gay community – PIEFOLK

MonDATE: Bisexuals and the Right to Privacy, Part Two

February 28, 2014 by piefolk, posted in Uncategorized

Him: You’re being extremely unfair!

Me: I’m sorry about that. Did you see August Osage County? What did you think?

Him: Seriously, are you Bisexual?

Me: I keep thinking if I hadn’t seen the Broadway play, I might have really liked the movie. I liked it quite a bit, actually, but I might have been blown away if I hadn’t watched the Broadway show twice.

Him: Don’t change the subject! Stop it.

Me: Julia Roberts really blew the doors off the hinges. It’s worth seeing just for that.

Him: I didn’t see it yet, okay?

Me: Okay. No spoilers, then.

Him: I’m asking you a question, and you’re avoiding it.

Me: I don’t see why I owe you the information. It’s just information, after all.

Him: I read your site for years. I’m extremely curious. What happened? It seems like you’ve made a 180, and I don’t know what to make of all of it. It seems…

Me: Don’t trail off. How does it seem?

Him: Hypocritical. It seems hypocritical. Sorry.

(There is a long pause. I sit on a bench at the bus stop.)

Him: You waiting for a bus now?

Me: Only if it’s an express bus to Canada.

Him: What does that mean?

Me: I dunno. It’s about half a joke. I’ll let you know when/if there’s a punch line.

Him: Hey. I’m sorry I called you a hypocrite – just how I see it.

Me: Ha. Then you’re not really sorry! You’re frustrated about quite a few things, and I’d suspect the root of it has very, very little to do with me.

Him: You can’t just… You can’t write about the gay community for years, and talk openly about being a poly-amorous homosexual – you can’t run some sort of online ‘brotherhood of man’ pie cult for the gays, and then just get married to a woman. Just, poof, you’re married and normal again. Just like that.

Me: Can’t I? Why can’t I? Why can’t I marry whomever I want? Isn’t that the underlined point behind the Marriage Equality movement?

Him: Don’t you feel you owe people like me an explanation?

Me: Why?

Him: Because I am one of your readers. Because I’m your audience.

(There is a long pause.)

Me: Well… thank you. I’m flattered you’re reading, that you’re still reading, and that you took the time to contact me. All of these things are incredibly flattering, and part of me agrees with you. A huge part of me thinks I owe it to you to tell you exactly how my sex life is structured, what it means to be LGBTQ in a traditional marriage structure, and send you home with a slice of pie and a warm feeling of hope for tomorrow.

Him: That’s what I’d like, yes.

Me: Then again, I’ve read quite a few books on writing, and while authors agree it is important to have an audience, they seem to also agree that catering things to your audience leads to atrophy in a major way. Bill Cosby said something like, I don’t know what the formula for success is, but I know the formula for failure is trying to please everyone.

Him: Teach me, oh wise one.

Me: I’m not getting paid to teach you, or, for that matter, to tell you how to live your life, or to tell you how I live mine.

Him: Okay, I’ll admit – it’s none of my business.

Me: Thank you.

Him: But I’m CURIOUS.

Me: Yes. You’re curious. That’s exactly right. You expect me to tell you intimate details of my personal life to you, the way I would to my therapist, because you read my site for a while and you feel somehow entitled to missing information. But you’re just an audience member. You’re just tuning in. You don’t know me and you have no real right to my inner physical, emotional, or intellectual life, beyond what I publish on my site, which by the way you read for free – so I owe you even less.

Him: People are going to want to know! You wrote about your sex life for years!

Me: No. Incorrect. I did not.

Him: Yes you DID. You’re being a hypocrite!

Me: Actually, I wrote about awkward dates, urban alienation, and my disappointment in a community full of brilliant, motivated, socially broken people. I almost never mentioned who I was having sex with.

Him: Come off it. You were sleeping with all those boys who made pie with you.

Me: Incorrect. Those were models, or friends, or people who contacted me online who wanted to help. It was very rare I slept with the people on my site.

Him: What?

Me: The “Awkward Dates” happen with people I don’t sleep with. That is the whole point: Here’s how NOT to sleep with me. The irony is, it’s pretty easy to sleep with me, if you’re cute and sweet, but most gay people have no interest in being kind, gentle, or generous of spirit – at least the ones who live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn don’t. They think they don’t have to, and in some sense, they’re correct. Someone will stomach their painfully underdeveloped, spoiled, sour personalities. But that someone isn’t me…

Him: Still seems hypocritical to me.

Me: You’ve now called me a hypocrite three times.

Him: So?

Me: So take a deep breath.

Him: Why?

Me: I’m about to tell you what I think about you.

(Pause. He looks concerned. I take a deep breath and count to ten.)

TO BE CONTINUED…

Letters

October 26, 2013October 26, 2013 by piefolk, posted in Uncategorized

Dear Michael,

Okay, so you married a woman. I want to hiss at you, you rotten so-and-so… You community betrayer. You no good fucking breeder…

Just kidding. I imagine the reactions were something similar to that though – with sprinklings of misogyny (“vaginas are yucky,” that sort of thing). Men! Am I right?

Funny story – a co-worker was into astrology and all that jazz. When she did a reading of the stars I was born under she said the spiritual side was so strong I would pretty much become gay Jesus. As an unabashed hedonist, I was rather disappointed.

Luckily she noted that the same house that determined religiosity also determined addictions – or something to that effect – so it could be that I’m just going to become the world’s greatest alcoholic. Let us pray… May my liver put the fattiest of fois-gras to shame. Martyrdom is for fucking chumps – no disagreement here.

People always regurgitate the same shit like “it gets better” – as if they are magical incantations that put broken things right again. When I was 16 and broke under the stress of being different in a small, religious, backwater agricultural town, I wound up deeply suicidal and stuck in a psychiatric ward for a few months.

No friends or relatives came to visit. Nobody asked me how I was doing. A month in I remember my dad yelling at the head psychiatrist “fucking fix him – how long until he’s fixed?” Once I was released back into the wild, good friends were wary and distant. Adults looked at me with reserved suspicion. Word had clearly gotten out about my failed attempt to hang myself from the gym rafters.

I’m young and stupid, but I also feel old and pessimistic. The old man inside knows that people don’t want to emphasize with unpleasantness, and they don’t give a flying fuck about the problem. They just want it fixed, and removed from sight.

So I would love to give you a pep talk about how everything is going to fix itself, but I’m not sure how to do that without feeling like a no-good shyster. For a while I was focused on becoming an activist. I couldn’t change what happened to me, but I could help stop it from being inflicted on others. Ha!

Even as I type this I’m laughing at myself.

I moved to the city, baby-faced and free of my bonds, and got to work – majoring in social work and volunteering with various LGBT advocacy groups. They gay community was wonderful. After drinking too much at a party, three gay men raped me and I remember drunkenly slurring out pleas for help but nobody answered them. People in our incredibly accepting and noble little “community” called me a liar and a slut, and shut me out much the same as the straight one back home.

Make of it what you will.

I don’t think the community turned its back on you, so much as the “gay community” never existed in the first place. It’s just a variety mix of superficial bonds and assholes, and uncaring people inconvenienced by the suffering of others. I think you should stop giving a damn about things that make you unhappy, get a bunch of baby parrots like we agreed, and sail into the sunset with your fiancé.

Congratulations on your marriage,

GP,

I totally agree…

There was a powerful politician that tried to harm me once, and a sweet couple – they offered me food and delivered brutality.

Nobody remembers that. It isn’t fun, but it’s true.

Don’t stop telling your story. Don’t ever quit.

And don’t forget you’re one of the good ones.

If you quit telling your story, the evil people win. They’ll keep talking. You keep on too.

It all balances out.

Always remember: You don’t have to be a great man. Just do your part.

Always,

Michael

P.S. Jen says ‘hi’ and wants you to know we’ll cook dinner for you in Pasadena.

I’m With Magneto

May 29, 2013 by piefolk, posted in Uncategorized

Tri Vo Studio

Me: What is this theater? A speak easy?

Him: It’s the closest one to my house.

Me: There’s no sign. I had to circle the block three times to figure out where it was.

Him: They’re doing construction. I bought a bunch of snacks. You’re stressed out. Let’s have fun.

(We watch the movie. We do have fun. Then…)

Me: Aw, Jeez… You’re being nice and I’m being horrible. Thanks for the movie and the snacks, sweet boy.

Him: It’s okay. You have an emotional investment in the franchise; me too. I’ve been reading X-Men since i was a kid.

Me: Me too, since I was 8 years old.

Him: What did you think?

Me: I can’t but love it. I have to. It’s about us. It’s about LGBTQ.

Him: Singer really pushed the homosexual imagery hard – all that man on man fondling! Long, deep eye contact…

Me: He did. I got really emotional. Certain lines they delivered seemed to be speaking directly to Us. Almost like Singer wanted Us to hear his advice.

Him: ‘No, no. We don’t hurt our own kind.’

Me: YES! ‘Mutant and Proud.’

Him: That was clearly the underlying moral of the movie.

Me: I know. ‘You didn’t ask, so I didn’t tell.’

Him: Also, the hero, Charles Xavier, has big flaws. He invades people’s minds even after he has promised not to. He pressures Mystique to ‘cover’ her true form in public.

Me: Covering is a real problem right now in the Gay community. The pressure for us to mute ourselves can be felt any time we hang out with straight people. It’s not fair, and they don’t even realize they’re coyly asking us to do that, when we’re with them.

Him: They always do that. They all always do that.

Me: They frequently do that. But not all of them, and not always.

Him: How many of your comedy teams have pressured you to smooth out the gay around the edges?

Me: All of them, at one point or another. But, that’s comedy.

Him: I’m with Magneto. I’m a separatist.

Me: No, you’re not. You’re not willing to kill or maim or terrorize people in order to gain your equality.

(long silence)

Me: Stop. Don’t look at me like that. You’re not willing to do that.

Him: I agree with the philosophy. By any means necessary. It boils down to Xavier/Magneto being Dr. King/Malcolm X.

Me: I know. But what makes one argument compelling is that the other exists. One side of the argument is not compelling without the opposite point of view. It’s useless to say that you agree with Dr. King or Malcolm X., becaue you know in your heart that they are both right.

Him: I don’t care anymore. I’ve found a way to be completely homo-social. I only associate with Gay people except for my mother.

Me: That’s very narrow.

Him: I’m Chinese-American and Gay. What can I do? There’s a whole world out there that hates me for one reason or another. I’m not going to devote my life to fighting for the respect of people that aren’t as smart as I am.

Me: That’s your right, but you live in the world. You have straight people around you, and you must interact with them. And by the way, you’re right: you are absolutely smarter than 99% of people.

Him: My mother is my only female friend. I don’t understand women and they get offended almost every single time I have to interact with them. Their feelings are so sensitive and I don’t have time for that.

Me: Stop that. It’s not just women. You hurt my feelings all the time, too. I have women in my life I love and respect. But, I think I get what you’re driving at. They seem to be wired differently than us. However, if we’re to demand respect from Straights who are wired differently, then we must manifest the generosity of spirit to return that respect. Or screw up the courage to offer the respect first. Certainly, we have to rise above misogyny if we want our own equality.

Him: I am an oppressed minority two times over. I’m not going to start respecting first. I’m not going to start living by their rules. I just want to be left alone. Give us our own country, and one for the Lesbians. Indiana. Nobody wants to live there. Let us have it.

Me: Lesbromolia.

(Pause. No laughter.)

Hey, if you don’t start first then nobody will start respecting anyone. That’s how respect works. It’s a two way street. We don’t have to live how they tell us, but we must start respecting first, because they have the power. Here’s a better question. How do we take the power?

Him: We start riots in the street. Burn down their houses. Make it so they’re so afraid they have to turn on fire hoses and shoot us with rubber bullets. And we make sure there are plenty of cameras around when they turn on the fire hoses.

Me: Maybe… That might need to happen. This is America. It seems like major social change has only ever come at the cost of much anguish and bloodshed. Are we ready for that? I’ve always hoped that some sort of amazing Gay Gandhi would come along and show us how to peacefully get what’s ours. We’re not organized enough for that, yet. But there’s change brewing. You can feel it?

Him: Yes. But I don’t care. I’m with Magneto. I’m an evil mutant.

Me: That’s okay. I love you anyhow.

(Long pause)

Just remember: We don’t harm our own kind. And use a condom. And clean out, if you’re going to bottom. Jerk.

(pause)

And be nice to girls.

Him: No.

Me: Yes.

Tell the other fags --->

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