Three worlds are colliding for me. I love me some UFC, I love me some porn, and I love me the gays! So, of course you know I had to give a shout out about the latest news. Yep, that’s right folks! There’s a gay (in fact, gay pornstar) MMA fighter – what a shock! #sarcasm. OK, let’s get real for a second. Please tell me you don’t have that stereotype gay guy still rattling around in your head! I mean sure it exists – femmy, bitchy, overly dramatic, fights like a girl (yeah, there’s a whole additional stereotype I will address some other time!) But that is so 1980’s. Hello, people, it’s 2012! Many gay men are (and have been all along) very strong, muscular, and athletic. So, why wouldn’t you expect them to be athletes? Hell, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that due to gay bashing, gay guys worldwide probably take self-defense, martial arts, boxing, and whatever other classes so they can kick ASS and avoid getting their asses kicked! At the very least, you have a group of guys that generally like to look their best, stay in shape, and train in the gym (OK, I know that’s also a stereotype, but this is my f’ing blog so I can contradict myself, thank you very much!)

Anyway, my only surprise is that it’s taken this long. I have no doubt that there have been gay fighters in MMA for as long as MMA has existed. I certainly understand their hesitation in wanting to come out within such a “heterosexual” sport (whatever that means…lol!) but, I am super proud of Dakota for doing just that! I mean, that took some BALLS! Some manly, studly, athletic, wicked-strong BALLS!

I would also like to commend Dana White, the President of UFC, for speaking to this issue with reason and aplomb. He said this last October in an interview: “If there was a gay fighter in UFC, I wish he would come out. I could care less if there’s a gay fighter in the UFC. There probably is and there’s probably more than one. I mean, it’s 2012. Give me a break.” Well, Dana, looks like you got your wish! And I certainly hope – and would expect – that he enforces a strict no gay-bashing environment in the UFC.

I’ll keep you posted if I hear more news, and in the meantime here’s an article about it:

“Closets are for clothes, not people!”

I just want to take a moment and say to everyone that has come out as gay, lesbian, bi, transexual – GOOD FOR YOU! I am so proud of the friends I have that have come out. It’s not easy sometimes. But it’s just gotta feel so good to finally be able to BE who you really are. So, here’s to all of you that have come out – all over the world! This is YOUR day to celebrate your “outness”! Be proud of who you are!

Yep. Well, not really, but that’s what my daughter said the other day, in a sing-song-y voice while swimming in our pool, talking to herself – or so she thought. Despite my shock and desire to say “what the hell?!” (I have my own story about this phrase….) I told her to swim over to me – rather calmly, I might add. (As she’s swimming over, my stream of consciousness is saying – nevermind the fact that it’s amazing that a child born 25 years after his death would be saying the words Elvis Presley. That’s interesting, but the other thing. That’s disturbing!) She swam over and looked up at me with those innocent, almost 9 year old eyes (trying to hide a hint of “Oops, I probably shouldn’t have said that but I don’t know why.”) And this is the conversation that ensued:

Me: “Where did you learn that word?”
Her: “School.” (no surprise there!)
Me: “Do you know what the word ‘gay’ means?”
Her: “No…”
Me: “If you don’t know what a word means, then you shouldn’t say it.”
Her: “Well, what DOES it mean?” (oops, I didn’t think ahead on this….ummm…OK, so now I’m thinking – I don’t want to lie to her because I want her to know that she can trust me and come to me to get the honest truth about anything, but I don’t want to tell her something that might be inappropriate, but it’s not like being gay is inappropriate, and there’s plenty of kids who have gay parents and they know what it is at an early age and they grow up just fine, so….OK, I’ve been silent for long enough, I need to say something….)
Me: “Well, it’s when a boy likes another boy. But some people use the word in a bad way to mean “stupid” or “dumb”, and we don’t use those kinds of words, so I don’t want you to use that word like that either, OK?”
Her: “OK” (That was it. Just OK. No more questions. Huh…)
Me: “And remember, if you don’t know what a word means, DO NOT say it. You are welcome to come and ask me what it means, but don’t use it yourself, OK?”
Her: “OK, Mom!” (I didn’t even get the usual eye-roll! Huh…)

And that was that. Lord, I hope something sunk in with her – not only about that particular word which was obviously said in ignorance, but for the general lesson of not saying words we don’t understand. Ignorance is not an excuse.

Come to think of it, I wish more adults would learn that lesson too….

If you were a teen in the 1980’s, you were around when the word gay was re-purposed. It went from meaning ”happy” to meaning, well, basically - ”lame”. It was used particularly heavily by valley girls, and in Southern California in general, and spread like wildfire across the country. Simultaneously, it also came to be known as the term for someone who was sexually attracted to the same sex as he/she was (particularly if you were male.) But unfortunately, the reference to “lame” became the most common, and it was generally accepted.

I was one of those girls that used to say “That’s so gay!”, when I didn’t like something. I thought nothing of it. Used it all the time, for several years through high-school. It was most definitely part of my “lingo”. Certainly this was not with the intention of offending a gay person, but in complete ignorance. Fortunately, by the time I entered college I had realized this was inappropriate and only used the term to describe a person’s sexual preference. But apparently my use of it in the other context had made some sort of impression in my sub-conscious. And here’s where I begin my little story.

My boyfriend at the time – let’s call him Mark, to retain anonymity – was living in a little guest house. The guest house was on the property of the main house – owned by two gay men – living as a couple. Now, Mark and I had no problem with this whatsoever, and in fact struck up a friendship with both of them (we’ll call them Tom and Doug.) They were both nice guys, good landlords, and we all got along great. So, one evening we went out on a double date. We had a very nice evening, dining at an upscale restaurant, and because we were starving college kids, Tom and Doug very kindly treated us! On our drive home, we were having a lively conversation, talking and laughing and having a good time. Somehow we got on the subject of something I thought was ridiculous, and out of my unsuspecting mouth comes that DAMN phrase “Oh my God, that is so GAY!”…….silence. I am totally mortified. I want to crawl into a little hole and die! Where the hell did that come from? I haven’t said that term in years! YEARS! Why the hell did I say that out of the blue?! The following couple seconds went in slow motion, but I managed to continue talking, babbling, saying whatever I could think of to just keep the sentence going so that hopefully, maybe, by some miracle that phrase just blended in and didn’t get noticed. Even though I KNOW it was noticed. I dunno, maybe I hoped that if I just kept talking and acting like nothing happened, then they would realize I didn’t mean anything by it, and didn’t even know I said anything wrong. Which was not the case, but….yikes, I just had NO idea how to handle that! Fortunately, Tom and Doug continued to be nice to us, and nothing was ever said. I sincerely hope they knew I had absolutely no ill will towards them or any other gay person. I just was a victim of my own past vernacular. Or something like that!

Anyway, this little clip I put in here is such a great idea! I love it when celebrities (like sports figures) use their power for good. Why not get a positive message out there? Teach some folks, or at least remind some folks, of how to be nice in this world. Some may say this is being overly “PC”, and I agree that sometimes we can get too carried away and overly concerned about offending anyone for any little thing. But in this case, I think using the term “gay” to mean, essentially, “lame” is NOT OK. It’s not OK because it’s a negative connotation. I mean, c’mon people, the gays of the world have a difficult enough time with prejudice from folks who don’t approve of them, they certainly don’t need this added baggage! So, THINK before you speak. And if something does accidentally surface from your “not so PC” past – acknowledge it, apologize, and move on. Which is what I wish I’d done all those years ago, so learn from my mistake!

So, I consider myself to be pretty liberal when it comes to being attracted to different types of guys. I have enjoyed being intimate with a rainbow of men; of various cultures, colors, ages, backgrounds and the like. On a strictly physical standpoint, I think there are examples of good looking guys in every race on the planet, within a fairly large age-bracket, and in varying degrees of height and weight.

And this is the type of thing I was proudly explaining to a friend of mine several years ago. To which he answered – “OK, so if you are so open to dating all types of people, then how about a woman?” And he was not talking about the “one night I kinda hooked up with a girl”, or even the experimental ” lesbian phase”. He was talking about seriously maintaining a loving relationship with a female of our species. Hmmmm. A very good point, I had to admit. And my answer?: “I guess I haven’t met the woman to bring that out in me yet.” (Aside from my crush on k.d. lang, but I haven’t actually met her, so we aren’t able to put that theory to the test!) Of course I thought my answer was a pretty good one at the time, but through the years that question has surfaced in my mind many times. Yes, I am happily married to my soul-mate who just happens to be a man. No, I would not leave him for anyone – man OR woman. But on a purely hypothetical basis, I have asked myself – would I be open enough to consider a serious relationship with a woman?

I would like to say my answer is yes. I mean, love is love, right? I am a firm believer that it’s not what the person looks like, it’s who they are. And if that’s the case then it should apply to anyone at all in the human race, including folks of my own sex. Women. Chicks. Should we not all consider swinging both ways? Playing for both teams? It sure would increase the odds of finding someone, don’t you think? For women, it would be by over 50%, in fact (since women account for just over 50% of the world’s population.)

Of course I think this consideration is much easier to even entertain if you are a woman. I mean, a straight man considering playing for the other team? Yah, right! LMAO! Never. Not in a million years. What’s that? You want to remind me of the “gay for pay” straight guys that have sex with a guy on film for money? OK, maybe it’s a gay guy pretending to be straight, or maybe it really is the very example of what I’m talking about – appreciating a sexy body regardless of sex. But let’s face it, for some reason it is much easier for most folks to enjoy seeing two women together. Certainly straight men have no problem with this. OK, they downright GET OFF on the mere IDEA for goodness-sake (and that is a subject for another post!) But I have to admit that I too would rather see two women together than two men. So why is that? You would think that if straight men enjoyed seeing two women together, then straight women would like to see two men together. And yet, uh……NO! Not my favorite thing. Don’t get me wrong. I can appreciate the concept of two men together. I am a complete and 100% proponent of love/sex/whatever between two men. I think gay marriage should be legal and accepted (also another future post topic.) One of my favorite TV shows of all time is “Queer As Folk”, and I think the guy-on-guy sex scenes were instrumental and absolutely necessary. I absolutely appreciated the love and lust expressed between the characters. But honestly, as a generally straight woman (who is mildly bi-curious…?) I can say with certainty that I would rather see two women together. Any time, any place, in pretty much any and all circumstances. Why? I dunno. I would venture to guess it gets down to a purely physical instinct. Perhaps there is some scientific data/science that backs this up – which I’m sure you could find on the Internet. All I know is what comes naturally to me, and most folks I know.

So, perhaps I should make some sort of conclusion now, following my typical long-winded discourse. And here it is: Two women together? SEXY! Does this mean straight women should try dating other women? I dunno. Is it discrimination if they don’t? I dunno. Two men together? SEXY (mostly to gay men.) Does this mean straight men should try dating other men? Since I’m not a straight man, I don’t feel like I can answer this with any credibility. I’m gonna guess, though, that most straight guys would answer with a resounding “Hell NO!” Is this discrimination? I dunno. And so, the majority of my responses to the questions are?: “I dunno.”

LOL – not sure if my post contained any new/additional/helpful information or answers, but hopefully it got you thinking….That’s the best I can offer right now!

Today was the 12th annual National Day Of Silence, which supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, from middle school to college.  This years Day of Silence was held in memory of Lawrence King, a 15 year old student from California who was shot and killed on February 12, by a 14 year old classmate because of King’s sexual orientation and gender expression.  The goal of the “Day of Silence” is to inspire change so that such a tragedy and others like it never happen again.

Please take the time to check out the official website:  Day Of Silence

You know, I was just going to post this information, and let it speak for itself, but during the writing of the above information, I pulled up the website and was flipping around the various pages to familiarize myself with this wonderful organization.  And my eyes kept coming back to the image of that sweet little face of Lawrence King on the front page.  As I write this now, my eyes are filled with tears at the thought that this precious child’s life was taken, and taken in such a way, for such a bullshit reason (I can’t think of a more eloquent way to say that right now!)  I can only imagine the utter despair and grief that his family and friends must be feeling still, and will probably always feel.  Having children of my own, I cannot even imagine the torture of having to deal with your own child being taken from you, let alone so tragically.  It is absolutely beyond my comprehension that human beings are capable of such wretchedness as the killing of another human being in such a manner.  I could write tons more, but words seem so inadequate.  Instead I will pray not only for dear Lawrence King and his family, but for all of the beautiful souls out there in the world that are having to deal with the hatred of anti-LGBT behavior.  I will also pray for those that oppose the LGBT community.  May each of you find peace within yourself, and in your life experience.  And may every citizen of the world recognize it’s capacity to love unconditionally.