For Halloween, I defended my gayness.
I was never really into the holiday, even growing up. I don't know why... my best hypothesis is that, since I'm socially awkward, I run from the social holidays. I luck out a little being in Seattle: no one trick-or-treats. At least not in the traditional manner. In the unlikely chance some displaced non-Seattlite finds himself or herself in Seattle in a costume on Halloween, I still buy candy to hand out to that poor fool when he or she actually goes bravely up to a door and rings the bell. But, as expected, tonight marks my fifth Halloween in Seattle, and the fifth year in a row where we have no trick-or-treaters. So, for the fifth All Saints Day in a row, I'll take the candy to work.
So, instead of handing out candy over the past five Halloweens, I've had to spend the week leading up to Halloween, Halloween itself, and the week after defending my gayness. It's such an odd sensation - defending ones right to... well... be gay. I'm sure people just can't help it. In this world, we're so accustomed to patterns.
But really, is it so hard to believe that I can be a gay man and still not celebrate Halloween? Seriously, to be a gay man, I thought all I had to do was... well... have gay sex and date guys. And there's stuff that goes along with that, of course - dealing with homophobia, filling out domestic partnership forms, shaking my head in disgust at these guys. It's rough sometimes dealing with that stuff, particularly where I grew up. So, I figured I'd opt out of things like what to wear for Halloween, dancing in sweaty clubs with my shirt off, drinking girly drinks, and wearing tight clothes.
But, especialy this time of year, I'm pelted with some of the most disturbing questions:
"How can you be a gay man and not dress up for Halloween??"
"How can you be a gay man and not live in the gay neighborhood??"
"How can you be a gay man and not go to the bars??"
"How can you be a gay man and yet have no fashion sense??"
Usually, my answers ("I-don't-like-Halloween... Capitol-Hill-is-too-expensive... I-don't-like-to-dance-and-there-are-no-gay-pubs... I'm-a-scientist-not-a-fashion-model"), delivered with a caustic punch, leave the questioner in dumbfounded silence or a swirl of eyerolls. Either way, I then have sufficient time to summon the batmobile and make a discreet exit.
So, it's this time of year that I wonder about the gay community. I worry about a group that, while historically excluded from society in general (due to the whole gay-sex and gay-dating things), encourages standards among its kind that in turn excludes members who only do the gay-sex and gay-dating things. Why should I be any less a gay man than him? Or him? Or even him? Granted, they all do "more" than me in terms of being a gay man (Adam dressed up like a Fanta girl for Halloween once; Mr. Sullivan holidays in Provincetown each summer; David has the most awesome Halloween costume I've ever seen.), but how can their choices to go above and beyond the call of duty be applied to me? Or my boyfriend? Or Larry Craig?
The phenomenon both puzzles and disturbs me, and I'm not sure what to do about it...
Except, of course, explain calmly and caustically that I prefer pubs to noisy gay bars, don't enjoy dressing up for Halloween, and like my hooded sweatshirts just fine, thank you.
I could also point out my love for carving jack-o-lanterns... but, I was told today that carving pumpkins isn't very "gay." Especially since I carve things like stickleback (the fish I study) skeletons, phrases like "Kitty has asthma!", and the John Deere logo into my pumpkins.
It's too bad no kids showed up this year. I would've handed up peanut butter cups.
Posted by James at October 31, 2007 08:50 PM