If I say the words "gay culture"', what do you think of? Pride parades with muscle boys in leather hot pants? Kylie Minogue? Antiquated drag queens miming to Shirley Bassey? "Lip Service"?

A recent piece in The Huffington Post described Grindr as an example of "gay culture". For those unfamiliar with modern gay dating rituals, Grindr is an app which enables men to track the locations of potential sexual partners. First launched in 2009, it now claims to have four million users worldwide. In fact, so successful has Grindr been that it recently spawned a lesbian version, called FindHrr.

Is this what passes for gay culture these days? An app which offers the quickest, easiest way to arrange sexual hook-ups? If Grindr really is an example of gay culture then is dogging an example of "straight culture"? And if not, why not?

Britain's lesbian and gay community has made massive strides in recent years. We have an equal age of consent, employment rights and a whole raft of legal protections we didn't have a decade ago. Soon the UK will even follow in the footsteps of countries like Spain and South Africa and grant same sex couples the right to marry.

So where does that leave gay culture? For many people, gay culture begins and ends with the gay scene. There are gay magazines devoted to it, and gay people who devote their lives to it. And compared to many countries, we have a gay scene we can be proud of. But all is not well in this rosy pink world. The impact of drugs like GHB has led to numerous deaths on the London gay scene. Next month, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in the capital is hosting a panel discussion to address the problem. The fact that it's presented by someone called Sleazy Michael gives some idea of the target audience.

Of course, gay culture isn't confined to the scene. There's also the mainstream. Take television. A decade ago, people said that Queer As Folk had changed everything. But creator Russell T Davies was the first to admit that it hadn't. As wonderful as Queer As Folk was, it didn't change the way gay men are routinely portrayed on TV. We still have the familiar line-up of camp comedians we've had since the 1970s. The names have changed, but the mannerisms haven't. Once, gay men were associated with the wit and wisdom of Oscar Wilde. Now it's the huff and puff of – well, take your pick.

Coming up soon on ITV we have the much publicised sitcom Vicious, starring gay national treasures Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi. The original title was Vicious Old Queens. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Such people exist. But this story could have been told 40 years ago – and was, with Richard Burton and Rex Harrison as an older, squabbling gay couple in the film Staircase.

We've climbed a long way up the social ladder since Staircase was first shown in 1969. From this vantage point, it's easier to see things from a wider perspective. And with greater legislative freedoms, we have an opportunity to take a broader view of gay politics, and redefine what we mean by gay culture.

It was with this in mind that Guardian writer Julie Bindel and I decided to launch a new online magazine called Gaze – A Modern Review. We didn't want to write about gay lifestyle or pander to straight soap hunks who love their gay fans. We wanted to tackle issues one doesn't generally read about in the lesbian and gay press. For too long, gay people were defined by the expectations of heterosexuals – and we ended up in a ghetto, with a narrow view of the world beyond. Now the legal battles are mostly won, isn't it time we reclaimed all of culture – not just the "gay" bits – for ourselves?