How the Homosexuals Saved Civilization - Cathy Crimmins [8]
Of course, these definitions are always shifting. Quiche was once considered an effeminate food, and now it ’s a staple at airport restaurants. Earrings on men were gay until blue-collar guys started adopting the look.
A female friend of mine used to play a game: straight florist, gay florist. Now, by the Lenny Bruce standard, all florists would be gay. But when my friend (who had many operations) was lying in her hospital bed, it was easy for her to tell immediately the origins of the floral arrangements that arrived in her sickroom. The straight ones always contained carnations and scruffy mums and other boring flowers. Even arriving at varied heights and textures seemed to be a major challenge for the straight florists. So what made the gay bouquets so wonderful? They were fragrant, hip, tropical, and amazing in their juxtaposition of perennials and exotic filler material, such as tropical grasses and twisted woods.
One time I ate in a cheap Italian restaurant in Philadelphia with terrible décor. One major wall was sponge-painted in coarse circles of two mismatched hues. My dining partner (a straight woman) said it before I could: “Gosh, I’ve never seen heterosexual sponge painting before.”
I have a friend, a floral designer, whose tastes perfectly reflect the gay aesthetic. Before he was a designer, he was a chef, and before that, a window dresser for a major department store. He practiced this last profession while he was married—his marriage lasted seventeen years, and he says he will always be in love with his wife, “only she is the wrong sex.” This friend, St. James, has the most highly honed gay aesthetic I’ve ever encountered. Everything he does is impeccable, from the perfect potato pancakes he cooks for his Jewish Hanukkah dinner clients (he is a goy) to the beautiful Christmas packages he wraps and distributes each year. We have a joke within our social circle—we try to make up one another’s epitaphs. We’ve already decided that St. James’s epitaph will be “Wrapped Without Tape.” His packages are perfectly presented, nestled in Japanese rice paper and tied with gorgeous chiffon ribbons in muted pastel hues.
I thought about these ribbons when shopping in a small tourist town with my fourteen-year-old daughter and David, a sixteen-year-old boy she calls her “gay husband.” At one dress shop, David effortlessly picked out a dress for my daughter. It was black with a beautiful gored fit through the stomach and thighs. She didn’t want to try it on; he insisted. The thing turned out to be a miracle garment—the little black dress you would discover in utopia. It made her look fifteen pounds lighter, sophisticated, and trim. We bought it. “I found you this dress,” said David, “so I have fulfilled my function as a gay man.” Then he giggled.
In a gift shop, we came upon a display of the exact same chiffon ribbons my friend St. James uses for his perfect packages. Actually, we didn’t come upon them—David saw them and drew us over. “I love these!” he said, fluttering his hands toward the display. I started to say that my friend used the same ones, but then stopped: What does it matter? They are exquisite ribbons, and I can’t imagine any straight boy even noticing them. It was the gay aesthetic at work.
Ethnic “Gay” Stereotypes
An aesthetic is a shared cultural vision. Communities develop habits and tastes. We can usually make generalizations about the aesthetic sensibility of certain ethnic groups. For example, I can go into a Thai restaurant and know that there will always be fresh flowers, and probably decorative fabrics. The sets