What is it with people and lables?
I just sat on my ray bans! I Love your Gucci bag! Prada, and nothing else! We have come to identify and value things with the lables that they have rather than the simple value that they add to our lives. So long as a bag will carry stuff for yor from point a to point b, then we should be satisfied, since adding a fabulous lable to it will not ease the the load! Catch my drift?
I confess i'm also a sucker for the hot lables in material things. And I also will also want to identify with the finer things in life. Sure, a lable does ensure the best quality in anything, and it better be cause the price tag will set you back a bundle! But should i necessarily go for the labled item without looking at a different brand, not well known, but quality as well? Or does the hot lable just automicaly mean an unknown brand is inferior?
Being labled gay can be offensive! It is derogatory to some extent. If some stranger calls me gay, homosexual, queer, fag, et all, it really gets to me. Because in some way that lable is set to make me look like i'm sufferring from something that should be exorcised out of me! With all these negative connotations , no wonder few would like to identify with it!
But hey, no lable ever developed in a day. I'm sure no one would wear valentino eons ago. Thats the thing, aint it? Maybe if more and more of us were brave enough to wear the GAY lable, we'd make it part of the in club.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
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3 comments:
Hey Sasha, thanks for linking to me :-)
I also like what you've written, because I can tell through your writing how passionately you feel about things. But although I like the writing, I don't actually agree with your conclusions here.
Are you a man? That's just a label too. Although words can have multiple meanings and many subtle connotations, in the English language these days the word 'gay' does indeed describe men who like to sleep with other men.
I don't doubt that some people regard 'gay' as a derogatory term, and when they call someone gay they're trying to be offensive. But when someone throws an insult at someone else and the target of the insult actually feels insulted, then consciously or subsonsciously, that person has made a choice to feel insulted. When someone calls me gay I don't feel insulted, in the same way that I don't feel insulted if someone calls me male.
I see from your profile that you're based in Kenya, and I'm sure that gay life is much much harder for you than it is for me in London. But I'm also sure that by the time you've gained your gay lifestyle black-belt, then you'll probably feel the same way as me.
GB xxx
If the word gay offends you, it may be coz you have accepted to be offended. When I was coming to grips with my sexuality, I could not even utter the word. Now am able to say am gay without cringing.
I have totally refused to accept that being gay is something I should be ashamed off
Well said.
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