Hallow what???

A recent poll in the Advocate while typical of their superficial style of coverage, asked if straight people had ruined some of the traditional gay Halloween celebrations such as the ones in the Castro and WeHo. If I didn't get the damn magazine for free, I would never read it. But this particular edition touched on a topic that some of us here in LA had been discussing.

I remember the years when Halloween was one of the High Holidays. It was both campy and erotic. Now after stumbling over baby strollers and small children dressed in K-mart costumes, you find some poor 5 year old staring a some naked guy's dick decorated with sequins while his mother scowls. It is the process of assimilation.

While we enjoy greater acceptance, some have been willing to pay for it by surrendering our uniqueness. While celebrating our diversity, it might behoove us to ask what purpose it serves. Why are there gay men? What might have been obvious answers in other cultures at other times now seem lost in our assimilation. In the past, gay men served as shaman, medicine man, political and spiritual leader, teacher. They were not encumbered by their own family so they were free to serve the community family. We answered to the tribe rather than to our spouse or children. In leadership, we had no progeny to whom we could pass our accomplishments, we served the collective.

Currently, the fight for equal rights has become corrupted by efforts to assimilate. We tell our straight allies that we are just like them except we choose to have sex with other men. We pretend that we fuck just like they do except both of us have dicks. BULLSHIT!!! This leads to the adoption of the archaic assumption that all receptive partners are somehow the lesser partner. When gay men adopt the wedding traditions of straight couples they often fail to realize that most of those traditions came from a time when women were chattel whose value was immediately diminished when their hymen was penetrated. Dowries were paid because women were considered a burden and fathers had to pay the future husband for the inconvenience.

Many gay men have chosen to surrender their role and their power to mimic their straight counterparts. In the rush to assimilate into "gay marriage" we opted out of a conversation abut marriage as an archaic institution. Rather than debating that domestic partnerships are less but equal to marriage how about a conversation about doing away with marriage altogether and giving EVERYBODY domestic partnerships? How about letting marriage remain a religious rite and domestic partnership being the purview of the state? Instead we tried to assimilate. We are just like straight people and we want marriage.

In my little corner of the world, there seem to be at least a few men who are willing to accept that being in a committed relationship, a domestic partnership, is NOT the same thing as being monogamous. They seem to recognize that the what most people consider traditional family values are usually based more on I Love Lucy re-runs than they are on reality. Ozzie may have gone to work while Harriet kept house but in the real world of today both of them are working outside the home. Monogamy might be important if you have to worry about illegitimate heirs but what if you are pretty sure your sexual activities will not result in "bastard" children?

Rather that celebrating our diversity, we seem to be surrendering it. The perpetual victims in leadership sigh as thugs take over our celebrations and rather than fight back, they cancel. When will learn that another option exists? We really could have told folks that they are on our turf and if they can't act appropriately they should stay home. If you don't want your 5 year old exposed to gay culture and sensibility don't go to Halloween in West Hollywood.

Who knew that Halloween could be this much fun in December?