|
|
Philip Wong Managing Editor |
|
|
 | Room for Squares There is a great divide that has always torn apart our community. It’s a difference whose roots reside at the very heart of how we define ourselves. Which side you most connect with has the power to potentially glorify your future or doom you to banality. It involves the tireless exchange between the "haves" and the “have-nots”, where the struggle for power lies at the center of the question: top or bottom?More |  | Room for Squares Gay men and weddings. An overly emotional mixture of white lace, floral arrangements, multi-tiered cakes and boozed up straight men in black tuxedos. Save for the inexplicable pairing of sequins and ice skates, I can’t for the life of me think of a match more made in tear-jerking, handkerchief blowing heaven. Sadly though, the closest we’re going to get to ever walking down the aisle is by the sides of our straight friends...and even that’s if we’re lucky.More |  | Room for Squares Paper or plastic? Boxers or briefs? Gay or straight? Since when has life ever been a one or the other deal? There are a lot of us who, although gay, don’t live the typically “gay” lifestyle. You know, that imagined life of hard partying, hard drugs and even harder sex. We are rather middle of the road when it comes to being neither fully in nor out, neither extrovert nor introvert. But does being MOTR mean we don’t have the same desires? And does it make those desires, or us, seem any less gay?More |  | Room for Squares We live in times of relative enlightenment, when “girl power” is less slogan and more mantra and when we might soon have a “Madame President". To a certain extent popular culture and politics have heightened our senses to the positivity of feminism and self empowerment. But in a community like ours, where gender assignments are shaky at best, there lurks a question in the shadows of this “girls can do it better” awareness: what does equalization between the sexes mean for gays?More |  | Room for Squares Last week, I touched on the topic of masculinity vs. homosexuality, and how I believed that the one doesn’t necessarily negate the existence of the other. If you’ll remember, I went into this whole discourse about the way most people think that a gay man is less than a man just because he may not be overtly "manly". This week, I’d like to expand on that subject.More |  | Room for Squares It’s human nature to make assumptions about things that you don’t really understand. We’re all guilty of that, so it’s hard to fault others for making guesses about you, so long as they are willing to change their views after meeting you. But what happens when people refuse to change their assumptions? What happens when ignorant, pre-conceived notions become misinformed, lasting impressions?More |  | Room for Squares Age ain’t nothing but a number, or so the saying goes. But how many people actually agree with that line of thinking? Ask anybody on the street what comes to their minds when they spot an intergenerational couple and you might find that their responses veer far from what you would expect. After all, how many of us can claim not to be cynics when we look at an older gentleman with a much younger lover?More |  | Room for Squares Usually around this time of year, people begin to compile their “Best of” lists. This week, I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and compile a list of what I thought were some major gay events of the past year. These are the events that made our community; some were major and others not so much. All of them, however, were distinctly San Franciscan.More |  | Room for Squares If you’re anything like me (i.e. wary of organized religion and opposed to all-around cheer and merriment), then you’re probably wondering what’s with the annual hullaballoo that seems to infest people’s minds during this particular time of year. Endless lines at the register and throngs of people crowded into tiny, cramped little stores, everything leading to an even deeper hole in your wallet than was already there. Are any of these actually reasons to celebrate?More |  | Room for Squares When I was growing up, I always thought that the correct term for homosexuals was "gay". On television and in movies, it was always: “Oh, that’s the gay guy.” In contrast, the word “queer", which was used by the general public to describe our community as “strange” or “unusual", was not supposed to sit well with us. That was a dirty word, a derogatory term frequently used as a metaphorical spit in the face.More |
|
