Living in the inner suburbs of Sydney, it is easy to become blasé about homosexuality. Gay men are everywhere: streets, cafés, shops, neighbouring houses, dog parks, and gyms. I live near Surry Hills Shopping Centre, an otherwise unspectacular mini-mall. Early evening, however, the supermarket aisles are choked with well-groomed gay men making a show of checking out the produce. I have to confess, after the initial voyeuristic delight, I have come to find this concentration of gay men tiresome. The tanned skin, the razor sharp hair-styles, the muscles, the tattoos and, most annoyingly, the ubiquitous army pants – they blur into a crowd of cosmopolitan conformity. As I crankily push around the shopping cart, clad in my shapeless tracksuit pants and wine-stained T-shirt, I have to suppress the desire to run down the odd unsuspecting homosexual, dangerously separated from his pack.
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