Ok...show yerselves!

I wanna see how many of us there are


Present


.
[This message was edited Tue Sep 23 13:22:29 PDT 2003 by Nikster]

none for me thanks.

HI!

Here!!!

I never joined, nor do I intend to.

FunkMistress said:

Oooh, Mama!!! I love it when you come to visit the GD forum!!!

scififilmnerd said:

Then why did you reply?

scififilmnerd said:

stymie said:

Just following you, sexy.

AaronMaximus said:

Considering that it's a roll call, isn't any response indicating your presence here? Welcome to the family, Aaron and scififilmnerd!

prrtybby said:

Because if you ignore "mafia", it reads "gay roll call".

FunkMistress said:

Thank you on my behalf, FunkMistress.

you assume that because one is gay and on the org, that one is part of the "org gay mafia"


that assumption is incorrect.



.
[This message was edited Tue Sep 23 13:41:04 PDT 2003 by AaronMaximus]

AaronMaximus said:

True. I'm just gay, not in any org. Wait right here, I'll be right back to explain why.

AaronMaximus said:

Okay... I do enjoy being a part of the Org's "gay family", if you will. There are many cool gay guys and gals on the Org, a lot of whom are also not affiliated with the Org's Gay Mafia.

A couple of years ago, I freguently checked on the Org for news of Prince, but became so disgusted with all the JWs and the rampant homophobia here, that I decided against actually having a profile here - I didn't run from the homophobia, I ran from Prince in general. This was around the time just prior to TRC, and with the release of TRC I finally got fed up with Prince and did not listen to Prince or buy his releases or go to his concerts since. And I did not check on the Org either.

Then, recently, I read Alex Hahn's book "Possessed" and my passion for the Prince I used to know got rekindled. I'm still not touching his new shit, but I did start listening to his old music again and buying boots of his old music again.
And I checked on the Org again and noticed a lot of cool gay guys on the threads - none of which were affiliated with the Org's Gay Mafia, by the way - and thought that this was a definite improvement and immediately signed up, so's I could hang out with all the cool gay guys on the Org.

Once on the Org, I noticed this whole Gay Mafia thing, and I understand the reasons that it came about and I like the fact that there is a Gay Mafia.

But I have been a gay activist for eight years in real life, from 1991 to 1999. There, I got fed up with all the in-fighting between various groupings of the gay community. I was naive when I started out. I figured we were all in the same boat - we would stick together against "the enemy". Simple, right?
But life taught me differently. I believe now that if you replace the word "vampires" with "gays" and "immortal" with "homosexual" in the following qoutation from Anne Rice's The Tale Of The Body Thief, you get a fair assesment of the gay community: "Vampires don't really LIKE others of their kind, though their need for immortal companions is DESPERATE."

My days as an "organized" gay are over. I write for a gay magazine and hang out with my gay friends and go the gay bars and such and I have discovered that leaving gay politics behind was a very healthy decision for me. While being politically active, I was always frustrated - and mostly by my own kind and their prejudice against gays who weren't like themselves. It was practically like the JWs or something - in order to be "a real gay" you had to behave so and so and do those and those things and mean so and so and blah, blah, blah
I got fed up with the prejudice because I can respect other gays for being different from me, but they could not respect me for being different from them. I was downright ridiculed for wanting a monogamous relationship rather than go the park or sauna or darkroom or wherever and have promiscuos sex.
I suppose - in hindsight - that they thought I felt I was better than them, but the truth was that I felt different from them, no more no less. About my personal beliefs and interests, I have met more respect and genuine interest from heterosexuals than I ever have from my so-called "gay peers".

So I left them behind me. And I am not joining any gay group ever again - even an innocent thing like the Org Gay Mafia. Its a matter of principle.

Also, it is my belief and experience that simply being out and open about one self in your workplace or on the Org or wherever as an individual will leave people much more openminded of you and your opinions than if you approach them as a party of an organization.

I saw this myself with Cborgman. When he was DrFrankenfurter, he was speaking as an individual. When he resumed his Cborgman persona - president of the org gay mafia - his words took on a whole other dimension. Or certainly, to my eyes they did. Now it was a member of the Gay Mafia speaking whereas before it was an individual. (Does this make any sense to you?)

I know there is strength in numbers and I have got nothing against gay organizations whatsoever - we have a lot to thank them for - but I consider myself a strong individual who spent eight years in "gay school" and is now happily graduated, standing on my own two feet - perfectly capable of standing up for myself and defending who I am and my right to be so if need be.

I feel that I took my turn on the barricades, now someone else can carry on.

Also - as I am sure you've noticed - a lot of the gay Orgers who do not have Gay Mafia in their signature are European, from countries like Holland and Denmark where "gay liberation" is a bit more progressed than in, say, USA. So you Americans possibly feel a greater sense of "us versus them" and the need to organize than we do in our countries. (?)
When a lot of political battles have been waged and won, the next step really is to be out there and "influencing" the "common man" by simply being yourself. A lot of them have never had any personal contact with homosexuals before. By just being out there on your own and open about who you are, they get a personal experience: "Oh, okay. He's gay and he's alright. Maybe at the next election, I shouldn't vote for that dreadful anti-gay party, because obviously - if he's anything to judge by - they've been lying about gays."
One cannot underestimate the power of the individual to make a difference in public opinion by simply being.

I have worked with many straight people who had never (knowingly) met a gay person before. I like to think that I've somehow managed to show them a positive example of my kind and as such I've felt a whole lot more succesful in battling prejudice individually than I ever felt on the political arena as part of an organization. (So, yeah, I guess in some sense you can take the activist out of the man, but you can't take the man out of the activism.)

And writing about gay related issues for mainstream press always gives me a greater kick than writing about the same issues for the gay press because writing for the gay press sometimes seems like "preaching for the choir".

SO... What I'm trying to say is... You make a gay roll call, I'll proudly stand up and be counted.
Even though I want to remain an individual, I hope this will not reflect badly on me in your eyes, because we can still be friends and have fun together, even though there is no Org Gay Mafia in my signature, you know?
I respect you all for your opinions and your beliefs. All I'm asking is the same in return.

eleven said:

Nice to meet you, Eleven.

P.S.
The correct title for Souly-a-colia is "Rebirth Of The Flesh."

scififilmnerd, you rock

what you posted makes a lot of sense and includes some particularly astute observations, such as the point of the possibly different perspectives with American queers from Euroqueers...


anywho

I guess I've never technically been a member of the mafia, I have the in my signature, but that's it...

but whatevs, I come here for fun and only fun 90% of the time, so I hop among whichever 'mafia' suits my fancy

it is kinda funny though, we took something fun and silly like the mafias here and made them mean something much biggr than what I think they were ever really intended for...it's just like us to create drama out of nothing

endorphin74 said:

Thank you, Endorphin.

I come here for the fun too.

(Which is why I get really when someone like Nep2nes comes along and purposefully tries to spoil an otherwise fun thread, like it happened last week.)
[This message was edited Tue Sep 23 15:23:01 PDT 2003 by scififilmnerd]

I'm actually cracking up at peoples interpretations and perceptions of the gay mafia thing. I never once approached it as a political tool or affiliation. Bottom line, the only thing I ever saw in it was being out and proud and open about who I was. Including the mafia thing in the signature was a way of providing an easy way for others out there to know I was gay and hoping that they would introduce themselves if they felt the need to do so.

The Org gay mafia thing got twisted into something it never was which is why I have since abandoned the use of it in my signature. I respect people for wanting to be considered first on their humanity but for those of us who are openly gay doesn't mean we don't want to be approached from that vantage point as well.

I have never held political affiliation with any group, although I have performed volunteer work for Gay & Lesbian centers and have contributed donations as well. I think it's vital that we be engaged on a political level. Unless of course you are happy with straight society making up the rules you should live by without regard for whether those rules are fair or not.

On a different note, I will at somepoint go back to the "aggressively gay" sig...

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

But of course. I hate being mistaken for a heterosexual as well, which is why I've got the "It's better with a man" in my sig.
And how did I know that the non-gay mafia affiliated gay guys - that was part of the lure in finally drawing me to the Org - were gay?
It said they liked men in their profiles. So I assume they are just as "out and proud" as I am and you are.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

absolutely... that is why i dropped it from my sig. it was NEVER a political thing, but somehow people came to view it as such. i imagine this was because of richard and my very outspoken political views, and because both of us had "gayfather" and "gaymother" of the OGM in our sigs. the OGM has never been about politics, but rather about showing people that the sometimes rampant and unchecked homophobia that takes place on the org, as scififilm pointed out.

i am a gay orger, and i used to be outspoken about politics, but that was creating entirely too much hatred aimed at me (some of the orgnotes i got would be nicely described as abhorant) and too much drama. now i just say nothing about politics.

i just wanna be known as chris, a fun and sweet guy... not for my outspoken political views, not for my sexuality, not for drama... just chris, the guy people used to like.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

No argument there. I am happy that someone's out there and doing that because otherwise I would have had to continue my work in the Danish Organization for Gays and Lesbians whether I liked it or not.
[This message was edited Tue Sep 23 15:35:59 PDT 2003 by scififilmnerd]

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I like what SciFiNerd said, though I never thought the whole Gay Mafia thing ran so deep.

I never really got what it was supposed to be about anyway, other than something to put in your sig line in order to, I dunno, feel closer to other likeminded people on here? Seems harmless enough to me, I guess.

I follow the Groucho principle where joining things is concerned, but if you all aren't hurting anyone, then what the hell, do your thing and clique away.

Wow, we take things pretty seriously these days, don't we?

Lammastide said:

apparently!