In Your Eyes

You may have seen the story about a man in Britain who is planning on playing the piano in a public square until his ex girlfriend takes him back. A few people have congratulated him on his romanticism, though more are thinking he should really move on. This is an example of a phenomena I've seen many people point out: that the behaviour portrayed in romantic movies - particularly rom-coms - would be creepy if not abusive in real life.

What's interesting is that although most people agree that the man's behaviour is not healthy, there's a divergence in the explanation for it. Some have seen him as just another love-crazed guy, albeit one who's taken it too far (and too public.) And some people have gone straight for a paternalist explanation, saying that he is acting out of a feeling of entitlement. They would say that he is unable to cope with a woman rejecting him, since he - as a man - feels he has a right to a sexual relationship with his chosen woman.

I'm certainly not saying that doesn't happen; there are a lot of men who look at the world that way, including many that you would think would know better. But that's hardly the only explanation. After all, our messed-up sex roles make people do crazy things, but love alone also makes people act plenty crazy. I'm not absolving him of blame - harassing behaviour is harassing no matter the reason. But that's also kind of my point; bad behaviour doesn't necessarily have a bad cause.

There are a couple of lessons here: One is that we have to be careful when we go from trends to individual cases. For instance, even if you know that many blacks are unfairly treated by the police, that doesn't mean that you can assume that any particular black person who gets arrested is being framed. Secondly, we as a society still have a long way to go in figuring out heterosexual men. There's an assumption out there coming from people of many backgrounds that all a man's actions are motivated by sex, and that sexuality is purely about ownership and dominance. I doubt it was ever that simple, and in today’s world, you just can’t jump to conclusions about a person’s motivations.

Pride Goeth Before One Final Examination Of Both Sides

So we made it through this controversial Pride Week. The absence of police in Toronto didn't seem to dampen things too much - the PM made his usual appearance anyway, which some people didn't like. Though this was another one of those cases where the people who were really angry about it wouldn't have voted for him anyway, and the people who did vote for him probably won't be offended enough to not vote for him.

But I read a couple of things that are interesting relating to the police ban. One is from this Minister who talks about removing symbols of ministry when visiting first nations communities. And she feels this is a reasonable allowance, acknowledging the churches mistakes in the past and the reasonableness of fears of them. I can understand that, and it makes me wonder if there is some sense to the police uniform ban.

On the other hand, there was this incident in Chicago where Jewish members of the LGBT community waved rainbow Star of David flags. They were then took to go home, because that was considered offensive to some.

Just to clarify, they were offended by the presence of the Star of David as a symbol of Israel. I initially assumed that Jews or Israelis were offended by repurposing the flag, as I had recently seen similar complaints about Canadian rainbow flags. And also to clarify, this wasn't the main parade, but the Dyke March, which is the day before the main event, and supposedly more inclusive.

That incident is quite illustrative of the problem I had with excluding police. You've crossed the line from criticizing the actions of a group to eliminating aspects of the group itself. I've disliked many of the actions of Israel as much as the next guy, just as I've been critical of police actions. But in both cases, it's unreasonable and unfair to blame the entire group for the actions of a few. In this case it's a bit more obvious, since it's a more sympathetic group being targetted, and a group that has more often been victim of broad anger.

So how can I square these two points in favour of and against the police ban? First of all, we have to acknowledge that it's kind of comparing apples and oranges, since there is a big difference between voluntarily giving up symbols of your group vs. being told to give them up. I don't think anyone would have thought poorly of a police officer who chose to remove the uniform for the parade to improve community acceptance. And much as I understand why a minster might want to downplay the symbols of her church in a community hurt by it, it would be wrong for that community to ban the religion or symbols of it.

So that's why I'd stick with my original opinion. As the Chicago incident shows, you can't ban the symbols of a group without it being interpretted as an attack on the group itself. And unless you're going to say that the group is inherently bad, then their right to exist has to trump another group's discomfort.

Sense And Sensitivity

It's Pride time again.  Or, as it currently is in Canada, "How Much Do You Hate Police?" Week.  Thanks to the Toronto Pride Parade's decision to grant Black Lives Matter's request to ban official police participation, that has become the big story this year.

There have been different reactions.  Black gay-rights activist Orville Lloyd Douglas condemned the move. Interestingly he also called out Black Lives Matter for demanding that Pride be more accommodating of blacks, while not doing anything to stamp out homophobia within their own movement.

Meanwhile Now magazine has an article about how the policy was accepted at Pride Toronto with surprisingly little resistance and a fair amount of enthusiasm. Apparently, the outside assumption that BLM turned the screws and Pride caved is not very accurate.  It's an interesting look at how people within the movements see the world and are motivated to act. If, like me, you find that understanding your political opponents makes them less frustrating, it may help even if it may not convince you.

Similar police bans - oh, I'm sorry, police in uniform bans; police are totally welcome as long as no one knows they're cops - have been enacted at Pride events throughout Canada.  I'm not sure they really know what they're getting into.  Sure, I realize that sometimes you have to play hardball.  But you also need to choose your battles, particularly when you're thinking about a tactic that is going to give your opponent a sense of isolation and siege mentality.

Whenever I hear Pride activists talk about the bans, they use language that's not nearly as aggressive as the action itself. For instance, I saw a report from Brantford Pride in which a committee member explains it as eliminating something - the uniform - that some people find "scary." I have no doubt that many do find police officers scary, perhaps with good reason.  But we are talking about picking a fight with a major societal institution full of largely innocent people just to eliminate some people's fears.  My first reaction was that it sounds like something out of conservative paranoia, in which the desire for a safe space overrules the fair treatment of others.  In this case, I have to agree that it doesn't seem like a fair compromise between people's rights. And, on a pragmatic level, it will ultimately do progressive movements more harm than good.

Looks Like We Made It

Wow, can you believe Barry Manilow is gay?  Oh, you can. Well, that seems to be the reaction: people aren't really surprised.  I was a bit surprised, since I would have thought that most gay celebrities are out now.  Could someone check The Closet, and let everyone else know it's safe to come out now.

But I'm a little disappointed that a lot of people have reacted to the news by saying that they always knew he was gay, or to ask why didn't he come out a long time ago, homosexuality has been accepted for decades, you know, Liberace and The Village People and them.

As for the idea that you knew it all along, I have to point out:

• There's a secretly-gay rumour for just about every male celebrity
• Have you seen the seventies? Even the really masculine guys had moustaches that would seem over-the-top at a Pride Parade today.

And for the people who think gay celebrities have always been accepted: Some of those folks are probably from that odd brand of bigotry that fervently denies that bigotry exists. But others seem to be really misremembering the past. Yes, you can point to gay artists of the 60's-80's, but a surprising number of them publicly denied their sexuality until more enlightened times. Liberace might seem like the most obviously gay man of all time, yet he claimed to be straight throughout his life.

The fact is that our society has had a strange attitude towards homosexuality for a while now, and there was a long period where we had kind of accepted that it didn't really hurt anyone, but we still held on to the general idea that it was wrong.  And that lead to a lot of celebrities who were stereotypically gay, but would never admit to it, fearing it would be career suicide.  And for a long time, they were probably right.

(Fun fact: The Village People weren't all gay.)

As if to underline our muddled views of sexuality, there's news that John Mayer has found a more masculine heart emoji. Specifically, he's using the heart from the playing card symbols, not the heart intended to symbolize love, which is more rounded. Certainly, it's not clear whether he was joking, but given the continued need people have to defend masculinity, I can't tell anymore.  It's one of the big mysteries of modern society: homosexuality is getting more and more widely accepted, yet men seem ever more fearful of appearing gay.  Just like there are fewer closeted celebrities, yet people are as quick as ever to speculate on who's secretly gay.

Ironically, by jumping to conclusions about people's sexual preference just based on their traits or interests, we're fuelling men's need to affirm their masculinity. Yes, I know, they should be accepting enough of others that they wouldn't mind being mistaken for gay.  But it's also putting a lot of pressure on them when they know that everyone will be quick to misrepresent their sexual preference the second they step outside of society's notions of heterosexual men. And it's all because people have this bizarre need to say "told you so" as soon as anyone comes out. So let's just stop the speculation and let people express their sexuality as they see fit.

Persuasion

This summer, I wrote a post about how Prime Minister Trudeau went to the Toronto Pride Parade and didn't end his career. In particular, I showed a photo of him at the parade, and marvelled that we've come far enough as a society that it didn't end his career.

Then I pointed out that inevitably someone would try using it against them, and this would blow up in their face. And sure enough, this week Facebook showed me this:

Of course, Bill C-16 isn't really the newspeak law they're making it out to be. You won't be send to jail for failing to memorize your alternate pronouns, and men still aren't allowed to enjoy the lush Victorian decor of public ladies' rooms.

I didn't really think the photo would be used by some conservative news outlet who fell victim to a massive breakdown in targeted advertising. I was picturing it being one of the Conservative leadership candidates, presumably Kellie "Values Screening" Leitch. But perhaps we should wait until the next election to see how far into the Trump playbook Canadian politicians are willing to go.

These Memes Won't Turn Anyone On

I'm kind if surprised that people are still using homosexuality as a putdown.  For instance, I've seen a few variations on the graphic to the right.

As you can see, it makes pronouncements about how various musical jobs will affect a man's ability to attract women.  For the most part it shows the hierarchy we'd expect, putting the singer and guitarist at the top.  Although in my experience, people are quicker to slag the drummer than the bassist, but either way, neither gets the respect they deserve.

But it's disappointing that they use the implication of gay men to deliver the ultimate put down to the keyboardist.  Yes, I know, homosexuality has been devalued forever, this shouldn't be news.  But with its increasing acceptance in society, you'd think the people who still see it as an insult would be aging legislators who don't know how to use the Internet.

So it worries me that a lot of the acceptance of homosexuals may be shallower than we think.  People have gotten to the point of accepting their existence, or their lack of evilness at least. But perhaps they still haven't gotten to the point of seeing it as equal to any other sexuality.

Like I said, I've seen a few variations on it.  One was to insult different types of cars.  Unfortunately I couldn't find it when I just went looking, but the same point can be made with these graphics that reflect demonizing of gay men, or possibly straight women:

And of course it reasserts my point that the Chevy/Ford rivalry is just a meaningless lobbing of the same insults back and forth.

But the breaking point that prompted me to write this was when I saw the meme applied to programming languages:

I assume that if you aren't familiar with programming, then this looks rather surreal, a bunch of unfamiliar names arbitrarily assigned to implications of virility. Well let me reassure you that even if you are familiar with all these languages, it looks about the same.  I really have no idea how they decided on these, other than that it was obviously put together by a PHP programmer. As the oldest and least-forgiving language there, one would think that C will make you attractive to others. Maybe Perl if you're looking for someone particularly kinky. But the point is, that shows how silly this all is. People are just flinging outdated insults at others, but all they're doing is exposing their own bigotry .

Pride And Prejudice

Toronto's annual Pride parade was this weekend, and it made news for a few reasons.  One was that it was the first one attended by a sitting Prime Minister.  Which brings up:

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #33

The Prime Minister went to a pride parade, wearing a pink shirt, and someone took this photo of him, and it didn't end his career.

                                 

Truth is, it will probably help his career; in addition to standing up for tolerance, you know that some political opponent is going to try to score points with the homophobes by bringing this up in the future, with disastrous results for themselves.

But the other big story was that Toronto's chapter of Black Lives Matter (BLM) held up the parade with a protest.  They had a variety of demands, many of which were uncontroversial measures to help LGBT people of colour, but the most talked-about is that the police be excluded from future Pride parades. Oh, speaking of which:

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #33.5

It's just assumed that police forces have floats in Pride parades.

                                 

Anyway, this protest took many of us by surprise.  For one thing, many people were displeased with the idea of excluding someone from an event that's built around inclusion. But the other is that it seems as though two oppressed minorities are fighting each other.

Though it's sad to see that, I can understand the dynamics behind it.  We may think of Gay Rights as the new kid on the activist block, but it's actually been wildly successful, and in many ways it's passed other causes in mainstream acceptance.  Look at it this way: which is going to cause a scared white suburbanite cross to the other side of the street faster: a black man, or a gay man.  I'm kidding of course: the suburbanite wouldn't be walking down the street.  But my point is, it's not too surprising that those fighting racism might see the Pride parade as part of an establishment they aren't part of, rather than a fellow campaigner for rights.

I may understand how the thinking happens here, but I really disagree with it: Normally I've supported Black Lives Matter.  I do think police have made mistakes.  But there seems to be a big philosophical difference between criticizing police and demonizing them.  Or to put it another way, disliking some of their actions does not mean disliking them. It's particularly unfortunate because the police participation in Pride is an example of them trying to reach out and be part of the community, (with a community they once antagonized) which is the sort of attitude that should be encouraged.

That's why this seems like a watershed moment.  There are a lot of progressive-minded people like myself who were on board with BLM are now looking for the exits.  It's unfortunate because they still have a lot to accomplish, so I hope the grassroots ask whether this is really the direction they want to go.

We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off

It was a news story that caught just about everyone’s eye: Playboy is going to stop publishing nudity. So…

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, # 27

Playboy will voluntarily stop printing nude pictures of women. They’ll do this to try to increase circulation. Specifically, they’ll be hoping to get more younger readers.

Of course, the explanation for this new strategy was fairly obvious: porn is just too easy to get in this age of the Internet. I mean really, you’re on the Internet, why are you reading this now? You could be looking at porn. In that light, I really appreciate your readership.  Anyway, this is just another example of a new medium forcing old media to reassess what they do best. So non-nude Playboy is just like abstract art, when you think about it.

And it just might work. Playboy without nudity is essentially Maxim, which I see has about ten-times the circulation. They could position themselves as the more urbane version of the bro magazines. Strangely, Playboy would seem like the sophisticated version, and we could one day see someone reading a copy of Maxim, inside a copy of Playboy.

The lack of nudity would allow it to be sold in more places, so that would open up new markets. But perhaps more importantly, a lot of people will probably feel more comfortable buying it. That is, after all, the oddity of men’s magazines: Playboy has given up selling nude pictures of women - since you can get them for free on the Internet - yet Maxim has made a mint selling sexy but not nude pictures of women, which you can also get for free on the Internet. Essentially they are selling permission. It’s socially acceptable to look at a magazine from the local store, in a way that surfing for porn on the Internet is not. So Playboy is just looking for a little more acceptability.

Take The Pink Pill And Believe Whatever You Want To Believe

The "Female Viagra" is in the headlines. That's what the media is calling the first drug to increase women's sexual desire, which I'm sure the company's marketing department just loves. I've seen several stories on the drug, one of them just ten minutes ago, and I don't remember the drug's actual name.  I just know that the pill is pink, in contrast with Viagra's equally stereotypical blue.

Addyi (I looked it up) is controversial because it's struggled to get approval, and required a PR campaign by the manufacturer playing on the perceived unfairness of the huge number of drugs available for men's erectile dysfunction, to the complete lack of drugs for women.

I can't speak to the issue of whether it should be approved, but the thing that has bugged me about this story is that it is quite simply not the female Viagra. Viagra is a drug for men who want to have sex but find it physically difficult. This drug is for women who (presumably) are physically able, but don't want to.  It's a depressing statement about our attitudes towards sexuality that we confuse two things that are so different; it's as though we just file both ideas under this vague category of "sex stuff" and don't examine them further.

As such, it brings up a difficult ethical question. I'm not aware of any other drug that makes people want something. See, there is a small but significant group of people who consider themselves asexual, because they experience little or no sexual desire. And they seem to be reasonably happy, and bristle at the idea that they need to be "cured."

However, a person with no libido may still want companionship, and it appears that among humans, sex is a key part of that. Further, if you've lost your desire while in a relationship, that will cause tension. And that's the biggest practical argument I've seen for this drug: women in a marriage who are worried that if they don't provide sex, then their partner may go elsewhere for it. I can understand that predicament, but it makes the PR campaign take on an ugly tone: the claim by the ads was that it was unfair that men have their sex drugs, but not women. Yet, scratch the surface and you find that the main beneficiaries of the new drug are primarily the men married to the women taking it.

50-50 Relationships

There's been ads on TV for a dating site aimed at older people, called OurTime.  I was worried at first that I might be old enough for the service. The people on the ad all looked a little older than me, but then I remembered that people always see themselves as younger than they are, so they must be the same age as me.

But no reason to worry: it turns out they aim at 50+.  So I can continue to think of myself as young, while I strike out on mainstream dating sites.

I was also worried about how these people were talking about it:

• It's nice to be on a site where gentlemen are looking for someone my age.  Of course, referring to them as "men" or "guys" might help.
• You're matched with someone with the same likes and values.  Is there really a big cultural gap at age 50? Sure, there's a declining value placed on alcohol, but that happens fairly early in adulthood. On most issues, young people make more sense to me.
• I feel like I'm back in high school.  That was the real headscratcher.  Do they know how few people really liked high school?  Or did it occur to them that being lonely in adulthood may correlate with not doing well socially in high school. They then show a good-looking well-groomed man say that he got a "flirt" within minutes of joining, thus confirming that it is, in fact, just like high school. 

So it's a relief to know that I don't have to worry about the shortcomings of mature dating sites for a few more years, by which time I'm sure they will have fixed everything.

Societal Transformation

Lots of people are celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court's granting of gay marriage rights. Yeah, I remember supporting gay rights; this was back before most people had even heard of it. It was cool then, but then it went mainstream, the big companies got involved, and it just wasn't the same. Hey, you know what is hot right now? Trans rights. You should look into it; it's gonna be real big soon.

But seriously, there seems to be an assumption that the trans movement is just going to follow along and repeat the progress that homosexuals have made. The gay rights movement went at incredible speed: I’m sure it didn't seem that way to people struggling to win rights for themselves, but compared to the progress of blacks or women, it's pretty amazing.

So can transgender people expect a similarly quick breakthrough? It could be that there is an accelerating effect in social justice. That is, each movement we go through gives a push to the next one to come along. During the gay rights push, there's been a lot of talk about being "on the right side of history" as people seem to be automatically looking at the issue in the long term and considering the comparison to other previous struggles. I've also been impressed at how other groups are drawing lines between the Indiana protests and their own struggles for acceptance. That empathy makes me hope that we are developing a more universal attitude to equality.

But there's also reason to believe that we'll be slower to accept the T than we were to accept the L, G and B. One problem - that trans activists themselves seem to have missed - is a lack of knowledge.

The fact is, society doesn't know much about the concept. I mean, homosexuality wasn't widely accepted when I was young, but we were still taught about it in health class. Pretty much everyone knew what it was, and that was a big part of its quick acceptance: it didn't seem mysterious or scary.

But for most of us, transgender people are a mystery. Most of what the mainstream knows about the concept has centred around reassignment surgery, and that's only been reported on as a novelty. That was an easy sitcom joke in the 80’s with some vague relationship to Sweden, but people didn’t learn anything about the actual transgender experience.

And this is where I believe the trans community has done itself a disservice by assuming that the wave of acceptance will be quick and easy. There's been a frosty reception given to people who ask questions of transgender people.

Of course, some of that is completely understandable. There have been a few embarrassing interviews where transgender celebrities have been asked about the state of their genitals. I think we can all relate to that; no one wants to talk about their genitals on national TV (hopefully.)

But I've also seen condemnation of people being unaware of the difference between transgender people and, say, drag queens. While I'm sure that's aggravating to people living in the trans community, I have to admit that only a few years ago, I wouldn't have known the difference. I consider myself fairly open-minded, but that ignorance would have been due not to prejudice or lack of concern, but just from not having the opportunity to learn.

But there's another roadblock to trans acceptance: the sheer amount of rearranging of concepts we're all going to have to do. As the last century has shown us, it takes a while to change our view of gender. Feminism has been a coherent political force for over half a century and we're still working on how we see women. Now we have to change the very idea of gender, that's not going to be easy.

This reminds me of the criticism often levelled at the campaign for gay marriage: that they are "redefining" marriage. That argument has never been convincing to me because 1. Who cares? Let's make a new definition if the old one is no longer adequate. And 2. Gay marriage really wasn't redefining marriage, since marriage - even among heterosexuals - had come to mean a commitment between people in love, not a basis for procreation. I think that's a big reason why the acceptance of gay marriage spread so fast: it fit into most people's idea of what marriage is.

The acceptance of transfolk really is a redefinition of the popular concept of gender though. The fact is a lot of people really do think of gender as defined by our genitalia. We've had enough trouble trying to grasp the idea that gender roles can't be universally enforced while still acknowledging that there may be differing tendencies between the genders. Now we have to see the genders as highly fluid and changeable, but without throwing out the idea of gender altogether.

One of the more interesting (and disturbing) aspects of the trans rights movement that I've seen is that there is a subset of feminists who are highly opposed to them. That may come as a surprise if you think - as I do - that feminism and other struggles for rights are based on the philosophy that people should be free to be the person they want to be, without having to conform to what society expects of them. But if you’ve dedicated yourself to allowing everyone freedom from the restrictions of gender roles, then changing your gender seems unnecessary, and indeed seems like undoing your work against prejudice.

Don’t shoot the messenger here, I’m just trying to explain others’ point of view. Personally, I don’t buy it, since transgender people don’t really seem like exaggerations of their adopted gender. They usually are no more feminine/masculine than cisfolk. My point is that people from all over the political spectrum are going to have their views on gender challenged by the acceptance of trans rights, so this is going to be an uncomfortable struggle for all of society.

What Else Is In A Name?

Lots of people are taking about the Vanity Fair cover featuring Caitlyn Jenner. If you somehow missed the story - I assume because it was intercepted by your computer's "Kardashian Filter" - she was until recently known as Bruce Jenner.

It's been pleasantly surprising how the public has been quite supportive of her. Other than the usual suspects, the media has been complimentary, and respected her requested name and pronouns.

But I do have one problem with all this: as a Jason, I'm very sensitive to the fact that names come and go in popularity. So I find it quite incongruous when I see a 65 year-old woman named "Caitlyn." I have to carry around a sign of my age on every ID, and you shouldn't get a free pass just because you're transgender. So I purpose that we establish the rule now at the dawn of transgender acceptance: you have to choose a name that was popular at the time you were born.  That's all I ask, then I'll wholeheartedly support you, Mary Jenner.

My Relationship Is Pre-Alpha

So now there's a trend for beta marriages. That's living together for a year or two before actually getting married. Get it? It's just like beta software: trying it out before it's ready for public release.

You're probably also thinking, how is that new? Didn't we get over living-in-sin generations ago? The name is cute, and surprisingly descriptive.  (Funny aside: when I used Bing to search for "Beta Marriage" it included a link to this page on Betazoid Marriages.)

It's another example of the media bending things to support their narrative of millennials as an alien breed warped by technology. Here's the current generation just doing what the last several generations have done, but we attach a technology-related name and treat it as something new.

Having said that, it seems to be a common phenomena for us to act like generations each invent the world anew. For instance, it was hilarious when Baby Boomers were horrified that their teenage kids were having sex. Had they already forgotten what they did in their youth?

So let's come to terms with it: generations aren't that different, people do have sex before marriage, and it's been happening for so long that no one gets credit/blame for inventing it.

Political Fantasy

State legislators in Louisiana have voted to uphold a law that ban "Crimes Against Nature."  That is, sexual crimes against nature, which this law from 1805 defines as homosexual sex, as well as heterosexual oral and anal sex. It's lead to a new level of head shaking.

First of all, don't worry, the law is purely symbolic - the U.S. supreme Court has already struck down laws restricting consensual sex as unconstitutional - so there's no need to cancel your Mardis Gras trip next year.

Of course that brings up point number one: should the state with New Orleans in it really be taking such a prudish stance? Yes, I know there's more to the state than the Big Easy, and rural areas are so often culturally different than the metropolises they abut. But still, it's hard to believe this won't lead to secession.

Judging by people's reaction to this vote, there seems to be a feeling that we've entered a new level of political hypocrisy beyond anything we've seen before. We're used to the idea of big symbolic gestures: Republicans in the house have voted to repeal Obamacare forty times, always knowing the Democrat-majority senate would overrule. So passing a law that's already struck down isn't that big of a surprise.

And we've seen plenty of examples of politicians making a show of swimming against culture's tide. So it's also not surprising that they'd like to ban homosexuality while other states are allowing gay marriage. Sometimes, politicians are so intent on defining a clear public image that they'll become more extreme than their own supporters, as when they opposed gun-purchase background-checks even when most gun owners supported them.

But keeping a ban on non-standard hetero sex? Now we're talking about politicians banning something most of the public has done, and most of them have done. So now legality has reached a new level of irrelevance. We're passing laws that don't apply in the real world, that no one believes in, and no one follows.

It Gets Mediocre

You may have seen the "It Gets Better" campaign. It's an initiative by sex advice columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage. The idea is to tell gay (and bi, trans, etc.) youths that their school experiences are not necessarily an indication of how the rest of their lives will go. That's especially true for gay kids in small towns, red states, or conservative families. Certainly, when I look back at the on-average one student in every class who wasn't straight, I can't imagine what they went through. The shift from that experience to a modern gay neighborhood in a big city would have to be a huge positive change in one's life.

When I think about that, I find myself thinking, I wish I was gay. Can you imagine what that would be like: you become an adult and don't just move out of your parents' place, you move to a place where suddenly everyone understands you and accepts you?

We should all have our own gay community. You suffer through high school, but then you get to move to the jock neighborhood, or the goth neighborhood, or geek town. There, you're surrounded by people who accept you and appreciate you for who you really are, even more than your closest friends and family did. Of course, for those of us who grew up in the pre-internet era, modern life is kind of like that. Online, you can find that personal community.  So if you're over forty, you have something in common with the homosexual community.

Go West, Life Is Peaceful There

There's been a recent wave of anti-gay laws in Africa. It's a strange phenomena, given that gay rights in the west has been accelerating to a pace I never thought it would achieve.

To make things even weirder, it turns out that a lot of the impetus for African anti-gay bills comes from western organizations. Further, their current laws against homosexuality are mostly vestiges of colonial (usually British) laws. Ironic, given that Britain is now one of the more gay-friendly countries.

So these African countries are taking laws imposed on them by the west (but not actually used by the west anymore) and expanding them on the advice of westerners (who are no longer welcome at home.) And that's what I don't get about this: Africans have become understandably sceptical of western advice over the years, so why are they so quick to take western advice that the west doesn't follow?

One explanation is that they see our adoption of gay rights as a western taint on the concept. Rather than see homophobic laws as western ideas so bad even the west has left behind, they're seeing it as evidence that gay rights is part of western decadence.

Another, more sinister explanation is that this is nothing personal against gays, they're mearly an easy scapegoat. If western religious nuts are going to come in and demonize a group at their own expense, then that's a great deal for a government who could use a convenient enemy to distract their people from the state of the nation.

Ba-Da Ba Ba Baaa, I'm Hijackin' It

Today, McDonald's promoted the Twitter hashtag, #CheersToSochi. The idea was to have people send well wishes to athletes and organizers of the upcoming Winter Olympics.  Not surprisingly, the hashtag was quickly taken over by people protesting Russia's anti-gay laws.

This isn't the first time tweeters have turned a company's hashtag against itself. I'm left wondering how these corporations don't see it coming. It's easy to say that these companies are hopping wildly in to the social media bandwagon before they understand it. We've seen organizations misuse new technology trends throughout the Internet era.  And JPMorgan had a similar problem when they apparently forgot that some people hate banks.

But banks are kind of out-of-touch with public opinion; this is McDonald's we're talking about here. They're the masters of marketing.  If they're that clueless, what hope is there for everyone else?  They do understand that Twitter is a participation medium, not a broadcast medium.  They just don't seem to realize how varied the general public's opinions are.  So have they always believed that everyone loves them?

Gay Men And Beards

So, the Duck Dynasty guy is a homophobe. Yes, I aware that there's more than one person on the show. But I don't watch it personally, and it hasn't reached the Jersey Shore level where the individuals become famous. So for me, he's just that guy from Duck Dynasty.

No, this isn't going to be another of my rants about how people assume everyone is watching a popular show. Duck Dynasty is like Jersey Shore in that it's well known that lots of people pointedly avoid watching.  So I've never felt left-out by talk of the show.

But just as everyone in America had finished jumping on to the Duck Dynasty bandwagon, they have to get back off it again. Even the Android word stroke recognizer is distancing itself - it keeps trying to interpret "duck" as "sick". But I feel most sorry for Chia. They must have spent their profits for the last ten years on the rights to the Duck Dynasty beard chia pets, now what are they going to do with them?

(Weirdly, the word recognizer had no trouble with "chia.")

Rather than get angry at him, we should treat this as a lesson on where we look for our media heroes and role models. The incident underlines the difference between reality and fiction television. In our reality TV era, we've tended to treat its subjects as characters, idolizing or demonizing them as such. But they are in the end, actual people, with all the frailties and disappointments that come with being human. When you buy that Duck Dynasty shirt at Walmart, it's not like buying a Sheldon shirt at Target: you'll have an actual person on your chest. A person you don't actually know that well, and one who doesn't have a team of writers and producers ensuring they stay appealing and non-threatening.

You See, I'm Slightly Left Of Centre

Years ago I read Boom, Bust and Echo about the effects that demographics have on society.  I've always taken an interest in that sort of thing.  So I've been prepared for many nuances of Generation-X's trajectory through life.  I was ready to have difficulty getting promoted as Baby Boomers held higher corporate positions.  I was ready for housing bubbles as the Boomers downsized from their empty nests.  I was ready for the negatives that population shifts would send my way.

But I was not ready for commercials trying to make adult undergarments cool.  I realize it makes sense; as the Boomers move on to the senior years, there's going to be more seniors' products being marketed.  But that is still small comfort when the Tena Twist jingle is going through my head.  And if that guy asking people to try them on for charity ever approaches me, I'm going to tell him where to stick his adult undergarments.  Then I'm going to explain that I meant it in a figurative and insulting way, not a literal, recommended-product-use way.

And I was not ready for the erectile-dysfunction ads.  I know they've been roundly ridiculed already, but to me the funniest part is not the four-hour-erection warning.  The silliest thing is how they have replaced tampons as the products we have to advertise while only hinting at what they actually do.  For instance, these endless Cialas ads use parents carving out time for themselves as an implication of sex.  But my biggest concern is the effect they'll be having on children, who must be second-guessing everything their parents say now.  "Good news, my mother says I can stay out past my curfew...Oh My God! My parents are having sex!"

From China Without Love

Today was Singles Day in China.  It's an unofficial holiday in which young people celebrate being single.  It's become so popular that it is now biggest online shopping day in the world, putting The West's Valentine's Day to shame. I feel a great satisfaction to see my single brethren win the game of global capitalism.

Most news stories about this are just seeing it as yet another piece of evidence that China is taking over the world. But you could also see it as evidence of China's demographic problems. Their One-Child policy is well known, and combined with male-preferring cultural traditions, it's led to selective abortions and far more sinister ways of ensuring that one child is male. Thus, China has a generation in which men greatly outnumber women, and a lot of single men.

Those are some disturbing overtones to this story, so I'm trying to look at the positive: the Chinese started a rather melancholy holiday as a joke, and they ran with it. I'd love to see more of this from China. During their ascent, they've been portrayed as either an unemotional machine, or as a cryptic, alien culture. But this makes them seem human, and likable.

It's a lot like Japan in the eighties. I grew up during their economic rise, and they were portrayed the same way in media. Today they don't seem scary at all. Their economic stagnation had certainly played a part in that, but the culture they expected had a lot to do with that too, from video games to anime to sushi. It's hard to fear people once you know that they created Hello Kitty.