This is my farewell message to the gays. I’m raw and angry because I’ve just lost a loved one to the shit consumer lifestyle that has emerged from the void left by the collapse of radical gay culture. We’ve got a big problem – and it’s not me, it’s you.
You are a product of your conditioning, and you need to look at what you are conditioned to aspire to. Who are your heroes? Well-heeled celebrities with mediocre talent and nothing to say, cowering under the shiny plastic umbrella. Your culture offers no alternative, only an image of ‘success’ defined by capitalism. A big fat lie.
Gay identity as we understand it emerged from the liberation movements of the 20th century. But every liberation movement has been bought out by mainstream money-making politics, and now your identity is owned by corporations who’ll silence any criticism of the misery they cause (which billionaire global bank is sponsoring Pride this year?). They’ve reduced you to a herd being obediently directed through the streets. And if you’re working-class poof then you’re a lamb to the slaughter.
To any queen pissed off by that last statement, here’s a question: so what kind of poof are you? The ultimate narcissist? The kinky fascist? The S&M self-hater? The rich bugger? Someone who thinks all the battles have been won, because you’re doing OK in a world where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Back up and look at your queer past. Our protest movements of the late 1960s got results when we were a threat big time to the traditional family unit, religion, institutions and government. Things were starting to look good for us – and then in the 1980s AIDS came and we were lepers told by the media that we’d got our just desserts for how sick we are. The fight for equality was eclipsed by a fight for survival. We needed drugs! It was a crisis that united diverse strands of our LGBT communities.
From our safe spaces emerged the most incredible talented artists, thinkers, writers and performers that were raw and had nothing to lose, only ideas to enlighten with. Sadly many of them didn’t survive. We went out dancing and found strength, hope and love in our shared physical community.
And look at us now. We have arrived. We can marry and adopt. A done job. We’ve stopped meeting. Gentrification has taken our venues, our spaces. We can go cruising online as instantly and easily as we can go shopping. Is this really freedom? We are monitored 24/7 by our phones, making sure we shop, fuck and stay in our lane.
Isolated in this existential hell, you search the web for some sort of connection. A landscape littered with invitations to breeding slamming parties all intoxicated by Lucifer’s juice, crystal meth. Hell’s gates are opened. High upon a sling to be gang-banged, ruined by anyone, no one – who cares? Inhabitations are dissolved, no boundaries in place, humiliated beyond and dignity gone. If you are in the throws of mind control, you’ll probably find this scenario a turn-on. Please hit the fire alarm.
Becoming hooked on this vile murderous substance, what are you prepared to lose to get another hit? Go on the game? Forsake your health, a BF, the family and end up homeless? Let’s see how that all works out for you
Stand back – can’t you see that from every angle the entire scene is dependent on drugs? Meth, Prep or HIV medication. I think this is so tragic but ultimately convenient. Obedience to the establishment and government become paramount when they have the power to take our drugs away at any moment. With our glitzy private health clinics and NA gurus that hang off the coat-tails of celebrities to endorse their brand, we have been fucked over from within!
Behind their respectable masks, a generation of dirty sisters who saw more progressive times but have since given up the fight have retreated to a depraved and ritualistic scene where they are happy to take the young, innocent kids they find on Grindr with them to a mire of infectious blood brother injecting fisting sabotage. And then post the results on sites where thumbs-up emojis applaud the path to death. Shame on you. Your abuse disgusts me.
If you want to get conscious, just follow the money. Who is profiting from our annihilation? I bet you my life it trickles up! Your ringmasters who create your false-diva pop goddess holograms are pulling all your strings. They have complete control. Ask yourself, when did you last have an original thought?
This experiment in how to bring to heel a community of once-radical underdogs is working out fine for those in charge. It’s a war, and our oppressors are winning. Grab your bollocks, gurls – get objective, see the connections, do your research and see how we are being controlled and destroyed by neoliberalism – a particularly vicious form of free-market capitalism that excuses itself with a veneer of social tolerance and box-ticking inclusivity, that tries to distract us from the rising number of people it leaves sleeping in shop doorways with endless rainbow flags and Pride parades. You are being suffocated by your own inertia, conned by an illusion of progress that leaves you paralysed. You are the walking, selfie-snapping dead. And right now the only release for a sensitive, loving soul in this culture of destruction is death. So, sodomites – what are you going to do about it?
All Images are property of Peter Marshall.