This is funny?

Because I swear to God, Salon already ran this article.

The author can't expect us to believe that this is anything but a joke, and a dumb and rather insulting joke at that.

Anticipating the negative reaction is no excuse. Sterotypes are stereotypes, even if you find them appealing.

Before anyone brings it up, I'll say a word about camp humor. The reasoning behind it is very complex (clue: it is actually making fun of heterosexuals) and very few straight people can jump on that bandwagon and steer it correctly. It's like white people trying to use the word "nigger" in a positive sense.

an article very, very, VERY similar to this one was on salon, oh, a couple of years ago maybe? I can't remember when, but I remember reading it. I thought it was weird the first time, and I think it's weird now.

you're no erma bombeck--not funny, not insightful, just dumb

Pfffft. Straight people need to laugh. Occasionally (horror of horrors!) the jokes on you. I'd certainly have a hard time relating to a male child who was a mainstream meathead like many I've met. Don't get me wrong... some of my best friends are straight.

I actually did Laugh Out Loud, reading this.

One of the painful things about straight people, like white people, is that they have a hard time believing queer/brown/feminist/etc people actually have a sense of humour. A pretty wicked one, some of the time, laughing at themselves too.

I prescribe more exposure to George Carlin, may allah grant him peace.

Not.

I have a son. He is 15. He is prickly, immature and argumentative. He is also smart, witty and artistic. Sometimes we communicate beautifully. Sometimes, we speak different languages.

I also have gay friends. Lots of them. Close enough friends to know that coming out is hard, and painful, and sometimes even dangerous. I know people who have been disowned by their parents, and people who would be if they stopped pretending they were someone they are not. Would I treat my son this way? Of course not. Do I wish him the trauma and fear of coming out, the melancholy of not having his own biological children, or the hypocrisy of marrying to be in the mainstream while living on the down low? I think not.

I have news for you, Sarah. No matter how cool and enlightened and self-satisfied and gay-friendly your momma is, it's not easy being gay. If you don't believe me, I suggest you google Mathew Shepherd.

Sadly, apparently there WERE some of those.

My Credentials: Gay here, Politically Involved, Sensitive to 'political correctness', but also having a sense of humor.

This WAS funny, and the best line was the one quoted above which shows/predicts that there'd be some whining, over-caffeinated touchy-feely readers.

This has no place on salon. Not funny and quite insulting.Get with it.

It's not a question of whether it's offensive. I would say that it was fairly innocuous--except maybe for glamorizing chinchilla mass murder. But mainly it seemed obvious. I didn't see a lot of development of the idea that went beyond "one painful flaw -- he's straight." Was there a twist somewhere? Was it the idea that a straight son with gay sensibilities was the ideal? Eh, I read to the end. I suppose that's worth something.

Haha, stereotypes. For some reason it's still considered okay to make fun of gay people...or poke fun at stereotypes of them. Sarah seems to have no problem with this, yet I can guarantee the same article could not be written on anything other than a white supremacists website if the world "homosexual" was replaced with "black person" or "jew". Imagine an article in which it was written, "I just want a traditional black friend, one who listens to jazz and has big red lips". Defining homosexuality as an appreciation for doorknobs, no matter how satirical your comments are in your own head, is no less offensive than calling me a Jew who just likes money. Watch it, you might be the next Michael Richards. To me, you already are.

...and not in a good way.

use a sense of humor about themselves.

Didn't Ayelet Waldman write nearly the same column a couple of years ago?

I reiterate, this would not be okay if done about any other oppressed, marginalized group of people. Just because satires like this and about homosexuality exist, does not mean they are okay, they are a sign of the state of equality for homosexuals.

This is what always happens with social movements, breakthroughs are achieved, and the privileged sigh with relief and continue to oppress- i.e. queer people made several breakthroughs in media outlets and politics over the last few years, which made many think it okay to make fun of them or their stereotypes.

The struggle for equality- the struggle to allow queer people to live without the threat of violence, depression, self-hatred, rejection, and a plethora of negativity in their lives- is still VERY much in its infancy. Seeing queers on TV does not make it okay to make fun of them. The existence of mass-culturally accepted queers does should not imply that most would be okay with an article like this.

Once again, "I wish I just had a traditional Mexican friend, who wore sombreros and played "La Cucaracha" all day" would fly 50 years ago, but would not fly today. How mass culture perceives and portrays homosexuality is still stuck in this prejudice state. I do not mean to say that race and ethnicity are not as well, but I feel drawing the connection between the struggles can help. All equality struggles are still very real, and very present. It's just that a few white liberals, and even some marginalized people, declared it okay to start writing articles like this.

I could be wrong but I am guessing the but of the joke is the insanely self absorbed mother for whom, her son is an accessory only placed on the earth to fullfill her life instead of living his own.

Hence the disapointment that her sone is heterosexual and not rightly obsessed with his own mother.

Note for example that if her son were gay this has little to do with his own life but would transform her (Through gay magic one suposes) from a frumpy Ma Kettle to a lavish Auntie Mame.

One could further imagine the argument for the joke continue on by placing the reverse argument at the feet of parents who are upset about their children's homosexuality, they they too are forgetting that their children were not placed on this earth merely to serve their parent's fantasies of children, but are fully formed humans in their own right.

So yes, like a modest proposal the argument is not meant to be taken seriously, but extrapolated from it's burlesque into a critique of modern adult notions of self agrandizment through one's children.

At least that's my guess...there might even be a slam on baby einstein in there too, with reference to her son not being interested in the right aspect of the educational programming of Will and Grace, but I could just be reading more into that than is there.