#HEY GOOGLE AM I GAY FREE#
Not only will it help you determine when you're in a safe space with others of your kind, it will also direct you to which clerk to flirt with for a discount and which flight attendant to wink at for a free tiny bottle of vodka. (Even then it's still not infallible whenever European tourists are around.) But it's essential. No, it must be acquired through years of hard work and figuring out just which clues are going to give guys away.
This sense of being able to find other homosexuals in the given area isn't inborn like a sense of direction or ESP. And where else are you going to see Dykes on Bikes anyway? 7. See the people outside of your social circle, the tourists from a far, and those people who wouldn't mix with in a million gay years. Standing out in the hot June sun can sure be a drag (all puns intended) but everyone should experience the depth and breadth of the community at this event at least once. And if PDA (public displays of agitation) aren't your thing, there are plenty of causes that need fundraising, which can easily be done over brunch (a gay art that somehow is not on this list). You can collect signatures for marriage equality or you can join an Occupy protest and fight income inequality, but never stop fighting. Even before Stonewall we have a long history of fighting the man, and that should never die. Get out there with a picket sign and some anger and fight for your rights. It's our version of Colonel Sanders' secret recipe. You don't have to use them, but it's one secret we've kept from most of the gay community for decades so we have to keep it going. If only so people will get your jokes about Rush and Jungle Juice, know what poppers are. Street cruising is mostly dead – no, it can't be done on Grindr – but a trip to a bath house will teach you all you ever need to know. Not only will it improve your gay experience, but the way you interact with everyone. There was a complex network of looks and signals that men used to use to attract each other, something that made gay men much more attuned to body language and perceptive than our straight counterparts. CruiseĮveryone used to know to glance over your shoulder after three steps if you were interested in that sexy stranger on the sidewalk. And it will put you in touch with the brave bottle throwers who started the Stonewall Riots back in the day. But one night when the femme is in total control will never make you fear it again. "No fems," has been branded into all of our mentality. So many gay men are afraid of even the slightest bit of swish being detected. It will it unleash a personality you didn't even know you had in you and it will make you OK with femininity. Dress in dragĮven if it's just once for Halloween, go out in the world wearing the clothing of the opposite gender. Just pick one, and never ever ever ever leave her.
The diva of choice doesn't need to be one of the familiar one-named ladies of song (Madonna, Cher, Judy, Liza, Barbra, Mariah, Gaga, and both Bettes), it can be anyone from Joni Mitchell to Courtney Love, Diana Vreeland to Patsy Stone, Hilary Clinton to Michelle Obama.
Having a strong female icon is somehow central to the gay identity (for more on that, pick up Halperin's book) and harkens back to the darkest days of gay identity when these troubled broads were the closest thing you could find to a representation of gay life. So in this age of mainstreaming, where gay men come out of the closet not to attend dinner parties of catty queens like themselves and the cast of Boys in the Band but to a room of welcoming members of society both straight and gay, how can we form a culture of our own? If there are a million ways to be gay, can we settle on a few key experiences every gay man should experience to draw them together?Įveryone needs a Kylie, even if you think Time Bomb is kind of a crappy song. It's a mode of perception, an attitude, an ethos: in short, it is a practice." As the New York Times review of his book points out, the thing that really brings gay people together is their culture.
#HEY GOOGLE AM I GAY HOW TO#
In his new book, How to Be Gay, professor David M Halperin says: "Gayness is not a state or condition.
#HEY GOOGLE AM I GAY SKIN#
Gay men and women don't share a place of origin, skin color, socio-economic class, religion, or anything else that would typify their experience. But, then again, maybe they gay community needs some sort of shared experience – outside of the experience of falling in love with a member of the same sex – to bring us together.