The last time I was in Provincetown, I couldn't help but notice all the straight people strolling down Commercial Street, blithely eating ice cream while wearing some pastel version of a "P-Town" sweatshirt. There were middle-aged married couples, young parents with small children in strollers, and older groups of folks who all clearly just disembarked from the same tour bus. And all I could think was, "Really? Was Nantucket full? This is our place. What are you all doing here?"
I guess it was bound to happen. For over 40 years, we've been fighting for equality and acceptance. But when acceptance becomes assimilation, and assimilation becomes an hour wait at the Lobster Pot because half of the people waiting for a table are straight, I have a problem. WTF is with all these straight people in our gay places?
And it's happening everywhere. I live in Gay Ground Zero: West Hollywood. The gay men outnumber the housewives by 10 to 1 in the produce section of my neighborhood grocery store. There are more lesbians on Santa Monica Boulevard than there are palm trees. Even the sports bar is gay, for crying out loud. But come Saturday night, if you go to our local hangout, the Abbey, it's like someone opened up a big can of breeder in there.
Some straight people are obviously tourists who have lost their way. They gamely finish their vodka tonics before heading out to find Trader Vic's. Other couples are there on a lark, having read about this "fun and friendly gay bar" in some magazine. So they come, gawk and giggle, and go home to tell their friends about the cah-razy night they had with the gays. But the absolute worst straight interlopers are the ones looking at the lesbians.
Some couples are under the delusion they can pick up a lesbian to take home with them. Because we all want nothing more than the honor of doing your wife while you watch. Right. The other group consists of straight guys who stand around together, drooling over the femmes. Go ahead, pal. Try to chat one up. She doesn't look gay, so she can't possibly really be gay. And she thinks your neck acne and Ed Hardy shirt are super hot!
I have nothing against straight people. I like Tina Fey. I've been to Appleby's. And those who have supported us, marched with us, and voted for our right to marry, I thank them. But there's a difference between coming together over issues and coming together at a wet t-shirt contest at Girlbar. I don't want to ogle cleavage side-by-side with some straight dude. Those are our breasts, Billy Bob. Go get your own.
What we need is more gayness to combat this insidious takeover. Nothing sends straight men running for their cars like bare mancheeks in assless chaps. When the only thing separating their child from a live scrotum is a pair of fishnets, parents tend to wonder why they ever left Gymboree. If lesbians would go back to hating men and stop hugging their lesbros, maybe I could get a table at the Abbey for once.
I love being gay and I love having places to call our own. Straight people have most of the planet to move around in; why must they have what we have, too? We need and deserve places to be with our tribe and not be diluted by all this hetro infiltration. I'm willing to offer this to straight people – you stay out of West Hollywood and I'll stay out of Chuck E. Cheese. And we can share Hooters. Deal?
