Which rule book?

I’m reading a book of critical writings of Michael Crichton’s work.

Two Quotes:

“If you believe you will succeed, or fail, or be victimized or gain power eventually you probably will. (p. 98)”

“This attack of victimization has grown in American society since Sphere was published in 1987.” (p. 98)

The question is: Am I a victim?

I’m thinking about my entry oppressed a lot. I dunno. I know I am not a victim that is not a mindset I’ve found to be useful, but I have been a victim in the past.

As to being oppressed I would have to say that my generation is less oppressed and more free than previous generations, but I still feel reasonable and justified in saying that I’m not fully free. I’m still playing within the constraints that the dominate culture has placed on me. Asking me to live outside heterosexual is asking me to move into a different culture, say Ghana. I am as accustomed to living in heterosexual as I am living in the US; They are almost all I know.

Even when I’m in the “gay” world we play by heterosexual. top is a synonym for who will play the common heterosexual male role, and bottom is a synonym for who will play the common heterosexual female role.

We can’t even have sex without brining heterosexuality into the bedroom! Hows that for oppression and playing by the oppressor’s rule book?

Even some of our other terms directly refer to heterosexuality. “Butch” is a synonym for well built and masculine. Queeny is hyper-femine.

This is not to say we don’t have “natural queeny” moments or “natural butch” moments but all in all a good majority of these tend to be acts to emphasize one’s masculinity or femininity. What about promoting one’s gayness or inner-self?

Of course the question is what is your inner self? I think we all spend a great deal of time as teens doing that searching attempting to find out what it means to be gay and then find a way to “be gay” and then forget about being yourself.

This is not some random believe I have – I’ve observed the desire to “be gay” in the younger members of our community go through this.

In fact most gay people to through a phase where they feel a need to assert to the whole world that they’re gay even in spots where it doesn’t matter. In my younger years I made a point of asserting that I was gay while playing cards online.

I guess more of this boils down to that we need to examine heterosexuality and ourselves and figure out how we react and conforrm to stereotypes and make a point to be ourselves, not what homo- or hetero- sexuality demands of us. Only then will we be free.