I’ve never been to one, and I’ve never even been invited to one, and this is the first account I’ve read of one, and it’s not quite what I would have expected. Hosting the party was Milo Yiannopoulos — perfectly legitimate, since he is openly gay — and…Pam Geller? Geert Wilders? Praise for Trump, excoriation of Democrats and other liberals, condemnation of jihadis, and…bad dancing?
I am so disappointed. That doesn’t sound open and liberal and joyful and fabulous at all.
Ah yes, but Milo is a self-hating gay. Self-hating gay parties aren’t half as good. Though it seems that internalised hatred isn’t the only kind he’s keen on…
Also, you’re more than welcome to come to any gay parties I might hold in the future. If I ever get to know any other gay people. Or work out what is supposed to happen at parties, since nobody has ever invited me to one before.
But mine definitely won’t have any islamophobia or Trumpetry or flying visits by dutch bigots with plastic hair. And definitely no Milo. So however tedious and boring it ends up, it’s still going to be better than this sorry affair.
cartomancer@#2:
Or work out what is supposed to happen at parties
Have some food. Have something to drink. Maybe have alcohol. Then it’s not a bad idea to have something to do: music, a game, or some other low barrier to entry social activity. The rest will take care of itself.
@cartomancer:
Reading “self-hating ” always rises a few flags.
I don’t think it’s a fair description, even of a shitbag like Yannopulous.
@cartomancer:
Reading “self-hating [insert oppressed minority] ” always rises a few flags.
I don’t think it’s a fair description, even of a shitbag like Yannopulous.
If you swapped out Trump with “Contract with America” era Gingrich, it sounds a lot like the parties I attended back when I was a College Republican.
Wait, gay people are expected to hobnob with and fight for the very people who tried to deny them any rights befo….? Oh, that’s right. These groups actually mean a very specific class of privileged, white, gay males. And they tend to be led by people like Milo whose desire for rights is outweighed by a seething hatred for humanity.
Apparently he said “growing up gay wasn’t that bad.” Well, sure, it’s easier when you find a way to get around it with your whiteness. Just join in with the bullies when they gang up on others and exploit those moments where you can fit in. Like I did when I was a little shit.
I will admit that these days I do wonder how genuine his self-hating schtick was, having seen how the man’s only focus seems to be stirring up controversy. But he first came to prominence over here in England a few years ago, during our gay marriage debate – as a low-budget pundit who styled himself as a gay Catholic opposed to gay marriage on grounds of personal conviction. That was really his first media presence, before he had anything to do with Breitbart or the states or the whole rotten smorgasbord of right-wing talking points he has gathered as his domain. Seeing some of the interviews and debates with him from that time, it was hard not to get the impression that he didn’t like his sexuality very much, and found it a struggle to deal with. Self-hating seemed entirely appropriate then.
I’m not so sure anymore. He doesn’t seem to say anything about his supposedly sincere catholicism nowadays, and tries to leverage his sexuality quite vocally – to position himself as an unusual right-wing pundit on all kinds of other issues. That his original appearances were also shameless posturing for attention seems entirely consistent.
I say this as someone who would easily describe myself as a self-hating gay when I was growing up. I think it’s quite a common psychological response among LGBT people, especially ones who haven’t really had any LGBT role models or any positive messages about their sexuality to influence them during their formative years. There’s a reason I wasn’t willing to admit to myself that I was gay until I was in my late 20s. Even now I sometimes struggle with the negative cultural baggage I picked up in my early years.
I’m not sure it’s quite the same for other minorities, and I wouldn’t want to speak for them, but it does seem to me that LGBT people are far more often isolated from others of their kind and therefore more prone to thinking of their minority status as something that divides and isolates and sets apart. Ethnic minority people usually have families and often communities of people who share their minority status, so the dynamic is different. I think it’s the sense that you’re different and that’s a problem with you that the growing up LGBT experience tends to foster more often. Perhaps self-hating is rather a dramatic and overblown way to describe that, but from personal experience it feels like it fits.
I bet good Quatloos on that little 4chan shitstain to stay closeted his entire childhood and coasting on white moneybag privilege.
Because staying closeted is totally an appropriate reason to criticize a gay dude. Any groups you wont punch down at, applehead?
Aside from Milon were any gay people involved with this “gays for trump” party?
@cartomancer: Fair enough. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, it made me think.
@11,
Oh Vivec, you precious little duckling. My comment referred to M-dog’s statement that, apparently, for him “growing up gay wasn’t that bad.” Well, it sure isn’t if you and your moneybag family do their darndest to let nobody know you are. His childhood would’ve looked a whole lot different if he had been openly gay, which honestly would’ve been for the best. Receiving the unadulterated gay experience may have cracked the privilege bubble of his upbrining. As you can see, the most toxic minds develop in an echo chamber.
But go on, defend the most complete personification of everything that’s wrong with the Internet.
Gladly. Just because you disagree with Milo isn’t an excuse to attack him in a homophobic way, just like how it isn’t okay to attack Melania Trump in a misogynist slut-shaming way.
Shitty oppressive language doesn’t become okay just because you target it towards someone bad.
Then again, you’re a person that has absolutely nothing wrong with repeatedly misgendering people even after they ask you to stop, so
I absolutely reject the premise that being rich or white somehow shields you from homophobia in all situations.
It might conditionally do such and might lessen the overall impact of the homophobia, but white gay men still get beat up and persecuted, and wealth doesn’t always have visible cues. If some dude wants to throw a brick at some queers, he’s not going to stop to ask how rich they are.
Well, I’ve been to the LGBT disco a few times and that was cool.
Also, is any party my gay friends throw automatically a gay party? Anyway, whatever happened at Milo’s party does not seem to be typical
Every party I throw is a gay party, and none of them have involved a self-absorbed hateful jackass, so I cannot speak to whether Milo’s party was fabulous or not. Mine always are. We had a “Come as a gender you arent” party that was beyond awesome, completely hilarious and not a little educating for some cis/het attendees. My gay parties are thus known for fabulousness; given the guest list, I will claim expert status and say I really doubt I’d enjoy Milo’s do.
Vivec
No, it doesn’t, but it obviously helps a lot.
First of all, being gay doesn’t always have any visible cues either. White gay men often act like they fucking invented systematic oppression.
I will not deny the obvious and awful wrongs inflicted on them, from prison, castration to death and I’m not saying that “just stay in the closet” is a viable alternative, but white gay men can get through many of their daily interactions with no one being the wiser about their sexual orientation without them being in the closet*. They will still get treated as white men while I will always get treated as a white woman.
Secondly, once you’re rich enough you can overcome many of the issues regular gay people face. Marriage comes with a fuckton of privileges. In many countries it allows you to secure your right to residence, allows you to stay on your spouse’s health insurance, leave them a little money and entitle them to a widow/er’s pension. The less you have the more important those things become to you.
Same with having kids: Elton John could simply work around the restrictions ordinary gays face.
*My two BFFs in university were a lesbian woman and a gay man. Most of the English department thought he was my boyfriend.
Sure, and that was what the beginning of the second sentence was saying. I do agree that there are a lot of ways that being white or rich mitigates homophobia, but I don’t think that means that it’s suddenly a zero risk thing to come out of the closet.
Plenty of gay people I know have been attacked, despite being upper middle class and white.
I’m not going to act like it’s somehow a super safe thing to be an open gay man, especially if you’re a public figure, and that being closeted is somehow a good reason to criticize someone.
I’m not sure exactly how wealthy and privileged Milo’s upbringing was. I’m not sure it really matters though – it was entirely possible to grow up in an ordinary or even poor household in the UK in the 80s and 90s and not experience anything by way of direct homophobia. I did it myself. Yes, there was plenty of negative cultural baggage that I ended up lumbered with, but his claim is not a fanciful one whatever his degree of economic privilege.
The problem is that he extrapolated from his own personal experience to the entirely unjustified conclusion that nobody has ever suffered much from growing up gay. Spectacularly unreflective if he’s being honest, but my guess would be that he’s just trying to be provocative in order to belittle people who have some shred of human compassion left.
Being really, really racist continues to be a popular tactic among minorities who wish to join the mainstream, I see. Irish communities, Italian communities, my Latinx people, and now this bloodthirsty nonsense, during a week when an American bomb “accidentally” killed 60+ Syrian civilians.
Fucking white supremacy. “We’re only gonna die from our own arrogance”, sayith Bad Religion.