As you pointed out yourself the “sex is better” only perpetuates a silly stereotype and the “we’re more open-minded” is simply wrong.
Cmon, the gay community isnt even completely accepting itself.
How many gay people are walking around constantly demeaning gay people who aren’t straight-acting enough.
Gays as a subset of society contains as many racists, misogynists and other morons as the rest.
We are people, not angels – simple as that.

Being oppressed on one level doesnt make you any more accepting or less of a moron than the rest of society.

Thanks for the baloon-juice.com link.

Went to it last night and enjoyed the many varied comments I saw posted there.

Despite your warning, I got the feeling that I could better handle the intense intellectual combat on those threads, than dealing with bitchy, back-biting queens that only know how to low-ball people on these threads. LOL

Having been a avid electronics freak all of my life and now an old, but dedicated computer nerd, I especially enjoyed your use of the term “low signal-to-noise ratio”.

We’ve gotten the noise level down to almost immeasurable levels with our stereo equipment, but the “Harmonic Distortion” of the contrarian crowd? still grates as loudly on the ear as ever, unfortunately. ;-)

See you at baloon-juice.com, good buddy.

I recognize that there is an element of facetiousness in this list, but I’d lower that ‘lots’ to ‘some’ – I know several gay guys (myself included) who have hooked up with someone and subsequently failed to befriend that person, either through indifference or active dislike. (So, in other words, we are exactly like the straights in this respect…)

(And I rarely ask for directions, simply because I’m so bad at *following* them that I just wind up lost again. The principle of “this road must go somewhere or there wouldn’t be a road” works pretty well.)

Also, my straight friends don’t seem to worry that I want to sleep with them, but I know how rare that is.

And yes the toast is wonderful.

Thanks for the heartfelt reply. I’m touched. You always seem to put a lot of thought into what you write. It’s a rarity.

I read a lot of blogs (a lot of blogs) and rarely do the comments approach anything other than a complete waste of time (what is known in geek circles as a “low signal-to-noise ratio”). Queerty has a few good commenters who post with frequency, which is why I read them (and comment).

The other blog I read with good comments is balloon-juice.com. The comment section is filled with a mix of gay and straight people who talk about politics. The blog was started by a guy who was Republican up until he had a religious-like moment of clarity and became a Democrat (though, he never stops bitching about the Democratic leadership… but then again, neither do I). The comments there are absolutely worth reading, every time, and I invite you to add balloon-juice to your daily reading habits. Thoughtful readers and commenters are welcome there. (though you gotta prepare yourself for some intense intellectual combat)

Cheers.

well, from one “rarity” to another, i would have to say that it depends on the neighborhood. but the part about a million girls trying to set you up with the token friend? completely true.

Tim, thank you, ever so much, for the great wake-up call. It was the “Snap out of it girlfriend” slap in the face that I needed. A refreshing blast of fresh air, in what sometimes feels (and smells) like a smelly cigarette/cigar smoke-filled railroad parlor car of old. I know. I am showing my age, but then it it has never been the most closely guarded secret on these threads. lol

I must confess that I suffer from the of mistake of taking people and things at face value. I try to see the good in everyone bu, as you so sagely pointed out, people are often not what they seem to be or represent themselves to be. When that happens and the realizations hits me that I am feeding a troll, I get more angry with myself than I do with the asshat that I allowed myself to get suckered into a inane dialogue with.

Tim, I do wish you would call me Chuck as everyone who knows me personally does. All the rest of you asshats, and y’all know who you are, who feel the need to get on my case with each and every post I make, and this one will probably be no exception, it’s Mr. Chuck to you.

I would like to take this opportunity, Tim, to tell you how much I have enjoyed your commentaries in the past. I like your honesty, your forthrightness and the tell-it-like-it-is, no bullshit approach to your thinking and writing. I always find myself looking forward to your commentaries because you always have interesting things to say and contribute to these threads. Were it not for you and a handful of others like you, and I am not going to be a name dropper because y’all know who you are too, I would have stopped coming to this site a long time ago, just as I did with Gay.com.

Thanks again for the pick-me-up that your commentary provided me with. I was really beginning to wonder why I was even wasting my time coming here, but had I stopped doing so, I would have thrown the baby out with the bathwater with respect to you and the other commentators who have, like you, supported me in the past.

Thanks to all of you who know who you are, love yourselves, are out and wearing your gay buttons and flags proudly.

It’s my pleasure to march in step with y’all.

My apologies, Andrew. I clicked on your name inadvertently. That post was a continuation of my commentary no. 35 which I meant to direct at Kevin. ;-)

What makes you assume the respondents to which you refer are, unlike your friends, out and well-adjusted? What I read on here half the time reads like self-hating homos. Or closet cases living lives of quiet desperation and taking it out here, on you and me, anonymously. Or “straight” guys who are suffering from “same sex attraction.” Or outright, homophobic bigots (who are usually closet cases, when you get right down to it).

Charles, I do not dispute what you describe, not for a moment. I see it here all the damn time. It’s irritating. I think it’s rather foolish to assume commenters on Queerty are an accurate cross-section of the gay community. It’s certainly a mistake to draw conclusions on the gay community at large from your experiences here on this website.

I neglected to say that I have never had any of my straight friends come after me, despite any of my stated views, in the manner that quite a number of gays have done on these threads. Some of the responses I get, are so hostile, that I sometimes wonder if I am even on a “gay” bog?

It also causes me to wonder if self-hating gay people were the real reason No on Prop 8 failed? When I learned how many members of the LGBT community in California did not even vote, I was appalled!

It certainly gives credence to the old axiom that “We are our own worst enemies.”

Right on, Kevin! You’ve hit the nail squarely on the head.

Sad. But, nevertheless, true.

I must have missed the line in the above article where it definitively states all thirteen of the reasons apply evenly to every gay person on the face of the Earth.

…nope… just read it again and I still don’t see it. Maybe you’re seeing things. Or reading too much into a fun article. Or in a bad mood.

I can’t/won’t speak for anyone else, but personally, I’ve never made a friend through a random sexual encounter. If that’s your lifestyle, that’s fine… I just think it’s a shame that stuff like this continually perpetuates the idea that the gay community has a universal set of defined qualities. Not all of us want to be identified with every single one of those qualities… and let’s face it… on an individual basis, some of them just don’t fit.

For example, shopping gives me a headache… I don’t think I’ve ever gone clothes shopping for fun.

Anyway, I guess what it comes down to is that we’re all individuals. Sure, we might possess up a few qualities that are widely attributed to the gay population… Hell, some of us might even emulate them all with complete accuracy. But everyone is different, and we shouldn’t forget that there will always be exceptions to the rule.

Although compared to the typical trailer-park living Midwestern schlub…

Am a straight girl but heck, I looove gay men to bits…And Reason Nº 8 was ace, maybe it’s one of the lots of reasons we girls very much prefer gay guys as our VERY BFFs :)

Honestly, Darth. That’s not a joke. Perhaps things are different where you’re from, but I’ve rarely seen violence in the many years I’ve been around large groups of gay men. I live in San Francisco which hosts the International Bear Rendezvous, Folsom Street Fair, Up Your Alley Street Fair, and a rather large Pride Parade celebration and there are very few, if any, violent incidents. We do have a problem with Halloween in the Castro, but everyone knows that the shootings and stabbings that have happened have always been at the hands of young straight men.

I’m actually surprised that you would disagree. It would seem to me that this was obvious to every gay man.