Charlotte on crack

Normal spider

Spider on hash

Spider on caffeine

Suddenly my life makes a lot more sense.

La charme discrete de l’heterosexualité

Because I can’t help casting my eyes in these directions, I waded through this Sydney Morning Herald blog about whether or not in this contemporary society of supposèd gender equality it’s quite the done thing for women to expect men to pay for dinner on the first date. And I have to say, I for one am glad that the Herald is finally redirecting its focus from such unimportant issues as the fact that a certain Federal Government has been busted paying bribes to Saddam in order to export wheat. I mean, really. Who gives a toss about political corruption? I need to make sure that when I take Shazza down the RSL on Fridee I know that me paying for the Fishermans’ (sic) Basket is gunna equate to her gettin’ her norgs out in the backseat o’ me Monaro, or whatever the devil it is you straight people drive these days, in the parking lot after eh?

I wouldn’t feel the need to draw the caricature so crudely if there weren’t literally pages of debate on this topic. It’s not enough that SMH are dedicating resources to Sam and her earth shatteringly originally titled column Sam and the City, but this has got to be one of the most irrelevant questions know to modern social science. WHO. CARES? Hence my post:

My God heterosexuality is tedious. It’s times like this I’m glad I’m a gay man and can simply enjoy someone else’s company without spending the entire evening agonizing over such BANAL questions of social etiquette.

Rapid spleen venting over, I’m finding it a little strange that so many things recently are throwing up questions for me of what it means to be gay in these times of ours. Not that it’s something I haven’t thought about a lot in the last, say, fifteen years, but more and more I realize the subtler ways in which alternative sexualities are exactly that. This question over whether the guy should pay on the first date or if it’s ok to split the bill is just so irrelevant to dates where there are two men or two women. If I wasn’t so tired I could expound some more on how this directly proves that the fight for equality — where equality means things like gay “marriage” and the right to own and badly renovate your own inner west terrace — is possibly not the direction in which I think we should be heading. You can’t spell “miscarriage of debate” without “marriage”. (I realise this is drawing a bit of a long bow, but indulge me.)

I once thought gay marriage was the alpha and omega of the queer rights movement. The longer it drags on the more I feel that actually, that’s not what I want at all. I don’t want the right to be conventional. I just don’t. I want the right to choose my own way to live my life. Which is not to say that legal recognition of relationships isn’t important. I’m just starting to feel a bit like this movement is veering down the path of less choice not more.

To prevent rambling on in an attempt to elucidate this further, I will stop now and simply direct your mouse to Christian’s recent entry, Why I am gay.

Grazie.

Letter writing revolution

Well, I have finally been forced, driven over the edge if you will, to send a missive to the Sydney Morning Herald Letters page. Because despite the fact that most people seem to be able to discern the mind boggling stupidity behind Danna Vale’s comment that given the current abortion rate (supposedly 100,000 a year), Australia will be a Muslim nation by 2050 because “we” are aborting “ourselves” out of existence; there’s always one person who has to come up with something like this:

Danna Vale can be criticised for being alarmist, but this does not erase the kernel of truth in what she has to say. While pro-choice supporters chant the mantra of “reproductive rights”, there has been almost no meaningful discussion about the effects of abortion on society at large. Instead, we resign ourselves to dealing with an ageing population, as if this is something beyond our control.As for the 5 million Australians who'll be missing by 2050, what could they have contributed to the country? The next Einstein? The next Beethoven? Our first female president? We will never know.

Nigel Freitas
Roseville
15 Feb 2006

So I had to reply with this:

Congratulations to Danna Vale for again proving the adage that a little knowledge (in this case, an ability to operate a calculator and a tendency to hysteria) is a dangerous thing. As for the 5 million Australians who’ll be missing by 2050 (Nigel Freitas, 15/2/06), they could also equally be the next Martin Bryant, the next Christopher Skase or the next Shannon Noll. Or, perhaps more likely, they could just turn out to be the next generation of Mr. & Mrs. Joe Averages, with their 2.3 kids, 4WDs, and faux-federation kit homes, overpopulating the far reaches of Sydney’s sprawling suburban banality.The possibility for conjecture along these lines is endless. Imagine what the 1940s might have looked like if Mrs. Hitler had had access to RU486 in 1888. We will never know.

And of course they didn’t print it. Fuckers.

Northern Exposure

The Guardian has started this blog where they pick a non-English speaking country and get people to recommend literature from that country. I think this is a tremendous idea, and I think you should all go find a new book from Finland to read. Kiitos.

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