Prisons’ Pride Lessons

June 2004

Veterans of earlier pride marches, parades, and demonstrations can easily lament the relatively apolitical, non-confrontational tone of many of this June’s pride celebrations. No longer are pride events rowdy gatherings of sexual outlaws demanding an end to legal and political persecution. Instead, they have become “family friendly” events aimed at demonstrating our normality– and peddling a plethora of rainbow hoopla to our new “market niche.”

It is understandable that some regret the loss of pride’s edginess. But nostalgic sentiment should not so cloud our judgment that we romanticize a past marred by rampant anti-gay bigotry. Sure, pride events may have been more “exciting” when showing up meant possibly being fired from ones job the next day, but no one really wants to reclaim that kind of excitement. Today, homosexuality is, in many contexts, more accepted and gay people less brutally treated than even just a few years ago. We’re here. We’re queer. And people are getting used to it.

Though some of the cruder forms of homophobia have retreated, current events remind us just how bedeviled our society remains with anti-gay prejudice. If we are to progress towards saner, more humane sexual values, gay leadership is needed now more than ever.

Photos from the US prison at Abu Ghraib in Iraq underscore how homosexuality is still regarded by many as the most heinous, despicable degradation imaginable. Reviewing evidence of systematic US military torture of Iraqi detainees (not charged with any crime), pundits and politicians often skipped past the electro-prods, attack dogs, and even dead bodies in order to focus on the (homo)sexual postures forced upon young Iraqi men. Indeed, it is easy to wonder if US personnel had simply beaten, burned, and killed prisoners (evidently routine events at Abu Ghraib and other such facilities) whether there would have been the global outrage that accompanied photographs of US-choreographed simulated gay sex. To all involved– those in the pictures, those taking the pictures, and those “analyzing” the pictures on the news– being homosexually humiliated was the worst imaginable fate.

And here in the US, record numbers of men are in prison for consensual homosexual activity. Most of these men are serving long, long prison terms for affectionate sex with underage male partners. Such sexual activity is technically illegal even when heterosexual, but there exist huge discrepancies in attitudes and sentences when the “crime” is homosexual. Teenage boys who find a “Mrs. Robinson” are seen as lucky initiates into the wonderful world of (hetero)sex, while teen boys who get it on with Mr. Robinson are invariably portrayed as tragic victims, their sacred (presumed) heterosexuality forever tainted. And anyone who sullies a teen boy with homosexuality– however consensually, no matter how kindly– will, if accused, likely pass much of the rest of his life behind bars.

To make this year’s gay pride more meaningful, let us keep in mind lessons from prisons– both in Iraq and here at home. Many, many people still fear homosexuality as unspeakably disgusting, a fate from which the innocent must be protected. Those of us who know better must re-dedicate ourselves to challenging such destructive notions. This June, set aside the rainbow baubles and offer the fear-crazed world a different, enlivening message about gay sex. You’ll be proud you did.

Pasted from <http://guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=02EA5D7F-5F89-417F-BD790AEE052920CB>