A few days ago, Mistress Matisse called readers’ attention to this really dumb article about a television show I’ve never seen. Now, I didn’t give a shit about Friends back when everyone was talking about it, and I certainly don’t give a shit about it now; I’m sure you can therefore guess how infinitesimal my level of interest was in an article belaboring the totally obvious point that a show that went off the air twelve years ago (thank you, IMDb) doesn’t perfectly fit modern ideas of political correctness. But I was very interested (read: deeply disgusted but totally unsurprised) by this quote from Ray Bradford, the “director of entertainment media” for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), discussing an episode of the show in which Kathleen Turner played the drag-queen father of one of the characters: “When I looked at Kathleen Turner’s character, there was nothing tragic about it. It was not a story line depicting her as a killer or a psychopath or a sex worker or anything like that.” Read that again if you need to. Yes, that’s a media mouthpiece for a very large and respected gay rights group, specifically one whose mission is to combat harmful stereotypes, openly defaming sex workers by speaking of us in the same breath as killers and psychopaths. Now, you know, I’m not saying Bradford is evil; I’m not trying to depict him as a murderer or a child molester or a queer or anything like that. But one would expect that someone whose job description involves talking to the public about slurs against sexual minorities would, I don’t know, refrain from using slurs against sexual minorities maybe?
One might indeed expect that if one hadn’t been paying attention for the past couple of decades, that is. When Friends first debuted, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” was a common gay rights chant. But by the time the show was cancelled a decade later, the movement had undergone a dramatic transformation. Leathermen, stone butches, drag queens, kinky queers, transpeople, HIV patients and sex workers were slowly and gradually ushered back into the closet so vanilla picket-fence gay men and lesbians who wanted to get married, adopt kids and/or join the military could say to the Establishment, “Look, we’re just like you!” and thereby attract corporate donors to Pride parades and “marriage equality” drives that are perfectly happy to demonize polygamists, kinksters, whores and others who aren’t so interested in begging the government to license their sexuality. Wait your turn, we were told; don’t worry, we’ll get around to you. Except that once middle-class white mostly-monogamous gay men & lesbians won their place at the big table, what happened? Whitewashing Stonewall, which was started by black transwomen and drag sex workers. Siding with the fascist establishment against a transwoman who exposed government wrongdoing. Participating in the demonization of “sex offenders”. Vomiting out “it’s illegal” as an argument against sex work, though gay sex was illegal in many states only 13 years ago. Pretending that promiscuous stranger sex isn’t a major part of the lives of many queer men. Forgetting that sex workers were the only partners available to many closeted gay men for much of the 20th century. Promoting anti-whore crusades to cash in on rescue industry dollars. Ignoring anti-queer persecution which doesn’t affect bourgeois gays.
Gay, Inc has thrown sex workers and other “undesirables” under the bus for over a decade now; in their view, the “rainbow” only properly has three colors (and they ain’t too sure about that third one). The Rentboy raid was the direct result of this bigotry; had the GLBT “community” devoted its energies to securing the basic rights of all sexual minorities instead of wasting them in trying to force Christian fundamentalists to bake fucking overpriced cakes for their fucking bourgeois weddings, we’d be well on the way to decriminalization by now. Ray Bradford and GLAAD aren’t anomalies; they’re typical of what passes for “gay rights” organizations these days. And principled GLBT folk should take their vile, disgusting, hateful, bigoted attitude as a wake-up call.
Ok, I think I get the point, but aren’t you making the same mistake when you say: “Now, you know, I’m not saying Bradford is evil; I’m not trying to depict him as a murderer or a child molester or a queer or anything like that.”
The Gay establishment bows to political correctness by distancing itself from any “sex” (or sex play) that involves minors, even though many of the victims of such PC are themselves minors and/or used no force, insensitivity or exploitation during their broadly defined crimes. You seem to be distancing yourself from so-called “child molesters” no less than Gay, Inc.
Maybe I missed your irony?
“Mistake”? I’m honestly shaking my head at how you could possibly have missed my sarcasm (unless you were doing it on purpose to provide an excuse for getting on a soapbox), given that A) I mocked his exact language; and B) I am myself openly queer.
Glad to hear it was sarcasm! My bad.
I saw this coming a long time ago, because of three words: “Log Cabin Republicans.” Log Cabin Republicans have always been willing to associate with a party that calls for descriminating against them because they know that in capitalist America, money matters more than anything. Now that the picket fence gays are in the fold, of course they are turning their backs on sexual minorities that they once counted as allies.
Precisely, I don’t see it as so much “begging the government to license their sexuality.” It’s getting the benefits that heterosexual married couples receive in terms of tax credits, or the ability to receive property in a partner’s will. In other words, follow the money.
“had the GLBT “community” devoted its energies to securing the basic rights of all sexual minorities… we’d be well on the way to decriminalization by now.”
How so? From a legitimate counterfactual history perspective, what would this movement have done differently if they had not cast out the sex workers and transsexuals?
Unless they somehow planned to short circuit the ‘sex traficking’ social panic, I don’t see how any victories the picket-fencers have won would have come about had it not splintered this way. The Establishment would have continued to successfully label everyone, from vanilla homosexuals to sex workers and beyond, as a nefarious “Other” that must be suppressed at all costs.
Indeed, why would you as a sex worker have stayed in any movement (even if they weren’t actively distancing themselves from you) that was all about trying to wring concessions out of an Establishment that you’ve demonstrated time and time again is irredeemably corrupt and evil and thus is much better done away with than trying to live under?
Fifty, fifty. Smaller groups get more done. Small goals get further along. Basic social physics. Crowds have energy, inertia, momentum, even a certain gravitational pull. Some things just work that way. I think the betrayal after the fight is what’s unacceptable.
On the flipside, though: No one has gotten revolution right in decades. Theory isn’t enough to carry the work. Egypt had a revolution and ended up with a military dictatorship. There’s no shame in picking battles, building trenches. Rinse, repeat. The serious offense is in the revisionism and erasure. If people are going to betray their support base, maybe they should take a vacation and let it sink in. People are allowed to stumble. They are not allowed to act like they can sprint a mile after they do so, though. Not comfortable with the new challenges, bow out respectfully. Don’t swing your fishing rod at a marlin and pretend you’re still in control.
Maggie, you have probably put the finger on why I Never liked “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” etc.. The shows always felt so–contrived, so unnatural–I can’t really fully put it into words just thanks for getting me past why I disliked what so many people I knew loved.
Seems to me Bradford’s comment was agreeing with you, sideways. Like he’s tired of seeing sex workers and queer people in such roles and it was refreshing to him that they didn’t do that. Since the 70s, right about the time StonewaR happened, media depicting queer people as unhinged, right after they got upset about being disrespected, no sinister plot there, amirite? I say sideways because, well, bringing up an image, even for criticism is still icky. The mind wanders where it will, regardless of the intent. We’re all allowed to whine and unload, every so often, though.
That whole thing about putting the weird back in the weirdrobe, though… two words: Chelsea Manning. People went invisible until the law changed, hung her out to dry.
A personal example of mainstream gay hypocrisy: I was viciously attacked by some gays for questioning Dan Savage’s silence on the mass hysteria over child sex abuse.
Using the “p” word and other pathetic troll tricks my account on Chris Ryan’s polyamory site was eventualy blocked and the whole discussion I started was deleted. (My account was unblocked a year later, but without any guarantee that free discussion would be protected in the future.)
This sort of thing is part of why I am not fond of Gay, Inc. They’re all about freedom, or so they say—but only for them. Everybody else gets “Sod you, Jack, I’m all right!”