Has 'Gay Owned' Losts Its Appeal As Late?

We used to use the "gay owned and operated" subtitle on the cover of our magazine and website, to connect with the guys buying our products. I know it does sound somewhat prejudice, However, I at one time was married to a woman for 7 years and my partner was married for 16 years, and to use the "gay owned and operated" quote is more of a Proud and prideful thing. I was really proud of ourselves because we were able to open a niche market and using it for that. Now we use other subtitles.(not that I'm not proud now just time to move on to something different) For what it is worth from my eye's,,,, you should only use it (gay owned and operated) if your proud of it. Other than that I didn't see where it made a hill of beans one way or the other.
Just my experience. :o)

"Gay owned and operated" came from a time when there were so few gay businesses and since a lot of straight people would avoid those businesses because of their own personal bias, gay people would frequent them so that they could support them. There was also a bit of reverse descrimination as some gay people decided to only frequent gay owned businesses.

Here in LA nobody cares if a business is gay owned or not because it's a lot more accepted and becoming a non-issue. Sadly, though, that doesn't have any affect over our political climate, where we still have to fight for basic civil rights, but I digress. :)

This thread has been relatively civilized in what's been a divisive issue in the past. Perhaps because it's among the gay community.

Let me preface my next comments by saying I see the points you're all making and there's absolutely NO reason why you shouldn't be proud to be gay. Everybody should be proud of who they are. Also, I'm NOT meaning to start an argument here, just trying to make a point-an entirely different one than what my original post was about, as well as get some insight.

I know a fellow who runs a black dating site. I don't think he has "Black owned and operated" on it, but I can't say for sure. Looking at it from his perspective, I can see why me might WANT to have that on there. Specifically to show his target audience that he knows what they want-even if only for show to his community. Very similiar to some of the responses some of you have given about the "Gay owned and operated" sites.

However, I'm curious to know the response from some of you if ANY site out there, had "White operated and owned" on it.

I haven't even finished typing and I can already hear the cries of racism. Would this community, a community of people that's prejudiced against in their everyday lives see it as such? Would you see it as unnecessary for them to declare their pride because they're the "Dominant" (please, for lack of a better term coming to mind) race and they're therefore rubbing it in all of minorities faces for simply being "Proud to be white?"

What if a site said "Straight owned and operated?" Would you as a person, or the community as a whole be offended by that? The reason I ask this is because I've heard that the gay community would take this as a personal affront.

Are people allowed to be proud that they're white, male, straight and heterosexual? Or must they keep their pride to themselves out of fear of offending someone?

Is it only okay for the minorities and the repressed to show their pride publicly nowadays?

The reason for minorities to have a special day, celebration or reason to have "pride" is because they are often given reasons to feel shame about who they are. Look at our history and the way black people and gay people have been treated in the past. It took a long time for me to stop feeling ashamed that I was gay and finally be able to be in public and not afraid to be myself. In Pittsburgh in the 90's, you often didn't even see other gay people, unless you went to a gay bar, until the one day a year when we had the gay pride festival. We got to walk around in the sunshine and hold hands with our lovers and just be ourselves, and then it was back to all the hiding in the shadows. Things are getting better now, but it's been a long road.

For me its still a selling point whether the business is online or off. Its not the only selling point but it weighs heavily in favour. Sometimes its the factor that I take into account if all other things are equal.

Naturally, if someone just slaps the slogan up but isn't really gay or has a token gay person working for them -- well that also plays a part too.

Basically, I like to support GLBT businesses whenever/wherever possible.

I agree that gayowned is a selling point for some, for others it's a political statement, for others it's a statement of pride. I've put on my site "Original content shot by me for this site only." and through the stories on the site the surfers knows I'm family. I haven't been swayed as of yet to declare "gay owned" on my site as it's quite obvious.

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Originally Posted by PlugInFeeds-Ron

Are people allowed to be proud that they're white, male, straight and heterosexual? Or must they keep their pride to themselves out of fear of offending someone?

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Be proud of who you are! Celebrate it.. and if you feel the need.. tell the world in whatever way you like! Be proud of your family history, your world heritage, no matter what skin color or sexuality. Every human in existance on this earth has generations of history from ancestors thousands of years back that should be remembered and celebrated. The sacrifice that those before you made so that you can exist today are a wonderful thing. They all deserve our honor and rememberance.

There's more to being proud of who you then your skin color or sexuality don't you think? Our Gay community in particular has been liberated only in the last few decades.. so our current generation is made of those who fought for us to be free to openly state our sexuality with pride. The thing that sets the Gay community apart is that it spans over every race / religious / and economic boundary in our society. So identification of those in your clan isn't as simple as skin color, religion, etc.

At some point in the future the way people have sex will not determine their value in our society. Until then you can expect those in our minority to be very vocal of who we are and that we exist.

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Originally Posted by Squirt

At some point in the future the way people have sex will not determine their value in our society. Until then you can expect those in our minority to be very vocal of who we are and that we exist.

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Squirt, I liked your post but this last statement made me think of something I wanted to comment upon. I often hear people regard gay issues by saying "who you sleep with", like "who you sleep with is your business". But I don't consider myself gay just because I sleep with men. There are long periods of time (way too long, if you ask me, lol) where I'm not sleeping with anyone. Do I suddenly stop being gay? No. Being gay is who I am. It colors every aspect of my life the way being straight colors every aspect of a straight person's life. And don't tell me it doesn't. I spend a lot of time being the sole gay person in a group full of straight people and I found that I had no identity. A straight person can talk about dating, marriage, romance, families, raising children, sexual attraction and many other things and it's all geared towards being straight. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, it's part of being human. But when I would want to talk about these same things among my straight friends there was always someone who accused me of flaunting my sexuality in thier face. "Why do you always have to talk about gay stuff?" they would ask, even if I was talking about the exact same things they were only from my perspective. So, it's not simply about who you sleep with. If I never have sex again I will always still be a gay man.

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Originally Posted by WWC-DonMike

Squirt, I liked your post but this last statement made me think of something I wanted to comment upon. I often hear people regard gay issues by saying "who you sleep with", like "who you sleep with is your business". But I don't consider myself gay just because I sleep with men. There are long periods of time (way too long, if you ask me, lol) where I'm not sleeping with anyone. Do I suddenly stop being gay? No. Being gay is who I am. It colors every aspect of my life the way being straight colors every aspect of a straight person's life. And don't tell me it doesn't. I spend a lot of time being the sole gay person in a group full of straight people and I found that I had no identity. A straight person can talk about dating, marriage, romance, families, raising children, sexual attraction and many other things and it's all geared towards being straight. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, it's part of being human. But when I would want to talk about these same things among my straight friends there was always someone who accused me of flaunting my sexuality in thier face. "Why do you always have to talk about gay stuff?" they would ask, even if I was talking about the exact same things they were only from my perspective. So, it's not simply about who you sleep with. If I never have sex again I will always still be a gay man.

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Seriously Don, this is part of MY problem.

Why do you have no identity when you're sitting with a group of straight people discussing relationships? Do they not value your opinion, or are you insecure that your opinion won't be respected because of your preferences?

Hmm. As I'm typing this I'm thinking I'm the most open and tolerant person to ever bless the face of the earth.

I was thinking about myself voicing my opinion about relationships in a group of gay people, and wonder if they'd value MY opinion. I don't know that they would. So I don't think the situation is any different.

Now, if I was in a room with you and a bunch of straight friends discussing relationships, I wouldn't think TWICE about the fact that you're gay and that when you're discussing your relationship, it's with another man, so I WOULD value your opinion the same as anyone else there.

I've said this many times. If there's one thing I can't stand it's racism and intolerance towards others. I believe I treat everyone the same no matter their age, sex, religion, sexual preference etc. So when I see things like "Gay owned and operated", while I understand the motives, I still see it as unnecessary and divisive.

But I have to keep in mind that you being overtly proud of who you are by having that statement on your site, isn't for my benefit, but for yours. It's also not a statement against people like me, but those that don't accept you for who you are.

Not having to live with discrimination daily, and refusing to accept it in any form, sometimes I forget that.

Good point, Ron. That is the funny thing about prejudice, it can sometimes come from the most unlikely of places. I used to hang out with a really artsy crowd and people were really open about thier sexuality. We were all involved with the Rocky Horrror scene and people were swapping partners, and experimenting with being bi and having threesomes and all that. So it was quite a shock to be told something so against who I was by someone in that group. It's not all straight people I've encountered that problem with, mind you. I guess there are bad eggs in any bunch.

I actually got into an argument with my sister one time over the Gay & Lesbian yellow pages. Because she said it was being very exclusive having our own phone book and wouldn't we be pissed if they made a Straight yellow pages. I said they have a straight yellow pages, it's called "The yellow pages". LOL!

Here's the situation on that end. If I was dating someone and I wanted to buy flowers for him, and I picked a name at random out of the phone book, I could be in for a terribly incomfortable experience if he was really homophobic. Now, I'm not that thin skinned and I would just deal with it. But sometimes when things are really stressful I'm just not up for a fight. So it's nice to know I have a directory of gay friendly companies at my disposal so if I need to take care of something and feel secure that I'm not going to be hassled for just being myself then I'm more than happy to support that. And believe me, I've been in garages getting my car worked on where the mechanics were using the word "fag" in every other sentence and I've been in grocery stores where the checkout girl made jokes about my friend (who was straight) because he was buying some kind of flowery potpourri air freshener and how he must be 'funny' because he was buying it. So, prejudice is alive an well.

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Originally Posted by Chilihost

I think its a good selling point to surfers or webmasters who have been to obviously straight-owned sites and have been disappointed with the results.

cheers,
Luke

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I agree with Luke on this one. For sites directed at surfers [glbtqi search engines, lifestyle, resource sites whatever] I think that knowing the site is gay owned [or at least gay operated] reassures some surfers they are getting honest and real opinions from another glbtqi person.

I think the internet somewhat rides on personal tastes these days, people doing what comes naturally to them or they have an intense interest in. And that shows through the site, article, photoset, movie, whatever... =)

PFFFT!

Know your product
Do your research
Give value for the membership
Work with companies that are honest and like-minded


Since more than half of gay content is gay for pay, in my mind, that renders "gay-owned" moot.