A type of opinion that I tend to hear a lot, especially in post-Gay Pride moments, is that we don't have to be proud of our sexuality, but rather of the person we are, our characteristics and the behaviors we have. It will be?
Generally, this type of argument is reproduced by people with a relatively good level of education, who live in large urban centers and have a network of establishments around them, from the biggest nightclub on the continent to cruising areas spread across the city, where you can to give vent to their sexualities without major disturbances.
Another common factor among people who say this is the fact that no matter how much they do in their homes and family, few feel comfortable taking their boyfriend or girlfriend to sleep over. And also, even though they feel comfortable about their sexual orientations, they don't feel safe holding hands or exchanging kisses in public.
If this lack of natural behavior on the part of homosexuals is not the result of a centuries-old repression against gays, as João Silvério Trevisan pointed out in the book Devassos no Paraíso, then I don't know what is.
If the old concept of "gay pride" does not have the strength today, as it did in the past, to raise the morale of queers and make them open their closets and occupy a space that is rightfully theirs - that of publicly expressing affection and desire -, I therefore humbly ask for help from those who do not agree with pride to find a solution to this problem.
Especially because gay pride, and its celebrations in the Parades and on June 28th, have yet another social function: creating warmth, a social network and strengthening self-esteem that is massacred by a world culture that is sexist, repressive, heterosexist and homophobic.
It is very easy to not need and neglect this strengthening, when you live in an environment with the support network mentioned above. But have you, fierce enemies of pride, ever imagined what it's really like to be gay alone?
When questioning this, I'm not even talking about the period of acceptance, in the beginning of adolescence when we think we're the only ones like this, I'm thinking in the most pragmatic sense. From that guy in a landless settlement, or an Indian, or a young gay man in the far reaches of a state far away. I imagine a city where there is no place for interaction and no examples of homosexuals to look up to, simply because those who are there are stoned, metaphorically and literally, every day.
Have we ever stopped to think about how much our individual actions have repercussions on the collective? It's that old story about cigarette butts or candy wrappers on public roads. Alone, isolated, they do not cause harm, but when everyone does it, an environment of dirt and filth is created.
How selfish then, from this point of view, are we not being when we analyze and reject pride from a common-sense perspective? Isn't this spitting on the plate that gave strength in the past to some brave people who ended up creating the favorable environments of freedom that we have today?
