Author: Mark Bittlestone
Mark Bittlestone is a stand-up comedian. He is also very gay man. Just a very gay man, doing a lot of straight-up gay stuff.
June is here so let’s be queer! It’s that time of year when businesses decide they care about gay people, yayy! Every queer person experiences their queerness differently, so here’s a few ways to examine or experience what being queer means to you over pride month.
My top 5 tips:
1) Go to Pride.
If you’re anywhere near a big or medium-sized city there will hopefully be a Pride you can go to. London’s is Saturday 2 July and I’ll be there on a float with my arse out hehehehe (but also actually). Go in kink, go in mesh, go in a suit, however you wanna celebrate it. That being said, obviously the segment of the queer community that shouts the loudest is the one that dresses up and gets drunk or otherwise for Pride and dances like crazy. That’s cool but also if that isn’t your thing it’s totally ok to not go and just have a cup of tea at home xox.
2) Learn ya history.
We never get taught anything about queerness and how it has manifested itself through the ages, or about the gay civil rights movement or Stonewall. The whole thing is fascinating, so June is a great time to get involved. I like interspersing an intellectual dive into queer history with getting blackout drunk with straight friends, just to carbon offset if ygm.
3) Pride is for everyone.
There’s a lot of transphobic gay men out there, so June is a great time for y’all to have a think about the purpose of Pride: a riot against a society that oppresses queerness at every turn and a celebration of difference. Trans women started the Stonewall riots which sparked the gay civil rights movement and now we need to be there for them alriiiiight. (How appropriate though that Pride started in a pub, like we don’t all drink enough already w/o this reminder.)
4) Have sex!
This is rich coming from me because I haven’t had sex in a month tbf – just cba atm ygm been on holiday and just busy! But queer sex is an act of celebration and rebellion in and of itself. So hop onto Grindr or meet someone irl (!) and get frisky. Or be like me and imagine what sex is like, it’s just as good hahaha (I’m so alone)!
5) Do nothing!
This is fine too. You don’t have to go to pride or read up on queer history and you shouldn’t feel like a “bad gay” if you don’t. Just being yourself is enough! God this has gone from being a comedy column into a recycled collection of “inspirational” captions from an influencer’s IG photos but I’m heeeeere for it.
Have a great Pride!