however, gender varient cultural play does allow for LGBT people to take thier tentative steps out of the closet. I think of Halloween, Anime and Science Fiction conventions where male sailor moon figures always appear (among others) and the TV show FREAKS and GEEKS where one of the 12 year old boys is always pretending to be the Bionic Woman and, of course, shows up at halloween as…The Bionic Woman. This wiggle room area of gender variance in North American culture means that he gets a few eyebrows raised but doesn’t get beaten up until he starts coming to the prom as the Bionic woman. There are so few outlets for closets LGBT people that I would hate to see all eliminated in our need for a perfect world when in reality, for a gay closeted kid in backwoods (insert state here) these “jests” may be the only time they get to express themselves.

While returning from swing dancing in Cleveland last week, one of my friends commented if any males in our rural, farming-centric county became skilled at swing dancing, he’d probably get beat up. I responded he’d be alright as long as he only talked about it around women and other male swing dancers. This area may still be in the “can’t joke about being gay other than using it as a synonym for ’stupid’” phase.

I recognize that blackface and gayface can be harmful. But I’m asking two very important questions: what if it’s necessary (or at least the fastest route to eliminating prejudice) and what if it could be done in a non-hurtful (or at least far less hurtful) way?

1. What if the “harmful” is necessary to make progress? Using the ACLS theme, the goal of the defibrillator is to kill the patient. Really — you’re deliberately stopping the heart. The hope is that the heart (and maybe a couple grams of epi) is healthy enough to restart. I’ve had it work — and I’ve had it not work. The proximal cause of death of at least one patient was yours truly. The point is, sometimes we have to do damage to make things heal.

What if blackface was a necessary step? What if, in areas that are still segregated, a period of blackface would help those societies grow out of their racism faster?

2. Bad CPR is better than no CPR. M*A*S*H did it historically accurate, a kid watched, and when his mother went into cardiac arrest, he did CPR like he saw on M*A*S*H. The mother lived. That doesn’t mean you should not try to do better CPR.

What if there were a way to constructively use “blackface” and “gayface”? Design it to make it non-hurtful, use it as a learning tool.

There are certain ways the mind works, certain patterns on the path to change. Many educational theories have fought against these patterns, and they fail because they are working against the programming grain.

What if, in the name of political correctness, we’ve institutionalized racism? Wouldn’t be the first time good intentions made something worse.

I’m not saying this is correct, but I am pointing out that it hasn’t been examined. Of course, some might prefer not to ask hard questions because they might not like the real answer. Creationists on evolution, Griffin on global warming, Bush on Iraq, Cheney on torture….

I’ll refrain from any more posts on this thread now. I’ve said my piece.

Not only does faux bisexexual behaviour make me uncomfortable to appear affectionate to my female lovers in public, for fear of being ogled or cheered on, but it reinforces the myth of bisexuals as being promiscuous, and just desparate for sex with whoever we can get it with.

Perhaps it’s just my longing to be special, but it bugs me that it’s easier to be a bi female than anything else. In a sexualised world, where sex apparently equals naked female bodies, straight girls do feel a lot of pressure to find other women sexually attractive. Not as people, you understand, just as objects of sex. A very informal poll of my straight female friends revealed that (of those who watched porn), most watched lesbian porn, despite having an aversion to doing it themselves. Straight and homosexual guys, well, you know that story. And bisexual men probably get the worst treatment of all.

Not to mention it makes things rather confusing for those of us who are actually interested in same-sex relationships, not just play-acting.

Anyway, thanks for the fantastic blog.

That’s interesting, and causes me to question some of my own behavior. At times, to be outrageous and get laughs, I’ve used similar approaches for humor. For example, despite being ‘out’ as a straight man, in the past I have spoken in a deadpan manner and with a, um, straight face, about my enjoyment of extremely decadent and obviously gay sex acts. (Works great with unblinking eye contact too.)

In some ways, it’s testing people on my (unusual, no-holds-barred) sense of humor, and I wouldn’t use such material in front of everyone. At the same time, I need to recognize that I’m doing this with a safety net because I can always retreat back to frat-boyish straight privilege - “what? Y’all thought I was serious? Naw, that’s some sick shit, yo. I’m jus’ clownin’, dawg.”

Always got to remember that there’s a fine line between being funny and outrageous and just being an asshole.

Why do I always feed the trolls? I ask myself…

And in the context of this sort of thing, one opinion is as good as another, so I believe we have ourselves a draw here. ;)