PAGEANTPARADE

Dan Savage Stereotypes Gay People

2011-03-26T13:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Dan Savage,

I just heard your piece on “Fresh Air” and I hope you will give me an opportunity to voice my disappointment with a few of your comments. As an LGBT person, I am, of course, very grateful for the work you do and the ways that it helps LBGT youth who are in need of hope about their futures. However, I am very frustrated with the stereotyping of gay people that you engage in. In your segment on “Fresh Air”, and in other places throughout your work, you regularly equate youthful gender non-conformity with gayness. You talk about the “gay” behaviors you engaged in as a child—liking musical theater, being friends with girls, being in to typically girly interests—as indicators of your adult sexual orientation. While it may have been the case in your experience that these typically gay behaviors and interests were bellwethers of your homosexuality, you have a tendency to generalize this viewpoint, equating gender non-conformity with gayness. This widely held belief that gender inverted behavior is linked to homosexuality—girly boys must be gay men, boyish girls must be lesbians—is damaging and counterproductive for a number of reasons:

First, it promotes gay stereotypes in a way that hurts gay people. It hurts them because it sends strong messages to gay youth about what gayness looks like, how to be gay properly, and what their interests and behaviors should be. In those fragile years of trying to find themselves, many young gay men engage in performances of gayness based on extremely limited ideas about what gay men are like. What if you are a gay man who likes football, hates to talk, has no female friends, thinks Glee is stupid? There is no place for these people in your worldview, and they end up not fitting into the world twice over, once as gay and again as not being able to be gay “properly.” I see this all the time in young gay men—exaggerated performances of “faggyness” that stem, I believe, less from their true personalities and more from a desire to be recognized as gay in the eyes of the world according to extremely limited acceptable personalities for gay people. While there are many gay men for whom this behavior is completely honest, there are others who are in need of other models. We need to create a culture in which there are as many ways to be gay as there are gay people. Let’s not recreate the limited behavior norms that plague straight people.

Second, it promotes gay stereotypes in a way that hurts gender non-conforming straight people. How many sweet sensitive aesthetically inclined little boys have been labeled as gay based on their behaviors and had to struggle against endless assumptions about their sexuality based on the “gayness” of their personalities? The world needs more straight people who embody their heterosexuality in all sorts of different ways, and your stereotyping sends a message to these people that they must be confused, or in denial of their true orientations, making them the object of gossip and ridicule. There need to be more feminine straight men, not less, and your views make it even harder for these gender non-conforming people to be themselves.

Third, it injures transgender people by equating gender non-conformity with gayness, as opposed to with being transgender or gender queer. While there are of course links between gender and sexuality, they play out very differently for each unique individual, and your comments leave out the possibility that childhood gender inverted behavior might be primarily about gender identity and not about sexuality. Let gender non-conformity mean all the different things it can mean when it is not tethered to serving as a sign of impending homosexuality.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts on these issues, and I hope you will take them into consideration.

Sincerely,

R. E. H. Gordon
Chicago, IL

Letter to the NYTIMES Editor about Peggy Orenstein "What Makes a Woman a Woman?" published September 11, 2009

2009-09-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/magazine/13FOB-WWLN-t.html?scp=1&sq=orenstein&st=cse

Dear Editor,

I would like to express my disappointment with Peggy Orenstein's piece "What Makes a Woman a Woman?" While I respect that the author's personal struggle with breast cancer has led her to feel that her feminine gender is rooted in some primal way in the physiology of her female sex, I wish she would have expressed this as her own individual experience. Instead, she generalizes her personal feelings onto everyone, using it as a way to claim that the experience of one's gender identity to be in accordance with one's birth-sex is innate, natural, profound, and extra-cultural. While it may have been "gospel" in the early eighties to understand gender as socially constructed, a view that has since, apparently, gone out of style, I was born in the mid-eighties and I am surrounded by a vibrant community of people of all genders who do not feel that "biology is destiny" in the least. Rather, we understand that there exists a wide variety of gender identities that correspond in every imaginable way with birth sex, body parts, reproductive capacities, and sexual preferences. It is, frankly, insulting how many people's lives Orenstien undermines with her ridiculous second wave feminist claims about the innateness and naturalness of gender identity. We would agree that gender identity is, indeed, a profound part of personal identity, but this by no means implies that is rooted in some predetermined way in our anatomies, chromosomes, and hormones. Her close-minded view-point is further evidenced by her repeated use of the term "disorder" to refer to the bodies of intersex people, a condition which is not as rare as people would like to believe and is completely medically harmless in the vast majority of cases. If intersex people tend to identify as either male or female, as stated by Professor Berenbaum, maybe it is because they live in a world that defines personhood largely on the grounds of "healthy" gender identity that corresponds in the expected ways to one's anatomy, and are medically, socially, and emotionally coerced into conforming to a gender norm in order to save them from the "unpleasant freakishness" of indeterminate gender. For someone who claims to be a feminist, Orenstein should be ashamed for this oversight, and about expanding her personal feelings about her gender into categorical claims. For us, feminism means granting everyone the right to embody and express our own unique genders, while respecting the validity of each other's experiences, even when they might contradict with our own conclusions. I shudder to think about all those people, teens especially, whose gender identity does not seem to innately relate to their birth sex and for whom Orenstein's essay might reiterate the societal imperative to have a correct and healthy gender, like she does, influencing them to continue to be ashamed of and hide their true gendered selves.

Thank you.

Rebecca Gordon
Chicago, IL.

NEEDING TO BASK IN THE QUEERNESS OF THE LYRICS TO THE HUMPTY DANCE

2009-03-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

My name is Humpty, pronounced with a Umpty.
Yo ladies, oh how I like to hump thee.
And all the rappers in the top ten--please allow me to bump thee.
I'm steppin' tall, y'all,
and just like Humpty Dumpty
you're gonna fall when the stereos pump me.
I like to rhyme,
I like my beats funky,
I'm spunky. I like my oatmeal lumpy.
I'm sick wit dis, straight gangsta mack
but sometimes I get ridiculous
I'll eat up all your crackers and your licorice
hey yo fat girl, c'mere--are ya ticklish?
Yeah, I called ya fat.
Look at me, I'm skinny
It never stopped me from gettin' busy
I'm a freak
I like the girls with the boom
I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom
I'm crazy.
Allow me to amaze thee.
They say I'm ugly but it just don't faze me.
I'm still gettin' in the girls' pants
and I even got my own dance

People say "Yo, Humpty, you're really funny lookin'"
that's all right 'cause I get things cookin'
Ya stare, ya glare, ya constantly try to compare me
but ya can't get near me
I give 'em more, see, and on the floor, B,
all the girls they adore me
Oh yes, ladies, I'm really bein' sincere
'cause in a 69 my humpty nose will tickle ya rear.
My nose is big, uh-uh I'm not ashamed
Big like a pickle, I'm still gettin' paid
I get laid by the ladies, ya know I'm in charge,
both how I'm livin' and my nose is large
I get stoopid, I shoot an arrow like Cupid,
I use a word that don't mean nothin', like looptid
I sang on Doowhutchalike, and if ya missed it,
I'm the one who said just grab 'em in the biscuits
Also told ya that I like to bite
Well, yeah, I guess it's obvious, I also like to write.
All ya had to do was give Humpty a chance
and now I'm gonna do my dance.

Adult Contemporary, Cory Arcangel, Team Gallery

2008-11-12T20:05:00.000-08:00

LISTEN TO FUTURE MUSIC

2008-09-05T00:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.myspace.com/pointnever

2008-08-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

Cyber Feminist Gif

2008-08-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

This is the art to accompany Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto on the website of Stanford's Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.

BITCH ASS DARIUS AT TODOMUNDO! I'M GONNA BE THERE!

2008-08-05T12:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.myspace.com/bitchassdarius

http://www.myspace.com/lonewolflonewolflonewolf

Nothing Room at The Art Institute

2008-06-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

Feeling this

2008-06-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR, YOU BELONG

I HAVE A SCULPTURE IN THIS SHOW

2008-06-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

ABANDONED PLOT
Curated by Andy Meerow

June 15th 2008 and Onward

Opening reception Sunday June 15th, 6-8 pm

(Opening will feature guest performances by Charlie Looker and MPA)

For "Abandoned Plot", twelve artists create work for an abandoned plot of land in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The property is an undeveloped and neglected place which currently houses a tangle of weedy urban greenery, trash and debris, all of which will be left undisturbed. The exhibiton's agenda is malleable - the artists will enter an undefined area and respond to its properties (aesthetic, political, formal, mystic, etc) in whatever capacity they see fit. In other words, just as the plot of land is abandoned, so is the plot of the show. We will go to a place and we will do a thing, anything, because nothing in New York City can be empty. Time is compressed here. Things move quickly, and places like the abandoned plot become super-charged with the simultaneous energies of past, present, and future. Narratives have overlapped or have run parallel, some memorialized, some forgotten. Certainly, more will keep coming. The work in this show will collectively speak to that complexity – to the impossibility of a straight story. The artwork itself will also be abandoned. That is, the show will never officially close, it will only break down, or possibly grow. Please join us at its beginning.

The contributing artists in "Abandoned Plot" have exhibited widely, both internationally and nationally, as well as being involved in numerous other curatorial, published, and musical projects.

They are:

Darren Bader, Ginger Brooks Takahashi, Leidy Churchman, Rutherford Chang, Alex Escamilla, Shane King, Rebecca Gordon, Brendan Harman, Frankie Martin, MPA, Andy Meerow, Reid Ramirez

Abandoned Plot

Key Foods Parking Lot

Intersection of Calyer and McGuiness

Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Direct all inquiries to Andy Meerow ameerow@gmail.com

SHOW ME LOVE, ROBIN S

2008-06-10T16:02:00.001-07:00

WHY CAN'T ANY CONTEMPORARY DIVAS MAKE SONGS THIS GOOD? MARY? COMMMMOOOOONNNN!

Discipline Problems at Alogon Gallery

2008-04-18T21:42:00.001-07:00

I HAVE A SCULPTURE IN THIS SHOW:

DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS

Curated by Joseph Grigely

April 19 to May 3, 2008

Performance and Opening Reception
Saturday April 26th 7-10pm

Film Screening and Closing Reception
Saturday May 3rd 7-10pm

Sarah Alford, Katie Lennard, Zephyr Pfotenhauer,
AndrewandAndrea, Alicia Chester, Ellen Alderman,
Danielle Sommer, Rebecca Gordon, Kristi McGuire,
Mike Gibisser, Jesse Vogler, Szu-Han Ho, and Heidi
Neubauer-Winterburn, with a performance by Joey Orr,
and a screening program of occult shit films Channeling:
An Invocation of Spectral Bodies and Queer Spirits,
organized by Ethan White and Latham Zearfoss. The
exhibition will be accompanied by a pre-release of
Canon, a certain journal of uncertain disposition.

ALOGON GALLERY
1049 N. PAULINA APT 3R, CHICAGO, IL 60622
Hours: Sundays 1-4pm (Entrance on Cortez)
www.alogongallery.com

SAY YOU SAY ME MIDI

2008-04-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.lyricplaza.com/midi/3/Say_You_Say_Me.mid

CAMEO-"CANDY" 1987

2008-03-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

It's like candy
I can feel it when you walk
Even when you talk it takes over me
You're so dandy
I wanna know
Can you feel it too just like I do

(hoo!)

This stuff is starting now
It's the same feeling
I always seem to get around you
There's no mistaking; I'm clearly taken
By the simple mere thought of you

(oh!)

This stuff is starting now
This stuff is starting now
This stuff is starting now

(hoo!)

My eyes roll in my head
I toss and turn in my bed
In the morning when I think about you

(yes I do)

Simply put, you're the reason why
Even though I'm real shy

(real shy)

I attempt to look my best for you

(indeed I do - just for you)

Cause you affect me, fascinate me
I thank heaven for the things that you do (for the things that you do)
It's like candy
You sure are sweet - Sweet!
You're so dandy
You're taking my appetite - but it's all right

It's like candy

(ooh, vanilla! oh, chocolate!)

You look real nice, wrapped up tight
You're so dandy
(in the night, if I have a little bit more like that)
You're giving me a heart attack
It's the kind I like

It's like candy, you're so dandy...

(Why you do - why you do - baby)

You're like a brand new feeling (feeling)
In a special way
A surprise package
On a bright clear sunny day (you're so dandy)
And wrapped up tight

(so good - so good)

Strawberry! raspberry!
All those good THINGS!
Violets and gumdrops
That's what you're saying to me

(ow!)

(sweet candy - candy)
It's like candy
Sure seems like good candy oh baby!

You're so dandy
Just keep doing what you do

you know what i mean
baby
it's like candy ohhhhhh
your so tender sweet candy
your like your like ohhhhhh

its like candy

Tom Ford ad on the back of BUTT Magazine

2008-03-17T16:47:00.000-07:00

NY Times Article about Transgender College Students

2008-03-17T16:43:00.000-07:00

Overall, I think this article does a pretty good job of realistically presenting the possibility of a society operating on the basis of a gender continuum as opposed to a binary. Not as interested in the parts about women's schools, but overall it makes me hopeful for the future.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16students-t.html?ex=1363406400&en=c7a5df9bbed13c29&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Say you, Say me, Say it together, naturally.

2008-02-27T09:38:00.001-08:00

ZOE WRIGHT'S NEW WORKS

2008-02-27T09:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.zktw.blogspot.com/

SO GOOD

IS THIS VIDEO RELATED?

Lil Wayne remix of Mario "Crying Out for Me"

2008-02-26T17:56:00.000-08:00

Listen to the Wayne verse at the beginning. It is totally killing me...so romantic! Thanks Lone Wolf! LOVE WOLF!

So i met this shawty the otha day
I got her number called her up like what you doin she said nothin
I said whats good
She said not much
I said guess what?
She said whats up
I said i think we should hook up
She said uhh
I said what?
She said but
I said but? why you stuck?
She said f**k
I said who?
She said not you
I said then who?
She said you know
I know what?
You know who
I said i do?
She said you do
I said i do but i really dont because its you that i really want and we can do what you really
Want girl we grown if he aint gone treat you right then i aint gone treat you wrong
And thats my word but she done heard so many lies she dont whats true or not, shawty like a
Valle service i say she been through alot but i put her car in park and never let her cry alone
I listen to her heart beat because it plays my favorite song

I AM A DJ NOW

2008-02-22T20:05:00.001-08:00

JUST WAIT

Usher--Dot Com

2008-02-17T21:49:00.000-08:00

I like to imagine that when Usher was hanging out with R Kelly working on "SAME GIRL" R Kelly imparted onto him the wisdom of the extended sex and (insert term here) analogy (sex/kitchen, sex/outer space, sex/jungle etc.) I am happy to report that now it's all about THE INTERNET!

Usher - Dot Com Lyrics

oooo I love the way you dirty type
I can take you home on escape
oooo I need your backspace in my life
thank god you don't have a flatscreen

please...baby I got to see you
and I really want to please you
so get on my laptop so I can download

online...I love the way you log on
we can do it all night
I'll make you dot com
baby if you sign on
I'm gon make ya light up
oo baby if you log on
I'll make you dot com

I wanted to link up with you baby at first sight
with you I get to use my f keys...yeah..
I can't wait to give you megabites
I got all the memory you need
let ma finges do the talking babe

please... baby I got to see you
I really want to please you
so get on my laptop so I can download

online...I love the way you log on
we can do it all night
I'll make you dot com
sign on
I'm gon make ya light up
baby if you log on
I'll make you dot com

oooo.. baby you want this I know
I can't wait to give you my harddrive
my moonlight...if it's alright
baby...ooh I'm always at your window
ready to shift and control you
if you want me to....say yes baby
say yes baby
say yes baby
say yes baby
got to say
ooo say yes baby
say yes baby
got to say yes
yes, say it

please..baby I got to see you
cause I really want to please you
so get up on me baby get up on me
(I really want you)

online....I love the way you log on (oh baby)
we can do it all night (we can do it all night)
I'll make you dot com
(I'm gon make)
sign on
(show you ...?)
I'm gon make ya light up (gonna make ya light up)
baby if you log on
I'll make you dot com (I'm gonna make you dot com)

online....I love the way you log on
we can do it all night
I'll make you dot com
sign on
I'm gon make ya light up
baby if you log on
I'll make you dot com

Webbie INDEPENDENT

2008-02-13T09:37:00.000-08:00

(feat. Lil Boosie & Lil Phat from 3 Deep)

M.M.Mouse Dropped A Track

I N D E P E N D E N T Do You Kno Wat That Mean Mane [X2]
She Got Her Own House
She Got Her Own Car
Two Jobs Work Hard U A Bad Broad
If U Aint On Sit Down
If U Aint On Sit Down
If U Aint On Sit Down
If U Aint On Sit Down

[Webbie:]
I N D E P E N D E N T Do You Kno Wat That Mean
Baby Phat Jus Relax Front Ya Own Flat Screen
Back Rubs Cook Clean And Dont Make Her Make Her Seen
When U Call Her On Her Cellular
She Tell She Dont Need
Not A God Damn Thing You A Hot Damn Thing
If U Think U Finna Get Her Wit A God Damn Chain
You Insane Boy You Betta Get Some God Damn Change
She A Fool Been In School Even Walked Across The Stage
She Say I Love Webbie From His Looks To His Ways
The Stilletos The Jays Depend On How The Weather Look
Flip Flops Slippers Jus To Show Off The Pedicure
Flip Flop Niggas Depend On How The Cheddar Look
She'll Buy Her Own I Dont Think She 'll Never Look
In A Man Face Standin Waitin For Him To Take Care Of Her
She'll Rather Go To Work And Pay The Bills On Schedule

[Chorus:]
I N D E P E N D E N T Do You Kno Wat That Mean Mane
I N D E P E N D E N T Do You Kno Wat That Mean
She Got Her Own House
She Got Her Own Car
Two Jobs Work Hard U A Bad Broad
If U Aint On Sit Down
If U Aint On Sit Down
If U Aint On Sit Down
If U Aint On Sit Down

[Phat:]
She A Dumb Dime Keeper
Gutta Like Keisha
Work That Meat Up
She A Good Freaker
She Stay On Her Shit
She Got Her Own Shit
She Dont Never Trip
All She Want Is That Dick
She Bossy Flossy
Keep Them Hoes Off Me
Gutta Lil Slang Mane I Love When She Talkin
A Independent Chick Do U Kno Wat That Mean
She Cook She Clean Never Smell Like Onion Rings
22s On Her Whip Oh She Do It Large
And She Break A Nigga Off Got A Nigga Spoil
She A Bad Lil Chick A Fly Lil Chick
Hit Me On My Phone She Like To Buy That Dick
Got Her Stunna Shades Lookin Like Something
Stallion Hair Long She A Nice Sumthing
She Like To Go To The Mall Everyday For A Outfit
Hair Did Nails Did Independent Wat She Call That

[Chorus]

[Lil Boosie:]
She Got Her Own House
Drive Her Own Whip
Range Rover All White Like Her Toe Tips
She Got A Pretty Smile
Smell Real Good
The Only Time She Need Mane For That Good Jugg
They Buy The Bar Too
They Superstars Too
They Be Like You Aint Got No Money
Take You Broke Tail Home
Baby Phat They On
They Clothes Match They Phone
They Be Like Yea!! When They Song Come On
Leave The Club Kinda Early Cuz They Gotta Go To Work
I Mess Wit Supervisors Who Got Credit Like Big Turk
So Dusty Feet Please Dont Bother Me
I Got Independent Dimes On My Mind Who Spoil Me
Coogi Hat Coogi Fit So Sick
Thats A Gift From My Independent Chick Yes Sir
Tryna Get To Her Gotta Be Yourself Mane
Cuz She Got Her Own Money
She Dont Need No Help Mane

[Chorus]

I want to go to the Liberace Museum in Vegas

2008-02-12T17:30:00.000-08:00

Towards the end you can see the world's largest rhinestone, a gift to him. (This interest inspired by Dave Hickey's really charming essay about notions of authenticity and Liberace in Air Guitar)

Chris Lipomi

2008-02-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.karmainternational.org/EVTs/laaupi.html

This is very strange. I have to figure out what is going on here. Check this press release written in 2006 by Karma Internation in Zurich:

"Chris Lipomi Kukadiku
22nd – 23rd September, 2006

Chris Lipomi's latest series of work is a
tribalisation and exotification of everyday
objects. By arranging them in a certain
manner he emphasizes the primitivism of
these familiar things and points out their
transcultural similarities.
His jungle, assemblage-like installations
bear signs of colonialism and refer to the
way symbols of a strange culture are adapted
in a globalised, touristic world.

In Lipomi's work it’s often Switzerland
that is referred to as an exotic country.
While hiking through the Swiss mountains
earlier this year, the artist found a regalia
of this “strange world” and included them
into his creations.

Lipomi likes to see himself as an explorer
that uses ready-mades and symbols in order
to make something new out of it and to develop
them. He arranges his works in layers, keeping
the different levels visible. These levels contain
all different kinds of motifs, symbols and
references. In this growing , blossoming universe
it’s the very trivial that becomes arcane
and even wild: The flowerpot – a magical
tropical plant, the flag of Appenzell – a
mythical tribal emblem, the mask – the
bushman inside ourselves?

Chris Lipomi's work has recently been
reviewed in magazines such as Art Forum
and Art U.S.
For Karma International, he has created
a dense room installation including a
floorpainting."

W? "...a tribalisation and exotification of everyday
objects...By arranging them in a certain
manner he emphasizes the primitivism of
these familiar things..." Really? I look now for some American writing on him that is less ummm inappropriate.

OK...this is more like it:

"American artist Chris Lipomi (1975, Miami) combines everyday industrial products to create “exotic” objects. By contextualizing these ready-mades, he explores the economics of attention in a globalized world, revealing the notion of the exotic as a racist construct of western cultures. Through several shifts of context, Lipomi draws the recipient’s attention to the aesthetic background of the works, as well as to their double role as functional items. His works recall familiar ceremonial objects from ethnological institutions, and also refer to their own logic of valuation and the function of aesthetics as a component of cultural, evolutionary techniques of ascription. Lipomi shows a series of works at Luis Campaña, which convinces us that the transformation of familiar material into an aesthetic language can serve as a tool for an emancipating kind of cultural critique." http://www.koelnshow2.com/147.html?&L=1#menu

THE RAINBOW BRAID

2008-02-09T17:37:00.000-08:00

This was going to be the name of the blog I almost started more than a year ago.

KALUP LINZY "CHEWING GUM" AND "DIRTY TRADE" 2008

2008-02-09T13:07:00.000-08:00

Endless winter

2008-02-09T12:59:00.000-08:00