Kanye West – “Famous”

OK, “Famous”. Watched the whole video.

Very heterosexual. No guys next to each other. The only women next to each other are Amber Rose and Caitlyn Jenner. Very voyeuristic.

Even the artist whose giant mural inspired the video, Vincent Desiderio, was taken by how his own feelings toward the people depicted flowed from ridicule to empathy for “Slumbering gods, they were, but also like babies or small children at the height of vulnerability.” Obsessed to a point with power. All famous people, most of them being attached in some way with whom they had sex or were publicly obsessed (or who simply had their own public sexual histories).

Too many pieces already written about the deliberate placing of women next to/in the same bed as the men with whom they had toxic, well-publicized or distant relationships; Lena Dunham’s takedown comes to mind. Oh, and Bush and Wintour. Who have they had sex with and how? The public needs to know, I’m sure.

The Brexit Vote is Already Terrible

Politics, Uncategorized,

I feel like Britain was sold a bad deal on leaving the EU. Should have been a multi-choice referendum, like Puerto Rico’s last status referendum in 2012.

Now everyone is getting the incorrect impression that this is a binding referendum because “the majority voted”, in spite of Scotland and Northern Ireland, two constituent countries, voting to Remain.

Binary choices like this are usually flawed when put to a public vote. People don’t know their full options beyond the single “Yes/No” question. But this is what the Conservative backbench and party base wanted, and now they’re getting it in spades.

Conservatives are coming apart, split by the vote. Labour is coming apart, split by the alleged unenthusiastic support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for the Remain campaign (and some older political scores).

The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, are coming out, in the days after the vote, as the biggest momentary beneficiaries of the pro-Remain political reaction against the vote, and are even throwing their weight behind Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP on Scottish negotiations with the EU.

Britain may be in the throes of a major political realignment, one which will have to either react against or adapt around the reality of migration and free movement of labor. Nevermind the hypocrisy of the inheritors of a historic world-colonizing power like the UK feeling gutted by the “invasion” of “migrants” so much that they’d withdraw the country from their foremost, closest major trading partner.

Word out from Advocate.com that the guy who had tannerite, a gasoline jug and ammunition in his car next to L.A. Pride may have been trying to escape a child molestation charge in Indiana. He had sex with a 12yo girl and fled the state, and had a prior misdemeanor charge against him. The tannerite which can be used to build a pipe bomb is actually common to find among gun owners. But this guy had no business with any of this. I cringed when I read it.

Anti-Queer Sentiment is Still Anti-Queer Sentiment

Uncategorized, , , , ,

You know why most of us American LGBT people are not sold on cultural Christians spouting anti-Islamic rhetoric in regards to Muslim homophobia? Because we meet, know, are parented by, governed by, ostracized by, domestically-oppressed by, attacked by, and seek strategic allyship with more Christians than we are with Muslims.

To tell us American LGBT people that Muslims in other countries are the greater, more existential problem to our lives but not our fellow American citizens’ conduct and laws towards us here and now is pretty dishonest.

You never notice our organizational advocacy work with LGBT organizations abroad unless its regarding a historical “enemy state” like Russia during the 2010 Olympics.

You never notice that many of us advocate for the safety and safe refugee status of LGBT people in Iran and Iraq.

You never notice that we are angered and saddened by Saudi or Malaysian or Indonesian or Ugandan homophobia. “But ISIS throws you off buildings!” And?! What do you want us to do? If you were us, what would you do about defenestrations and beheadings and tortures? There is literally nothing more to do at this point except to dodge U.S. laws and join the Peshmerga or YPG at the front lines.

It’s a useless exercise to remind us about what ISIS does to gay men and boys. We know this. We can’t do anything about it except pressure for safe passage for LGBT refugees from the Levant to safer spaces abroad, as we have been doing since before you took notice of Muslim homophobia.

It’s a pointless critique of liberal U.S. LGBT people to distract us from the pressures we face at home. This mass shooting took place at home. We are fighting for equality, dignity and life at home. Hateful ideas attack us here at home.

Let’s take care of home first. Let us grieve. Let us build bridges. Let’s continue making this country better for LGBT people, and not settle for where we are now. #Orlando

What a Tragedy

Uncategorized, ,

I enjoy myself at #SOBSFCon in Atlanta. Talk about it on video. I go to sleep. Then a queer nightclub in #Orlando is massacred by a religious bigot gunman. During Pride Month. Then I wake up. What can I feel about this?

It’s only starting to sink in that people were sitting ducks, enjoying themselves in their vulnerability to each other, and someone just took advantage of that vulnerability to end their lives. It’s a betrayal of that honesty of the close, inclusive quarters. His father blames it on seeing two men kissing.

How can someone be so disturbed by such vulnerability that they seek to kill those who show it on such a grand scale? That is, unless they are carefully taught or teach themselves to see such vulnerability as inhuman, as not fitting the “proper roles” of human beings.