APPARENTLY … Heterosexual men are ruining all the revelry for the gays at Sydney Mardi Gras. “A report released by the Australian Institute of Criminology this week said people travelling to and from Sydney’s public gay and lesbian events were going in large groups, using private transport, visiting areas with larger gay and lesbian populations and remaining alert at all times. They were also avoiding showing affection towards their partners and not wearing make-up or extravagant clothing.” Breeders always do ruin the party, don’t they?
apparently
Heteros Are Ruining all the Fun at Mardi Gras
Help make sure LGBTQ+ stories are being told...
We can't rely on mainstream media to tell our stories. That's why we don't lock Queerty articles behind a paywall. Will you support our mission with a contribution today?
Cancel anytime · Proudly LGBTQ+ owned and operated
Ohomo
Its not just at Mardi Gras.
Halloween in SF turned into the same bedlam. Its a funny offshoot of the old cliche about gays moving into marginal neighborhoods that then become yuppy couple baby carriage – bland.
Only its street parties — the gays create the fun, and are then overrun by the straight party crowd.
RainaWeather
Mainstreaming has a tendency to ruin. New Orleans Mardi Gras has been nearly ruined by all the dumb ass college kids, MTV Spring Break and Girls Gone Wild. Luckily, there are neighborhoods that visitors don’t know about where locals can still have fun.
youcanthandlethetruth
This sounds like a competition to see who can look the most gormless.
Robeet
Sounds exactly to what has happened to the West Hollywood Halloween Festival. What was once a very creative and fun local gay community event has turned into a mainstrean commercialized street festival with the influx of a lot of non-participatory straight gawkers crammed together like sardines on the streets. Very sad.
youcanthandlethetruth
@Robeet: Watching homosexuals make fools of themselves has always been cheap entertainment
edgyguy1426
@youcanthandlethetruth: we have to be able to get the 700 Club in decently to see that
edgyguy1426
when did ohomo mention anything was ‘disgusting’? You’re grasping at straws, YCHTT. And the amount of time you’re devoting to this site is curious.
edgyguy1426
@edgyguy1426: we have to be able to get the 700 Club in decently to see that(heterosexuals making fools of themselves)
Qjersey
The Halloween parade in NYC was started by the gays…and now gays aren’t safe at that parade
Dabq
@Qjersey: This is true of just about any major US city these days that has a Halloween party in the gayborhoods,just sad how if you go, its at your own risk.
M Shane
I can’t imagine that they have that much of a Mardi Gras in Sydney: Mardi Gras is a by product of French Catholicism: meaning “fat Tueday” a prelenten event more popular with French , Spanish, Black (ex-slave ) populations. Australia was mainlly settled by English protestants(a colony) and Irish Catholic convicts. It is supposedly multicultural (a don’t know what that means exactly.
I have heard that they are pretty restrictive toward gays though .
AlwaysGay
Haterosexuals ruin everything.
M Shane
Actually, looking at a demographic spread, multicultural means ;primarily people from the United Kingdom, and most of the remainder Chineses or asian, with some Indians etc. So there really isn’t anyone who traditionally celebrates Mardi Gras. Another false lead, Queerty. That’s like worrying how many Christmas trees are in Mecca during Santa’s day.
jason
The Mardi Gras is awful as it is. It’s a parade for camp tragics in consumerist mode. I don’t see what wearing pink shorts and showing a poorly developed abdomen has to do with gay rights.
jj
Heterosexuals are ruining Queerty too (see ychtt and SM).
TANK
@Qjersey:
Goddamn right. I was there four years ago and wound up breaking a heterosexual guy’s nose in two places because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
M Shane
JJ that’s an all too evident a point. The people who run this don’t have to tolerate people who are just here to intimidate people-it is really their fault if everyone leaves. I suspect that it’s a right wing motive on the part of the owners.
I wonder how they would like it If we went into their church’s and pissed all over the floor.
schlukitz
@M Shane:
I wonder how they would like it If we went into their church’s and pissed all over the floor.
It’s a good start! LOL
schlukitz
@edgyguy1426:
And the amount of time you’re devoting to this site is curious.
It’s not just curious…it’s suspect! LOL
M Shane
That has to be said No. 19 · schlukitz until it’s resolved.!
@No. 2 · RainaWeather: Mainstreaming has a tendency to ruin. New Orleans Mardi Gras . . . That’s a byproduct that gay people have to take responsability for. The extensive effort to ape the heterosexists and be assimilated, works the other way too. They invade our culture.like a bunch of maurading monguls. Gays will find that they lose much of what gay liberation gave them.for an identity.
M Shane
I saw something really pertinant to what is happenng to the gay movement, said with respect to the Democratic Party, and why both of them have become relatively meaningless and gutless. This was from a set of interviews regarding why the Democratic party has become so weak and innocuous. The commentators were major analysts who all made the same points.
(1) People vote their beliefs, not their real needs (what is best for them).
(2) The Republican Party has stood solidly behind a set of family value beliefs(even thatcan be applied to economics)
without veering to the left or center at all.
(3) While the Democrats have had a program of constantly making concession to the Right all the time, and never having a reliable platform. So no one can belive in them, and they lose.
Gays have , over the last 20 years had this mainstreaming program of trying to appease heterosexual ideals , and have sacrificed their own (as they existed in cities 20-25 years ago). So neither straight people or gay people believe that we have an identity or politicakl position worth paying any attention to. Any Gay culture has become shit because we don’t believ in ourselves, but think we will profit by aping straights, whereas what happens is that we look weak and appear as if we don’t believe in ourselves.
SM
The Democratic Party is a big blue tent called DIVERSITY. That comes with many different opinions and types of people. The Republicans are a good ole white boys club.
Many Democrats in Congress just recently won over Conservative Districts and still listen to the people in their districts because those people SHOW UP.
EQUALITY is just that EQUALITY. WTF do you think mainstreaming and straight people hanging out at events are?
schlukitz
@M Shane:
Not to disagree with your reply to rainaWeather, but I think that is an over simplification.
Historically, gays, with their ability to turn shit into gold, have always been the first ones to move into blighted areas and fix up neglected properties that everyone else abandoned.
Hetero trailer trash types are famous for shitting things up and then simply walking away them when the shit gets up to the eyeballs. Take a good hard look at any welfare area in the U.S.A. Jersey City comes to mind. In fact, show me one self-respecting gay person living in a housing project?
We have seen this phenomena in Haight Ashbury in S.F., Christopher Street in NYC and even here in Tampa, FL when Hyde Park, which had been an exclusive area during during the 50s and 60s slid into squalor and neglect by the heteros that droves of people were fleeing from before the price structure of the area completely collapsed.
Only when the gays started buying up abandoned and neglected houses in Hyde Park and fixing them up, did that trend reverse itself. Needless to say, when the once unwanted houses sparkled like gemstones after the gays remodeled and restored them to their former glory, in came rubber baby buggy bumper crowd.
That’s not to say that gays were “foreced” out. Gays are smart enough to recognize a good business deal when they see one and when you can get anywhere from a half-million to a million or more for a house you only have $200-300 grand invested in, only a fool would not sell.
Besides, once a gay person has “fluffed up” a house, what’s a girl to do with her time?
Of course. Buy another dilapidated old house and start all over silly! Isn’t that why we are all decorators and HDTV fans? LOL
schlukitz
@M Shane:
Gays have, over the last 20 years had this mainstreaming program of trying to appease heterosexual ideals , and have sacrificed their own (as they existed in cities 20-25 years ago). So neither straight people or gay people believe that we have an identity or politicakl position worth paying any attention to. Any Gay culture has become shit because we don’t believ in ourselves, but think we will profit by aping straights, whereas what happens is that we look weak and appear as if we don’t believe in ourselves.
I am trying to follow your irrational, rationale here, but am having some difficulty in doing so.
Are you making a case for remaining in the ghettos as they existed in the cities 20-25 years ago?
Exactly what is so wrong in wanting a piece of the American dream which has ALWAYS been available to the heteros but not to the homos?
Is owning a home in the suburbs or the country and having neighbors (str8 or gay) that you can socialize with such a terrible thing? Why this need for maintaining separateness and schmoozing only with our own kind?
Is having a job that one does not have to fear sexual discrimination such a terrible thing?
Is having civil-rights (yes, that includes the right to marry anyone I choose to and the some 1150 federal benefits that go with it), such a terrible thing?
Is having inheritance rights and other legal benefits associated with “mainstream” America such a terrible thing?
During the mass Immigration to America (my grandparents day), ghettos of all ethnic description were common. Not only did they share a common background, they could speak their native tongue with each other. But, as succeeding generations of children came along and grew up, they too sought to expand their horizons and perception of life in America and eventually became assimilated while the ghettos they came from shrank in size as the old-timers died off.
My question to you is…why should LGBT people be any different?
Ohomo
New Orleans Mardi Gras was never a strictly gay event. Its mostly straight, and was never for the faint of heart.
But for you history buffs out there, the photography of Jack Robinson of Memphis, taken during his years living in New Orleans in the 40’s, is utterly dumbfounding.
He was gay, and photographed gay life in the French Quarter. Feast on these:
http://robinsonarchive.com/Photograph-Search-Results.asp?page=1&subject=168&keywords=new%20orleans&pages=2&pc=11
schlukitz
@Ohomo:
WOW! While admittedly from another era, not much has changed.
The guy in the all black outfit blew me away. He looks exactly like Roll-a-Reena, the queen who used to wear a white chiffon wedding dress with matching head-wear and carried a wand while flitting down Christopher Street at every gay event. LOL
I don’t know how true it was, but someone once told me that he was a Wall Street broker.
One never knows. Hee Hee
Ohomo
@schlukitz: What blew my mind when my bf turned me on to this guy (aside from his amazing story) was how he captured what was probably one of only a few gay friendly places in the country in those days. The French Quarter.
schlukitz
@Ohomo:
I take it that your bf is somewhat older then you?
The French Quarter is a lovely section of New Orleans. Have you ever been to it?
My then bf and I stayed there for a couple of days when we circumnavigated the U.S.A. by car (15,000 miles) back in 1980.
One of our most memorable experiences in New Orleans, was having dinner at the Court of the Two Sisters. Very romantic. ;o)
http://www.courtoftwosisters.com/
And the coffee. Ooh-la-la! LOL
M Shane
First No. 22 · SM: I am reiterating, with regards to the Democratic party, why political anaysts(i.e.,Thomas Frank ,George Lakeoff) are saying that they have lost any validity with the American people. The Republicans push the same program consistently (even if they lie) because they do not threaten their bases(the white male establishment-i.e “family values” people)beliefs. They stick to what sounds good repeatedly.
The Democrats have demolished anything like a base because they keep shifting to the Right/Center, hoping to capture some of their followers. What they have done is to betray their base with asense of confused principles.
Frank uses the example of business branding theory: when you are promoting some product, you do not try to get closer to your competitors product but you create a discernable , firm difference.
If the Democrates would stay over to their principles of economic justice,labor, civil rights ; all the things that FDR made famous without always compromising but giving their base something to rely on they would have a party that someone belived in.the party would stand for something distinct. People vote by their beliefs, not what is in thier best interests.
M Shane
No. 24 · schlukitz :
Needless to say I’ve oversimplified things, I was basically just trying out a thought (metaphor of sorts).
I do think that gay people seriously need to have an identity and a community, Of course its’s important to have equal rights, but that’s not being the same. To carry that a little farther, would it be better to all wear uniforms and have no art , theatre , literature-things that require unique thought?
Let me explain a little where I come from.
I don’t know if you had the advantage of living in a gay “ghetto ” before’ That’s a misnomer, because it is more like haveing your own city, and the best cities in the country. San Francisco was a paradise just as a city, more so because you could be around people who you knew liked and accepted you. The same in older New York City.
I recall my coming out date, the first time I visited New York City. I knew immediately that I had arrived home after living a childhood and growing up in a straight community where everyone had to hide and was afraid to cruise (look at) other
males, where it was utter hell being gay. I knew that I was accepted and loved. In San Francisco ,where I’ve lived much of my life, every day was a happy day because I knew that my brothers were all around me. There was no greater joy than going dancing or out on the street and having gay people from everywhere all around. There were other peole , but we had a feeling of oneness that I can never comeclose to now in a primarily straight community. Never, and I’ve tried. We will always be strangers to straight people, and to imagine otherwise is just self delusion(and I am a n exceptionally social person who gets along with most people) But I am different in very basic emotional ways, as are we all. Without being there you can’t understand the sense of empowerment that experience had.No real secrets!
I think that it helps, and you can find this in literature(as you know) that mainstreaming came as a result of gays suddenly buying into the shame about their lifestyle cast
by straights relative to HIV.
Andrew Sullivan and Bruce Bawer (gay Right Wing/religious fanatics) primarily used the Neocon strategy of taking advantage of a tragedy to twist arms–telling people that the only way to deal with the alienation brought on by AIDS was to be just like the straight people, i.e. that the ony thing we needed was to get married and get military rights. I don’t recall people talking about marriage at all until then..
This eliminated the need for community support, schooling for gay children, hate crimes, the acceptance of people who didn’t look or act straight (just reject queens etc). The matter of job protection; the whole works.
My arguement, which I’ll grant is a bit vague is that because we (some gays) want to get married and more into the suburbs, the gays are going to take from us the things that have been generated as ‘gay’ events and the identity of being gay will just fold. Gays who were once the the standardbearers for culture and unique thought , became the Corporate ideals for underwear sales. I have always been a thinker and creative person, so this is appaling to me.
Uniformity may be what you want, and certainly you are free to seek that option. We do,however, live in a pluralistic society, where differences were ONCE celibrated. Sadly Corporations have made everything and everyone pretty ubiquitous because of advertizing and sales enforcement. Personally, I don’t think it’s very healthy for gay people or any people to lose a sense of their uniqueness. I find that quality of blandness and homogeniousness frightening. I love variety and the uniqueness of persons and places.
edgyguy1426
The republicans always branded dems with the word Liberal as being a bad thing and I think the Dems bought into that marketing because you really don’t hear the word liberal and demorcrat as interchangable and in the same sentence anymore.
hyhybt
I know the *seasons* are different in Australia, but I thought they used the same calendar. Why are they holding Mardi Gras in August?
M Shane
I think they use a chinese calander and get it mixed up with the festival of the Fat Duck.
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
Straights ruin everything!