Monday 16 July 2012

Gay... "Are You Sure ?"

It's terrible, but it's true.

"Dude, you're seriously straight ???"  That's a question that might get someone smacked-up in the wrong circumstances (sadly these "wrong circumstances" probably occur more often than imagined).

"You sure you're _____ ???"  This comes naturally all the time, from straight friends and even family of a gay, lesbian, trans or bisexual.  I've heard it myself from the most personal of sources.

I've only been "out" for a few years now and I have to admit I've even found myself questioning my own "gayness" now and then.  It's not that my preferences are in question, but what about my tolerance ?  Perhaps I could deal with a woman partner of some sort.  Just to fit in.

I've convinced myself that I was born perfectly bisexual, and this might actually be true.  When I was young I often enjoyed sexy lady pics and videos.  But then again a nice breeze in the right direction, and, well.... you get the picture.

When alone with a porno mag, the ladies were hot to be sure, but I really preferred the magazines with couples getting it on.

But it was the small ads at the back of a Hustler or another "specialty" magazine that really drew my attention.  There were sexy dudes naked, and gasp even getting it on with other dudes behind black censor circles.

And when I really dig into my memories, certain guys in high school captivated my imagination.

So ya, mom, I'm sure.

I'm gay.

I've probably always been gay.

And I've never been more proud of it.  I'm special.

Happy, on the other hand... that, I'm still working on.

Friday 6 July 2012

The New Kind of Gay

I will exit this stall faster than u
We're not sticking our dicks through just any hole.

We're rarely shopping for leather harnesses.

We're not usually cruising bathhouses or sex mazes.

Sure, we're adult males with higher than average sex drives (usually), ready to try pickup lines that would garner foot stomps or slaps in the "real" (read: hetero) world.  But we've somehow been able to live without posting our privates on Craigslist, begging for instant relief on all fours with a blindfold (I wish I was making this stuff up.  No links.  Go find it yourself).

We're the New Kind of Gay.  We're not fashionistas (all the time), we're not interior decorators (in fact some of us are really bad at it), we're not all culinary masters (though I'm contunually told I am ;) and we're not all looking to get our rocks off every moment of every day.

We might not have a feminine affect.  We might not have narrow hips and a delicate wrist.

In fact, we come in every flavour these days.

Sure, in many ways I'm a gay stereotype, but I'm also very much a "macho" man in most respects.  This is what makes me attractive to straight guys (but I'm done with this carnival ride).

The New Gays live and work anywhere.  Some still travel to the Gay Village whenever possible, but others are adamantly "non-scene."

We might be ourselves with friends and family,  and though we could have any kind of job. we sometimes just can't be out at work.

In fact, one of life's biggest challenges might even be keeping up our interactions with the straights in the "real world."  This is even more "real" if closeted at work.

The gayer I allow myself to be (pretty gay so far, as you can see from previous columns), the more I can can feel distanced from the hardcore straights.  They love their sports, and while plenty of gays do too, I could care less.  They challenge each other on trivial facts alone.  I've even found myself shouting claims of sheer speculation as pronouncements of fact -- a player's name, a date, a score -- just to add nonsense to nonsense.

I've learned that sports talk accommodates some missing facts.  Businessmen who get shit exactly right in their office will totally make stuff up to ensure they're involved in a sports conversation at the lunch table.  If a "straight-acting" gay wants to hang with sports-frenzied straights, it's not that difficult to suggest a "ya, that's the guy's name" with authority every now and then.

I do like sports after all
But as a rational and intelligent New Kind of Gay, sports trivia is just not something I've felt compelled to allocate brain cells to, with the exception of hockey.  If we had a decent team here in Toronto, I might not know as much as I do about the God Particle.

But no matter how much I might want to fit into the straight circles, there's one thing us New Kind of Gays must never forget.

Because of past experiences, my morbid fear when running in these circles is that rampant homophobia will eventually rear its hateful head.

Me ?  I'm totally done faking hate.  I nip anti-gay macho bullshit in the bud, even if I'm in the most closeted of circumstances.

No matter how closeted we need to be in certain circles, we must remind all non-homos -- that's 90 percent of the population or so -- that Gay Pride is not (just) some kind of outrageous display of gayness for the sake of it.  At its roots, it is a display of diversity and most importantly a reminder of our past marches for respect and human rights.

The past, that is, for Canadians, many Americans, and folks in other "modern Western countries."

For everyone else, it's still just a frightening past, a hate-filled present, but a hopeful future.