Ladies, I'm Not Your Gay Boyfriend
 

(I looked to see if the LoT has talked about this and couldn't find it. If I'm just repeating, please forgive.)

So here's the Salon.com article. Maybe you also heard Thomas Rogers about this on NPR.

Two main ideas in the article: 1) fag hags of yore were a completely different type than the young fag hags of today who are looking not for a friend but for elbow candy and 2) it's time for the gay-man-as accessory to go the way of the sassy-black-friend-as-accessory.

I am much more the Bette Midler generation and type than the young women Rogers is describing, so I have no idea if he's accurate. What do you think?

I read that article recently, too. And it annoyed me. I think it has a very narrow view of people. I do know my share of current teens, but regardless of age, I don't know a lot of people who look for arm candy instead of actual connection. Perhaps this is because I have no interest in that kind of people so I actively avoid them.

I've done my share of hagging, you might say, but it was never because I wanted specifically to be a hag. I happen to love musical theater and things that are campy. I grew up around the proscenium arch. It so happens that I had friends female, gay and straight, and friends male, gay and straight, who gathered around rehearsal rooms. And we all acted pretty much the same, no matter what gender of person we fancied.

I also note that I have plenty of friends who are gay who have nothing to do with theater or camp. I'm friends with them because we connect. And it has NOTHING to do with accessorizing.

Retro enamel pins are for accessorizing. People are for witty banter, shared interests and emotional support.

Ooh. Theatre Camp. That would have been fun if they had that when I was a kid.

Haha... according to the article, I still qualify as a fag hag :)

where you would listen to the music of the night.

Of course I don't know any women such as are portrayed in the article. I'm of the wrong generation for that. But I don't doubt it's happening, and it's a good thing.

The need for "authentic" fag hags is coming to an end. That's the good thing I mean. The fact that some stupid girls want gay men as accessories and not friends is a bad part of the inevitable mainstreaming of faghagdom ... the same mainstreaming that will render the role pretty much extinct.

Oh gay guys will still have really close female friends. But the shared outsider status is something that thankfully is experienced by fewer and fewer young gay boys. Huzzah to that. Yes, the new term will be the more accurate "friend." Huzzah to that as well.

I will never be extinct.

It was really interesting watching the perceptions of friends teenage daughters change once my other friend came out. Other friend went from "friend of our parents" to "huggable". We used to joke about him being trendy to them.

Oh and Friends did more to damage NYC apartment perceptions then W&G did.

OMG, that "Friends" apt! Whose credit cards were more maxed out - the Friends or Carrie Bradshaw's?

Yes.

Though in the show's defense, the apartment that Monica and Rachel (then Monica and Chandler) lived in was rent controlled and sub-leased from her grandma or something. But 'the one across the hall' wasn't.

Will and Grace at least had a successful lawyer and a successful interior decorator footing the bill (and the unemployed one was sugar-mommaed by the rich divorcee.)

But the Friends and Carrie Bradshaw... how much does a columnist make? Not very much, in my experience. And the Friends were often unemployed, or working in low-paying gigs. I thusly always thought they were fantasy shows, not comedy.

One of the best touches in Swingers was Jon Favreau's realistic apartment.

If it makes you feel any better I've actually stood in that "apartment" and it looked like crap.

That is very cool, TLMt. The only tv thing I've seen IRL is Howdy Doody at the Smithsonian and, as agèd as I am, Howdy Doody is (slightly) before my time.

Isn't that kind of true of a lot of sets up close though?

Sets are all about the duct tape. Although, come to think of it, so is my apartment.