Thoughts 18!

So, Craigmount High School, on the day of my 18th, it's fair to say everything revolved around the, infamous, five-sizes-too-small, pink t-shirt, which read the same as above, but ten times over. So thanks to the collaborators for the ingenious, if not 100%-in your face-gay present. But hey, like I cared - I wore the damn thing anyway.

Well OK, so I didn't put it on, having decided I'd quite like to be able to breathe, so I kinda draped it over my back with the sleaves over my shoulders. It had the same effect. But the point was that I enjoyed the contoversy - it was funny seeing their reactions. So I had to put up with the inevitable comments from the twats in the younger years, but it was worth it.

Actually, that wasn't the only suspect t-shirt I was given: this one read "Dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians." We couldn't really figure out if it was supposed to be homosexual or heterosexual though. Hmmmm. (I mean, I don't wanna be thrown to the lesbians, do I??!! Ewwww god no!).

(There's this guy... he's more of a friend really, and we could probably never be together, it's complicated, and I always end up thinking "Why do I bother?", but, but...) :: Dated April 01 :: The answer, by the way, was "I shouldn't have", bothered, that is. If it's complicated initially, it's not worth it. And no, I only thought I loved him. I'm only now beginning to understand what love really is. :: Dated Jan 03.

Well depending on how much of this site you've read already, you probably won't be surprised to see yet another question, but hey. So anyway, here goes. Who gets the feeling being gay is 'in-fashion' right now? I mean, sure, I keep saying how boring it is to be straight (!!!!), but then again, I do reserve the right to be completely biased, being gay and all. For example though, I doubt you can think of one soap on TV who's brave enough not to have a cliche gay subplot. I could put it down to Political Correctness gone mad, but it's far more likely to be a would-be-cunning tactic in the intense ratings wars. However it's not cunning, it's old already. Still, as cringing as these storylines are to watch, I suppose they're beneficial.

It goes to show though, being gay, being gay and out, is fashionable. Maybe coz of intrigue. But being a minority as we are, we're in danger of, sorry, we're inevitably going to become, the next 'token' section of society... with a token stereotype homosexual in every program, in every advert, and every poster. Following in the footsteps of the token middle-class black guy, and the token single mother. And that is Political Correctness gone mad.

They're only trying to create a cross-section of society I admit. Trying to market their product to the maximum consumers. It makes sense, but it's just all so false and tedius. I don't wanna concentrate on the media though. Something else I was thinking about was this, now beware, it's a radical theory: Maybe there's so much interest in gay life, and gay culture, beacause most people on the planet are infact, somewhere in between the two poles that are gay, and straight.

Let's face it, whenever is there only two options as opposed to a million, whenever is it just black and white, instead of a spectrum of colours, whenever are there really, truely right and wrong answers? There's always going to be a scale. I say we scrap the inflexibilty of the gay/bi/straight classifications and rate ourselves by percentage. Now that does make sense!

I think that would work quite well. When talking to people, you could say "I'm 25%" or 75%, or even 100%. Then at least, all the millions of straight guys who fantastise about males, and straight girls who just keep pulling females, can admit they're not quite straight, without coming out! I know a few people who'd like that idea. I think a lot of people would be a hell of a lot more open.

There's a positive phsycological aspect too. I mean, instead of 'gay' and 'straight' being opposites, making it easy for the mass to persecute the ones who're different, we would all be on the same scale, but at different stages. Sounds good if you ask me.

Reading this back to myself though, I'm thinking "Percentages?! What??!! Have I lost the plot?". It does sound pretty obscure doesn't it? Ah well, the concept made sense at the time...

So maybe my theory wasn't quite as radical as I thought. Dr. Kinsey's work is actually very well known, despite the fact his findings are surrounded by intense contoversy. Anyway, he came up with the 10% figure for the gay population from his research during the 1930's, 40's and 50's. He also put forward the Kinsey Scale:

0 - exclusively heterosexual

1 - predominantly heterosexual, incidentally homoexual

2 - predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual

3 - equally heterosexual and homosexual

4 - predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual

5 - predominantly homosexual, incidentally heterosexual

6 - exclusively homosexual

... so rate yourself how you will!