The Gay Thread

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

You're pretty darn gay, after all.

Why thank you.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

I have never seen a full episode of SatC nor either film nor do I have any real desire to do so.

I'm fairly sure I'm still gay, but it's been a while, so who knows....

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, see, I loved the series, but the first movie left me 'meh' (and I didn't rush out to see it in theaters ... I'll likely Netflix this one also - - - once I'm used to seeing something on TV, I think that's where I like it).

As for Glee, I hear the second season went downhill - but it might be one of those series I check out on DVD sometime in the future.

[Alex]

I know what you meant since the lengthy middle break is becoming more common, but Glee is still in its first season.

[innerSpaceman]

Huh? I don't watch the show, but I've heard so many complaints from people who do that the second season is not as good as the first. And since I seem to remember people watching the first season well over a year ago, whatever break that was - was, assuming my recollection of time is correct (quite the hefty assumption) - means this is the de facto second season no matter what they're calling it.


Either way, I'm not yet convinced it's worth my time.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

And since I seem to remember people watching the first season well over a year ago, whatever break that was - was, assuming my recollection of time is correct (quite the hefty assumption) - means this is the de facto second season no matter what they're calling it.

Except for the pilot which aired at the end of last season as a teaser the entire first season has aired in the traditional September-May window (except for the last episode in the first week of June). The break was just that rather than doing reruns they did a bunch of new episodes in a row, took time off, then did the rest in a row.

It's a borderline show so far as I'm concerned. The soap opera aspects interest me not at all (though the most horrible plotline of the first half of the season seems to have gone away entirely which is good) but I enjoy about half the musical numbers so I drop in on it every once in a while.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

Except for the pilot which aired at the end of last season

To clarify, by "the end of last season" Alex means "the end of the previous Sept-May network television season" not "the end of the previous season of Glee" because there was no previous season of glee.

[Ghoulish Delight]

The pilot aired May of last year...but then the series didn't start airing again until September. There was a break between January and April, then the final episode of season 1 will air June 8.

[innerSpaceman]

ok, well, a rose by any other name. Its comeback was advertised by Fox (around the corner from me) as they would a new series or new season, and everyone I know who watches the show is calling it that. So whatever.

I kinda shy away from gay "must-see" stuff. I hear the pandering gay wedding that opens Sex in the City 2 is a tone-deaf mess. The one scene I've seen from Glee (a dad over-the-top defending his gay son against a careless insult by a high school friend) was so After-School-Special that I'm not inspired to check out more - no matter how many stunt gay-icon music casting coups they score.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

NY Times article on increasing gay acceptance

Quoting the whole article because NY Times articles tend to sneak behind pay walls
Spoilering only because it's long

Spoiler:

Gay? Whatever, Dude
By Charles M. Blow
Published: June 4, 2010

Last week, while many of us were distracted by the oil belching forth from the gulf floor and the president's ham-handed attempts to demonstrate that he was sufficiently engaged and enraged, Gallup released a stunning, and little noticed, report on Americans' evolving views of homosexuality. Allow me to enlighten:

1. For the first time, the percentage of Americans who perceive "gay and lesbian relations" as morally acceptable has crossed the 50 percent mark. (You have to love the fact that they still use the word "relations." So quaint.)

2. Also for the first time, the percentage of men who hold that view is greater than the percentage of women who do.

3. This new alignment is being led by a dramatic change in attitudes among younger men, but older men's perceptions also have eclipsed older women's. While women's views have stayed about the same over the past four years, the percentage of men ages 18 to 49 who perceived these "relations" as morally acceptable rose by 48 percent, and among men over 50, it rose by 26 percent.

I warned you: stunning.

There is no way to know for sure what's driving such a radical change in men's views on this issue because Gallup didn't ask, but that doesn't mean that we can't speculate. To help me do so, I called Dr. Michael Kimmel, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the author or editor of more than 20 books on men and masculinity, and Professor Ritch Savin-Williams, the chairman of human development at Cornell University and the author of seven books, most of which deal with adolescent development and same-sex attraction.

Here are three theories:

1. The contact hypothesis. As more men openly acknowledge that they are gay, it becomes harder for men who are not gay to discriminate against them. And as that group of openly gay men becomes more varied—including athletes, celebrities and soldiers—many of the old, derisive stereotypes lose their purchase. To that point, a Gallup poll released last May found that people who said they personally knew someone who was gay or lesbian were more likely to be accepting of gay men and lesbians in general and more supportive of their issues.

2. Men may be becoming more egalitarian in general. As Dr. Kimmel put it: "Men have gotten increasingly comfortable with the presence of, and relative equality of, ‘the other,' and we're becoming more accustomed to it. And most men are finding that it has not been a disaster." The expanding sense of acceptance likely began with the feminist and civil rights movements and is now being extended to the gay rights movement. Dr. Kimmel continued, "The dire predictions for diversity have not only not come true, but, in fact, they've been proved the other way."

3. Virulent homophobes are increasingly being exposed for engaging in homosexuality. Think Ted Haggard, the once fervent antigay preacher and former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, and his male prostitute. (This week, Haggard announced that he was starting a new "inclusive" church open to "gay, straight, bi, tall, short," but no same-sex marriages. Not "God's ideal." Sorry.) Or George Rekers, the founding member of the Family Research Council, and his rent boy/luggage handler. Last week, the council claimed that repealing "don't ask, don't tell" would lead to an explosion of "homosexual assaults" in which sleeping soldiers would be the victims of fondling and fellatio by gay predators. In fact, there is a growing body of research that supports the notion that homophobia in some men could be a reaction to their own homosexual impulses. Many heterosexual men see this, and they don't want to be associated with it. It's like being antigay is becoming the old gay. Not cool.

These sound plausible, but why aren't women seeing the same enlightening effects as men? Professor Savin-Williams suggests that there may be a "ceiling effect," that men are simply catching up to women, and there may be a level at which views top out. Interesting.

All of this is great news, but it doesn't mean that all measures relating to acceptance of gay men and lesbians have changed to the same degree. People's comfort with the "gay and lesbian" part of the equation is still greater than their comfort with the "relations" part—the idea versus the act—particularly when it comes to pairings of men.

As Professor Savin-Williams told me, there is still a higher aversive reaction to same-sex sexuality among men than among women.

For instance, in a February New York Times/CBS News poll, half of the respondents were asked if they favored letting "gay men and lesbians" serve in the military (which is still more than 85 percent male), and the other half were asked if they favored letting "homosexuals" serve. Those who got the "homosexual" question favored it at a rate that was 11 percentage points lower than those who got the "gay men and lesbians" question.

Part of the difference may be that "homosexual" is a bigger, more clinical word freighted with a lot of historical baggage. But just as likely is that the inclusion of the root word "sex" still raises an aversive response to the idea of, how shall I say, the architectural issues between two men. It is the point at which support for basic human rights cleaves from endorsement of behavior.

As for the aversion among men, it may be softening a bit. Professor Savin-Williams says that his current research reveals that the fastest-growing group along the sexuality continuum are men who self-identify as "mostly straight" as opposed to labels like "straight," "gay" or "bisexual." They acknowledge some level of attraction to other men even as they say that they probably wouldn't act on it, but ... the right guy, the right day, a few beers and who knows. As the professor points out, you would never have heard that in years past.

All together now: stunning.

(I now return you to Day 46 of the oil spill where they finally may be making some progress.)