Is It?

I thought it was just what you were..? How you were born? No more remarkable, this day and age, than being heterosexual?

What sort of art are we talking about, anyway?

Mexican artist Frieda Toranzo Jaeger works with what she calls “semiological vandalism” – by which she “vandalizes” dominant images and thus injects new, subversive meaning into them. Car engines have lately predominated her work, as she sees them as representative of the massive systems that govern the world. At Art Basel Miami, Toranzo Jaeger is exhibiting an image of a car engine deconstructed into the form of a flower, shot through with braided thread. By turning a car engine into a flower adorned with braids, she injects her queerness and womanhood into a traditionally patriarchal structure.

PARKLIFE!! 

Sorry, sorry, that just slipped out...

Queer performance artist rafa esparza takes on cars and cruising in a very different way: straddling intersectional aspects of his identity, he brings out the resonances between different kinds of cruising – gay cruising and low-rider cars – by turning himself into a low-rider vehicle and inviting select members of his community to jump on for a ride.

*backs away slowly* There's enough material here for David Thompson's blog to exist for another few years...

Just Don't Frighten The Horses...

LGBT rights campaigner Peter Tatchell today accused a council of 'homophobia' for taking out a court injunction to stop gay men having public sex in a park.

Actually, it bans sexual activity of any kind. Thus covering heterosexual dogging too.  

The 68-year-old activist complained London's Southwark Council had failed to liaise with the local gay community before taking legal action concerning Burgess Park.

Wait, what? First, there's no such thing as 'a gay community' that can take a considered and representative view on this - for every fresh air exhibitionist, there's probably three or four gay couples who'd no more dream of alfresco cavorting than anyone else.

Secondly, since when did anyone consult law-breakers before ensuring there were penalties should they continue to break the law?  

It's not the only concern of park-goers, after all:

One incident allegedly saw a woman with young children see three men having sex in a wooded area of the park at 8am one morning during the school holidays in August.

Neighbours have also complained about live music in the park until 3am and claim there has been a huge amount of litter including condoms in recent months.

There are also said to have been problems with drug-dealing gangs in the park as well as people carrying weapons, with police carrying out sweeps in the area.

I don't expect we'll see gangs demand the council consult with them before slapping weapon-carrying on the list, but then, 2020 has been such a bonkers year I wouldn't really be surprised if they did...