The Cost of "The Cost of Being Gay"

I hadn't planned on writing anything in response to the article "The Cost of Being Gay," featured in the October 21 issue of The Advocate, but I just came across it again, and it hit a sour note with me. Again. I know it's designed to hit sour notes, and I resent the demagoguery, but I feel a need to respond.

Take a few moments to read the article (it's pretty short) so you know what I'm talking about.

I mean, the lede is: "We all agree that sexual orientation isn’t just about whom you sleep with but how much of your identity is tied up in the things you have to buy (not to mention the price you’re willing to pay for them)."

Really? Buying things makes you gay? My take on the article after the jump.



To be absolutely clear from the outset, the writer, John Cloud, could not be more wrong. He inhabits a subset of a subset of a subset culture. Living in a gay neighborhood in New York City, he looks around him and sees nothing but people like him and concludes that those are the only people in the world. It's myopic, and it's also offensive.

How does this silly man who lives in Chelsea, vacations in The Pines, and wears nothing but designer underwear in order to feel real have the temerity to dismiss the gayness of everyone not like him? In this article, he has managed to make invisible the hundreds of millions of gay and lesbian people in this world -- the people who seek refuge from countries that torture and kill their gay citizens. Are they not really gay? ("We all agree that sexual orientation isn’t just about whom you sleep with but how much of your identity is tied up in the things you have to buy . . .") Cloud also trivializes the struggles of our own Americans who have fought and died for his right to rub sand on his jeans.

His self-control is a limited resource? He writes, "According to Pachankis, because of social stigma, gay people often feel they must work very hard to manage others’ impressions of them. We monitor our behavior more than those who don’t face stigma; gays and lesbians often carefully calibrate their social interactions so as not to seem weak. Expending that self-regulatory effort makes it harder, in turn, to exert self-control in other aspects of life, like spending. That’s why we just can’t say no to a gay cruise or a gorgeous new Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams chair."

What an irresponsible way to be irresponsible! This is the logical equilavent of: "I am buying these things because people are mean to me. I spend every bit of my self-control trying to impress people, so what else could I possibly do but buy more things? Temptation cannot be resisted. I am not responsible for my actions. Those kids who were mean to me in high school are!" He is not occasionally shallow -- he is permanently adolescent.

Or a permanent undergrad. This kind of unsophisticated thinking should be found in a freshman writing class, not The Advocate: "Psychologically speaking, delaying consumption is an act of self-regulation, a term psychologists use to mean self-control. Over the last few years research has shown that if you spend time and mental energy regulating one aspect of your life—say, how you present yourself to the world—it will be harder for you to exert self-control in other domains. Self-regulation, in short, is a resource that can be depleted, like oil."

"Psychogically speaking?" And "Research has shown?" These are close relatives of the newscaster who says, "Some people say . . . ." Perhaps writing skills are a limited resource for Cloud as well. Like oil.

He does have a shred of conscience, however. And he demonstrates it when he writes that "maybe this is all a little too convenient. I live in Chelsea; I am out at work; I am out to everyone in my family, all my friends. I don’t think I have to cope with much stigma." But if he doesn't have to cope with stigma, then what is he writing about?

This lack of logic runs throughout his article. He would make a terrible scientist. He uses his data to support a belief, no matter how much he has to twist and contort that data in order to fit it. (His little aside on poverty rates, which based on the information he provided could be within margins of error, reads like this: "We demand that gays not live in poverty! And so they don't. Problem solved.")

He wants to be a big fish in a little pond when there is an ocean of trouble out there. Good luck in that expensive crystal fish bowl.