that kind

-Do you know Paris is Burning?
-It is?

I died.
But I guess I'm that kind of gay. I'm the card-carrying, Pride-attending, museum-going, Drag Race-watcher kind of gay. I like trendy clothes and have rocked Diesel jeans and I have dyed my hair too many times. I went to see Sex And The City in theaters, loved Call Me By Your Name and think Blackout is the best Britney album. I like Madonna and House music. I like intersectionality. I talk about toxic masculinity and I think we all should at least once in life be Radical Militant Homosexuals and discuss how Ronald Reagan and George Bush could and should have done more about AIDS. It's just who I am.

But I don't think the Black-t-shirt-ironing kind of gay men are boring. Or bland. And I can appreciate a man who can rock (and use) the pockets in his cargo pants and can change the oil in his car but does not get Drag or camp. I don't think it's a matter of them-versus-me. It's a case of them AND me. I've dated both kinds of men: men who can camp it up to high heavens, men who like opera and musical theater and enjoy brunch and have also dated men who like NASCAR, would rather mow the lawn or shovel some snow than watch The Golden Girls. Men who do not know who Kim Petras or Robyn or Billie Eilish are just as cool as men who plan a month in advance what they'll wear in Provincetown this summer.

The idea that we all should be (and look) the same is ridiculous. There will always be creative minds that will blow ours with innovative ways to approach art and music and fashion in fabulous ways. But there'll be men who will never wear tailored jackets or go see Britney in Vegas but can tile their bathrooms in one afternoon. I enjoy camp and also enjoy a good convo on politics or religion. I know men who can discuss the fuckery that is the 45th president of the United States and then jump into an argument as to who the hottest guy in Riverdale is (Archie). And that's what makes them interesting.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be one AND the other. And now if you excuse me, I have tome glory holes to saw in a treehouse, hunty.

xoxo