ABOUT HALFWAY INTO its run, I came to a conclusion of sorts about Cucumber, the divisive gay sex drama that Russell T Davies persuaded onto national primetime TV. There were lots of loud, unsettled rants about the show from its target audience. Because it was a programme covering an area that isn’t usually covered anywhere in the mainstream, this was to be expected. But the vitriol started to bother me. I despise that gay male voice that slashes the windpipe of every interesting, blossoming conversation as it opens up. Now this was becoming collective. So that was my conclusion: Are we really this stupid?
In some convoluted way, the initial reaction to Cucumber echoed exactly what it was saying – that there is a gaping chasm between the told gay male experience and the felt one. As a conceptual broadside, that wins for me. Then Russell began to really pile the layers on, talking in brutal, stark new language. That gay men who see themselves as the good ones can be petty, mean, vitriolic and disloyal. That copping off with someone who identifies as straight isn’t a victory lap taken for the team but just another deeply-rooted anxiety action. That a new generation may emerge for whom ‘gay’ is not interesting. That gay sex, in and of itself, is not all that sexy and might look less like the shadowy silhouette of Heath Ledger rogering Jake Gyllenhaal in a tepee on a picturesque Texan mountaintop and more like a bald man with weak shoulders getting a wank off somebody he’s not even bothered to work out whether he particularly likes or not. That stuff.
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