9.14.12 Adam News, Fashion Police Tonight

Joan with her mindset of yesteryear - I'm not even going to get into - no point there. I agree she was nice to him based on her usual standards.

I think there is a reason Adam gets asked the gay questions so much more than others and that is where his pioneer status becomes quite evident.

Of course others have come out before him, but the usual m.o. is to make that seemingly necessary soapbox announcement about being gay and then withdraw and remove the topic back into the world of privacy.

See Anderson Cooper, see Ricky Martin, Lance Bass, Elton John, etc.

In most cases people will explain how it was a very difficult step to come out and they then ask to respect their privacy. And besides the obnoxious media like Perez and similar low-lives, for the most part, the world grants that request and deals with the topic with some caution when talking about this topic.

Adam did not do that. He stated that he is comfortable with it, that there is nothing to hide, gay pride - here I come. He opened the paths of conversation, both the PC ones as well as the not so PC ones and he did so with his fans as well as the public at large. We fans are casually talking about PAEs and Freaks and depending on context, refer to him in female terms (Queen, Lady, etc.) in an humorous way, because he allows it. While we are all balancing the need for respect with talking openly, there is no question for me that Adam has pushed the possibilities for open dialog much further along.

We can laugh with him, we can discuss things and Adam has intentionally put himself into the middle of this conversation vortex. Given the many tabus and the sensitivity of the overall topic, there is a huge pent up need to have open discussion. Adam allowed this to happen in our fandom and in the general public too.

And that is where he is stepping into new terrain.

The difficulty for him now is, that this has taken on a life of its own that he cannot control it anymore and that is spinning on its own terms, just using his name and his brand in the process. As if we all could claim public ownership of him, because he is a celebrity.

He is helping to pave a way to normalcy in the interaction between straight and gay, and this is a wonderful thing. Oprah was right when she said that he moved the milemarkers already.

But the cost for him is enormous. Because now this sticks to him like glue. He has a hard time getting away from it ever. And the only way out is the path forward or what Adam calls post-gay in interviews, but at least in the US that path is still a long one to walk.

Journalists are bringing it back to this topic because Adam has defined his public image with those terms. I think that when he did that originally, he first of all did it because he felt it was right and honest to do so, but also because he probably thought that once he had explained himself, the topic would go away, because why regurgitate what is already known. I think he underestimated the need or greed the rest of the world would have to go over this topic again and again, be it for ratings or other pretentious reasons.

One thing Adam could do is ask a few questions back. Why is the straight world so interested to discuss this, given that the basic answer is already known? What is it really that we or the journalists that are interviewing him are after? Why does it matter? Because I do think that our times today need to answer for themselves why they are so obsessed with that topic.

We don't care to know everything about other people's sexuality in other areas. Why is homosexuality so different? We are not running around asking people who we newly meet to tell us about the latest affair they had, or what their lifestyle choices in other personal areas are, even though knowing that would allow us insight into their character and behavior. But we understand privacy boundaries there and respect that some things are none of our business. So how is 'gay' different?

There must be reasons why our times today are so excessively interested in this topic. And the answers to this lie in straight world or the overall world as a whole, they are not lying with the gay community itself.