Who's Gay, Who's Not, and Who Cares?

WHAT'S WRONG WITH BEING GAY ANYWAY?

Imagine this; a fairly common situation. You're sitting around with some friends, maybe all gay, maybe mixed gay and straight, and somebody wonders -- in a perfectly nice way -- if somebody you all know might possibly be gay. Mind you, this is not a straight bigot nastily suggesting that someone is a "fag," but a gay or gay-friendly person wondering if someone they know might be gay.

Now imagine -- and this happens far too often for my comfort -- that somebody in this group, especially a gay person, objects and says in a sharp tongue. "So and so is not gay!" They are very vehement about it, even outright angry. It's as if by suggesting that, or wondering if, the person in question might be gay you're slandering them, saying something absolutely terrible about them, and this other person is distressed if not outraged by such a thought.

The thing is -- if you really think it's okay to be gay, then what the hell is so awful about suggesting that, or wondering if, somebody might be gay? Okay, maybe you're wrong. Big deal. You're not printing it in the paper or shouting from the rooftops. I'ts a private conversation with people merely expressing opinions. People will think what they think whether you put it in words or not anyway.

I expect to get homophobic attitudes from bigoted straights and self-hating closet cases like Larry Craig but I'm always a bit amazed -- if never surprised, sadly -- when I get them from straight people who are supposed to be gay-friendly, and especially from people who are themselves gay. Sometimes these people will claim that it's not that you're suggesting this person might be gay, but that you're somehow "slandering" them as a closet queen. Why do I never quite buy this? Because it always comes off that the "slander" has to do with suggesting that someone is homosexual, not that they may be in the closet. Besides, while it's not great to be closeted or repressed, it doesn't make someone a terrible person anymore than being gay does. There's always the chance that the closeted individual will come out and live a perfectly happy gay life. So what's the big deal?

Let me make it clear. I don't think one should outright lie about anyone, say someone is absolutely gay when you aren't at all sure about it, (but there's no reason why you can't have an educated opinion). A person who is genuinely straight shouldn't have to deal with the assorted issues that we gays have to deal with, although it certainly might increase his or her understanding of those issues. I don't believe in "outing" someone (unless they're homophobic hypocrites) even if they're gay if I know they're just not ready to take that all-important step on their own; it's an important rite of passage for a gay person.

Some people say somebody is gay to make them more interesting or news-worthy when it really hasn't been proven that they are. [Still, it's not as if you're saying something really terrible about them. Unless deep down you think it really is terrible to be gay.] Then we have people, including gays, who protest vigorously when some biographer says that a favorite actor was gay, even if the information is substantiated by the person's long-time companion and other impregnable sources.

But that isn't what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about simply wondering if or thinking that someone is gay and sharing this with gay friends or acquaintances -- hell, sometimes you wonder if someone is gay because you're attracted to them, so what? -- one or more of whom may act as if you're saying the worst possible thing you can say about anyone. There are, sadly, still some gay people who are not happy and who foolishly blame their orientation for their unhappiness. When you say someone is gay they really do think you're saying something terrible about them. Some of them will even think less of a person they formerly thought of as straight once they find out he or she is gay. Yes, this is that old internalized homophobia rearing its ugly head, and while I think and hope that it affects fewer and fewer people each decade, I know it hasn't been completely eliminated and may never be.

Perhaps it is this -- or just simply naivete -- that leads some gay people to automatically think someone is straight just because that's how they identify or because they're married with children. I recall a ridiculous conversation I had in a bar a few years ago. Someone asked me if I thought a certain individual was gay. Before I could answer, a man I didn't know said "he's straight; I've met his girlfriend." This was right after the Jim McGreevey scandal hit the headlines, and I wondered how any gay man could be so stupid as to assume a man with a girlfriend absolutely, positively must be totally straight when the papers and TV were full of a story about a married man with children who had just come out as a gay man. I mean, so this guy we were talking about supposedly had a girlfriend. So did lots of gay guys in their youth, just as many homosexual men have wives and children well into middle age. It's laughable.

[I think some gay people lead very sheltered lives. They really haven't been around too much. Or else they're just kind of dumb. The young ones at least have the excuse of relatively little experience, but the ones who are middle-aged or older?]

But I got the feeling with this strange man in the bar that he didn't like the notion that this man we were wondering about might be gay, that he would think less of him if he were. Hence he was definitely straight -- the girlfriend "proved" that.

Then there are those, gay and straight,who say with a certain air of self-righteousness: "Oh I don't care who's gay or who isn't. That's so unimportant" -- pretending that they're just so liberal and above it all but what they're really saying as far as I'm concerned is "it's vulgar to wonder if someone is gay or not because I don't think it's really so great to be gay."

And isn't that just pathetic?

Larry Craig in the Men's Room

The incident with Republican homophobe and hypocrite Larry Craig [right photo to your left] being arrested in an airport men's room for trying to play hanky panky with an undercover cop brings forth a whole slew of sub-issues.

1,) This is yet another Republican who excoriates gays and homosexuality, who tries to shoot down gay rights, yet is privately homosexual. Sometimes they seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Most people agree that they can be sympathetic toward "closet queens" but draw the line on men like Craig, who are publicly homophobic.

2.) In one sense, when Craig denies that he is gay, he is telling the truth. If you equate "gay" with being out of the closet, self-accepting, and proud of who are you, then Craig is definitely NOT gay. He is, however, definitely a self-hating homo. But absolutely under no circumstances should he ever be considered "straight." Straight men do not have sex with other men in bathrooms or anywhere else.

3.) Most gay men these days do not cruise public men's rooms. It has been called a non-issue, and it is. Decades ago some gay men had no other outlets or meeting places, and men's rooms often became trysting or pick-up places. Nowadays there are many gay bars where men can meet, as well as clubs and on-line sex/dating sites. Guys cruising public men's rooms are more likely to be closeted married types like Larry Craig. But not always ...

4.) Some gay men (as well as straight men and women) are turned on by the bathroom atmosphere, by the risk, by the idea of public sex -- or all of the above. These men are in the minority, of course. And it must be said that there are plenty of heterosexuals who enjoy sex in the bathroom with members of the opposite sex. As well as public sex elsewhere. And all the rest. Many would nevertheless consider indulging in public bathroom sex to be pre-Stonewall behavior as far as gay men are concerned. Maybe. Maybe not.

5.) Children are not "at risk" as they are unlikely to ever run into two guys getting it on in a public restroom. Besides, these guys are homosexual, not pedophiles. (Child molesters, who can strike at children anywhere, are a whole 'nother issue.) And the men having sex would probably be locked in a stall in any case. Besides, kids who hear "something funny" going on might be confused or grossed out, but it's unlikely they would be traumatized. (Very young children are generally accompanied by a parent in any case.)

6.) Men -- or women -- who engage in bathroom sex may be edgy or different from you but that doesn't make them "perverts." Larry Craig may be a hypocrite and a total asshole, but he is NOT a "pervert." Just because a homosexual person is not a healthy, out and proud gay man does not make him perverted, and it's homophobic to suggest so. Many supposedly gay-friendly straight people reveal the issues they have with gays when they suggest only out and proud gay people are not "perverted." There is nothing perverted about sexual (or romantic) relationships between two men or two women even if the two people are closeted hypocrites. They may feel like perverts, ashamed of what they're doing, but it's exactly those negative societal attitudes (which they've absorbed) that they need to overcome.

7.) Age does not excuse Larry Craig. Craig and many others of his ilk carry a great deal of internalized homophobia within themselves. This does not in any way excuse them for attacking the gay community when they themselves indulge in homosexual behavior. Neither does his being sixty-two. There are many out and proud people in the gay community who are much, much older than Craig, who came out in an even more difficult time period, and who are, indeed, gay activists. Craig may have come of age during an even more unenlightened era, but he has lived through Stonewall, the birth of Gay Pride, and all of the newer attitudes towards homosexuality that have developed over these many years. He has been alive while all these advances were being made. Besides, it is a sad fact that there are many much, much younger men and women who are equally hypocritical and/or have the same problem in coming out even today.

8.) Larry Craig's actions in the bathroom were not that terrible, and he was definitely entrapped. Okay, you don't have to have sympathy for this hypocritical asshole, but let's look at what the man actually did in the bathroom. He didn't make a grab for somebody's dick or try to assault someone. He went through a series of silly codes with the guy in the next stall, and the guy -- a plainclothes cop -- apparently responded to these "gay" codes in the affirmative. Next thing Craig was arrested. In this day and age haven't the police got something better to do? Make no mistake, the pious homophobes who are blasting Craig couldn't care less that he was cruising a bathroom, they care about the fact that he was soliciting homosexual activities. Sure, you could make the point that Craig would have been arrested if the cop were female (albeit it's unlikely she'd be in the same bathroom), or if he solicited a female prostitute. I've no doubt people would still make the charges of "pervert" and there would still be plenty of bad jokes. But don't kid yourself -- it wouldn't be quite as bad. And the jokes wouldn't be homophobic. (In fact, in some quarters he might be admired just for being sexual -- heterosexual that is.) In any case, let's just face reality and get past this business that "oh, it's not about his being homosexual, it's just that he wanted to do it in a bathroom." It is about his being homosexual.

9.) What about the cop? [Photo above on the left.] Could he be a self-hating homo as well? You have to wonder about these guys who go on entrapment duty. Why do they volunteer? If they're not volunteers, why are they selected? Do the other cops wonder about them, think a homo will more likely go after another guy who seems gay? Wouldn't it be pathetic if this cop were struggling with his own sexual identity and had to go through with this entrapment nonsense? Or is it possible he's a closeted but not necessarily self-hating cop who was hoping to entrap a Republican hypocrite? Sadly, that's probably just wishful thinking.

10.) The Larry Craig business has brought out the homophobes -- even among the democrats. Again, people think it's okay to make negative comments about "perverts" and "deviants" and "predators" and the like because Craig is a closeted hypocrite -- he's not one of those "nice" gays. But what does this say about how they really feel about homosexuals in general? Some have even trotted out that old nonsense about gay men being child molesters (the cop in this case was a bit baby-faced but he definitely wasn't a kid, nor did he look like one). It's also reminded me how many supposedly gay-friendly straight people are only comfortable with gay people if we trod the "straight and narrow:" i.e. that nice gay couple next door with the 2.5 children and the monogamous relationship (as if all straights have monogamous relationships). They find it a lot harder to deal with gays who are political, demanding their rights and equal treatment, and even harder to deal with gays who are highly sexual (in bathrooms or otherwise) or who don't fit so neatly into the mainstream. Single gay men who are sexually active, for instance, or partnered men who are in "open" relationships. Yes, there are single sexually active straight people, as well as an occasional straight couple with an open relationship, but am I wrong in that these people are more accepted by the hetero majority than their gay counterparts? Just asking.

What to do you think? Feel free to comment if you'd like. You can also email me if you'd prefer to send a private message.