Carol Man Duffy: The Defence

I must take this opportunity to pre-empt the opposition I will face in my song 'Carol'. Basically, the song mocks Carol Ann Duffy's poetry and her masculinity.

Gay people. There's a horrid term if ever I heard one. Seldom do we hear the term 'straight people' bandied about. People don't define themselves as straight except for in the context of homosexuality and I don't understand why people who are attracted to people of the same sex must belong to a common cause or group.

I am attracted to men, but it is a spectrum. Why should I call myself gay? I may marry a woman. I may be celibate. Who knows? The point is that people shouldn't be categorised as gay or straight but we should just get to know individuals and their own likes and dislikes.

Gay pride and other such phenomena came about in the face of opression. Good ho, I say. But apart from fighting prejudice there is no obligation to belong to a sectarian social construct.

The gay market is huge, but why is there one? Society pressures people into defining themselves and therefore gay holidays flourish, gay magazines (valuable only as a one-hand read), the 'pink pound' and all that. Why, oh why, oh why??? A holiday is a holiday! Go be with people not other homo/heterosexuals. Why can't we have the liberty to be who we want to be without conforming? People should co-exist without need to define themselves or answer to anyone.

Carol Ann is one of these sordid individuals who terms herself a lesbian, and it's a bloody pain. i don't care about her sexuality! If one day I happen to find that the poet laureate has a same-sex partner then fine, but I'm not really interested. In a case such as that I wouldn't assume they were gay; they are just with a same-sex partner.

There is no gay community - some people join in this media-manufactured idea that there is one, and therefore believe they belong, but the truth is that none of us belong to anything, really. I am a member of the SWP and have socialist beliefs, but I am not a socialist because they don't really exist. Sure, it's easier to use a group term, but everyone is different, and the other members and I agree on some things, disagree on others. I am attracted to men but I'm not gay. I drink tea, but this is unimportant enough to get away with not having a group noun.

Let people be people! Carol Ann does no favours to anybody by being a blatant lesbian - she should just say 'I am a person' if asked and people can swivel.

My mocking of her manliness is not meant to be an attack on gender transression - there should be no social structures regarding gender, especially not in clothing! However, I use this as a metaphor for her flagrant lesbian lust.