Market and Movement

by Paul Varnell

Originally appeared July 31, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

Some gays and lesbians, whenever they see a corporate sponsorship of a gay event, or a product promotion to gays, or commercial support for a gay organization, grumble disapprovingly, "What we are, a social movement or a niche market?!"

Well, of course, we are both. And they know that perfectly well. But what they mean is that they think we should be only a social movement, and not an economic target market at all. They want us to fight with one hand tied behind our backs. And the religious right couldn't agree more.

But not only are we both a social movement and a target market, but those two can interact synergistically, each boosting the other; and in many cases the fact that gays are a target market can make its own contribution to our legal and social equality quite independently of any social movement, so we would be foolish to ignore its potential.

Consider a few examples of how the corporate desire to reach the gay/lesbian market helps us.

Corporations advertise their products in the gay press. If you want a gay press, a free gay press, you should be delighted that businesses and corporations view us as a target market. Gay newspapers have to pay writers, editors, sales staff, art and tech people, printing bills, office rent and distributors. The money comes from advertising. No ads, no gay press.

Corporations sponsor large numbers of community events, from Pride parades and festival to national and international gay sports events, from gay arts and film festivals to gay rodeos. Without those sponsorships, participation would be far more expensive, or the events would be greatly scaled down or might not even exist at all.

Corporations that want our patronage are learning that they have to have gay-supportive personnel departments, a non-discrimination policy and spousal benefits for gay partners. Gay consumers increasingly take such factors into account and businesses know that failure in these areas can bring charges of hypocrisy. As a result there is now more acceptance from corporations than governments.

One particular advantage of being viewed as a desirable target market is that by definition that includes all those gays and lesbians who would never, ever do anything overtly "political," but who simply in the process of living their lives buy food, housing, cars, CDs, entertainment, alcohol, etc. And they are part of the gay market just as much as the most zealous activist.

Given these as well as other obvious benefits, you might wonder why anyone, even those on the anti-capitalist gay left, would resist the idea – or the fact – that gays and lesbians are a target market. Let's think of some possibilities; buy the ones you like.

• Fear that, as one book title put it, we would somehow be "selling out," losing something in the process of being a target market. But what could we be losing? We are getting products we want and helping generate the gay supportive results we want from corporations. So we gain twice while losing nothing. The only losers are the groups that don't get the corporate attention we do.
• Hatred of capitalism and businesses. Some people believe that anything businesses do is bad, even being gay-friendly, because businesses are bad, because their primary purpose is to make money instead of providing jobs and manufacturing useful products just out of the goodness of their hearts. The idea seems to be that anything done out of self-interest is bad and should not count even if the effects are beneficial. This discounts 95 percent of the world's progress.
• Hatred of advertising. Some people view ads as crass, repetitive, intrusive. But advertising is simply information and without advertising people would not know about most of the products available on the market or learn about new products that might save us time, entertain us better, improve our lives. And now that gays have a reputation as influential "early adopter" of new products and styles, we benefit from the early targeted advertising that produces.
• Resentment of income differentials. Many people resent the fact that some people, including some urban gays and lesbians, earn more money because the jobs they do are more valuable to the employers who pay them. And they may resent the fact that some people, including many urban gays, have more disposable income to spend but do not spend it as other people wish they would. As sociologist Helmut Schoeck pointed out, many schemes for income redistribution are motivated primarily by envy.

Probably underlying all these is the nagging but unspoken fear that if gays and lesbians achieve legal and social equality within – and, worse yet, by means of – the free market economic system, they will not be interested in supporting revolutionary social and economic change. So they must by all means be dissuaded from making gains that way.

But that is all just 19th century revolutionary romanticism. Most gays and lesbians have never supported revolutionary social change and are not ever likely to. What has happened instead is that we learned how to make existing social and economic processes work for us to improve our lives. A good thing, one might think.