Totally Gay?

I love South Park. Myself and boyfriend number 1 are huge fans, even though the characters on the program often say "totally gay" meaning "totally pathetic". For people who don't know the program, it's one of their catch-phrases, and perhaps it's becoming a bit of a problem. These days, if someone says something stupid at work, sometimes I actually find myself thinking "totally gay"! But there's no way that gay=pathetic when I think about it rationally.

The reason these thoughts are surfacing today is because of GIL's amusing post about his new cats. Two male cats who like each other's company, but because one is more dominant than the other, the dominant one who fights for his territory is labelled 'straight' whereas the timid one is labelled 'gay'. I definitely have the mentality of the cat who fights for his territory, and there aren't many people around who would call me straight!

Of course it's true that some gay guys do have a more timid nature. And some gay guys could be called pathetic, in exactly the same way that some straight guys could be called pathetic. But why does the pathetic label stick on gay guys in general and not on straight guys? I guess it's because that there's still, even these days, a general notion in our society that it's somehow pathetic to be the effeminate type of gay guy. The so called straight-acting gay guys blend in, and because they don't fit the traditional male stereotype, the effeminate gay guys get noticed and labelled "totally gay".

I guess if people were to try and label me, they would call me 'straight-acting'. I haven't worried about these kind of labels for many years, but with the word 'gay' attracting these negative associations, I've just about had enough. From now on, if anyone tries to call me straight-acting, they're going to have a fight on their hands!