Trapped by BearTrapping and Other Matters

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When It's Time to Call for the Check

When you're on a date with a guy, you know it's time to call for the check -- or a cab-- when he says:

NOTE: Most of these are based on real comments by real guys, either said to me or someone that I know.

1.) "I'll never love anyone as much as I love my ex-wife."
Well, then, we sure don't have much of a future. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not your ex-wife.

2.) "I'm actually bisexual, and I think my preference is women." Then shouldn't you be dating a woman?

3.) "Adult protective services made me move out of my aunt's house because they said she wasn't getting enough to eat." If you think you're gonna eat me out of house and home, forget it!

4.) "I've been thinking of leaving the priesthood." You're -- a -- fuckin' -- priest!!!

5.) "I love to bareback and I say 'fuck you' to anyone who objects! After all, it's my ass, isn't it?" Well, it may be your ass but it's my body and my dick has no intention of entering into it. [While it may be comparatively rare, tops can get HIV.]

6.) "I love you, do you hear me, I love you, I said I love you!" [In bed, from someone you've known only a couple of hours.]

7.) "C'mon, I can tell that you dye your beard. I mean I can see the gray roots." Yes, I dye my beard. I dye it green on St. Patty's day and orange on Halloween. Anything else is none of your fuckin' business.

8.) "You like man-boobs, don't you?"

9.) "You and I are about the same age, aren't we?" [From someone who's a good twenty years older than you.]

10.) "My father and I had an incestuous relationship for many years. After he died and was cremated, I dipped a spoon in the urn and ate some of the ashes." Remind me not to go to your next dinner party.

Self-Hating Homos Are the Worst

First of all, I think we all agree that it's great news about the gay marriage victory in California, about which you can read more all over the Internet and the gay blogosphere.

Unfortunately, it's distressing to know that some of the most vocal opponents of gay marriage have themselves been homosexual.

Take the case of Tom Brock, a Lutheran minister in Minneapolis who not only speaks out against gay marriage, but is against ordained homosexual ministers -- despite the fact that he lies awake every night hungering for a man while praying that his desires will go away [Don't hold your breath, asshole!]

Brock is a self-hating homo. His "secret" was discovered by a undercover gay journalist who attended meetings of Courage -- what a joke! -- a Catholic group of self-hating homos. [The implication, of course, is that it takes courage to deny one's natural gay feelings, when it's actually far more courageous to embrace them and come out of the closet.] Talk about the blind leading the blind!

Brock is a 57-year-old virgin. He doesn't consider himself gay because he's never had sex with a man -- or anyone. [In this he's being disingenuous. True, he's not gay in the Out and Proud sense, but he's still homosexual.] He thinks no one is born gay but that "things go wrong." He thinks all practicing homosexuals will go to hell.

In other words, Brock is a complete idiot.

Brock was outed in the magazine Lavender -- sheesh, how I hate that title! -- by presumably gay journalist John Townsend. Townsend has supposedly gotten some flack for being "undercover," but how else was he supposed to infiltrate the group and get the skinny? By announcing that he was doing a story for Lavender?

My problem with Townsend -- and I want to make clear that he may have been misquoted -- is his saying that Brock is "free to do what he wants to do and say what he wants to say." My problem with that is that while even Brock may admittedly have the right to free actions and free speech, he is in essence practicing hate speech and I don't see why that should be allowed to continue. Every time he uses the media [he has preached on Twin Cities cable access for twenty years] to denounce the gay lifestyle and spread lies about its origins and "sinful" nature he is doing irreparable harm, especially to impressionable young people, some of whom still commit suicide when they realize they're homosexual -- thanks to attitudes espoused by Tom Brock and people like him.

Of course, with the weak-tea activism of today, people will talk about Brock's "right" to be a homophobe instead of organizing pickets and handing out leaflets with information that runs counter to Brock's lies and distortions. I can imagine just how long my old group the Gay Activists Alliance would have put up with this fool!

Here's the truth about Brock. He has a negative self-image both about his looks and his sexuality. He's 57 and has never found a sex partner, and I for one don't believe that he hasn't tried. I've met guys like this. They never get laid -- or in Brock's case have never gotten laid -- and they're so bitter about it that they start to hate all gay men, all homosexuals and indeed homosexuality itself.

Of course, the chief object of their hatred is themselves.

No Tom Brock has never had sex with another living sole ...

And he's out to make all of us pay for it.

What a turd!

How I Will Spend My Summer Vacation

Trying to stay cool!

I'll be back in early August -- if not before -- with brand new posts on:

Supposedly "straight" bears.

An odd episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent where a man marries a women because he had the hots for her brother [!?]

The way that the odd, pre-Stonewall "deification" of "straight" men doesn't ever seem to end and what it says about some gay men's feelings of self-worth.

Some bizarre and interesting gay goings-on in assorted films and TV shows, such as a gay football team on Bones.

When it isn't advisable to sue a blogger who says you're gay.

Some unvarnished truths about bisexuality, "straight" guys [ or "straightguise"] who have sex with men, and internalized homophobia.

And more!

HAPPY GAY PRIDE

HAPPY GAY PRIDE, EVERYONE!

HAVE A GREAT DAY!

AND IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY. COME OUT TO SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT!

BILL SCHOELL

Flamed

I have written before about the events for Fireflag, the gay firefighters group, at Ty's bar on this blog.

A couple of weeks ago they had another event. There is, as I have said, a buffet, and for five dollars you can enter a raffle in which the prizes include a substantial amount of cash [at least $100 and generally more].

There are guys who come in, stuff their faces with food, and never buy any tickets. The issue that some customers wouldn't be around for the drawing was addressed: consider the five bucks a donation they were told [I mean you're getting good food]. Or give your tickets away. If you know somebody in the bar, given them your tickets and ask them to let you know if you win.

Well, at this particular event one of the Fireflag members sat by the buffet selling tickets. A few people slipped by while he was getting ready, but he told everyone else that they had to buy tickets before they ate. I thought this was an excellent idea and told him so. "It's an uphill battle," he told me. And this for the gay firefighters who risk their lives ... ?

Suddenly two guys I had never seen before rushed up to the buffet, grabbing plates. He told them the buffet was only for ticket holders. The first guy started screeching at him that he "gave every month" or something along those lines, even though I had never before seen him at a Fireflag event or even at Ty's. He became hysterical, and even called the fireman a faggot. Then the other guy who was with him snapped at the same fellow I hope your house -- or the bar, I foget which -- burns down.

Lovely! Talk about bitchy queens who need some valium -- or therapy.

Some people go berserk when they see free food [or an open bar]! The night before the Fireflag evening I had been at a wonderful event given for the 30th anniversary of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. [No, I was not one of the old wrecks they were preserving!] After awards were given out to notable village establishments and individuals, there was a reception up the block at the Forbes Gallery. Inside the lobby there was a table of food. I went in the other room to get some wine and when I returned the table was absolutely surrounded by people -- mostly seniors -- three deep who were gobbling everything they could get their hands on and wouldn't make room for anyone else to get a nibble. I said to a young lady watching this spectacle; "You'd think they hadn't had a decent meal for weeks!"

Luckily, as this was the 30th anniversary, the Society went all out, and there were not only two open bars with every kind of top shelf liquor imaginable, but waiters came around with trays of delicious appetizers, so nobody went hungry. It was a Class A event.

Now most of the people gobbling up everything on that table were straight, but I bet they wouldn't have paid a measley five dollars for all the free food and booze,either. It's not that the people at the Society gathering -- or the men at Ty's -- can't afford it, but there's just something that makes people go crazy when it's free. I know of at least one man who goes to every free buffet at every gay bar he can find, even though he has plenty of money and goes out to dinner two or three times a week. No, he doesn't give five dollars to Fireflag. Fuck him! [I mean even Larry, the wonderful guy who makes the food every month, buys tickets!]

I guess it's human nature, and not especially a gay thing. But I do wish that some of the hungry tightwads at the Fireflag events were more supportive of the organization and their gay brothers.

As for those two screeching queens who made such a fuss. Happy Gay Pride, brothers -- and go to hell!

Troubling Questions About Aaron Vargas

20/20 recently did a story about Aaron Vargas [pictured], who shot to death a man named Darrell McNeill who had allegedly sexually abused Vargas since he was eleven.

Vargas did not go to the police [although other alleged victims did] but went out to McNeill's trailer and shot him dead. No matter how heinous McNeill's acts, he would not have gotten the death penalty for them, but that's what he got from Vargas. [Vargas claimed that he was afraid McNeill would molest his young daughter.]

However, let me say upfront that I have little sympathy for pedophiles. I am tired of the confusion they cause in that some people mistake men who molest little boys for gay men, who are only attracted to adult males.

But here's where this case gets interesting. Vargas and McNeill apparently continued the sexual relationship long after Vargas became an adult.

A psychologist -- Dr. Michael Welner, I believe -- interviewed on the show seemed to have very little knowledge of this sort of thing, but suggested that Vargas was somehow under McNeill's sadistic control or something along those lines which is why he continued to have sex with him. Maybe.

I don't know. Maybe this is true. On the other hand I think people tend to have sex with other people they're presumably not attracted to for some kind of gain -- monetary or something.

In other words, I think 20/20 only touched the surface on this story. There's a whole lot more going on here that the program didn't reveal. The motive seems to be cut and dry: Vargas killed the man who molested him for years. Yet why now? What was the true reason behind his sudden actions?

Reporter Chris Cuomo asked Vargas about the adult sex he had with McNeill and what that might indicate about someone, and Vargas responded that you might think that someone who did that was "'a fag." [So right away we know what Vargas thinks of gay people. And sadly, maybe of himself? Self-hatred 101 anyone?] Cuomo immediately said/corrected him: "they might think you were gay." Italics mine.

One might also wonder why it was necessary to murder McNeill to supposedly keep him away from Vargas' daughter [assuming he had any interest in molesting her in the first place]? It seems Vargas could just tell the guy to stay the hell away from his home and his daughter -- I mean he had the gumption to shoot him [in front of his wife] -- and tell the child's mother to lock the door if she saw him coming.

Again let me make it clear it's not that I have sympathy for McNeill, but more that the 20/20 program raised so many red flags and other issues. Many of the citizens of Fort Bragg rallied around Vargas but I got the sensation that it wasn't so much they were glad he'd killed a molester, but that they might as well have been cheering that he'd killed a "fag," that to these conservative people there was little difference between the two. The shame for Vargas and for other boys abused isn't so much that they were victims but that they "indulged" in homoerotic activities.

That's another problem I have with predators like McNeill. They are not "gay men" but they like sex with males. But they are not part of the Out and Proud Healthy, Accepting Gay Community, but rather are closeted hypocrites who victimize children who can't defend themselves. McNeill portrayed himself as a married heterosexual pillar of the community, while he had sex with men and boys. Was it more about power than anything else? Untouched by gay liberation these sad, pathetic creatures fuck up their own lives as well as others. One man reported that his younger brother committed suicide due to McNeill's actions, or at least that was what he felt had happened.

I've no doubt that some of the boys McNeill allegedly molested were born gay. But their first homoerotic experience was not a healthy, positive, mutual one, but one of rape and molestation. One man interviewed on the program who claimed to be McNeill's victim was such a positive portrait of self-loathing that it was hard to look at him. [I wanted to say to this guy, okay, being molested by a man doesn't make you, or mean that, you're gay, but if you are gay, it's okay! Not okay to be molested, of course, but okay to be gay.] It may be possible that some heterosexual victims of male-male child abuse can become confused about their orientation -- maybe -- but I've no doubt that some gay victims may find it impossible to ever feel good about being gay.

I can't quite bring myself to cheer for Aaron Vargas, however, not only because he circumvented the justice system and prevented some of his fellow victims from getting the closure they may have gotten by seeing McNeill on trial and facing his accusers, but because I have this nagging doubt that it wasn't [or at least wasn't just] his alleged molestation that drove Vargas to murder McNeill. There's something else going on here.

We may get the answers someday, but we probably won't get them from 20/20 -- or Aaron Vargas.

Of Newsweek and Gay Actors

THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT ACTING

A recent article in Newsweek has some [professional] gay activists and gay actors upset, and I can't blame them.

The article claims that straight actors can play gay but gay actors have a problem playing it straight.

According to the author, a Ramin Setoodeh, this is even a problem when the actor is non-stereotypical. He thinks that because the audience knows the actor is gay, they won't or can't accept him in straight, especially romantic, roles.

The latter point may have some validity to it, but it seems to me that if an actor is really good in his or her role, the audience will forget that they're acting and accept them in the part.

Another point the Newsweek author misses, incredibly, is that actors act. It may be impossible for some stereotypical gay guys to act butch on stage or on camera, but I have seen cases where even a "queen" can act very masculine when called for. I have met actors off-stage who were very butch in a play but rather femme in real life as well as vice versa. I remember even Harvey Fierstein played a straight gangster in a movie and was marvelous and completely convincing. That's why it's called acting.

Rock Hudson certainly had no trouble loving up the ladies in his movies and while he may not have been a great actor, he came off as convincingly "hetero." In fact, it annoys the hell out of me whenever someone -- gay or straight -- suggests that there's no chemistry between a leading man and a lady [or the other way around] because one of them is gay. Often you have two straight actors playing lovers and there's still no chemistry. Some people think the two actors have to be screwing off-screen before they can be believable as a couple. The truth is that a lot has to depend on such factors as basic acting ability, how realistic a couple they make in the first place [65-year-old guy and babe of 20?), and an intangible rapport between the two actors that may or may not show up on camera.

I don't know anything about Ramin Setoodeh. Don't know if he's straight or gay, or if he's gay whether he's Out and Proud or some self-hating homo, all I know is that with his ill-advised Newsweek column he's taken a giant step backward.

With its shrinking readership, let's hope Newsweek doesn't influence producers who were thinking of hiring a gay actor for an important straight role -- including a romantic lead -- and now may think twice about it.

A Sad Good-bye to Harry

I met Harry Weider (pictured), who died last month, at a party and was immediately taken with him. Harry was a Gay, Jewish, Disabled Dwarf, and he fought for rights for all of those groups. Life gave him a lot of issues to deal with, and he dealt with them with intelligence, humor, and tenacity. He was a very sweet and likable man. He was active in ACT UP, which fought for the rights of AIDS patients, served on community boards, and was always an advocate for the disabled and gay people.

In his late fifties, Harry had just started getting into opera. Knowing I was into opera and had written one tome on the subject, he emailed me a few times on the subject in general and on specific operas that he was planning to see. His always lively e-letters were always intelligent and opinionated in the right way. We also discussed the best places to go have a drink, as not every bar was comfortable for a man who had trouble walking and sitting. [Apparently he had a hearing impairment as well, which I was completely unaware of. I assume he was able to read lips.]

He frequently asked me to meet him for a drink, but unfortunately, the timing was always off. I hope he didn't think I was blowing him off, because I thought he was a genuinely fascinating person and wanted to know him better. Reading various tributes to him I realize that there was a lot I didn't know about him, a lot I didn't get the chance to appreciate.

I got a message from Harry via Facebook a few months ago, importuning me to sign up so that I could look at his "stories and photos." Well, I signed up, went to his profile, and discovered that there was nothing there but his name and photograph. The next time I saw Harry I said, "I only signed up for that thing because you wanted me to see your stories and pictures and there was nothing there." Harry laughed and said, "That's because I haven't put anything on there yet!"

Some of the tributes I read about him by fellow board members and politicians with whom he crossed swords focus -- in my opinion, too much perhaps -- on his feistiness, albeit affectionately, but he was also a good-natured man with a great sense of humor and warm personality.

Harry was leaving one of the frequent meetings he attended when he was struck and killed by a cab. He died on a Thursday. His funeral was on the very next day, which unfortunately meant that he was buried before many of his friends and acquaintances even knew of his death. I know there are a great many people who would have loved to have been able to pay their last respects to him, although a great many people did attend.

He is survived by his mother, a Holocaust survivor. My heart goes out to her.

So, I'll have a drink to Harry's memory tonight. And hope that wherever he is, he's givin' 'em hell and having fun.

You can read more about Harry here.

Gay and Running for Office?-- Bring Out the Girlfriend!

Well, I at least find this amusing.

In Philadelphia two people are running for the House in a heavily gay district that is known as the "gayborhood."

One of them is a lady named Babette Josephs. The other is a man named Gregg [more on that spelling later] Kravitz, who is pictured.

Ms. Josephs claims that Kravitz told her he was gay.

Gay. Not bisexual. Not straight. But gay.

[Okay, let's get to the spelling of that name. I know I am always railing against stereotyping and the like, but whenever I see a guy who spells his name with two consonants at the end -- you know, Ronn instead of Ron, Donn instead of Donn, or Gregg instead of Greg -- I always think: gay. No offense, but I find it kind of, well "queeny."]

Anyway Since Gregg with two "g"s told Ms. Josephs that he was gay, the lady was a bit surprised when he showed up with a young lady in tow, and introduced her as his girlfriend -- not gal pal or female friend, but someone he is dating.

Now -- just when he's running for office -- Gregg with two "g"s has suddenly become "bisexual."

See, Gregg wants to have his cake and eat it too. He can reach out and touch more heterosexual voters by producing the girlfriend -- see , guys, sure I'm queer and all that, but -- wink, wink -- I'm really a reg'lar fella, I got a girlfriend, see --ain't she a babe -- I'm not a total --- sshhh -- fag, I dig chicks just like you do.

But Gregg can also appeal to LGBT voters by claiming to be bisexual, and if you doubt or question or dare to say that a bi guy with a girlfriend is not exactly on the same planet as a homosexual man who can't even get married, you'll just be called "biphobic."

So Gregg-- whatever he may be [but keep those two gs in mind] -- is a fairly clever fellow.

But I feel not clever enough to fool Babs. I mean, Babette.

Ms. Josephs seems to feel that Gregg is actually a straight guy, cynically saying he's gay, then bi [so he can be seen in public with his girlfriend] to get LGBT votes.

But let's remember, he spells his name with two gs.