I Refuse to be Obsolete

I’ve been slacking, I know. Days just keep passing by and I find I have had no time for blogging.

This week I have been primarily concerned with planning my trip to Manchester for this year’s Queer Up North. God knows, I’m going to need to preserve my energy as this year my main stalk, Justin Bond, is appearing with Taylor Mac (my stalk on the side), and there are added extras in the form of David Hoyle and Jonny Woo. How the hell am I going to cope with all that then?

As if the thought of an overdose of genderqueer cabaret wasn’t enough to make me giddy, in the afternoon there is a debate called Is Queer Culture Obsolete? where Justin, Taylor and the Queer Up North programmer will be arguing the case in favour of queer culture against Anti Gay author and pop culture commentator, Mark Simpson. If there’s room for anyone to get a word in edgeways, I believe the floor will also be open for members of the general public to, as we say in Council circles, have their say.

I’m going to come back to the issue of queer invisibility and why there is a need for queer culture at a later date but, in the meantime, I have been doing some research into Mark Simpson’s latest writing.

It appears he’s maybe not so much anti-gay these days as pro-metrosexuality. METROSEXUAL - what a damning phrase, I HATE it, but my issues with the wording aside, I’m getting the feeling Mark’s view point will not be so much about condemning the queers (and God knows, he’s made a living out of writing about them), but focusing on how “gay” straight men have become.

From his blog, I enjoyed his article about lad’s mags and how they have helped bridge the great gender divide by making men as uncomfortable about their body shape as women can be. Particularly in the case of Men’s Health which he claims is, “doing its best for equality of the sexes when it comes to eating disorders and supplement addiction.” Also how the last bastion of good old British heterosexuality, The Sun, has now started publishing dietary tips for men so that they too can look super in their swimming costumes on the beach.

So while I was not actually agreeing but at least understanding the angle he was coming from, he then threw me by claiming that just as there is no need to queer culture now that we have “metrosexual” straight men, now we have metrosexual men we no longer have a need for the magazines and supporting media that produced them.

Hmm ... perhaps he’s become so involved with comparing the past to the present he’s forgotten that, unless he knows something we’re not aware of, these will, by force of nature, go on to produce a FUTURE and a whole new generation that will need an education and a sense of history and belonging. The fact that straight men will now walk around in pastel colours and worry a little about their waistline is small comfort to the isolated gay in a small town who has nobody to talk to, nowhere to go and no example or experience of queer identity.

Just as he used to claim there was more to being gay than feather boas and a liking of the Village People, there’s more to queer acceptance than a straight bloke with bulimia who isn’t ashamed to cry in public. And even if there were a level of wider acceptance, why on earth should we be denied our history?