While the vast majority of the feedback has been positive, there have been those in the testosterone-world of über-masculinity known as the NFL who found it difficult to stomach. Miami Dolphins safety Don Jones tweeted “OMG” and “Horrible” seconds after the kisses were aired live on ESPN. Jones was called on the carpet by the Dolphins, removed from team activities, fined an unknown amount of cash, and sent to “educational training” for his actions, in addition to taking the tweets off-line.

Derrick Ward, who was part of the New York Giants squad when the team won the Super Bowl in 2008, wrote, “Man U got little kids lookin at the draft. I can’t believe ESPN even allowed that to happen.” Digging in his heels several hours later, he tweeted “I’ll continue to speak my mind because it’s my god given right and supposedly u can do it without being frowned upon here in America.”

In a similar ignorance-is-bliss-fashion, Marshall Henderson, a guard with the University of Mississippi basketball team,tweeted, “Boycotting Sportscenter til this Michael Sam nasty ass s**t is off …. My brothers are 7 and 11 and saw that!!! #Sickening.”

Yes, Derrick Ward, you may speak your mind in America; but you can’t speak your mind without consequences. Yes, Marshall Henderson, your little brothers saw those kisses, just as we’re certain the boys saw your homophobic reaction. And therein lies the problem.

Michael Sam and Vito Cammisano have every right to cry and hug and kiss their gay hearts out any place they want in America. This is, after all, the land of the free and home of the brave. There is nothing wrong with showing affection in public or in private. What is terribly wrong is suggesting that children of any age should not be allowed to see it. But why is that?

No child instinctively thinks hugging or kissing is horrible between two men. Someone has to teach them that. And you, Marshall Henderson, and you, Derrick Ward, by posting your outdated, bigoted comments on-line for the world to see have made yourselves out to be the homophobes you are. What is #Sickening is that many children are not being taught that equality and affection are universal gifts we can give one another without regard to gender or sexual orientation.

Sadly, as we continue to discuss “the kisses,” what isn’t getting any airplay is that Michael Sam has picked up this first endorsement deal. The smart folks at Visa negotiated the contract with Sam’s agent, in whose home the famous kisses were filmed. Watching that footage, it becomes painfully obvious that everyone in the surrounding crowd is white.

Sam’s family in Texas wasn’t present because they disowned him—not so much because he’s gay, but more because they are horrible parents. Vito’s family wasn’t there either. They are Mafia folk, don’t you know. Vito’s late grandfather was William “Willie the Rat” Cammisano, head of the Kansas City Civella family. Willie the Rat would have labeled the kiss “bulls**t.” We call it love.

When I saw “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” for the first time, my mind raced with questions about the plot. Even as a little child, I understood that there was something morally questionable about a plot that calls for kidnapping young girls and having them serve as wives against their will, beautifully told as it may have been in the musical genre.

Well, last week my sense of unease about this became justified. Turns out that three brothers (or was it only one?— the full truth is yet to be revealed) in Ohio had kidnapped three girls to serve as wives for the past ten years. To make matters worse, none of these alleged kidnappers looked like Howard Keel and it’s very unlikely they can dance to the choreography of Agnes DeMille. And it happened in Cleveland — not the beautifully scenic Northwest, where “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” took place.

Then, this week, the Pentagon admitted to USA Today that a military officer overseeing sexual assault prevention in Fort Hood, Texas, has been relieved of his duties due to allegations of abusive sexual contact and forcing subordinates into prostitution. As it turns out, this was not the first case of an officer in charge of preventing sexual abuse in the military being caught committing the very abuse they are responsible for preventing.

I can think of no greater crime than taking away someone’s freedom and right to choose what to do with their body. Of course, there are those who actually like the abuse. As Zsa Zsa Gabor once said, “There is something about a man who hits you,” in describing her sexual turn-on for men who beat her up. If that’s your scene, I have nothing to say about it. But that is not the case for the majority of victims of sexual abuse and bondage. The Pentagon reports that, in a 2-year study, there have been some 26,000 unreported incidents of sexual assault in the military, and 3,374 cases that were reported. Of those, 25% refused to press charges. Of those who did press charges, only 238 resulted in convictions. Of the convictions, a significant number were overturned by superior officers.

One might think this is an issue related to women in the military. But as it turns out, the majority of cases of total assaults were those where the victim was a man. The vast majority of cases that were not reported or where the victim refused to press charges, were cases involving male on male abuse. Mind you, the majority of these incidents took place before “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was repealed. So this is neither an issue that has to do with gays in the military. It’s an issue of one human being taking away another human being’s freedom. The high rate of unreported cases and has to do with the stigma faced by a man having been sexually assaulted by another man, and with fear of retribution.

But that doesn’t leave the gay community off the hook. There are plenty of cases of (often older) men who keep harems of young studs who put up with years of abuse because they have found themselves in a place of desperation. Sometimes, these cases are right under our nose. Sometimes, they exist across the street from where we live or work. And it doesn’t have to involve ropes or incarceration. Abuse and bondage is evident even when it is implied that the victim must perform sexual favors in order to keep their job, get a promotion, or stay out of jail. Sexual assault occurs when it is imposed on someone too young to be able to consent. We know about these cases and often joke about them, and we accept them as the norm of being gay.

On last week’s episode of “Mad Men,” Don Draper locks his mistress in a hotel room, taking all her clothes with him. He has new clothes delivered to her. But it’s not for going out. It’s for her to dress and undress exclusively for him. His idea is that she will never leave the hotel. She will exist in the room solely for his pleasure. Finally, the woman understands what is going on and brings the relationship to an end.

Even in the pre-women’s liberation of the early 20th Century Paris, Colette’s characters come to their senses and “Gigi” gets married to the man she loves, rather than live the life of a courtesan. In “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” created in the politically incorrect 1950s, Jane Powell convinces Howard Keel that the brides must be returned to their families. So too, in the gay world, we must change what we now consider to be “acceptable” relationships where one individual is taking advantage of another’s weakness to create state of abuse or bondage against their will.

It’s not called Gay Pride anymore. The idea of having to be “proud” of something so naturally accepted in our society slowly faded and became passé. Two older gay men stand around the entrance discussing this, nostalgically, noting the futility of those times.

“We were like telling ourselves everything was okay, even if it wasn’t. We were saying, like, oh look how prrrrooouddd we are. It sounds like an answer to a question. It shouldn’t have ever even been a question.”

“Thank God we don’t ask it anymore.”

“There’s no need. No one needs to say that they’re proud. It served its purpose, though, right? It was a question that needed an answer at the time and that was the right answer. Even if most people were telling themselves it more than believing it.”

Gay Pride is now called Gay History Day—a loving tribute to the psychological and emotional struggles of a darker period, and, of course, a celebration of the final victory against those issues. Certainly, the legal battles were the first successes followed by a complete overhauling of the socialization and treatment of gay children. Gay shame is a thing of the past, similar to the Holocaust—something people talk about every now and then in a “remember how horrible that was” kind of way. A thing that reminds people what should never happen again.

Instead of the past debaucheries of Pride Day, with some of its self-defeating behaviors (the drinking, drugging, etc.), Gay History Day focuses on education and remembrance. There’s a festival of lecturers—all Queer Studies professors, discussing the many hurdles that were surpassed and the different social behaviors evolving in gay cultures though all the time periods.

There are a few speeches given by successful gay businessmen and athletes, disclosing secrets to their successes. In the past, they’d be celebrated for being an “openly gay tennis player” or an “openly gay CEO”. No one calls anyone an “openly gay” anything. It’s just assumed and a part of the common understandings of the world.

The older gay men are sitting watching an Olympian give a speech on his rigorous training schedule. When he finishes, they indulge in more nostalgia.

“People were so obsessed with who was coming out or who would be the first athlete to come out or whatever.”

“Everyone just knows now, right, even before they start their career. Like, it’s never a news story. Remember how important those stories were? The announcement, the backlash, the backlash to the backlash.”

“Look at this guy—they did that piece about his husband and their kids during the Olympics and, well, here’s the weird thing, I think it was the first time that I watched something and didn’t even notice that the guy was gay, you know. When I watched that thing with his family I just kind of thought — oh, look at his house.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I didn’t even notice it until later, at night when I noticed that I didn’t notice.”

“I think I noticed it, but I’m older than you, I mean five years older, but still. Things changed quickly.”

There are no more drag queen competitions—at some point the drag queens came to a revelation: they didn’t need approval anymore. They still perform, though. And everyone loves them.

Pride takes place in the suburbs, a real change from the gayborhoods of the past. Demographics change with the times, and one of the evolutions that came with such a huge amount of increased acceptance was a slow disintegration of gayborhoods. In most of America, no one can point to a defined section of a city where “all the gays live”. In Kansas and Nebraska and some of the other “late bloomers”, there may still be a gayborhood or two, but for the most part the gays are all spread out

After the Olympiad speech, the two old gay men walk around the AIDS quilt, the most grand, historical relic of that nearly forgotten plague. They see all the names and the pieces and one old gay man cries for a second.

“I always forget until I come here. It makes me sad that I forget.”

“Well, no one talks about it. You don’t have to remember it, really. I mean you should remember it, we all should remember it, but we don’t have to.”

They hear behind them two other old gay men complaining about Gay History Day, wondering where “the culture has gone.” They bemoan the lack of a defined community, speaking about the artistic achievements of yesteryears or all the damn money they used to make flipping houses in the gayborhoods.

“I made $200,000 one year from one property. That shit doesn’t happen as much anymore.”

“I know. We used to have more money in general. Remember? Everyone wanted things, as many things as possible, and we accomplished it. We were better than the straights, I truly thought that.”

After the AIDS quilt, there’s not much more to see. The lectures are over, the speeches done. The two old gay men decide it’s time to unwind for the night. As they leave, they can’t help one last moment of reflection.

“Years ago we watched Ceecee Peniston sing that song, you know, the one song that was like the big song of her career.”

“’Finally’.”

“Oh my God, ‘Finally’. Yes. And we danced all night in the streets of that gayborhood and they had all those vendors and all those political organizations. And It was really nice, you know. Fun as hell. And that song! That song was amazing.”

“Most things are amazing. The past thirty years since then have been amazing. If I remember, that year itself was amazing. All the gay marriage stuff really took off then.”

“Yeah. When I was dancing to that song, I remember I knew it was about love or whatever, but that year it was about our acceptance, finally, our complete acceptance was coming.”

They kiss each other goodbye, enter their cars, and drive home.

So if gay marriage is the holy grail of the gay rights movement, is the movement itself over? I thought of this last week when one of my graduated former students contacted me, asking for guidance in dealing with assimilation into gay culture. According to him, it was not only intimidating yet also confusing. What were the rules and how best to navigate this space? Over the years, many students had asked me about coming out, or how to find other gay guys, but this was the first time a graduate about to plunge forth into the adult gay community sought guidance. I was perplexed about what kind of advice to give. There are so many different facets to the community, so many negatives and positives for any new traveler venturing into the gayborhood to understand.

Searching for answers myself, I went to the Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade over the weekend. What better place than a pride parade to see all of the community’s predilections exaggerated, out in the open, and on full display? It was a startling celebration to be sure, one of the largest and grandest prides I’d ever attended. The entirety of Ocean Drive was blocked off, allowing the aggressively bare-chested muscled men, the shimmering drag queens, the hand-holding elder couples, the factions of Hispanic diesel street gays, and the strained chiseled abdomens space to dance, prance, and, inevitably, cruise.

Vendors along the beach entryway struggled for a semblance of a cohesive message, what with the Swinging Richards tent set up a few steps from an AIDS Pharmacy, or the gay church not far from the bathhouse’s table. This microcosm of gayness kept contradicting itself – a positive insomuch as that we’re branching out and allowing for all different types, yet certainly a confusing mish-mash of ideologies for any burgeoning youth trying to make heads or tails of their new future in this world.

The men’s posture and behavior alone spoke of some of these contradictions. Prides are notorious for fostering a party atmosphere alive with drugs, drunkenness, and unsafe sex. This one was no different. For every affectionate gay couple or sound professional stood drugged-out street boys or stumbling drunkards. The men also all seemed to conform to the traditional image pressures: designer bathing suits, jacked-up bodies, forthright body language, and a group mentality of predation. Certainly intimidating for any newcomer to the scene.

So what things could I say to my ex-student? For one, there are a lot of people looking out for him, more so than ever before. Strong political groups like the Human Rights Campaign and Equality Florida push positive messages. Support groups are numerous, including Safe Schools South Florida, college GSAs, and Pridelines. The community itself is incredibly diverse and accepting of all different types; this could be seen in the many different businesses promoting such events as the gay film festivals (Miami and Fort Lauderdale) or future prides in Wilton Manors and St. Pete. There are activities aplenty, ranging from Gay Disney to camping trips at Sawmill Campgrounds. The gay community has reached its pinnacle in terms of business acumen and organization.

But there are also many things to warn about. Gays are many times more likely to be alcoholics, drug addicts (the Center for American Progress found that 30% of the gay and transgender population abuse substances, as compared to the 9% from the heterosexual population), and unfortunately, suicide victims; gay youth are four times more likely to commit suicide based on a report of the Secretary’s Task Force On Youth Suicide, while adult gay males are three times more likely to have attempted suicide than the general male population, according to a UCSF study. It’ll be interesting to see if those statistics change with increased familial acceptance. The beauty standard is high and competitive (a gym membership may be a suggestion). Internalized homonegativity still runs rampant, with an unhealthy fixation on “str8-acting” types, not to mention the good portion of men who are struggling to establish healthy relationships.

The gay culture was first coming into fruition 40+ years ago in sections of New York City and San Francisco. This community (as outlined in the Time article) was one of mostly libertines bucking the status quo. Much of the makings of the gay culture came from rejecting the social norms. They were sticking a middle finger up at society, saying that all of the contraptions that made up America’s fabric had no business in their community.

But what happens now that we have become a part of the social fabric? Should the culture itself remain stagnant, still a space that rebels against traditional values? We are about to be granted the most traditional value in America. It might be time, as society continues to accept us, for us to look inward, at the community itself, analyzing the shocking statistics on mental health and maybe cleaning up some of our own cultural norms. Then, the new gays, having been raised in a much more accepting American culture, can chart an easier path while assimilating into gay culture, without any need for warnings.

A year ago, I told my father that I felt gay rights wasn’t over until The American Adventure ride at Epcot Center (a film tracing different minority groups gaining acceptance in America) contained a clip with rainbow flags. Now, though, I think I’ve changed my mind. Gay rights hasn’t been achieved until I can look my gay students in the eye and say, without blinking, how truly proud I am of each facet of our culture.