I kissed a girl...and I liked it?

Yes, this is about Glee.

Let's rant once again about socially important issues...like being gay. Like being gay and in the closet. Like being gay and being outed. Like being gay and coming out. Like being gay openly and proudly.

Being gay is not a desease. Being gay is not a choice. Being gay is not something you do because you're bored with your life or your boyfriend/husband/baby daddy is a douche. Being gay means you were born this way. Being gay means you are attracted to people of your own sex. Girls like girls and boys like boys. Simple. In theory, anyway. Reality is much more complicated.

Being gay means that life is one big coming out party. Every day, whether in your private life, or at work or in the public you have to make a conscious choice to either be who you are and share things about your life (my wife's home with the sick kids...) or act the way you want (hold hands with your love while walking down the street) or stay quiet and alter the way you interact with your loved one. Being gay means you are constantly having feelers out on the atmosphere around you and whether it's even safe to be you, be gay. It means that sometimes you need to scale down your PDA and being you in order to not make people around you uncomfortable.

Being gay means that you need to fight for and be vocal about the basic human rights like marriage, adoption, visitation at hospital and general recognition of your relationship every day for as long as you live because no one else is doing it for you.

Depending on the societal and religious atmosphere and the people around you being gay can either be really easy and wonderful or down right nasty and hard. Representation in the media is not often positive and when we see good role models, we grab on to them and won't let go. Obsess much?

Season 3 of Glee has been dealing with Santana's sexuality. She finally admitted to being gay, she's in a relationship(?) with Brittany, everyone at glee club knows but they don't talk about it. Then one day Finn outs Santana in the middle of the school hallway, it is overheard by someone, it ends up in a political ad and Santana is forced out of the closet without having any say in it. Then in last night's episode Finn decides that Let's embrace your awesomeness and gayness and sing songs about ladies, ladies loving ladies or by ladies who love ladies. It's all good, we're here for you.

Like I've said many times before, my life probably would have been easier have I had the understanding to accept and come out in my teens. It certainly would have kept me from making few mistakes BUT I was not ready so I denied it. I tried the "I'm gonna prove to myself (and everyone else that) I'm straight" -routine and had myself a big ole gay panic. But when I finally admitted it and embraced it I was so much happier for it. But it was my choice. No one forced me out of the closet. Having met T was a huge part of it too. How can you try to build a happy, healthy relationship if you're in the closet and can't share your happiness with the people in your life? There are so many internal hurdles you need to overcome before you can truly be happy and open with yourself and others. Being forced out of the closet can seriously hurt you and should not happen to anyone, no matter what the circumstances are.

So yesterday's episode of Glee, "I kissed a girl" was all about Santana coming out. Sort of. The glee clubbers sang a bunch of songs to show their support, Santana came out to her parents OFF screen (they were ok with it), and to her grandma ON screen, who threw her out. Then all the girls of glee club sang and danced to Katy Perry's "I kissed a girl". I've never liked the song and even though I love watching glee and will be watching that performance more than once in the very near future, I find that song to be very offensive to lesbians. Being gay is not fashionable. Being gay is not something you do because Katy Perry sings about it, or Lady Gaga says she's bi-sexual, or because Angelina Jolie once dated a woman. Kissing girls is not something you do just so that you can say you've done it and so that you can sing along Katy and be "cool for having done it". You don't kiss girls and hope your boyfriend doesn't mind it. You kiss girls because you WANT to. You ENJOY it. And they enjoy kissing you. You kiss girls because kissing boys is icky. Not a choice. You were born this way. It's in your DNA.

And the kicker? Santana and Brittany have not even KISSED yet on screen. Off screen they have sleep overs and take baths together. On screen they hug. On screen they kiss each other on the cheek. So...how can Santana know she likes kissing girls if she hasn't done it?

Guess I'm just a visual kind of person and need to SEE to believe it. If I didn't see it, it's not true/happening. So until I see an on screen smooch, I don't believe Santana knows what she's talking/singing about.

Once again, top notch performance by Naya Rivera and Heather Morris is as adorable as ever!

Moving on but staying in the category of shows with gay characters. You know you're getting old(er) when the moms of the show start being more your thing than the actual main characters! I love Pretty Little Liars and Shay Mitchell as Emily is just delicious beyond words but other than her for obvious reasons (her character is a lesbian), the other 3 main teenage characters are not doing it for me. They're good actresses, they are funny and do their jobs well but they are not attractive for me. But then we get to the mom department and Oh La La, boy are we talking. Laura Leighton (played Sydney on Melrose Place) as Hanna's mom and Holly Marie Combs (Piper on Charmed and Kimberly on Picket Fences) as Aria's mom are super hot!

According to imdb.com Picket Fences was on in USA from 1992 to -96 so I'm thinking it started in Finland around -93 or -94. Looking back now I think Holly Marie Combs was my first celebrity crush. Between Lauren Holly and Holly Marie Combs I didn't know who to cheer for! And yes, Costas Mandylor is hot too and I guess I sort of had a crush on him too but I might have also just been projecting. The rule #1 on being obsessive about a show you watch for the girls is to have a back up guy to talk about. "Costas Mandylor is soooooo hot! I can't wait for tonight when he's on TV" really means "Is is time to drool over Holly and Lauren yet?" I was so gay...SO GAY!

So yes, my gayness shone  through even when I wasn't looking! (Is this the way the verb "shine" is used in past tense? If not, "shine through")

Btw, I uploaded 22 videos of the cats on youtube yesterday. You can find them here. And it looks like it was 29. Oops! Not the best quality as my camera is not really made for this but who cares! These are the early days of my babies at home! And I'm a cat-a-razzi of the worst order, so sue me! Or don't watch the videos...but they're cute! Really cute!

Have a great day everyone and remember to watch Venice tonight! www.venicetheseries.com. No more freebies on youtube!

Later

Kodak moment

I'm so happy, my gaydar works!!! Ever since I saw this cashier at a local store I just KNEW he was gay. Well, I was like 95% sure he was gay. I was as sure about it as I was about Alvaro back at MSU international office and he turned out to be gay. You just gotta love social media! And how did I find out for sure? He looked up my profile on the Finnish equivalent of gay facebook. I, of course, don't have a picture up there so he might not know who I am, but I know who HE is and I know that he's gay so...I win! YAY for my gaydar! Of course this does absolutely nothing to help with the ladies but I've always known my gaydar works better on men than women so I'm just gonna have to live with it.

There is absolutely NOTHING that Brooklyn and Dunkin Donuts can do that is not worth snapping a picture of. Nothing. They are cute when they sleep, they're cute when they eat, they are cute when they purr, they are cute when they play, they are even cute when they annoy the hell out of me. They are just CUTE. I now basically have my camera with me at all times just so that I don't miss anything. Except when I go to the bathroom. Which would just be gross. But I'm missing great pictures ops. And now I'm really beginning to think that at least with Brooklyn I might have a shot of teaching him how to use the human toilet bowl. DD just hands out but Brooklyn gets up close and personal. When I flush, he gets up on his back paws and leans in and watches the water swirl. And after I left he just laid on top of the lid. I went to get my camera but he had moved already by the time I got back there.

I'm seeing the beginning stages of crazy-cat-lady-syndrom coming on. I talk about my cats all the time, I talk TO my cats all the time and I'm all sweet and sugary mush with them. And the baby talk. Please! It is just physically impossible to NOT talk to them like they're babies. Or like they understand anything I'm saying. But seriously, have you seen them? How cute are they?

Here's a video of Dunkin Donuts taking on a banana. Fruits can just be...dangerous and scary!

Brooklyn the great hunter got himself an UGG slipper earlier today which was caught on film but I'll post it another day.

To go back to my post from yesterday regarding Venice and TV shows... The thing about network shows with lesbian characters that annoy me is the hesitancy of which they touch each other. And the lack of intimacy and showing of affection. Not sure if it's the actresses, the directing, the network or what but with so many of these so called couples you wouldn't know they are a couple unless it's specifically addressed. With Grey's Anatomy season 7 once Callie and Arizona were "happy together" they acted like friends. If you didn't know they were "married"you'd never would have gotten it from the way they acted towards each other. The straight couples on the show were going at it like bunnies but the lesbian couple didn't even touch each other. No hand holding, no hair playing, no touching the face and NO kissing. With Brittany and Santana on Glee, unless they specifically mention that Santana is a lesbian or has the hots for Brittany you don't see it eaither. And they have not even kissed yet.

With Venice you don't see any hesitancy when Gina and Ani or Ani and Lara interact with each other and they've got the affection down to perfection. I don't necessarily need to see them going at it like bunnies but the fact that they can makes all the difference. And let's face it, NOT kissing or touching ever draws more attention than the occasional kiss or a hug. So to conclude...the acting on Venice is organic and relatable. And this concludes my gay rant.

Venice the Series

I never thought I'd pay for a subscription to watch a show on the internet, especially in my financial situation but here I am, paying for Venice the Series. I've talked about the importance of positive role models for gay youth and even adults who are trying to come to terms with their sexuality and how important it is to see LGBT representation on your TV/computer screen. As great as it is to see Callie and Arizona on Grey's Anatomy, Emily and whichever-girl-she's-currently-dating on Pretty Little Liars or Brittany and Santana on Glee, those characters and relationships are still scaled down to suit the sensibilities of the white male christian america. It's kinda ok to be gay as long as no or very little intimacy is shown. For a person living in a country/area/region where it is not cool to be gay TV and web shows might be the only way to get in touch with community and to actually see "happy, content couple" representing their sexual orientation and the type of relationship they might want to have. If your family and society is always telling you being gay is wrong, how will you learn otherwise?

Last spring I was on afterellen.com reading about a possible lesbian couple on an american soap. They had a message board dedicated for the couple and someone mentioned or compared them to "Otalia on Guiding Light", another lesbian soap couple on another soap which had been cancelled few years before. They had a youtube link which I watched and immediately got hooked on. I watched their whole story from beginning to end and I gotta say, it was one of the best if not THE best love story I've ever seen on TV. It took them 1,5 years to do but you could see the slow build up and really understand what their love was based on. BUT, they were never allowed to kiss or do anything more than hug or "head bump" on screen. And the hugging really decreased once they were actually "dating". While they were still just friends and roommates they hugged quite a lot. Beautiful love story but very frustrating. Had I watched it in real time I'd probably would have pulled my hair out!

The actresses playing "Otalia", Olivia and Natalia, Crystal Chappell and Jessica Leccia had mad mad MAD chemistry. And their hot. Like super hot. And they were willing to do more than what the network gave them. So when the show was cancelled Crystal created Venice to continue to work the story, chemistry and fan base they've cultivated during the Otalia storyline. Which is where paying for a subscription comes in. In order to do more than network TV was willing to show they needed to go online. No outside censorship, but also no network money or advertisers.

Yesterday was the 3rd season premiere and I was eagerly waiting by my computer at 10pm when the episode came online. First people gracing your screen are Crystal and Jessica's characters Gina and Ani in bed together. What a great start! Is it next Wednesday already???

Not to forget my viewing pleasure but among other things the music is great. They use a lot of indie/no-name musicians who've submitted their songs to be used on Venice and I personally have broaden my horizons when it comes to music because of Venice. And I've actually bought the songs via iTunes instead of downloading them from other sites. Because it turns out I am actually willing to pay for quality. And for my rights. And for awareness. And for class acts like Crystal to continue to do what she does for my community. So...if you want to see what the fuzz is all about, you can see the first episode of every season on Youtube, just search Venice the Series. Their channel also has behind the scenes material and "talking about season 3"thingy do where Crystal talks with some of the cast members about the upcoming season. She and Jessica are so funny together. And cute. So cute. It is impossible not to smile when you look at them. It also might be because I'm a lesbian. And I totally heart them. And I feel a little pervy for totally hearting straight women who have husbands and kids at home but I do. If I was Catholic I'd go to confession but since I'm not I'm just gonna... go see the first scene from last night's episode.

And here's the music to accompany that scene.

Gia Ciambotti- Right as Rain

www.venicetheseries.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/venicetheseries

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate!