Urbanism and Rampant Faggotry

Ever since Jehovah smote Sodom, urbanism and buttfucking have been linked in the human experience. We are by our very natures urban creatures. We relish the anonymity of the crowd and seek strength in the solidarity of the close-pressed, shoulder-to-shoulder life that cities offer. Large metropolises are a place to reinvent oneself away from the forced conformity, harsh judgments and narrow minds of suburbia and the open expanses of God’s Country.

Now I’m drawing distinctions here. Homosex happens everywhere you might find two men and a quiet moment. But I’m referring specifically to the delirious life found in a neighborhood where the video store is stocked with equal parts of Dirk Yates and Bette Davis, Cadinot and Truffaut, Jeff Palmer and Julia Hoffman. Why is it that in a few years we enterprising fairies can turn a boarded-up war zone into a mini Boulevard de Strasbourg, replete with sidewalk cafes and florist shops?

Is there something in the gay gene that instinctively draws one to subways and skyscrapers the same way one is born craving, say, fine footwear or foreign magazines?

Conventional wisdom says that, as social outcasts, we take sow’s ears and indefatigably turn them into silk clutches in an effort to “make a home for ourselves”. Maybe so, but that sounds to me as if we’re lusting after some version of hetero “normalcy”, and that fits in poorly with my actual experience. We outclass the pedestrian normative without even trying. That’s truly the wonder of the gay gene, not any penchant for window treatments.

The old concept of the Gay Ghetto is becoming a quaint anachronism like drop-in VD clinics as we have carved out safely fabulous swathes in entire cities. There is no longer any reason for us to stay huddled in basement bars in the West Village or locked away in precious parlor-level rehabs when we have resurrected entire municipalities. Gentlemen, you are now free to roam about the cabin.

As a youth, I followed the scent of Paco Rabanne and Chanel for Men to the various enclaves favored at that time. We moved our Roseville collections from Beacon Hill and Back Bay to the Fenway, then finally to the South End. We left a trail of renovated duplexes and roof decks everywhere we went, to be priced out by growing throngs of Yuppies and empty-nesters who’d somehow never seen the charm of those places until we’d finished with them. The flower boxes were barely planted before the rents had doubled and our sleazy hangouts had been gentrified into boring coffee shops or brass-trimmed fern bars.

And we’re taking our act on the road. Fort Lauderdale is quickly becoming a locus of attention for freezing fags everywhere, and certain gay neighborhoods like Rio Vista and Victoria Park have already flipped over faster than a twink with a plumber in the kitchen. We’re still light-years behind the Northeast in producing any great culture, but at least I know where to get croissants that taste like they came straight from a boulangerie in the shadow of Sacre Coeur. And I find that comforting even as the Russian mafia and breeding Eurotrash have taken over South Beach, leaving it to Kristen Bjorn models and confused Chicago tourists clutching their outdated Damron guides.