One of the benefits of living outside social approval is the freedom that comes from disregarding social norms. If you’re a notorious gangster, it’s not like you’re going to be invited over for tea and crumpets regardless of what shoes you’re wearing after labor day. So wear what you want.<\/p>\n
Homos used to be real social rebels. At least the open ones. And with that came a major ambiguity as to acceptable behavior, with the typical answer being “anything goes.”<\/p>\n
But if you want your boyfriend to be welcome in your parents’ home, does that mean accepting other parts of the social contract governing hetero relationships? And which parts?<\/p>\n
If the rules don’t apply to you, you have to make your own rules. But as the broader society starts to embrace homos, what implications does that have for gay male social norms? Will the monogamists gain market share in gay relationships? Will camp seem curiouser and quainter, like obsessions with elvis? Will pride parades calm down? Will moms start arranging for their sons to meet? Will it happen as a generational change, so that the younger queers will wonder at how messed up the older generation is?<\/p>\n
My bet on all of the above is yes. But I think it’s also important to recognize that the broader society has changed in other ways as well. Among those changes, it’s become more open about sex in general, and more tolerant of different lifestyles. The gays really can’t take primary credit or blame for that, though I think we’ve had a role in it.<\/p>\n
I haven’t sought social acceptance through conformity much at all since I came out and I don’t intend to start now. But I also won’t protest norms just to cause trouble. I’ll probably meander around a bit on that scale, but stick to roughly where I am now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the benefits of living outside social approval is the freedom that comes from disregarding social norms. If you’re a notorious gangster, it’s not like you’re going to be invited over for tea and crumpets regardless of what shoes you’re wearing after labor day. So wear what you want. Homos used to be real … Continue reading “assimilation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}