Paris is Burnt

The NYT brought back an old memory today. Vogueing.

During 1990 or thereabouts in my flight from all things conservative and bourgie, I encountered more than your average number of representations of gay life. It had a lot to do with my new academic pals, some of who were trying to get me to admit to something of which I wasn't guilty.

There was Mapplethorpe, of course, and the Catch One. There was Marlon Riggs and all that jazz. There was also a very memorable trip to view the film 'Paris is Burning'. I can't tell which came first, but I was also really digging the Malcolm McLaren album 'Waltz Darling' which could be considered the soundtrack to the style. To my ken, Madonna' Vogue was on the late freight. But she did have the dancers. At some points later I hung out for a long frustrating night at a GMHC dance at Javits Center. Nothing particularly striking for gay folks, but certainly a good resume for a 'straight liberal' like me.

I have mentioned, from time to time, the Legacy of Stonewall. I have done so because my understanding of the entire point of being gay was to celebrate a freedom and creativity. The resentment against us 'breeders' has everything to do with the liberation available to those who eschew a range of domestic responsibilities and monogamous restrictions. In other words there is more to homosexuality than sex - it depends upon how gay you want to be.

So while it makes sense to me that there are folks who would try to blackmail the nation into believing we are all the same and we should all be married the same, there is some comfort in knowing that there remain others who are emblematic of the gay stuff I learned that gayness was, and perhaps still is. I speak of the House of Ultra-Omni. Who knows which is the majority.

As the NYT story says. Everyone seems to have forgotten what this scene was all about. The remnants remain but the talk around it has faded to zero. Paris is burnt and the embers are cold, and nobody remembers that gays used to be flaming. Might as well marry 'em all up, eh? After all, we're all the same, right?

As ever, my point remains. Marriage is a sacred institution ordained by God, the blessing of a union between a man and a woman.