Listen, homo: You’re in college in Seattle. Maybe you think
it’s a big deal that you’re gay because the small town you moved here
from thought it was a scandal—but you’re not in that small town
anymore, are you? Maybe you think it’s a big deal because your parents
are fundamentalist fascists who think it’s an abomination—but
they’re not living in your dorm, are they? You are now a resident of
one of the gayest/lesbianest cities in the country, and though we do
have our miscellaneous homophobes and bashers, the vast majority of
people you’ll run into here are more likely to be over it—over
your sexuality, your rainbow flag, your pierced nipple, all of
it—than outraged.
This is not to suggest that you should run off and have big gay sex
in the bathroom of, say, Studio Seven during a metal concert—or
in any sketchy bathroom, for that matter. Gays are, for the most part,
pretty seamlessly integrated into the life of this city, but just
because you’re in a predominantly gay-friendly place doesn’t mean you
have a license to be recklessly dumb.
Still, if you’re moping around decrying the hostility of the
straight world like you’re in The Boys in the Band or Well
of Loneliness (look ’em up), you need to get over it and start
enjoying this place. Having a hard time doing that? Get therapy at the
college health center if you need it—therapy will never be as
cheap for you as it is now, when your parents are basically paying for
it as part of tuition—or join a coming-out group at Seattle’s
LGBT Community Center. (www.seattlelgbt.org)
And then—this may sound harsh, but it’s for your own
good—STOP WHINING. You are lucky enough to be living the
dream of many a gay rights activist before you—not to mention the
wet dream of many an aging homo. Do you have any idea how many gays in
their 50s and 60s pay $39.99 a month to watch internet porn featuring
gay college students? And here you are: young, gay, and in college,
where every day is a potential dorm-room or frat-house porn
video—but without the sweaty creep hovering with his camera at
the edge of the frame. Get busy.
Now, once again, a caveat: Living the gay college life doesn’t give
you the green light to be stupid and self-destructive. If you graduate
with some hot memories, or a decent relationship or two under your
belt, great. If you graduate with an STI that you didn’t arrive with,
not so great. You can catch everything in college that you can catch in
the big gay world, so start living the big gay reality: Get tested for
HIV regularly (again, you can probably put this on your parents’ tab
without them knowing via the campus health center), make sure your
partners are keeping track of their own HIV status, and while you’re at
it, get tested for all the other common STIs as well—gonorrhea,
syphilis, chlamydia. Use condoms for sex outside of a committed
monogamous relationship. Don’t date meth-heads. Ever. Don’t do meth
yourself. Ever.
Got it? Good.
Now get out there and meet someone. If you don’t like who you’re
meeting on campus or online, Seattle’s gay bars and gay-friendly coffee
houses are almost all on Capitol Hill. Find the intersection of Pine
Street and 11th Avenue, look up and wave your thanks to me up here in
the Stranger offices, and then walk in a big loop, west on
Pine Street to Boren Avenue, south on Boren Avenue to Pike Street, east
on Pike Street to 14th Avenue, and north on 14th Avenue to Pine, then
west back to where you started—you’ll quickly find almost every
gay bar and gay-friendly coffeehouse on Capitol Hill that way. If the
guys or gals in the bars seem vapid and you’re looking for an involved
activist type, try your campus queer group.
Still hesitant about being your gayest gay self? Then consider the
cautionary tales in the news these days. Do you think Jim McGreevey,
the governor of New Jersey until his secret gay life spilled out,
wishes he could have been open about his sexuality in college? Do you
think that Larry Craig, the disgraced senator from Idaho arrested for
soliciting gay sex in a Minnesota airport bathroom, now wishes he’d
been able to start his adult life as an out gay man? Do you think that
Rosie O’Donnell wishes she’d found a way to be public about her
sexuality earlier?
Yes, yes, and yes. They all, undoubtedly, do. And here you are,
younger than them, cuter than them, living in a more homo-tolerant
world than they did when they were your age, and you’d hesitate to take
advantage of it?
What the hell is your problem? 
