When Queer as Folk debuted on Showtime, I was the ripe old age of 16. I sat downstairs quietly in the computer room watching the explicit sex scenes - remote in hand in case my parents wandered in the room. The scenes reflected a world I was just beginning to peek my head into - I had managed to squander a fake ID and was just starting to venture into the gay bars of my hometown in Charlotte, NC (I actually manufactured my first, a fake membership to a club, at Kinko's).
The sex on the show got my pubescent hormones raging. I had certainly by that point seen more than my fair share of gay porn (and had two years prior lost my virginity), but the fact that this show was on TV and was a regular series made the sex scenes all the more erotic for me. The fact that my parents could stumble by at any moment I'm sure made the experience all the more enticing.
I've been known to knock the show for it's cheesy moments and tendencies to try to tackle *every* L/G/B/T/Q issue out there - but standing in The Midnight Sun (a gay bar in the Castro that's been a landmark since the 70s), I was struck by my own sadness to see it go off the air. Though different in oh so many ways - the character Justin and I went through many of the same struggles at many of the same times. When he was first coming out, so was I. When he was going to his first gay bar - I was there with him. Even now at the end we're moving away to new places and new lives - leaving behind friends, family, and loved ones. New beginnings for us both.
Despite what I may have said before, I have to say I'll miss Queer as Folk. I haven't actually watched the show for several seasons - but I knew it was there should I choose to watch. It was somewhat comforting to know that the show was still moving forward, its characters changing just as much as I was. With it gone, all gay men have left to look forward to on television is Will and Grace. And, however bad QAF may have gotten at times, it never sank to the deep depths of mainstream blandness that NBC offers. That as the only option, my friends, is one damn depressing thought.
For now, I'll stick with "The L Word."
