Hold That Tiger!

I've been a bit disturbed with all the goings-on with Tiger Woods and his infidelities, the public's reaction to same, and his apologies to his wife, children, mother, and virtually everyone else on the planet. What for?

You might wonder why do I care about a presumably heterosexual guy and the fact that he was unfaithful with many women. The problem for me is the sheer puritanical attitude toward sex that has been displayed. Gays have been victimized by this same attitude for generations.

As far as I'm concerned, Woods' infidelities are between him and his wife. If he wants to apologize to her -- if she wants to stay with him or head for divorce court -- it's their business. Most men -- most human beings -- are not monogamous by nature anyway. This was something inflicted on us by religion and conservative mores. Certainly I don't see why a philanderer -- or anyone who's sexually active with more than one person -- has to apologize to the public for his or her carryings-on.

And the hypocrisy! Male editors ran headlines such as "Lock Up Your Daughters!" and the like with Woods' photograph, yet most of these guys a.) are also unfaithful to their wives and/or b.) wish they got as much action as Tiger did. Isn't a lot of the sanctimonious attitude toward sex due to simple jealousy? He's gettin' some and I ain't so I'm gonna make fun of him and make him pay.

The thing is: Isn't Tiger what many straight guys aspire to be: the super-stud with lots of girlfriends? Isn't virility the big bugaboo with so many guys? Isn't the need to be seen as a "tiger" with the ladies responsible for so much male insecurity, for homo guys being on the down-low or saying they're bisexual when they really aren't?

In our society guys who sleep around are "studs." Women who sleep around are "sluts." And gay men who sleep around -- you can just imagine!

So Tiger is a "stud," and the same society [men and women alike] that thinks that's what all men should aspire to be is now excoriating him for it.

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

And even single straight guys who sleep around get that same combination of admiration and condemnation. This is one of the few cases when in a sense a hetero is being put down for his sexuality [not that it in anyway compares to gay oppression].

With a dominant, entirely puritanical mind-set like this, no wonder gay marriage is such a struggle. [Jealousy comes into play here as well. Think of all those miserable straight couples hating every minute of their married lives and the envy they feel for gay couples who actually love each other and aren't getting married for all the wrong reasons. Not that there aren't great and successful straight marriages, I should add.]

One of Woods' lady paramours claims that Woods has had sex with men. I believe this was and is unsubstantiated. You can imagine the mea culpas if Woods had been caught with his pants down in the men's room. Imagine if he really were a Don Juan homosexual. Imagine the condemnation that would come his way -- and the apologies he would be mustering. I can hear it now: "I am not gay or bisexual. I'm a straight guy who went off the path due to too much liquor or post traumatic stress disorder." Or who knows what?

Just once I wish one of these adulterous guys would say: "I should have told my wife I wanted an open marriage because monogamy is not natural. I had a great time getting laid all over town and I feel no regret whatsoever. Sex is great! Don't you wish you were having the hot time I had!"

Don't hold your breath!

Beware of SCB's!

Many gay men will at some point in their lives have an encounter, experience or relationship of some kind with an SCB.

SCB stands for Straight/Conflicted/Bisexual. An SCB is a man who flits around the gay community and gay men for one reason or another but does not identify as gay. He may be straight (or simply say/think he is), conflicted (not certain what he is, which usually means he's gay but can't quite get past the shame/stigma of it even though he may know many happily Out and Proud gay men) or genuinely or technically bisexual, which especially in the latter case means he may date/sleep with both men and women but even if he has a decided preference for men will never admit it -- not even to himself. [This is in contrast to those openly bi-identified men who admit they prefer men and/or have strong sympathetic ties to the gay community. Okay, I'm being a little PC here. Sue me!]

Some SCBs are hustlers, go go boys, bartenders in gay bars, models, work in the porn industry etc. As I say, they flit around getting what they can get, but they have no gay pride whatsoever -- which is my problem with them. They want the advantage of being gay -- or should I say they want to take advantage of gay men -- but as macho as they may think they are they completely lack the courage to deal with any possible disadvantages of being out of the closet.

Frankly, I think these guys -- while they can at times be charming and attractive -- are asses and bores. They act like it's 1950 instead of the 21st century, like we haven't had forty years (and more) of Gay Lib. Their attitudes are strictly pre-Stonewall.

Some of them can, however, bring out feelings of lust, romantic yearning, affection, and even love in gay men their own age and (especially?) older.

I remember an older acquaintance, "Joe," who lived in Boston and had a lover we'll call Frank. Joe was older than Frank but the age gap was not that wide. The two lived together, travelled together, the two seemed in every way a couple. Frank and I would dance together in Boston's gay bars (Joe did not enjoy dancing).

On one trip to Boston I ran into Joe who told me that Frank had married a woman. He said he knew he liked women and was perfectly okay with it. How could anybody be okay with having the man they were in love with go off with someone else? I never did get all the facts. Was Frank bisexual, and did he prefer this woman (or perhaps more to the point, a straight life) to living with Joe? Had he only been using Joe (I mean, who was paying for their vacations together?) While I seriously doubt if Frank was totally straight, perhaps he -- and even Joe -- thought of himself as a heterosexual. Was Joe so in love, so lonely, that he'd take up with a "straight" guy, knowing all the while that he'd inevitably walk out on him? Was Joe invited to the wedding? Did he stand there pretending to be happy for the man he loved while his heart was breaking? Did he make any attempt to make Frank see that his marriage could merely have been an act of internalized homophobia? (Joe was not exactly an activist type, however.) We lost touch and I never got the answers to these questions, or learned how he ultimately dealt with losing his companion. I don't even know if he's alive.

I think some gay men just fall for these SCBs and desperately hope that they're not only gay but will eventually feel the same way about them. Or at the very least that the SCB will make the smitten one part of their lives. Maybe they hope that they'll be able to turn them into loving friends or son substitutes -- they're just so infatuated that they desperately need to be part of their lives in some capacity. (And of course there are some self-hating homosexuals who feel they can only love a "straight" man -- talk about pre-Stonewall attitudes!)

Another friend of mine fell in love with a younger, straight co-worker. He denied he felt this way -- for some reason the gay men who fall for SCBs never want to admit it (more on that later) -- but (as is always the case) he talked and talked about the SCB practically to the exclusion of all else, which is a dead giveaway, trust me on this. The two became fast friends, a friendship which has survived the straight guy's two or three marriages. My friend has sort of been adopted by the family, and is godfather to some of the younger man's children. For his sake I hope that by this time he thinks of the SCB as a good, loving friend and nothing more. But this friend has always had strong guilt feelings over his homosexuality, and a sexless relationship with a straight man is, to him, sadly, preferable to a romantic and sexual relationship with another gay man. [This is of course similar to the situation with married homosexuals.]

Since I have no guilt feelings over being gay, it was a surprise to me when I (briefly) became infatuated myself with one of these SCBs. This was a complete surprise to me and I was not in any way thrilled with the development. After a couple of months of intense, foolish feelings, something clicked in my brain and common sense prevailed. I made no passes, asked for no dates, and certainly spent no money (he was not a hustler in any case). Now a bar friend of mine has become "best buddies" with the very same guy, goes out to dinner with him, exchanges text messages, and so forth and so on. He vehemently denies that he is in love with him, but talks and talks and talks about him incessantly....

Oy vey. When I look at him and see the goofy love light in his eyes, I can only shake my head ruefully and think "better him than me." Who on earth knows where this will lead but I know it probably won't be anywhere good -- or at least very sexy.

I dodged a bullet and don't I know it!

We gay men do not need SCBs. There are plenty of Great Gay Guys out there, out and proud men who will never give us half the grief and bullshit of the SCBs. Sure, gay men aren't perfect, not every relationship works and some gay guys wind up married to Out and Proud stinkers, but at least you don't have to spend half your time wondering "Is he or isn't he?" or "Is he really 'bi' or just ashamed ?" and all the rest of the crap.

SCBs haunt the gay community like prick-teasing incubi. Hopefully some of them will finally grow up and turn into Out and Proud Gay Men -- and the rest will just go away!

To Straight Men Who Want to Work in Gay Bars

I try, but it's usually impossible for me to write a short post. Of course, I always meant this blog to be a collection of "think pieces," longer articles that take some time to read and which will, hopefully, provoke some thought and comment.

I received an interesting comment on my post on Gay-Friendly Closet Cases, from a heterosexual guy who wants to work in a gay bar and his reasons why. You can read the original post, his comment, and my reasonably short reply here. I was going on at such length, however, that I decided to continue my reply -- and make some other general comments on the subject -- with this new post. I've danced around the subject of straight and straight-identified bartenders in gay bars often enough; now I'll hit it head on.

Okay. I heard from a man who was treated miserably by his straight bosses at a fine (non-gay) dining establishment, but was treated nicely by gay male customers (or at least men he perceived as being gay) who tipped so well that he now wants to find employment in a gay bar. He's annoyed that I -- and many other gay men -- wonder about the true sexuality of straight bartenders in gay bars, although my original post gave plenty of reasons for it. Now I'll continue my reply (although I also intend it to serve as an "open message" to any straight guy who wants to work in a gay bar):

"Working in a non-gay bar with a few friendly gay customers doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy working in an all or mostly gay bar, or that the customers will be as friendly to you – or vice versa -- after you’ve worked there for awhile. (Some gay men are simply irritated by straight bartenders – they just can’t relate to them; I’ll explain why in a moment). And there are as many different types of gay bars as there are gay men; some would really not appeal to a genuine straight guy.

And let me address, hopefully for the final time, this whole business of tipping. I remember the owner of a gay bar that employed a couple of straight-identified bartenders saying that it had to be about more than the tips, because a good bartender can make good money in any popular bar. They don’t have to work in a gay one. Some of your gay customers were nice to you and tipped well, but surely some of your straight customers were nice and tipped well also, no? In my experience (which is, frankly, greater than yours) – I’ve had gay and straight friends for years and go to gay and straight bars – gay men don’t tip any better than anyone else.

I can tell you that my friends and I base our tips on the following: How much the drink costs, how friendly the bartender is (never how "hot"), how many drinks I plan to have and – most importantly – how much money I have in my pocket. I don’t tip gay bartenders better than straight ones, or vice versa, no matter where I am. This whole business about gays tipping better is, in my opinion, nonsense. Often how people tip has nothing to do with their sexual orientation or whether a place is gay or straight, but what kind of establishment it is. And may I reiterate that having a few (I assume obviously or stereotypically) gay customers in a non-gay bar is not the same as working in an all-gay or mostly gay environment where many gay men will be more "macho" and not so "funny and fabulous" like the Queer Eye guys -- assuming that's what you enjoyed about these customers; the "camping," that is.

Some people theorize that straight men work in gay bars for narcissistic reasons – gay men can be more demonstrative in their approval and flirting than some women. But these guys, straight or closeted, have to ask themselves: what is it about them that makes them crave the attention of gay men? (For the record there is nothing worse, in or out of a gay bar, then a cocky straight guy who thinks he’s God’s gift to gay men and expects us all to either genuflect or go all goo-goo eyed when we look at him. Yuck! It’s now considered very old-fashioned behavior for gay guys to moon over a straight guy when there are all kinds of gay guys of every type imaginable in the world to hit on, including very masculine guys if that's what you're after.)

You also need to understand that many gay men – not all – are just not comfortable with straight bartenders in gay bars (this doesn’t mean they’re "intolerant" of straights). It sounds as if you have the right attitude – very different from some (see my post on The Malevolent Munchkin of Christopher Street to read about a really obnoxious straight-i.d.’d bartender as well as other thoughts) and I appreciate your attitude and gay-friendliness, as well as your understanding that most customers will assume you’re gay. Just remember that gay men generally go to gay bars to meet, cruise and hang out with other gay men – we may have straight male friends but we can see them on other occasions.

Gay bars have much more meaning to the gay community than, say, singles bars do to straights. We may in some ways seem the same as straight guys, but never forget that we are also different. We are emotionally, romantically, sexually attracted to OTHER MEN, and there isn’t a gay man alive who wants to get a crush on some straight bartender who can’t even give you an affectionate good-night kiss on the lips, even if nothing else may ever happen, and who doesn’t really relate to, or understand, what it’s like to be gay. Who needs a a straight bartender, especially a somehow attractive or appealing one, in a gay bar when there are so many appealing gay bartenders? Also, straight guys take jobs away from gay men who might feel completely uncomfortable working in a straight environment. (There may be homosexual men working in straight singles bars, but if so, they are deeply closeted. Gay men , of course, are often employed by restaurants, but many of these places are not really gay or straight.)

Another problem with straight bartenders is that their girlfriends come in to the bar, then bring other girlfriends (so that they’re not the only straight woman in the bar, for instance) who then bring their straight boyfriends. Suddenly the bar isn’t so gay anymore, the straight people who come in aren’t always so gay-friendly, and we’ve lost another gay social center. I’ve seen this happen more than once. Most gay men have straight friends, but again, we don’t go to GAY bars to meet straight people, whom we’re surrounded by every day of the week. We want a gay, even a homoerotic, experience. And I know that many gay-friendly straight men are perfectly okay with gay guys as long as those gay guys are not being sexual (I don’t mean hitting on them but hitting on, necking with, each other) or political, talking heatedly about gay rights and homophobic persecution. They just have no interest or even somehow find it offensive. They don’t want to hear about how we’re "oppressed" because some of us make more money or have more career-success than they do, and they’re unsympathetic. They also feel that we can't really be "oppressed" since there are gay-friendly straight people in the world (There are. But certainly not enough of them.)

There are gay men who couldn’t care less about straight bartenders in gay bars – their attitude is "who cares? – they’re just here to serve you drinks and if they’re in the closet that’s their problem" and sometimes I wish I could feel that way but I swear that I and other gay men just get a kind of chill – for lack of a better word – when the bartender reveals that he’s got a wife or girlfriend or only (or primarily) likes women. Maybe it doesn’t matter in a busy, packed bar where there’s no chance to interact with the bartender or get to know him personally, but in a more relaxed, conversational venue I can’t help but think "this guy will just not get me [especially if he’s much younger], I can’t talk about gay rights or hot men with him and I’ll have to put up with his straight friends who may not be so gay-friendly" and so on.

Some of the gay guys who are more or less okay with straight bartenders don’t cruise, may not have an active sex life, are part of an "old married couple," and are definitely not Out and Proud militants like me -- and could even be dealing with a self-hatred that has them deifying straight men (a dying pre-Stonewall attitude but one that persists in some gay men) -- or all of the above. Sometimes they just want to be nice even if a straight presence makes them uncomfortable. And some gay men are so grateful when a straight guy isn’t prejudiced (or at least appears not to be) that they practically fall all over him -- in the figurative sense. Me, I never "thank" straight people for being gay-friendly, any more than an African-American should "thank" white people for not being racist. People shouldn’t be homophobic or racist in this day and age and they don't get points because they're not.

If you’re determined to work in a gay bar be honest with the manager about your orientation – the Stonewall Inn bartender I mention in my original post told the manager he was gay but tells everyone else he’s "straight;" the manager would have been well within his rights if he fired him for lying (or was he?) during the original interview. And don’t cry foul or screech "discrimination" if the manager decides not to hire you; that’s his prerogative as far as I’m concerned. Gay bars are for gay people and there are plenty of straight bars -- or other gay bars -- you can work in.

A straight person doesn’t have to work in or go into a gay bar to hang out with gay friends. Invite a gay couple or single man to your home, or out to dinner. Some, like me, will be perfectly willing to go to a straight bar. And there are lounges which cater to both gays and straights (a better employment bet for you, frankly) where everyone can hang out comfortably. But an all-gay bar, especially a hot cruise bar, is a different matter. At least pick out some gay piano bar or disco into which some or many straight people go – this is often workable. Avoid the hot cruise bars, leather bars, etc. (which you’re really not going to feel comfortable in, believe me, if you’re not at least bi) where the homoerotic atmosphere is extremely important. Nobody will want to see you smooching your girlfriend, assuming she’d even want to go in, when they're trying to get all hot and bothered in a homoerotic fashion. Women are not really welcome in these places by most customers not because they’re sexist, but because they distract/detract from the all-male masculine, homoerotic ambiance. If you were ever in a place like this you’d know what I mean.

Most gay men can get along and have fun with straight men in non-gay environments, as I certainly can (and occasionally even gay environments), but just don’t like straight bartenders in gay bars and that’s that. That doesn’t make us mean or "heterophobic" – we want an all-gay ambiance and frankly we’re entitled to it after all the shit we’ve put up with from most straight men. Even gay-friendly straight guys can have opinions and attitudes that don’t sit well with us. Who needs it? I don’t go to gay bars to educate straight people about gay life. And I confess I resent it if some people – gay or straight – claim that this is "reverse prejudice." Gay people are entitled to their spaces. And this business that "gay men of all people" must always be accepting of everyone – or at least accepting of what they say their sexuality is – seems a little ridiculous to me. Why should we be? Because some people supposedly accept us when most people don't? Sorry, that doesn’t get any points from me, either. Does the fact that we're discriminated against mean we always have to be tolerant of everybody else no matter what they do or say or we're at risk of being labeled hypocrites? Nuts to that!

So you can try to find work in a gay bar, but ultimately you may piss off some of the customers and not enjoy it as much as you think. A lot of it depends on your attitude and behavior as much as the gay guys’. Sadly, some gay men will put up with a lot of crap. I’m sure you would never behave like the "malevolent munchkin," although his problem was more that he was an immature asshole than that he was either straight or conflicted, although that certainly was a contributing factor. It’s hard for any straight guy to be entirely sensitive to or understanding of what’s going through the minds of gay guys (who are a very diverse bunch), especially in a world where it is still perfectly acceptable behavior among most people to tell "fag jokes."

Don’t get me wrong – it’s great that many straight people are comfortable enough with gays to want to go into or work in gay bars, and I get that you’re possibly just a perfectly nice, open-minded straight guy, who thinks "I’ve got nothing against gay guys, why can’t we all get along?" Sadly the world just doesn’t run that smoothly, and most straight men (and some gays) have no idea of the level of homophobia that still exists – rarely do they know that you can still get fired just for being gay in 31 states in the U.S., or that there’s a virulent "ex-gay" movement throughout the country that claims gays are sick and which has garnered a massive amount of financial support, and so on. Perhaps I'd be more comfortable with straight guys in gay bars if gay people and straight people were considered equals in this world, and if I hadn't met too many "gay-friendly" straight people, who deep down (like white people who think they have no racist feelings) have homophobic thoughts that come out at unexpected moments. Let me also make it clear that while I may go into straight bars on occasion, I go with straight friends and never while on a date with another man. On some occasions I will tell other people in the bar that I'm gay if a.) I feel it's warranted and the person can deal with it, b.) it will shatter a few stereotypes, and c.) if I feel I can "take" any homophobes in the vicinity. While I often see straight couples necking in gay bars, gay men can not hold hands or make out in most straight bars without inviting abuse. [And let me also say that if a straight man feels "persecuted" because customers in the gay bar where he works think he's gay, it in no way compares to the persecution faced by gay men -- and if he thinks it does he should definitely quit!)

This is hopefully not the case with you, but I’ve discovered that most straight men get angry if you suggest they’re gay not because you’re saying they’re in the closet, but because you’re saying they’re gay. There may well be legitimate 100% – or maybe 85% – straight guys working in gay environments, but I’ve encountered enough gay/bi closet cases drunkenly cruising/making out with guys in other gay bars on their nights off to know that gay-friendly closet cases do exist. Some men simply can’t get past the shame and stigma of being attracted to other men, even if a gay environment is stimulating to them. No, I’m not saying this is the case with you. But the more straight-i.d.’d bartenders in gay bars, the less likely it is that these poor conflicted souls will ever come out of the closet.

Remember, having someone think you’re gay or hitting on you once in a while is one thing – having it happen on a much more regular basis is something else again, and that’s generally when the buried homophobic attitudes that even gay-friendly straight bartenders can have come rising to the surface, and it’s never pleasant for the gay guy who just wants to get away from it all and be in a safe environment where he can totally relax and be himself. So maybe he hopes that the bartender is gay like him. What's wrong with that? So he asks him about it now and then in a nice way. Deal with it. If you can't ask whether or not somebody's gay in a gay bar, then where the hell can you?

And let's remember that the thing you should worry about the most if you work in a gay bar isn't that most of the gay customers will think or hope that you're gay -- but that the gay-bashers who hang around outside some gay bars on occasion hoping to beat up "fags" will think you're gay! It's straight people like that you have to worry about -- not gay men.

Does this sound like I’m trying to discourage you? It’s more that I’m being brutally realistic. It takes a very special straight man to be entirely comfortable and cool in a gay bar and, while you may or may not be one of them, I think they’re a very rare breed.

Oy Vey -- A Daily Variety of "mincing effeminacy"

The Kid from Brooklyn, a new musical about the comedian Danny Kaye, was reviewed in Daily Variety [December 17th 2007] by Bob Verini. Verini writes: "As for Kaye's psychological makeup, tantalizing hints (a cheek touch from Laurence Olivier) that his mincing effeminacy [italics mine]was no pose go unaddressed." [For the record, in his biography of Laurence Oliver, Donald Spoto suggested that the great tragedian might have had an affair with Kaye, but while this bit of info was fascinating, it wasn't really substantiated, alas.]

As you can see from the comical pose above, Kaye -- like most comedians -- could do the mincing (but not necessarily gay) business with the best of them, although I never really thought of him as "effeminate" (not that that would make him a bad person). Certainly this doesn't mean that he, Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope and legions of others were all gay in real life. When Kaye wasn't -- for lack of a better term -- camping it up, he always seemed perfectly "masculine," which certainly doesn't preclude his being gay. What bothered me is the way Verini suggests that if a man is gay any "mincing" he does -- even if it's only for the camera as part of some comedy routine -- is of course the way he actually is off-screen, all gay men presumably -- according to Verini's mind-set -- being "big swishes." Verini may not have meant it that way -- --the reviewer is a complete unknown to me, I know nothing of his personal life -- but this whole gay-man-as-mincing-faggot business is so incredibly out of date and irritating, given what we now know of the expansiveness of the gay male community, that it raises my blood temperature no matter who says it or how.

Even those gay men who are effeminate rarely "mince" in the way that alleged comedians portray them, and -- possessed of their own inner strength (if for no other reason than their having to deal with gay-bashing comments on a nearly daily basis) -- they absolutely do not deserve the disrespect that seems continuously poured over them -- and by extension all gay men -- in buckets. Comedy may in part be about exaggeration, but when you've heard the same jokes over and over and over again it gets old real fast.

Some straight men sometimes see/describe gay men as camping, mincing, being "light in the loafers," floating several inches off the ground, etc. even when the gay man in question is butch. Most straight men -- especially if they're insecure -- can't deal with the fact that there are gay men who are a lot more manly than they are. They can only comfortably deal with a masculine gay man if they imagine that no matter how he acts in public, when he's home alone with his friends suddenly his wrists go limp and he walks around with a decided wiggle. Even if they don't think that, they still like to think that the man is somehow feminine on the inside. And this applies to gay-friendly straight men who should know better as much as it does to the homophobes.

So -- was Danny Kaye gay? Apparently Hollywood insiders of a certain age say that there were rumors for years. One prominent Hollywood chronicler I know labeled him "bisexual" (at least in the technical sense as he was married with children). While I often found Kaye to be a little overbearing for my taste, he was a talented man and a likable performer.

If it turns out he was gay, so much the better.