It’s also exhausting working to spread messages about protesting and fighting for dignity in the face of all this seeming lust to party for the sake of partying.

It’s probably not fair to generalize, but it seems like a lot of these same thin, muscular gay men who are centering the normative gay Pride experience also want to close their eyes to the ongoing need to fight for those who have not reached the levels of acceptance that some gay men have achieved or at least think they have achieved.

I mean, I can understand the psychological urge to press the normative experience. When we grow up internalizing homophobia, of course we can feel compelled to push back by insisting we’re “normal” except for how we experience sexual attraction.

But how much acceptance have we really achieved? Sure, thin culture is pervasive in our society, but gay men seem far more compelled to pursue physical fitness than straight men, especially as they get a little older or get married.

And as for resisting feminine presentation, sigh … Don’t even get me started. I’ve met too many young gay men who push the normative standard but who behave quite differently in private. They’re suppressing how they naturally behave, and I can only suppose because they feel they have to.

Which ought to point to the need to keep fighting for dignity.