In Your Face!

Don’t you just love it when two lesbians or two gay men kiss or there is a trans person on a show and all of a sudden the comments are “I have nothing against them by why do they have to be “in your face” all the time.

I've Been Dying To See 1 Thing On 'Wheel Of Fortune' For Years — And It Could Change Lives

"After all we’ve gained, I naively never thought we’d find ourselves here."

HuffPost

By Noah Michelson

April 27, 2023

[…]

Forced to find myself wherever and however I could by myself, I did the only thing I could: I dreamed. I wished. I pretended. I prayed. I got really good at looking for and inventing queer characters and subtexts in places they weren’t and normally would never be and I tried to conjure a universe in which my desires weren’t disordered or deviant or deadly — they were just like anyone else’s.

It didn’t work.

If you grew up the same way I did, you know it’s almost impossible to be something you’ve never seen or are constantly being told is disgusting, sinful and literally lethal by everyone and everything around you. If you didn’t grow up the way I did, it’s almost impossible for you to comprehend what not seeing yourself reflected in the world around you does to you.

And just think about today’s children, it is even worst now with armed protesters, nightclubs getting shot up, it must be very stressful for today’s children.

Which is why I so desperately want to see gay kisses on “Wheel of Fortune.” Those simple displays of affection would be seen by millions of people who may never be exposed to or confronted by queer love. People who want to deny us the ability to exist. Kids who may be looking for signs of queer life somewhere in the universe, as I spent my childhood doing, and who might feel a tiny — but potentially lifesaving and/or life-changing — jolt of hope if it unexpectedly flashes across their family’s TV screen.

Perhaps gay kisses have happened on “Wheel of Fortune” in the past and I’ve just never seen them, but if so, they haven’t happened much. In fact, the show didn’t even feature its first queer couple until February of this year. In 2019, Harry Friedman, the show’s then-executive producer, claimed that having a gay couple on is “something that’s been discussed and like everything else that we do, we take very measured steps. And we have just not made that decision to do that yet.” Now that the show is finally ready to feature queer couples, I want to see them living and loving and rejoicing the same way straight couples do.

Kisses happen all the time on the game shows. I am not a fan of game shows (Except for Jeopardy), I usually only see the end of the “Price is Right” when I tune in for the noon news but there are a number of spouses or friends who run up at the end of the show for hugs and kisses.

But when lesbians or gays do it all of a sudden we are in your face! They don’t see how homophobic that is as they are claiming that they are not homophobic.

When we go out in public and hold hands with our partners we are taking a chance of our lives.