Spending can be a seductive way to be gay - to pretend all is well in the Ghetto. Spending can give us movie-set lives. Spending can send glamorous postcard messages about our lives to others. But for a few minutes let's get very real about gay spending.

Who are the Big Spenders in our community? Our Ghettoists who incur high costs to belong, our Sensualists who seek pleasure at any price, our Assimilationists who buy their way into the mainstream, our Isolationists who furnish homes as fortresses, and our A-gays who spend on symbols of superiority? Add to these the Traveller who never pays the piper, the Circuit Queens whose wealth goes up their noses, the Urban Wannabes paving over their suburban backgrounds, and the Collectors addicted to their objets.

These of course are stereotypes. But they're also warning signals of a deepening drain on gay financial power.

Why does this happen to us and our friends?

- we have more apparent wealth, far more spending money than marrieds while they raise their 2.5 children with sometimes non-working wives,

- we have no marker events like marriage, births, orthodonture, tuitions, and divorces - to sober up our spending,

- we're often on the periphery of society with few traditional boundaries, which can translate into a life without a strong direction or identity,

- we may have freedom from, but many of us haven't got to the point of having freedom for - leaving us few dreams, visions, or values to save for,

- we're three times as addicted to drugs and alcohol and much more prone to SWI (spending while intoxicated) and SWD (spending while depressed),

- we or many of our friends have HIV or breast cancer, blurring our time horizons at best and sometimes triggering a "one last blast" attitude,

- we're really hated, as recent surveys confirm, and that can give us an underclass mentality, either content with symbols of acceptance or believing we can never truly make it,

- we eventually lose our discretionary income advantage in our 40s and can hit a Lavender Ceiling of subtle but real discrimination in our work.

If this weren't bad enough it's worse for gay men who by practicing bravado end up sinking their ship and who often:

- buy the American myth that money defines macho,

- spend more faster simply because they have more money,

- are stereotyped as less than men and spend to prove otherwise,

- identify money with the power they want so much as men among men,

- practice the golden rule ("he who has the gold makes the rules"),

- being independent and perhaps even isolated, have fewer boundaries, restrictions, and limitations on spending.

Gay women suffer many of these factors but are sometimes saved by the tendencies of lesbians to:

- earn less (and therefore watch spending more) simply because women earn less,

- band together more in relationship and friendship,

- are united more with other women,

- strive for equal status & equal decision-making in relationships,

- downplay money's power & competitive aspects,

- spend more on tangibles such as real estate vs consumer goods.

Why is debt such a threat to our community? Its underlying assumptions can be the antithesis of gay power and gay pride:

- I'm not worth saving for, I have nothing worth saving for, I have no future.

- I'm just a kid, eternally young, who'll never grow up.

- I am nothing or less than nothing - and have to buy or borrow my identity.

- People will only love me as a big spender.

- Spending is the only way people will know I'm powerful - and not despised.