Straight Men Are Not Our Enemy

Maybe it is a hold over from bullying at school, or maybe it is just some sort of collective myth, but some gay men seem to have a rather disturbing fear of straight guys.

Straight men, especially white ones, are the current Big Bad for every "progressive" (self-described, I'd call them backward and divisive shadows of true progressive and inclusive movements). But this focus on smearing people based on their colour, gender and sexuality just doesn't sit right with me (an evil white man myself, so I suppose it figures). We are meant to be above this sort of thing but, almost at every turn, LGBT people happily try to insult straight men and even use underhand tactics to hurt them.

Take, for example, the recent approval for a "straight" lap dancing club in a "gay" district in Liverpool. Ignoring the fact that bisexuals are a part of LGBT politics, LGBT "leaders" opposed this new business based on fears it might bring an increase in homophobic violence. Why? Because straight men would be about. Some, in comments I've seen, have also used feminist arguments to oppose this "degrading" enterprise.

This is little different to the opposition to gay bars, clubs and other facilities which focus on all sorts of scare stories involving children, drugs and crime. It is little different to those who think gay bars are a "wretched hive of scum and villainy". At a time when a new rave of anti-sex puritans from both the left and right are fighting to undermine freedoms fought for by LGBT people for the last few decades, some LGBT folk seem unwilling to spot the connections between heterosexual sexual freedom and our own. LGBT "leaders" should be providing a refuge for those businesses ostracised elsewhere not joining in with the Christians and feminists.

And then we have this odd obsession with opposing anyone, regardless of whether they are truly nasty or just a bit eccentric, who even discusses a "straight pride" event. As if a straight pride event must automatically be oppositional to gay pride.  See this recent story. An all age event where everyone is welcome? Sounds just awful. Perhaps it'd be more acceptable to the LGBT glitterati if it had corporate sponsorship, some lacklustre and often insultingly awful campaigning organisations marching and some truly directionless political messages? Or should we just leave that to pretty much every gay pride march in the Western Anglosphere? They do seem to have it down to a fine art now.

Straight men aren't our enemy. They are our fathers, brothers, friends and colleagues. They are mostly decent people. We simply must stop tarring them with the same brush (the one we created with our teenage traumas, leftie political leanings and dodgy alliances with people who actually hate us). We need to start dealing individuals and not making wildly outrageous claims about entire groups. You know doing what we've been asking people to do for us for the last 100 years.