Get Fucked

I've never been a fan of Michelle Shocked's music. It's just not my thing. I never really had an opinion of her, either, before now. Music I don't care for is easy enough to avoid, and I can acknowledge when someone has legitimate talent, even though their art doesn't appeal to me. I'm sure she's talented, but her talents don't produce anything I've ever cared to listen to.

So, yeah. She's a musician who's experienced a certain level of success - most of it around two decades ago. She's also, it turns out, a self-loathing homophobe. I say "self-loathing" because Michelle Shocked is at least bisexual, at most homosexual. I'm not saying this just because her music sounds like dyke music or she's always worn what could pass for a lesbian uniform. I say it because it's a long-established fact that Michelle Shocked has had intimate relationships with women. I'm not just referring to the suddenly-legendary "coming out" interview, where direct reference is made to her identifying as a lesbian and having female lovers (or so everyone who reads it seems to think, except for Shocked, herself.) I'm basing this statement on the fact that several people I know, and have every reason to believe, witnessed Shocked being intimate with women in very public settings. Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons, who isn't just some anonymous blogger with an axe to grind, but a personal friend of mine who has nothing to gain by making up such a story, even mentions seeing Shocked making out with a woman in San Francisco's Castro Theater. And let me make one thing clear: despite what they taught you in 8th grade health ed class, or what you read in Dear Abby 30 years ago, heterosexual women do not make out with or have sex with other women. Whoever invented THAT myth to make scared, nervous, self-loathing gay or bisexual people feel as if they were "normal" really should be shot. If you're a dude and you're jerking off other men or sucking another dude's cock? You're at least bisexual. If you're a woman, and you've engaging in make-out sessions with other women, bedding down with them, dating them, calling them your girlfriends or lovers? You're at least bisexual. And, honestly? You're probably gay. Yeah, that'll annoy some people...mostly people who have some faggish skeletons in their closets that they'd like to forget. Ask me if I care. I spend most of my day annoyed. Join the fucking club.

But that's not my point. I wanted to write, today, because I've seen several people online mentioning that, while Michelle Shocked said some awful things about homosexuality, she's clearly having problems of a psychological nature. "She needs to have her meds adjusted." I'm hearing that one a lot. Also, "Shes lost the plot." Most disturbing, though, I'm also hearing, "She's full of self-loathing, and obviously has some emotional problems, so I feel sort of sorry for her."

Um. WHY? Why would anyone feel sorry for a bigot? Because she's gay or bisexual, herself, despite her own best efforts to bury the past and deny her identity? That doesn't give her a free pass. In my book, it makes her worse than a xenophobe. And I'm not saying she owes the world even an inkling of information about her sexuality. I don't believe any of us has a right to out a closeted homosexual, unless that closeted homosexual makes an effort to not only hide their identity, but to make the rest of us suffer for ours. In that case, all bets are off. And this is exactly what Michelle Shocked has done. That anyone has pity for her is beyond me. She's not some poor victim who is without blame. She's a person who had an audience and used it as an opportunity to spew hate speech about me and people like me. She's not just someone closeted and full of self-loathing. She's like a light-skinned black person who not only passes for white, but fights for the Confederate Army to defend the right to own slaves. She's like a Jew who doesn't just hide her religion from the SS, but sells other Jews down the river.  She's like a woman who isn't satisfied to simply not identity as a feminist, but makes it her job to deny other women the right to equity in the workplace, reproductive freedom, and the right to vote. She's a fucking Log Cabin Republican turned up to 11. When the hell did LGBT people start making excuses for and rationalizing hate speech?

Does Michelle Shocked have some sort of psych disability? I'm not a doctor. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe she's just an asshole. Maybe she really truly does have psych problems. I suspect Anita Bryant, George Wallace, Ted Nugent, Mussolini, Fidel Castro, and Richard Nixon all had or have some psych problems, too. And you know what? They can still all get fucked. And so can Michelle Shocked. I don't care how many vaginas she's been up close and personal with - she's a bigot, and an enemy of the equal rights movement. I don't feel sorry for her. I hate her stupid guts.