire developer called Joseph McMicking. Our streets are lined in palms, oleander trees and SUV’s. No house can have a garden of less than 10,763 square feet. Across the street from us resides the very elegant Andrea von Post, daughter of President Kennedy’s first glamorous mistress, Gunilla. When President Clinton visited Spain and wanted to play at our golf club, the Valderrama president, Mr. Ortiz Patiño (friends with the Bush family), denied him access. Some former Presidents also spends their summers here as do a dozen or so royals. We live in an unnecessarily large and slightly over-decorated home. We regularly attend charity events, dinner parties and lunches, we also have Ralph Lauren polo shirts and sweaters in almost every colour. Did I mention there are only two “out” gay homes? The other gay couple is Swiss and that’s about the most exciting thing I can say about them.
This is the new suburban me
In the past decade it seems we have re-packaged gay identity. We moved away from the old hedonist stereotype to the other gay stereotype: one that’s monogamous, adopts Asian babies, cooks like Ina Garten and is entirely de-sexualized. The kind we see on Modern Family and Desperate Housewives. A few years have gone by in these suburbs, and I’ve realized that in our desire to be assimilated with the general population -to be just like everyone else- we may have substituted who we are for who they are. The truth is, although I should have the same rights as everyone else, I’m not like everyone else. I’m gay and subversive. I like transgression. I’m sexually liberal, I’ve enjoyed casual sex, I’ve briefly done porn (more on that coming soon). Why should my place in society be contingent upon adopting heterosexist norms and normalcy? We shouldn’t just have Rick Santorum’s right to marry, have 25 children and wear sweater vests. We should also have Elizabeth Taylor’s right to marry seven gorgeous men, and Anna Nicole Smith’s right to marry a wealthy octogenarian at death’s door and legally inherit his estate.
The old me performing with Bel-Ami star Paolo Estefan
