the oppression of freedom of speech (deviation)

Recently, I’ve noticed that online communities such as gay.com in example, are an online organization allowing users to freely access their services or pay for services for extra features.

I am all for that, as it is a company or a branch of a parent company whose sole purpose is to offer services, and can offer them at a nominal fee, based on the consumer market and the demand for the services.

However, I am against the censorship of freedom of speech on this particular website, and I am sure that there are many others out on the gay internet world who are probably seeing the same results as I have seen
recently, as of June 28th, 2007.

I recently attended a local Death Metal concert, because I was given a free ticket by a band that I know personally and may be performing keyboards with. As to make the occasion greater of an experience for myself, I decided to put together 4 simple ingredients to make prosthetic/fake blood. It is very simple.

Corn syrup, red food coloring, a little bit of blue food coloring, and peppermint extract (to keep it from tasting like fecal excrement). I applied it liberally enough to make it look realistic, as if I had just been bludgeoned to death by a lynch mob or something to that extent. It almost got me denied 3 times on public transit, which I found funny.

However, I took a couple of photos to put on an online profile, because I like to freely express myself in various ways without the intent of hording all of the attention of the internet. I begin to upload them to gay.com, and low and behold, within less than 15 minutes, the photo I decided to upload had been deleted from their server! I try it again after I take notice, and again within 15-20 minutes, it is deleted again. I’m marking the photo as my default photo, and am marking it as non-adult, considering I wouldn’t dream of putting my nude ass up on the internet nor pose in something sexually suggestive with less clothing on. Call me prude, but I don’t like being hit on by every homo because I’m “hot”. You tell me all the time, please stop telling
me this, I hate the fact you try to inflate my Leo ego and get between my legs, even though you don’t realize that I am not online looking for sex. I’m online looking to make friends and possible special connections that don’t immediately involve sexual advances.

After a while, my photo stays on a bit longer. I believe they have stopped monitoring the image or that the viewers of the image have stopped reporting it as suggestive or adult. I go to sleep believing the war of the photography issue is over.

I wake up the very next day (the same day I’m also writing this document) and take notice that my photo has been deleted yet again!

I continue the war of uploading a photo that I find in no possible way subliminally advertising violence or harm to another person, no less,
you can clearly see my face under a bunch of colored corn syrup. At some point, I get a message from a friend of mine tipping me off that the
photo had been marked as adult. Am I sitting there naked in the photo looking like I’m showcasing my penis to the world, or even remotely look
like I’m masturbating or having some sort of sexual activity going on around my crotch? Am I in a suggestive pose that could incite more gay men
going out and having unprotected sex? NO!!!

I’m clearly stating something I personally believe in an artistic basis, and yet, I’m being censored with my art in the gay community!

Is it that every gay man believes homosexuality should be flower gardens and a real rainbow shooting out from their underwear?

This document I write now at this very moment, is taking a very violent true-to-the-heart stab at those that which call themselves “The Gay Community” and for exactly what they are believing in.

Don’t get me wrong now, I’m a young gay adult myself, and in about a year will no longer be “young”, but while I am still young, I still believe that
the possibility of using my voice in any context such as speaking or writing online can have as much a potential impact as a gay couple at gay pride suggestively advertising looking for a group orgy by the way they dress.

Does a simple photo of mine suggest wearing ass-less chaps to a celebratory event and possibly committing lewd misconduct in front of children, when most are told that gay pride is a family-oriented parade and event? Excuse me for barking up the right tree right now, but if I were a father of an 8 year old son or daughter, I sure as hell would not take them to an outdoor event where half-naked lesbians are flashing their boob meat to the public, and virtually naked leather daddies are bulging hard in their ass-less chaps and g-string or thong, suggesting that the male hard-on is a natural thing for children to be exposed to. That is borderlining a sexual offense to me. And yet, a website that offers services to chat online or use online personals doesn’t allow someone to be artistic with themselves and advertise themselves in a way they want to? Is the gay community full of hypocrisy?

I think it’s full of the very thing that many of us who don’t attach ourselves to such a community are fighting for that we desperately need. Freedom of speech!

During the years that President Bush has been in office, we’ve been facing one of many of the “worst times” in American culture ever. We can’t speak freely or otherwise we are jailed for a ridiculously named crime. Soon, speaking obscenities in public on our own accord will have us jailed for at least a week because it’s vulgar to express your personal opinions in public. I’ve been a supporter of freedom of speech because you’re not supposed to censor somebody for their beliefs. Isn’t what this country was founded upon? Religion and politics have dirtied the very core that we once were, and the gay community to me seems to be taking a similar direction in near-similar aspects.

If we are not allowed to freely express ourselves, how in the hell can we show others how unique we are as individuals?

As of this very moment that I end this submission, I am still fighting to have my photo exposed to everyone, in a manner that does not suggest violence or pornography.

My closing words are these:

The more you let someone take away the power you have alone, the less you are listened to. The more you allow someone to censor you, the more boring you will appear to others. The less action you take against the higher power, the more they succeed. The more you speak out, the more things change.

However, one person alone can accomplish a lot or change a lot, depending on how driven and determined they are. But the more powerful statements are made when more than one person speaks out about them, or tries to discuss it with someone else and make it an issue that needs to be addressed.

In the 6 years of being out, I can admit to the same things many young gay men have done. But I will not admit to the fact that I am proud to be gay. The truth is, is that everyone is so centered on making “gay” look like something peaceful, decorated with the rainbow and designer clothing, when in fact, there is a much larger world out there full of many different and unique individuals whom develop their own background and personality. And some of those gay men prefer to be outside of that box that we call “Gay Pride”
because we all agree to one thing. There is no political backbone to change anything. It’s just a celebration of having limited amounts of gay
rights, and looking for quick hook-ups, which possibly condones the spreading of STDs.

So I ask, what is so harmful or taboo about looking like you’re covered in blood? Just to make a simple statement loud and clear?

If anything, you never know. It could be you, covered in real blood, because of a hate crime such as gay bashing. Am I promoting gay bashing?
No. I wish to promote the freedom of speech and expression, and I want others to take notice to the very exact things that we as gay men individually
are being raped of.

Maybe the next thing will involve you, your nude photos online, or even the language or way you say something will be censored because it’s law.

I suggest if you want more rights, you really need to do something that doesn’t involve proving anything, and has a strong message behind it. Most of the general public are afraid of the truth because it hurts. Give them the truth, and let it feel like an amputation without any painkillers!

If you believe in something strongly, I suggest you take action now because soon it will be too late, and your words will mean nothing, and I’m prepared
to continue doing what I love to do and what I want to do, because I was born in a free country, I should have every damn right to do something extreme
and truthful to myself without being censored.

This document is written solely to encourage those who feel voiceless to begin speaking out, despite their influential power in life. It is time to make things right and equal for everyone, because at this point in time, I’m getting the sense there is a high level of inequality, a high level of singling people out because of their personal beliefs, and no one knows what the future holds for us all exactly, but we can stop being apathetic and change the way things are and will be in the near future, given someone has the strength and courage to stand up for what they believe in, and aggressively assert themselves and their message, to ensure that someone will take notice and actually sit back and think about it, rather than be severely opinionated and judgmental about those beliefs. True freedom shouldn’t come with a price
tag at all, so why are we still having to buy it?

edit: here’s the photo (as a question/request in one of the comments)

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