I saw a little girl today wearing a "Straight Pride" sweatshirt. She was maybe 10 or 11. Shit, you don't even know if you're straight at that age. I hate to think of how Mom and Dad explained it to her and convinced her to wear it in public. I kind of wanted to confront the family, but shit, what do you say? They'd write me off as a crazy dyke and consider their worldview confirmed. Sigh.
(I support straight pride in the strictly literal sense that I think you should take pride in whoever you are. But I don't think it was intended as a statement of joy and inclusivity.)
EDIT: Rrrgh. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. Not just at the whole homophobia thing, but the superiority thing, and the impossibility of talking to someone with an "us vs. the world" mindset, knowing that there's literally nothing you can say--they'll only class you as part of the debauched world that they're better than.
I once saw a woman wearing a t-shirt in public which said "Sorry girls, I suck cock". I'm not even sure what kind of sentiments were supposed to be behind that one. (Unless the entire point was to confuse people in that regard...)
ReplyDeleteNot Me - That sounds more straight up slutty, and I cannot help but approve.
ReplyDelete"Straight Pride" is a really weird idea, now that I think of it. Like, if you had a rainbow "Straight Pride" sweatshirt, that'd have an entirely different meaning than any other sort.
ReplyDeleteI used to have the companion shirt "Sorry boys, I eat pussy". Both are playful and can hardly be said to be a condemnation of one or another orientation. If I were gay, I would simply have purchased the "Sorry girls, I suck cock" shirt instead.
ReplyDeleteI don't identify myself with my race or my sexuality (I identify as a Geek, mostly), so being 'proud' of either isn't something I would ever extol on a T-shirt. But, to be honest, as a straight white guy, it IS sort of annoying that if I DID identify with being white or straight, I'm not supposed to be proud of it. If I'm wearing a Straight Pride shirt, standing next to a guy wearing a Gay Pride shirt, I'm a bigot and he's not?
ReplyDeleteI mean, you're probably RIGHT about the girl's parents. With out talking to them, I draw the same conclusions. Straight folk who aren't homophobic don't wear that kind of shirt. But still, it annoys me that being proud of being straight equates to not liking gays.
Hm. Not too many months ago you were talking about how having white pride and male pride and so on would be good because it would let people identify those traits as existing independently of "normal".
ReplyDeleteWhich is it? That someone can wear a shirt identifying an aspect of themselves, or that the people who are part of the assumed majority shouldn't point it out?
Anon - I support people being proud of whatever they are in the strictly literal sense, but I'm also not completely dense about connotation, and I guarantee you that both the designer and wearer of the shirt were actually trying to say "gay people suck, thank God I'm normal."
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