I saw the 'glad to be gay' message from rebelstrange on 5/21 and thought I'd drop a brief (?) line. I'm one of the gayboys who is in love with B&S (I find Stuart M. particularly crush-worthy, but they're all so beautiful and I listen to the Gentle Waves every single day), and I have a theory: This whole 'gay community' thing, aside from the political belief that we must have legal recourse to guarantee that we are not fired or denied housing or harassed or threatened, is for the fucking birds. I have gay friends, I have straight friends, but I don't care in the least about gay/straight and neither do they. Maybe it's different for the girls, but for the boys (I'm 23, so maybe I can only speak about the 20-something boys), there seems to be nothing but cheapness, tawdriness, anti-love, anti-feelings, false machismo, etc, in our 'scene'. Going to gaybars is sickeningly similar to going to a college fraternity house where everybody is interested only in preening, asserting their superiority, and drinking/fucking. It's like a bunch of typically heterofratboys allowed to go out of control, all the aggression and 'masculinity' entirely out of balance. Some ferocity and aggression have their place, in girls and in boys, but surely not without some value placed on love, affection, consideration and kindness? It's a sad day when the most visible and vocal parts of your local gay (male? again, I can only speak for my experience) community are intent on erasing their vulnerability, anything 'feminine', from themselves, and I believe that's the day we're living in, at least here in Portland (Oregon, USA). Belle & Sebastian, whether or not any of them are gay or straight (and I'm sure they're smart and sensitive enough to know that it hardly matters), have an undeniably genderless/sexless outlook, a sweetly androgynous worldview that asserts the bright light of its innocuousness out into the harsh, competitive, mean-spirited world. Belle & Sebastian and all the side groups emanate something so childlike and comforting, it's really a joy to listen to it and know that the 'little people' and the 'little things' aren't insignificant to everybody. I'm sure none of us are overly concerned with our genders or sexual orientations, accepting of all of them. The things that bind us are so much deeper and more beautiful than gender/sex, which are only issues because of the cruel and stupid people of the world, anyway. If it's a surprise to anybody that there are a lot of queer boys who are into Belle & Sebastian, I'd say it's nothing but the most pleasant kind of surprise, I'm sure there are throngs of us who aren't obsessed with the macho posturing or the bitchy competitiveness, who in fact need an antidote. I've decided that the next guy I date MUST be into Belle & Sebastian, I really believe it says a lot (not everything, of course, but maybe enough?) about a person. And now, softly to sleep.... -Chris +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+