Ever Think About How Different Gay Life Is These Days?

[rawTOP]

I just saw this video and it made me think about how much gay culture has lost...

Today it's all about marriage and being like straight people. But back then we were queers & fags - and we made the most of it by being absolutely fabulous. The AIDS crisis wiped out a lot of the uninhibited behavior and the creativity that went along with it since it was the creative guys back then who often took the most risks (even sexually). Today our most uninhibited guys (sexually) are often drug addicts. OK, sure they were drug addicts back then too - but they created stuff when they were on drugs. What in the hell has a meth addict ever created? So much has been lost, in so many ways - it's sorta sad.

I didn't really get to experience much of the uninhibited gay culture you see in the video. But there was still a little bit left by the late 80s and early 90s when I was out at the clubs. I gotta say I really miss it. While BBRT is nice, I'd trade it in a second to go back to the type of club you see in that video...

[rawTOP]

This video is cute (and relatively recent), but just not on the same level as the one by Freddie Mercury...

[eightndeep]

Awesome video of Freddie Mercury! He is sooooo timeless.

One thing I really appreciate about THIS site is that it represents a radical, fringe part of gay culture. It unapologetically says "we are gay men and we like to fuck skin on skin as a celebration of life and connection" much in the same way the video says "we are gay men and we're sexy, flamboyant, gender-fucking queers who celebrate life and connection!"

Thus the interesting juxtaposition with the lyrics - so hard to live alone.

I think the radical fairies used to be the on-going manifestation of the type of gay culture in the video. I regret never going to a 'gathering' which always imagined were something like the party shown in the video. I still subscribe to RFD, which is just not the same as it used to be.

We are very integrated into straight culture. As I wrote in a thread about park sex, i was arrested here in DC in the 90's, and when I sought help from the Blade, from Lambda Legal, and other gay organizations - they could not hang up on me fast enough. And for years HRC was all about making us look palatable to mid-america. UGH!

And the young ones - well when I was growing up in the 70's at least we had regional differences. Today people have the same everywhere. The same tv stations, the same restaurants everything same same same. I can't help but imagine there will come a time when gay culture re-finds its footing and its self-confidence and gets more like the video, in one form or another. People have to try a lot harder to be individuals nowadays, and some are. I hope.

Funny, I could describe Freddie Mercury as a gay hero, who gave his life in celebration of what it means to be gay. And I could argue people who immerse themselves in gay sex HIV be damned (I never have) are some of the same sort of _____s. . . . well, it's an overused word.

[guy2x]

I just saw this video and it made me think about how much gay culture has lost...

Today it's all about marriage and being like straight people. But back then we were queers & fags - and we made the most of it by being absolutely fabulous. The AIDS crisis wiped out a lot of the uninhibited behavior and the creativity that went along with it since it was the creative guys back then who often took the most risks (even sexually). Today our most uninhibited guys (sexually) are often drug addicts. OK, sure they were drug addicts back then too - but they created stuff when they were on drugs. What in the hell has a meth addict ever created? So much has been lost, in so many ways - it's sorta sad.

I didn't really get to experience much of the uninhibited gay culture you see in the video. But there was still a little bit left by the late 80s and early 90s when I was out at the clubs. I gotta say I really miss it. While BBRT is nice, I'd trade it in a second to go back to the type of club you see in that video...

It's not about "wanting to be like straight people", it's about wanting to be left alone, and not feeling like you have to join a subculture based on your sexuality in order to feel accepted.

[kpig]

yeah i think before the gay community started becoming more mainstream the sex was more no holds barred

[GermanFucker]

yeah i think before the gay community started becoming more mainstream the sex was more no holds barred

Frankly I don't believe that at all (beyond how AIDS had an effect). I am convinced that 80 percent of all gays were always quite boring instead of fabulous. But while these 80 percent once were in the closet or formed a mostly silent majority, today these 80 percent are not only openly gay, their voice is also amplified by the media. Most of them are the customers IKEA and Subaru lust for (DINKs, i.e. double income, no kids). Their boring bourgeoise livestyle suddenly matters, because they have money to spend.

[kpig]

i guess it depends on what geographic area you were from.i came of age in the silverlake and hollywood area of los angeles when the punk rock scene first exploded and i can tell you first hand it was sodom and gamorrah with better drugs.with acceptence of the gay community also comes a higher standard behavior. i have no doubt that a vast majority of the modern gay community would read this fine super hot blog and be appalled.

[Inception]

Not everyone has it in them to be fabulous. Also there is a difefrence between being unihibited about expressing your sexuality, and being unihibited in your sexual practises.

You are in New York where there is an explosion right now of new queer and drag rap artists, and their influence is spreading thanks to the internet, especially music sites like Pitchfork which cover them.

A few weeks back a friend and I went to a kind of independant gay night at a grimy punk bar in the bad part of town here. It was so fun, with crazy young drag queens and a mixed crowd that included lesbians. The music was great and there were kids who looked like they underage and came in with fake id's running around and doing all kinds of bonkers dancing. People didn't seem to be there so much to cruise, though there were some hotties including a built beefy blonde who I later saw ass up at the tubs ( though I don't know if was barebacking). It was a fun time.

Versus this weekend, which was a holiday long weekend in Canada and there were some bear and leather events throughout the weekend. Friday night late at the tubs was an afterparty with lots of hot guys an groups of roaming bears. There was a big bareback orgy going on in one room. But a lot of the guys there were partying on crystal and just messed up. You could tell that they were off in the own headspace, and probably thought they were having a blast, but to anyone not high they were just gross. Guys not into the bareback scene were visibly distressed and it upsets me that it makes people think all barebackers or poz guys are duggies. I did get fucked by a big chub bi guy who likes to do it with the door open so guys can watch him, so people definitely saw me getting plowed. But he's married so plays safe and uses condoms. He also always turns the TV to the channel showing straight porn and likes to look at chicks getting fucked while he does a guy - weird.

Sunday night there was a bear themed dance party at a classy club in a better hood with a dj up from San Fran. These nights are popular because the crowd tends to be more open to bigger, hairy guys but there were still a lot of muscle boys with their shirts off. Definitely a more consevarative crowd - denim, plaid shirts, some leather. I am a big guy but dress less conservatively, and when I came in I definitely was checked out. Everyone was on their phones either looking at Grindr or gossipping to friends across the club. The music was OK techno, nothing outstanding like the great mix of stuff the dj at the dive bar played. I was dancing and having a good time, and at one point I got the impression that a young leather guy was trying to cruise me . He was awkwardly dancing towards me until some old leather queen - who I have never seen before in my life - looking at the screen of his phone, comes up behind the youngr guy and says to him "Oh that ones a bareback bottom," and the guy who was cruising me promptly tuns around and goes off with the grizzled old queen - I'm guessing his daddy. OK whatever. Someone thinks they know everything about me when they clearly don't.

Back to the point of this: 1)fabulous gay culture exists but you gotta search it out, 2) whether on the cutting edge or in the more conservative scenes, uninhibited sex may not be accepted, and 3) the actual hardcore barebacking scene is not always that fabulous itself.

[BreedingBear]

There were a lot of amazing things going on back then, but it wasn't all fabulous... Having lived through the 70's and fucking and being a pig at the bars and sex clubs right after I learned to drive a car, I got to really experience the sleaze first hand... Sex Clubs were amazing - as dirty and raunchy and sick as you can imagine... but most bars were definitely not like the Freddie Mercury video...

Leather bars were sleazy and fun, but most bars were just "stand and model".... and boring as hell... Maybe it was cuz I wasn't into drugs and partying - just sleazy sex... I always ended up leaving the bars and going to sex clubs and baths... THOSE I miss, bars - not at all...

[NLbear]

I miss having to go to gay bars and hang around the toilets for some hot sleazy fun. Now it's all internet based as most of the bars here have closed.

[orpheusboi]

I certainly don't think the much more widespread acceptance of gay people is a bad thing, but i certainly find the incredible conservatism of mainstream gay culture rather disturbing and regrettable. The main aim seem to be to get recognition and rights to marry, which is hardly a radical step, if anything its deeply backwards. What happened to being queer and the attitudes that came with it. Its not just about gay or bi people, or even trans, but everyone should be questioning and challenging the institution of marriage and the rigid attitudes to sexuality and gender.

I still describe myself as queer (at 25 so i missed it all!). You can be 95% straight and still be queer, that the point. Its a recognition and celebration of the wonderfully messy, transitory, fluid and fabulous human condition where we should be able to fuck who we want, how we want. Where sexuality isn't fixed or binary, gender is an identity not a prison or a set of expectations of personality and working life, sex is varied, fun and with as many or as few people as you like.

Nobody gay or straight, or wonderfully imbetween, should be forced into the restrictions of a single legitimate relationship structure of one man and one woman, or even two men (where the assumption is always that one is 'kinda' like a woman anyway).

[RawPozLust]

For some reason, I don't see the video in this thread. But from the comments here, I get that it depicts the pleasures and freedoms that gay men as a population celebrated before joining the mainstream culture. Thank god many of us are still celebrating and refuse to stop.

[HungLatinDom]

An interesting insight about this:

http://www.theawl.com/2012/10/a-chat-with-fran-lebowitz

[GermanFucker]

I certainly don't think the much more widespread acceptance of gay people is a bad thing, but i certainly find the incredible conservatism of mainstream gay culture rather disturbing and regrettable. The main aim seem to be to get recognition and rights to marry, which is hardly a radical step, if anything its deeply backwards. What happened to being queer and the attitudes that came with it. Its not just about gay or bi people, or even trans, but everyone should be questioning and challenging the institution of marriage and the rigid attitudes to sexuality and gender.

Who's to blame for that? IMHO it's lesbians and HIV/AIDS. Twenty years ago, when all the interesting gay men were busy either dying of AIDS or caring for partners and friends who were, lesbians took over the LGBT political agenda. And as nesters, their goal was a completely different: Marriage and children.