Home is where the rant is.

[kiya]

I hate the word "flaunt".

I hate the way that it gets applied to people doing the normal things in their normal lives -- lives that happen to be non-mainstream.

I hate the way it treats certain minorities as some sort of exotic circus animal, where everything they do that might remotely touch on their minority status is a performance, a trick.

The word means "ostentatious exhibition".

My religion does not make me an exhibit. My sexuality does not make me an exhibit. I will not cavort for the entertainment of the members of whatever group is getting to be called mainstream. I do not hold a partner's hand to shock children. My Khepri pendant does not exist to titillate. My life is not on your reality TV. And no amount of cracking that whip and crying "Don't flaunt!" will make me back, snarling, like one of those well-trained tigers putting on an act of ferocity, back into the closet until the next show. (Performances at noon, two-thirty, four-thirty, and seven; admission fourteen dollars, children under twelve half-price.)

If you see the edges of my life that differ from the edges of yours, that's because I'm not lying to you. Not because I'm showing off my alienness or make a lifestyle of display. I'm just not willing to lie anymore -- not to inflate myself like a peacock of Difference nor pretend to be something I'm not. Lying is too damn much effort, and it doesn't earn back anything even remotely worth the expenditure.

Comments

[redbird]

Amen, sister!

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Excellent points. Deception is not worth it, and frothers are the ones I'd accuse of flaunting any number of truly unpleasant traits and behaviors. Were I prone to that sort of thing. *g*

[elf]

I have tried so hard to flaunt my religion, my sexuality, my overall weirdness... and what I get from it is "that's a nice green in your hair; is that Manic Panic?"

Occasionally I consider moving to, or spending a long stretch visiting, someplace where just being me would be considered "flaunting." And then I could get all upset about the Horrible Persecution of Pagans Today, or something like that. As it is, I lose out on all those fun minor chances to educate people that come with being Noticeably Different. (To be Noticeably Different in the SF Bay Area, you have to stretch your earlobes to fit 2" discs... and the discs have to include obscene imagery. Or you have to wear a 6" mowhawk and a bone in your nose... with a business suit; wearing it with streetpunk clothes just makes you mostly invisible.)

I do sympathize. It's a royal pain to get "why are you being so ostentatious?" when what you were doing is wearing a small piece of religious jewelry, or holding hands on a park bench. And they don't deal well with, "why are you being so nosy? Do you make it a habit to question everyone who wears religious jewelry in public, or are you a Christian bigot/homophobe?"

You can try the clueless response.... be baffled that you've done anything at all that catches their attention, and make them spell it out to you. Of course, this only works if it's an individual accusation... if it's a coworker bitching about "those damn gays, always flaunting their perversions by kissing in public!" there's not a whole lot you can say. (Unless you want to play, "yeah, just like those damn monogamists, showing off their weird psychic-bondage fetish by wearing shackles on their fingers.")

[kiya]

Well, it is a lovely green, so that seems a reasonable response to me.

Mostly my interesting minor chances to educate have come without the whole "flaunting" thing, thank the gods. (I tend to bend people's brains a little by referring to my husband and my boyfriend without missing a beat anywhere. Usually they ask after the Meaningful Beat Of I'm Not Sure I Heard That Right.)

A friend of mine was wandering around with his then-boyfriend in a town that's a getaway site for gay couples a while back; they overheard someone comment derisively about all the gay folks, and he turned around and said, "This is a gay resort, you know." (Response to the people flaunting their cluelessness, I suppose.)

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Wow... yes, exactly. Thank you for putting that into clear, consise words, as is your gift.

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

Would you consider sending this to a newspaper or something? I know the Metro publishes such things, and it's just so perfectly true. You have a gift for putting things that bother into words that explain the bother in a way that makes perfect sense. Additionally, may I point people at this?

[kiya]

POint people all you want; it's a public post. :}

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Very well said.

It's extra fun when other groups who have to deal with this have members who are guilty of it, and those people get it wrong on top of everything else.

People really are hopelessly nosy and obnoxious.

[erin-c-1978.livejournal.com]

Pardon my going all teenybopper on you, but this *rocks*.

[the-real-diana.livejournal.com]

You have a fantastic way of putting a topic that I've been thinking about for a long time into the clear verbage that I lack. You've given me yet another moment of clarity- THANK YOU!