On my drive to work from the doctor’s office this morning (looks like the tonsils are coming out – more on that later), my friend Chris called me.
CHRIS: “Did you check out the video that’s all over Facebook and blogs about the two gay guys in a straight bar in New Jersey?”
ME: “I saw it but it got lost in the new Facebook layout..” (Sorry – couldn’t resist)
Chris shared his thoughts with me about how he felt uncomfortable about the gay couple depicted by actors in the video. I share his feelings, but only because I would have felt really bad for them if they had been actually real! I kept thinking they were going to get gaybashed any second. I don’t know how to explain why I feel that way except that I would never take my boyfriend to a sports bar in New Jersey to have a romantic date. It’s just strange to me. And I’m not a huge fan of PDA - although I have been guilty of administering too much in the past with the right amount of alcohol and in the right context. If I had been a patron in that bar, and regardless of the couple’s sexuality, watching them all over each other would have prompted me to throw keys at them and say “Get a room!” I’ve been known to utter that line to everyone from hetero couples I know well to the gayest queens at Badlands – it’s just me.
Now, that aside, the video is a fascinating experiment on tolerance in a working person’s bar (or any context where we, as gays, always assume homophobia). Many of the patrons, while uncomfortable, are more uncomfortable with the planted “heckler.”
That is encouraging. What are your thoughts on this experiment?
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