This was one of the replies to the post, and it just made me smile, so I thought I'd include it :)
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
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Is tumblr still alive and well, then?
More so than X :)
Damn. I'd never considered that all my straightness could be due to a lack of nerve
"Anything can be a sex toy if you're brave enough."
Abe Lincoln
I have thought that of straight people, they just lack the nerve to be gay. Its a choice to be straight but not gay obvi
Pussy.
where ??!
I'm reading Slaughterhouse Five for the first time this week, and clearly the man was tortured by something. Was it the endless injustices of the world, a love lost, the horrors of war? Plenty of folks grew up being told by our nanny that gays should all be thrown off roofs, were beaten for acting too femme or swish, were told eternal pain was the price. So it goes.
Maybe Kurt was one of the vast multitude of folks so deep in the closet no one would ever know or have guessed. The unsung millions of queer folks who had that crush they couldn't act on, the midnight fantasies held close, the whispered confession of love that was rejected, the true love just out of reach.
Who hung in the balance friendships, job opportunities, family connections, and physical safety and decided that unrequited love was an easier burden to bear.
All that weighing, maybe seeing your love be happy but could never love you back the same way. All that held tight could forge the soul of a poet, and yes, maybe a sardonic and cynical poet. One with a sharp wit who tells his own truths outright on the page but with a mocking tone to help the medicine go down smooth. Easier to put on the motley of a clown and make a sarcastic quip about being gay or a writer than it is to speak deeper truths that have gotten millions of folks ostracized or killed. So it goes.
Learn a little history.
Vonnegut came out of a time when having a gay kid was one of the worst things a parent could imagine. "I'd rather have a daughter who was a whore than a son who was gay" was a common expression.
He could have just as easily wrote 'bank robber' but saying 'gay' made the line much edgier.
Go figure the context is important
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's really funny when you read books from back in the day when 'gay' meant 'rowdy.'
"The cowboys rode into town, got drunk and got gay with the citizens."
That line can have two wildly different meanings.
When you're with the Flintstones Have a yabba-dabba-doo time A dabba-doo time We'll have a gay old time
I always thought that Barney walked a little funny...
Brokeback Mountain was just about two rough and rowdy cowpokes. Nothing to see here
I am well aware of said history. That's why I wrote what I wrote
I think it's much, much more likely that a closeted gay man of the time would studiously avoid all mentions of homosexuality in any context.
Interesting how the meaning of "go into the arts" changed. As far as I can tell, today that phrase is specifically about doing some kinds of art for a living (possibly in the sense of "bachelor of arts", which is about an entirely different kind of "art").
Well that would only be "vital context" if it changed the meaning of the quote whatsoever, which, in the larger context Vonnegut was writing in, it absolutely does not.
I don't understand the "If you really want to hurt your parents" part of this. As a parent myself why would I be hurt if my child went into the arts? I think it's cool AF that my kid with a Chem E degree plays piano and guitar!
Yeah they mean as a primary job guaranteeing a lifetime of borrowing money and tumultuous events.
There is a difference... The arts dont lead our souls toward eternal damnation! Not necessarily anyway... while the other option is, studs, loving each other's masculine bodies. Which is wrong!... I could describe it for you so you know what to avoid.
To paraphrase what a wise man once said - you look like one of them, but I think you're one of us.
Now Son, I know it's a fierce temptation but take it from someone that's been fighting the good fight a lot longer...
por que no los dos?