Latest chit-chat with Peter Brook of BeOneCity - the most hip and happening international relationship site for positive community
Here is my recent interview with Peter Brook (the BBC Plumbing guy, left). The gorgeous Brook was in a gladiator outfit last Sunday at a booth in Civic Center. Did you see him?
QueerGam: So Peter and David what do think of this year's pride theme: "United By Pride, Bound For Equality"?
Peter: It sounds crunchy and lovely as it is inspirational, affirmating San Francisco way. You gotta love SF for the hope and honesty that the city embraces even if it runs to the corny side. Corny is actually very sexy and the more I think about the slogan, the more I like it...I was trying to come up with something more snappy, more Hollywood, as a slogan for what is happening culturally in SF - the best I could do was: "Proud to no longer be Bound and Gagged." And there is this undeniable shift in values with the LGBT crew - toward more wholesome things - at least publicly. Frankly I love that the gays are now firmly re-claiming territory that the far right held as their jurisdiction.
QueerGam: Where do they go from here?
Peter: I think the far right needs to embrace a bit more discipline to go with their bondage. While "Bound for Equality" may have an almost dull thrumm of inevitability about it, I respect it as a position and as a statement of fact. It helps reduce the backlash and fight against equality for us gays - I think that is smart.
Peter: BeOneCity was at the SF Festival and I personally talked to seven (7) couples who were beaming with pride at being there and being able to get married. - with the matching outfits, matching, smiles and usually matching haircuts. Adorable and the love and respect for what was going down for them personally was tangible. It was the conversations I had with those couples which made me realize that this type of equality is so meaningful - for us as individuals, as couples, and for our world. It runs deep in the collective psyche, does marriage - it crosses every culture and by the word it makes the couples themselves sacred and respected. Hollywood shows you endlessly, everyone is touched by a wedding - a declaration of love for another is powerful.
It's sort of miraculous to think of really - the idea of me marrying my boyfriend was absurd to me not very long ago. I was reminded that there is something to be said for standing your ground, not mincing words, not going around to the back room to tip the guy you know to sneak in to get a seat at the table - I'd like to think that perhaps that era of political dynamics is coming to a close. Yay gays. You told it how it was with keeping up the demand for Marriage.
QueerGam: So where do you think queers go to since more and more of them are moving to better places to find a comfortable life?
Peter: The suburbs, unless I'm wrong.
QueerGam: Why San Francisco is a beacon of the kind of society we can be?
Peter: Well New York really tends to be the angry flashpoint that sparks the fire of revolution in the bellies of the lesbians and gays - and that city has some balls. I think San Francisco is such an open city, it is the testing ground for cultural shift to some extent. They are really all mad libertarian types there. They take in the stray cats. SF takes seemingly fledgling, weak and (usually) hopeful culture to her bosom and nurses it for the rest of the country to see at some point .
QueerGam: Where were you guys on Sunday? And how did you celebrate Pride?
Peter: I was in a gladiator outfit, at a booth in Civic Center, for BeOneCity.com promoting pride around HIV.
QueerGam: Is there anything, anything at all, you want to say to the poz community out there? Anything that might have been misrepresented in your previous media presentation.
Peter: God darling, I never read our press. It's all good even if its bad, in America so why? Actually, what I do want to correct, if I may be so bold, is the use of the term "poz" as nomaclature for those of us with HIV. Poz, in the same way boiz and girlz belonged to a time when pop abbreviations made things cuter and less scary, detracts from what we fully are. We are positive. We need to be embrace positive as something that fully applies to us. By taking back the whole word, I think we start to bring an association (a creation, if you will) of what we really are - undiminished. Practice saying positive.
QueerGam: Ok, POSITIVE it is from now on. Queers, listen! It is not poz, it's positive. I totally agree with Peter. Let's start saying correctly and positively.
QueerGam: So Peter and David what do think of this year's pride theme: "United By Pride, Bound For Equality"?
Peter: It sounds crunchy and lovely as it is inspirational, affirmating San Francisco way. You gotta love SF for the hope and honesty that the city embraces even if it runs to the corny side. Corny is actually very sexy and the more I think about the slogan, the more I like it...I was trying to come up with something more snappy, more Hollywood, as a slogan for what is happening culturally in SF - the best I could do was: "Proud to no longer be Bound and Gagged." And there is this undeniable shift in values with the LGBT crew - toward more wholesome things - at least publicly. Frankly I love that the gays are now firmly re-claiming territory that the far right held as their jurisdiction.
QueerGam: Where do they go from here?
Peter: I think the far right needs to embrace a bit more discipline to go with their bondage. While "Bound for Equality" may have an almost dull thrumm of inevitability about it, I respect it as a position and as a statement of fact. It helps reduce the backlash and fight against equality for us gays - I think that is smart.
Peter: BeOneCity was at the SF Festival and I personally talked to seven (7) couples who were beaming with pride at being there and being able to get married. - with the matching outfits, matching, smiles and usually matching haircuts. Adorable and the love and respect for what was going down for them personally was tangible. It was the conversations I had with those couples which made me realize that this type of equality is so meaningful - for us as individuals, as couples, and for our world. It runs deep in the collective psyche, does marriage - it crosses every culture and by the word it makes the couples themselves sacred and respected. Hollywood shows you endlessly, everyone is touched by a wedding - a declaration of love for another is powerful.
It's sort of miraculous to think of really - the idea of me marrying my boyfriend was absurd to me not very long ago. I was reminded that there is something to be said for standing your ground, not mincing words, not going around to the back room to tip the guy you know to sneak in to get a seat at the table - I'd like to think that perhaps that era of political dynamics is coming to a close. Yay gays. You told it how it was with keeping up the demand for Marriage.
QueerGam: So where do you think queers go to since more and more of them are moving to better places to find a comfortable life?
Peter: The suburbs, unless I'm wrong.
QueerGam: Why San Francisco is a beacon of the kind of society we can be?
Peter: Well New York really tends to be the angry flashpoint that sparks the fire of revolution in the bellies of the lesbians and gays - and that city has some balls. I think San Francisco is such an open city, it is the testing ground for cultural shift to some extent. They are really all mad libertarian types there. They take in the stray cats. SF takes seemingly fledgling, weak and (usually) hopeful culture to her bosom and nurses it for the rest of the country to see at some point .
QueerGam: Where were you guys on Sunday? And how did you celebrate Pride?
Peter: I was in a gladiator outfit, at a booth in Civic Center, for BeOneCity.com promoting pride around HIV.
QueerGam: Is there anything, anything at all, you want to say to the poz community out there? Anything that might have been misrepresented in your previous media presentation.
Peter: God darling, I never read our press. It's all good even if its bad, in America so why? Actually, what I do want to correct, if I may be so bold, is the use of the term "poz" as nomaclature for those of us with HIV. Poz, in the same way boiz and girlz belonged to a time when pop abbreviations made things cuter and less scary, detracts from what we fully are. We are positive. We need to be embrace positive as something that fully applies to us. By taking back the whole word, I think we start to bring an association (a creation, if you will) of what we really are - undiminished. Practice saying positive.
QueerGam: Ok, POSITIVE it is from now on. Queers, listen! It is not poz, it's positive. I totally agree with Peter. Let's start saying correctly and positively.