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Happy Pride!
It’s your boy, Poseidon, Gay God of the Sea!
I’m back again, like your HPV, risen from the briniest of deeps. Tall, male, with scales and a tail, here to help you celebrate everyone’s fave holiday!
I’m gonna be upfront. I’m not the all-purpose, dum-dum, self-hating, monotheistic god that right wing nutjobs use to try and shame you into being straight. I’m Poseidon, part of a pantheon, which means I’m only in charge of certain types of god-stuff.
So, yeah. My advice is mostly for gay dudes. Mostly.
But don’t you worry, we Olympians are a squad, which means we’ve got you from vay-ree-us angles, my swishy fishies.
If you’re looking for a lesbian specific Pride Guide, I highly recommend following the Goddess of Wine and Leather on Twitter @Dykesonbikesonysus. If you’re looking for a Pride Guide tailored more to the trans community, Theyphaestus has some good stuff on their blog (plus, some really awesome tips on how to forge armor!).
That’s the great thing about having other gods to back me up. I don’t have to feel pressured to be everything to everyone. I can be fallible. I can be mer-fucking-curial. I can be petty.
Which I am. Ask my ex, Odysseus.
A-NY-WAY. On to what you really want!
Welcome to Poseidon’s 2018 High Tide Pride Guide, a trident of hot tips for making the most of your Gay High Holy Days.
TRIDENT TIP ONE: GET IT IN!
Poseidon Says Do: Stay Hydrated
I’m not just telling you this because I’m the Master of Waters (and yes, you jealous bitch, that includes a lucrative deal with both Coconut and Vitamin Waters).
Friends of Doroth-sea… You. Have. Got. To. Stay. Hydrated.
It’s June, it’s hot, you’re hot, your friends are hot, and you are drinking, drinking, drinking.
Frosé by the cubic liter on roofdecks, BOGO Tito’s-n-So at the bar, Masc4Masc whiskey drinks to impress that dude with the beard over there, beer that you steal from your hag’s clueless boyfriend, some punch at some party you were only loosely invited to, and let’s not forget, when it’s time to stalk the parade route, your Camelbak is filled with a chilly-billy buttery-ass chardonnay.
But sea-men, come on. You need to drink more water.
It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Know how I know? I’ve been to Pride in fucking Marathon.
Don’t be a Dickarus and overestimate your abilities. If you want to make it past Thursday night, drink some freakin’ water every once in a while. Passing out in the gutter is SOOOOOO 345 BCE (even though we didn’t even really have gutters back then)!
Plus, the more water you drink, the more you pee, and the more you see rando dicks in the men’s room.
Win, win.
Poseidon Says Don’t: Forget To Eat
Look, I may be Poseidon, but I still get it.
You worked hard all spring to get those abs. And the last thing you want to do is ruin that hard work by fellating a six piece of Popeye’s down to the bone, single-teaming a double fist’s worth of McDoubles, or entering into a sham marriage with some corner store beef lo mein at 3:00 A.M.
(Oh, my abs? I’ve always had them. I’m a god. I can eat whatever I want.)
Even though you want to keep it tight for beach weekends, you’ve got eat. Protect yourself from a late night of binging and a later night of retching by having dinner before you go out.
It’s not just about avoiding the voms, though. Try using food to bring people together.
Pride can be crazy. It’s like New Year’s Eve or Fourth of July—a wild ride of expectations and obligations that usually ends up being more stressful than it is fun.
I recommend you schedule time to have a REAL meal with your friends over the weekend. Find the eye of the hurrigayne, sit and enjoy everyone’s company in a place where you can put down your phones for 30 minutes, talk, laugh, and feel together, before the windwall that is Pride lifts up your skirts and carries you off in a storm surge of party invitations and bad decisions.
It’s important to be together. Poseidon says make the time.
TRIDENT TIP TWO: BAIT THAT HOOK!
Poseidon Says Do: Hook Up
If you’re single, poly, open, a seahorse, or any other relationship status where you’ve got permission from yourself and others to get freaky, find someone to bang!
It can be a quick fling, an attack on an enemy’s phalanx, a long Trojan siege, or a Sisyphean night of sissy-fisty-ing. All options are on the table. Enjoy yourself! It’s important.
The best part about hooking up during Pride is that it guarantees you become a living myth.
Every subsequent Pride after you make a “new friend,” a group of people will be sitting around a barely adequately decorated apartment, reminiscing about years past, and you’ll come up in conversation.
“Remember two years ago when Spermes hooked up with that plumber after brunch at Agora and then cried about how he got double-shafted?
Yah. Double-shafted, Fagamemnon. It’s when someone gives you the shaft but then gives you the shaft. Fucks you but then leaves fake digits. Honestly, Fagamemnon. I can’t with you, sometimes.
ANYWAAAAAY, turns out Spermes was just too sloppy drunk to put the number in his phone correctly, so when they ran into each other at the festival the next day, ‘Mes made a whole SCENE, even though he was supposed to be working the Marriott Tent?
I know. I die. It was. The best.”
Maybe you’re the hero. Maybe you’re the villain. Maybe they won’t remember your name. But they’ll still remember.
Be Spermes’s plumber.
Poseidon Says Don’t: Hook Up
This is mostly advice for all the LGBTQIA fish out there.
If you see a hook floating in the water, do not swallow it. I don’t care how delicious the guts on it might taste.
Trust me. Don’t do it.
TRIDENT TIP THREE: KNOW YOUR HERSTORY!
Poseidon Says Do: Reflect and Be Thankful
There has never been a time in history where being gay has been easy, Ms. Sleazy. Even for me, the Gay God of the Sea!
I look back over my 3,500 years on this Earth, and I remember some times! Sure, back in the day, there was fun stuff goin’ down. Temples orgies, oracle divined fourgies, and even a few Norse Thorgies I got invited to (circuit parties are older than I am!). But the bad has always outweighed the good.
Hemlock, inquisitions, disease, feudalism, Shakespeare, religious zealotry, disease, most eras of fashion, disease, the Holocaust, the CIA, disease, drugs, disease, religious zealotry, Trump… We gays have lived through some shit, and that’s just in the West!
So, this weekend, no matter what you get up to, take a little time to thank those who’ve put in the WERQ to make modern life so livable.
For us, here in Gaymerica, things ain’t perfect, but we are more accepted than at any other time in my memory.
And for that, this Ol’ Sea Queen is T-H-ankful, my friends. You should be too.
Poseidon Says Don’t: Think We’ve Made It, Just Yet
So, yes. Be thankful some battles have been won.
But listen to your boy Poseidon: Pride will never and should never mean the same shit to everyone!
Don’t think for a second that, just because you’re living a fabulous life, everyone’s got it great.
And no, I am not just talking about mermaids.
I’m talking about intersectionality, the responsibility we have to see the connectivity between ALL the cultures that march and swim under the LGBTQIA banner.
I’m talking about making overtures beyond your small, comfortable Bay of BisGayne, swimming out into the rough open waters where you’ll find those who are still working against the current. Non-binary people, queer people, trans people, people of color, those living in countries with restrictive policies and laws, in cultures where religion threatens and dictates behaviors, places where beautiful, beautiful creatures are living on the street or in fear or shame or poverty, all because of something they can’t control, a fact of existence and being we ALL share.
I know, I know. It’s a big ocean, and parts of it are very dark. It’s easy to not see everything that’s happening at once.
Remember, my little swishy fishies, in Gaymerica, the Stonewall Riots, the root of modern Pride, were started by the bravery of a black trans woman. And sadly, though some of us have made great strides in the years between then and now, the same shit she dealt with back then, a disproportionate number of trans people, particularly trans people of color, still deal with today.
Be proud, but not so proud you think the fight is over. See the connections between struggles. Be inclusive. Listen to stories that aren’t your own. Use what you have to help others.
Poseidon, Gay God of the Sea OUT.
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