Footnote to the previous post

Another aspect of the use of the word "gay" is the perception that, apart from the minor affection that now is attached to the word, there is also a sense of envy. There has always been a bit of envy buried under the hatred -- envy for the freedom, the sexual liberation, the separation from the oppression of conformity -- but it was usually manifested as disgust. That's not so much the case today. People who profess disgust at homosexuality are seen as ignorant and bigoted. Some non-gay people feel freer to admit their envy of gay people (while acknowledging, still partially as a boast or a declaration of their own sexuality, that they could never themselves be gay). Witness the "metrosexual" phenomenon, wherein straight men take on the taste and perspective and style and speech patterns of gayness.

Neither does any label boil down easily to behavior, although that's how the Kinsey scale is based. I've been married for 28 years now, with an active and imaginative physical relationship (although, I must admit, lately... not so much), and there is no way I'd either fit or be able to reject this or that label, one way or the other. Call me Ishmael. Nothing makes me flinch.

And thus ends my decades long crusade against the label! At last! Free at last from the burden of being shoved into a pigeonhole, uncomfortable and invalid!

Holy the lack of labels on Ginsberg! Holy Lincoln and holy Melville and holy the grandfathers of New Jersey and Brooklyn! Holy footnote to Howl and Holy Footnote to the Previous Post!