The Gay Blade

Why are we so invisible? I don't know if you saw, but there was a news report out this week saying a pair of bodies that had been trapped in the lava at Pompeii, and identified for many years as "The Maidens" is in fact two male bodies. This has led to all sorts of speculation that in fact they were two lovers, two men taking comfort in each other's arms at this terrible time. The UK magazine Attitude got so carried away that it claimed that they were. And it's a beautiful and poignant way of thinking about them.Two men, in love, as this terrible catastrophe destroys their world and comes to take their lives, finding some comfort, some refuge in each other, in death as in life. But it's highly unlikely to be true. There is in fact no way of knowing anything about them except they are two bodies whose forms were preserved in lava. Yet so many of us  really, really wanted to believe they were lovers. And that's because we so rarely see an...

I saw that there is a debate tonight in Sydney on whether or not same-sex marriage should be legalised, featuring NZ Queer Theorist Prof Annemarie Jagose amongst others. She is taking the position that it shouldn't. And on gaynz.com my friend and  fellow blogger Jeremy Lambert has raised the issue as well, but he's for it, wondering where the activists to push it are. I am ambivalent on this one. But I'm amazed at how it has gone from a total non-issue for the gay world 30 years ago to the central item of gay activism in the Western world. I saw some Australian research last year saying that for young queers it was now seen as the most important issue. I've been thinking about it this last week because someone referred to it as "a right" - and that word made me stop and think. Searching for images for this blog I saw a protestor holding up a sign reading "Marriage is a Human Right, Not a Heterosexual Privilege." I would describe myself as ...