[Glice]

I was wondering the other day about how gay culture is a study in cultural identity - black or jews or women have always been a cultural category, but gays (as a cultural category, can't emphasise that enough) are a relatively recent phenomenon. Like any recently-awakened 'pride' movement, the gays have to be afforded a little bit of slack for defence mechanisms. The problem is where that line between defense-mechanism and enforced alienation is drawn. I can't help but feel that gay becomes an article of faith for a lot of misled sorts. One of the major troubles of 'the gay' is that a gay isn't a gay in every situation - if you're black or a woman, it's near-impossible to avoid that alienation, but there are plenty of gays who live 'two' lives (or, less dismissively, live one life with different facets).

A gay in a gay club is bound to act differently to how s/he does in their daytime life. I think you have to be very careful about drawing the sort of conclusions drawn above - gays in gay clubs aren't a militant, pro-active political organism, they're a bunch of people having a laugh. Of course they're bound to say that gays are great in that context, but are they saying it in front of the houses of parliament? No, they're really not.

This post is a bit drifting, sorry.