Gay Is No Joke

Being gay is no joke.
It’s walking into a room in heels, slapping someone’s drink out of their hand, telling them their haircut is a hate crime, then fucking their boyfriend to prove a point. Hilarious when we do it, a full HR investigation when anyone else tries.

That Gay Friend

Everyone loves a flamboyant friend at brunch, the one who can turn an awkward silence into a roast so savage your therapist will later call it a “formative event” and bill you twice. They love the queer coworker who will save the company’s diversity photo shoot. Or the Pride parade selfie that lets them announce they are an “ally” until it’s time to actually speak up. But being gay is not just rainbows, sequins, and drag queens who could verbally dismember you before their lashes are even glued on. It is a constant balancing act between living out loud and making sure you do not get shoved back into a time when queer meant criminal and holding hands in public meant checking over your shoulder for someone with a Bible or a badge, or worse, someone who looks like they run a youth group but keeps a baseball bat in the car.

Rights of the Gays

Here is the fun bit. Rights are not permanent. They are like a bad hookup that disappears by morning without a message, a coffee, or even the decency to steal something you can replace. One election, one smug minister who thinks God leaves him voicemails, and suddenly your marriage license is under review and your Pride parade is cancelled for security reasons. The security risk, apparently, being the national emergency of two women kissing near a churro stand while a seven-year-old asks their mum for extra sprinkles, and Karen from the PTA is frantically calling the mayor.

It is not just one country. Russia turned love is love into love is illegal. Uganda handed out anti-gay laws like condoms at a frat party, except these ones are designed to screw you over without the lube. Poland created LGBT-free zones, which is just a laminated hate note with better graphic design and a municipal stamp. Even in countries that love to call themselves progressive. We are only a few headlines away from the old familiar. “We are not banning you, we are just restricting your freedoms for your own good.” Which is the political equivalent of “I am not cheating, I am just sleeping with other people behind your back, big difference.” Like a guy I dated briefly, that inspired the memoir Good Luck Getting Rid of Me.

The Boiling Frog

We have all heard the boiling frog analogy. Throw a frog into boiling water and it jumps out. Turn the heat up slowly and it sits there until it is a main course. That is us. The temperature is rising while we are busy arguing about whether rainbow capitalism is still worth showing up for if all you get is a free tote bag and a warm can of Diet Coke. It starts with a right quietly ignored, a policy unenforced, a slow slide in public opinion. One day you are waving a rainbow flag. The next you are Googling asylum application and wondering if your VPN is about to be outlawed. Hello China, population roughly 1.4 billion, give or take whoever just disappeared for saying something gay on the internet.

And yes, sometimes it is subtle. Sometimes it is a shift in the tone of the media. A politician dropping a line “by accident,” or protections being stripped so quietly you barely notice until it’s too late. Other times it is as blatant as a Grindr date who swore he was “just looking to cuddle” and now has your credit card, your dog, and a set of keys to your apartment. One day you are out in the open, the next you are back in the closet trying to remember where you put the key, the lightbulb, and your dignity.

So yes, we can joke, we can be camp, we can glitter ourselves into something that looks like a human-sized Christmas ornament. But do not forget, being yourself is a luxury. A fragile, overpriced, constantly threatened luxury. And like all luxuries, it can be repossessed faster than you can say ‘mandatory heterosexuality’ and find yourself in a cardigan at a suburban barbecue pretending to care about lawn fertiliser.

Gay Rights Everywhere

Not long ago, the UK was jailing men for buggery, the US had sodomy laws until 2003, and Australia treated being gay like a livestock offence. That’s this century, not the Dark Ages.

Elsewhere, the Middle East is still perfecting medieval cosplay. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen can legally kill you for having a boyfriend. Brunei briefly introduced death by stoning in 2019, then “paused” it like a bad Netflix show, ready to bring it back whenever they get bored. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan still hand out prison sentences, and Singapore only ditched its colonial anti-gay law in 2022.

And just to keep things spicy, countries like Hungary, Poland, and Russia have taken the scenic route backwards. Banning Pride, outlawing “gay propaganda,” or declaring entire towns “LGBT-free zones,” which is basically just laminated homophobia.

Moral of the story? Rights are fragile. They’re not heirlooms, they’re on loan. And depending on who wins the next election, you could go from “married with benefits” to “criminal with a court date”. Faster than you can say “but it’s 2025.”

Gay, Bit by Bit

Think this will never touch you? The fact that I write gay erotica and you can read it is something we take for granted. Not long ago in many places, you could not. In some, you still cannot. Which is why we have to keep our eyes open. Stick together, and cut off even the smallest hint of rights being taken away. Whether it happens in your city, another city in your country, or on the other side of the planet. We are not one country, we are a planet, and our rights are global.

We stick together or we fall apart. Enjoy the parade. Dance on the float. Post the photo.
Just keep the closet door on its hinges. You might need it sooner than you think.