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I’m never really sure what I should write about in blogs and that’s probably why I’ll create one, write an entry or two and then meander off to some other project. But I am searching for discipline when it comes to writing and I think keeping a blog will help me gain control of a functional but rampant imagination. Well, that’s the hope anyway. Originally, I thought that my first blog should be about me but that idea sounded pretty boring. After combing the dark recesses of my brain, I came up blank; there was nothing really that stood out as absolutely needing to be said. So I decided to just wait and not push the issue because it’s not like I was required to write blog posts. Later, while killing time over on Tumblr, I stumbled upon the perfect topic. I randomly came across this pretty interesting tumblr and the more I read, the more intrigued I became. The focus of the blog is to pinpoint the homophobia and racism that happens almost daily within the gay community and honestly, if I would have found this a couple of years ago, I never would have believed it. At that time, I lived in a relatively self-sustained gay environment. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say I could go weeks at a time and not interact with a heterosexual person. It became almost like a veil in that I could appreciate the issues affecting gays but they were pretty far removed from my everyday life. It wasn’t until I moved back home to Louisiana that I began to notice a problem. It began with this guy I fancied. At first, I thought he was pretty cool; he liked anime and video games, he had nice hairy legs and a reasonable outlook on his future. He was a horrible speller (I'd like to think I'm not nearly pretentious enough to judge someone on poor spelling but this was… bad.) And yet, I still enjoyed hanging out with him. Until one day, in the middle of a department store, we passed by this adorable little baby gay and a friend. The baby gay was probably about 15 or 16 and clearly just becoming comfortable with who he was. And as he passes, my friend says, under his breath and in a dramatic whisper, “What a faggot.” I stopped cold; in fact, I took no voluntary action for a few seconds while tentative bridges we'd been building began to smoke, smolder and burn. I asked him to repeat what he’d said even though by this time it was clear I’d heard him and, I’d imagine by my facial expression, was disgusted by it. He immediately changed his sneer to a grin. But it wasn’t just an isolated event. I started noticing it everywhere. You can’t throw a pixel on a gay dating website without crashing into the words “straight-acting”. This phrase, which I find extremely asinine, seems to come pre-loaded into ‘About Me’ sections these days. And if it isn’t that “str8-actn”, it’s “masc”, another fallacy of fantasy. The very first time I ever came across the phrase ‘masc only’ I spent a good 20 minutes trying to decide if I qualified to reply. I could change my own tires and oil but I wore rainbow jewelry. I’d moved all the furniture in my room by myself but I also had vocal accompaniment by a veritable playlist of divas and provided my own choreography. I learned two important things in that 20 minute period: 1.) I was smack dab in the middle of the scale and from then on referred to myself as a ‘tweener’. 2.) I don’t care how attractive a guy, if it takes that much thought just to say decide to say hi it’s probably not the best use of my time. I also began to wonder why these terms became so prevalent of a distinction when it came to us dating one another. I tried to write it off as attraction, blame it on Hollywood’s conditioning and wash my hands with the subject. And that works… until you stumble upon the profiles that shun effeminate men. When it’s put all together, it looks something like “Me: str8-acting, masc. You: str8-acting, masc. No fems, flamers, fags, queens, etc.” but it reads as one horribly homophobic heterosexual male seeking another heterosexual male for homosexual acts, which makes no sense. Now I am going to take a little spin with conjecture here and say that there is a lot of fear in these profiles. I find it hard to believe that any fully-realized homosexual can hate another gay person because the outward manifestation of their sexuality has reached and surpassed a certain threshold. I don’t believe in “too gay” but I do believe that you can spend so much time trying to blend into society that anyone who stands out can be seen as threatening. I am not forcing anyone to be attracted to someone they just aren’t attracted to but I am saying you shouldn’t hide behind a generalization. And have a little tact. Yes, it’s the internet and anonymity means it’s possible to be absolutely awful to someone and still believe in personal virtue. But there are more than enough opponents of nearly any gay situation so why not go be awful to them? And just for the record, of all the times I have heard someone refer to themselves as “straight-acting” or “masculine", less than a handful could actually make that kite fly. However, this particular tumblr shines a much needed (albeit militant) spotlight on this situation and takes the piss out of guys who are just too rude to care. Like my date, who actually saw nothing wrong with what he’d said. And I was even more embarrassed as I think the kid might have heard him. When he tried to use the “it’s okay because I’m a gay man” excuse, I called him on the bull. It’s never ok to make another person feel like crap, especially when no gay person is really exempt from discrimination. The more effeminate among us already take enough shit from the rest of the world; as the more easily identified, they’re the first in line to be pushed and tripped in the halls, harassed and worse… much, much worse. And now they get to be the dumping ground for homophobic homosexuals? Where’s the ‘equality’ in creating a caste within the gay community?