Philadelphia Pride?

Ah, Gay Pride. That time of year when we commemorate the "homophiles" protesting at Independence Hall, risking their careers and reputations to be who they were, by getting blackout drunk and having lots and lots of anonymous sex.

We've come so far.

This year's Philadelphia Gay Pride will host the Village People. But hold your judgment until you consider the fact that we hosted The Apprentice's volatile Omarosa Manigault, the reality television personality and media whore who referred to the equally irrelevant Bethany Frankel's husband as "gay."

That was our Pride last year.

Some may find the Village people outdated, even offensively stereotypical, but they're more relevant to Pride than you think. In 1977 the Village People were the gay answer to the Monkeys, a lighthearted answer to a dozen boy bands who copied the Beatles. Whether or not any members of the Village People were out when they began is still a source of contention. The notion of homosexuality in the 1970s is vastly different than it is today. What does matter is that these characters were portraying gay men at a time when doing so was taboo. And at the time, despite the stereotypes they portrayed, they were portraying them in a positive and popular light.

They were trailblazers.

Still, Gay Pride events are not a source of talent nor one of true advocacy. They've been rendered down to the equivalent of a St. Patrick's Day parade, an excuse to drink in the street. Umpteen nonprofit organizations have taken the helm of advocacy, including our own Equality Forum, and those who perform at Pride Festivals are akin to Dancing With the Stars contestants. It means their careers are over, or at best irrelevant.

Philadelphia's Pride Parade and Festival is uniquely irrelevant given our city's Outfest block party every October that draws more locals than drunken teens. Perhaps that's a good thing. Were Philadelphia's Pride Festival more than a blip on the local media's radar it's parade of sex fueled debauchery and piss poor drag queens might do more harm than good for the community.

Of course the fact that more than a handful of protestors routinely turn out for the festival just points to how irrelevant any city's Pride has become. As Lisa Simpson said, "You do this every year, we are used to it!"

"Spoil sport."

Failure to Launch

Failure to Launch is more than just a bad movie. It's also a common term for what some might even refer to as arrested development. Why am I talking about it on a gay blog about gay things? Because so many gay men, especially under 30, seem to be stuck at home, sleeping on the same twin mattress they've had since grade school.

Why? Who knows, but over 21M Millennials live at home. Have gay Millennials, less afraid to come out to their parents, never felt the push to adventure beyond home? Has the upswing in the luxury housing market discouraged a generation from looking for an apartment before they're in a position to buy? Or are they simply content to enjoy their freedom from the coddled security at the shores of their parents' garage? Of course that's rhetorical. There's no real freedom on the parental home front.

Sometimes there's a valid excuse. Student loans can be a burden, and the more responsible choose to pay them off quickly. Rent and utilities can hinder that. Some have chosen to go back to school offering the same obstacles. Some are burdened with healthcare concerns for a variety of reasons. Others have older parents with assistive needs, and single gay offspring are often willing to help.

But more and more find absolutely no reason to leave the nest.

When I was 18 in 1994, leaving home was a right of passage. Whether you were leaving for college or your first apartment, it was thrilling. I lived in dorms during college, so I eased into independent living. But even by my junior year I was ready to try living on my own. At 20 my first apartment was in an iffy part of Washington, D.C. It was cheap, riddled with cockroaches, and the neighborhood was somewhat dangerous. But it was mine. I wanted to kiss the walls.

I ultimately had to trash all my furniture because it was infested with bedbugs, but that didn't deter me and since have never met with a desire to ever return to my childhood bedroom. I grew up like one should, how one should. I learned about the challenges of securing a lease, paying utility bills, and dealing with loud drag queens rehearsing on the floor above me at 3AM before I could legally drink.

My parents held my hand through the process, but from the distance of qualified parents who knew they didn't want a perennial child.

Don't let this happen to you.

Many who fail to launch will be faced with trading parents for boyfriends, inevitably leading to a rough transition at best. Others will be consistently faced with a string of boyfriends unwilling to embrace such an awkward transition. Finding any apartment can be a challenge, and many people well into their thirties aren't looking for any apartment, they're looking for a good one or a home. Meanwhile those who've never left the security of their parents are still struggling with the concept of laundry and groceries.

If you see no reason to leave home by twenty five (and I'm being gracious), it speaks to a larger issue than simply living at home. The problem is that you - and your parents - see no reason for you to live independently. You have not yet segued into adulthood and the blind drive for independence doesn't exist.

The lack of excitement, the missing motivation of the should-be 20-something, the absent need for freedom speaks volumes about those who drown in their childhood bedroom. They're unmotivated, entitled, underemployed, and worse, they fail to see how each of these undesirable traits enable the next, circling the drain of uselessness.

I'd be the last person to criticize someone without a college education, the artists and Bohemians who have chosen a life outside of a world of recruiters and cubicles. In fact I applaud them, but only those who succeed as independents. Those who are merely content with a permanence of a lifestyle meant to be temporary serve nothing to the society outside of the house the falsely call their own.

It Gets Better, Unless You're...

Despite BuzzFeed's user content, a definitive list of lists that continues to prove that BuzzFeed users don't know what "definitve" means, the site's true journalism buried on its homepage can often be a poignant source of stories.

Louis Peitzman's October article, It Gets Better, Unless You're Fat, could have been a homerun. But the article falls short in the face of the entire reason the article was written: Peitzman's (and our) own insecurity.

One can't fault Peitzman for his position and he points out valid toxicity, particularly within the gay community. It's just unfortunate that a well written essay on a well read website ends with the sour question of whether things truly will get better. Kudos for asking the question. "It Gets Better" is about as simplistic and ineffectual as "Just Say No" or "You can do anything you set your mind to."

Unfortunately, given Peitzman's apparent age he seems to be in a large generation caught between a world in which gays accepted each other absolutely, and a world of fake acceptance brought to us by blazing fast internet speed.

He references a worn notion that coming out is like joining a private club, one where "you’re automatically granted inclusion." The notion was once very true, but now only lingers beneath the culture that replaced it.

With politicians on our side and gay characters on every major television network, many within our community no longer feel the need to band together simply because of our sexualities. In the past, no matter who we were or what we looked like, we once fought side by side. We depended on each other for support.

But as soon as acceptance hit 51%, the stock market of tolerance tipped in favor of selfishness, and the rainbow turned to a tasteful blue and yellow that looked less garish on the bumper of our Prius.

We've organized ourselves into groups within our own community. We're no longer gay, lesbian, or bisexual. We're bears, butches, muscle daddies, twinks, and femmes. We won the fight for acceptance amongst rational heterosexuals, but discontent with battle ending, we turned against our own men and women. Bottoms are sluts, bears are fat, bisexuals are confused. And those of us who fought so hard for one simple end - just being who we are - are forced by our brothers and sisters to choose a role, a label, in a community that champion's the mantra, "it's not a choice."

While heterosexuals increasingly shrug off the notion of sexuality with a nonchalant, "eh, who cares?" we've become our own worst enemy.

Instead of internalizing Tina Fey's message in Mean Girls, we celebrate the 10th anniversary of a movie drenched in symbolism by proudly dubbing ourselves a Regina or a Gretchen, excluding the "fat girls," and ignoring the Janice in all of us. Such pop culture references may seem silly, but if Facebook is any indication they're relevant, especially to our community. Will we give the same reverence to the 20th anniversary of Clueless next year? A movie that painted the true "mean girls" as Monets and the most popular as doers of good deeds, seeking beauty in everything, and embracing an outsider as the "Botticelli chick."

Peitzman ended his article in futility, perhaps due to his age and personal frustration. His stance is valid but disturbingly indicative of a generation that never knew the solidarity of hardship. Instead of asking if it will get better, I'd rather ask how. Will our community find our way back to each other on our own, or will we need to be faced with past bigotry before we realize we're all on the same parade float?

Worse, will we find ourselves facing adversity at our own hands, criticizing each other with such meaningless vanity that allies who have come to embrace us begin to believe the same shame we cast within our own community?