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Queer

Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay

I’ll start by saying that I’ve grown to hate the word “gay”. I really don’t want to get into the semantics issue of “gay” vs. “queer” (or “invert” or “homphile” or whatever). My problem with “gay” is that it suggests an identity rather than a sexual orientation, and I ain’t buying into it.

I sleep with other men. I eat cereal. I drive a Toyota. I watch “The Simpsons”. I go to the grocery store. Big deal. These are things that I do. Taken together, they may speak volumes about my identity. Individually, however, they mean nothing much at all. I have nothing more (or less) in common with other men who sleep with men than I do with other men who drive Toyotas.

This is not to say that I have nothing at all in common with any of my fellow fudgepackers, or that I’m somehow “different” or “more unique” or “more developed”. It just means that my search for “community” is based more on shared interests than on shared sexual orientation. In other words, I’d rather spend an evening talking to someone who shares my love for urban theory and history or Krispy Kreme Doughnuts or roadside motels from the 1950s than with someone whose only common interest is a shared passion for sucking dick.

If someone I meet whose interests match mine happens to be straight or even (gasp) a woman, that’s just fine. If, on the other hand, he happens to be a man who likes to screw men, then we have one more thing in common. Cool, huh?

I guess what I mean is that some vague notion of “gay community” is not number one on my list of priorities in a place to visit or to live. Similarly, sexual orientation is not one of the top aspects in my choice of friends. Years ago, these things used to be very important to me, which is part of why I moved to San Francisco. I can sort of understand why they still might be important to some other people. But the older I get, the less I view the world in terms of sexuality.

I’m not talking about faux masculinity, nor am I saying that people shouldn’t “flaunt their sexuality”. I have no patience with closet cases nor with tight-assed macho men (whether they like men or women). I’m in favor of “flaunting”. I’m just not in favor of the notion that sexual orientation makes for any more of a “community” than does an aversion to pickles on hamburgers.

I’m not going to sit through a crappy movie rather than a good one just because the crappy movie happens to have a “positively portrayed gay character”. I’m not going to buy a CD by a band which sucks just because dicks are one of the things they suck. And I’m most assuredly not going to live in a pastel-colored neighborhood of overpriced boutiques and juice bars simply because it’s a “gay mecca”.

Nor, on the other hand, am I going to assume something is bad just because a fellow Sodomite was involved somehow. I don’t hate “gay people”. I do hate people who think being “gay” is the most important single aspect of their identity, because they become one-dimensional and boring.

Ultimately, though, if I had to choose between living in a town with 20 great gay bars and a huge gay ghetto or one with 20 great used bookstores and a few huge run-down neighborhoods, I’d choose the latter without blinking an eye.

Log Cabin Idiots

November’s “Idiot of the Month” award is proudly offered to Rich Tafel and his pals in the Log Cabin Republican Club. Granted, this team of faggots would be shoo-in candidates for idiots of the DECADE. But they’ve made particular asses of themselves this month by courting George W. Bush and then expressing shock that he wasn’t interested in their advances.

Imagine that: a Republican candidate for President wasn’t interested in meeting with a group of sell-out gay Republicans. What a surprise. When will Rich and his merry band of Aunt Marys ever realize that the Republicans they so idolize would be thrilled if these particular suitors disappeared from the face of the earth.

The Log Cabin types remind me of gay men who spend their entire lives chasing after totally unobtainable straight macho men. They’re absolutely nuts about individuals who (by and large) feel nothing but contempt for them. If they’re drunk enough, they might let a fag suck them off, but they’re never going to return the favor, and they’re certainly never going to take one home to meet Mom.

Same with the Republicans: they may take money and support as long as the fags don’t expect any acknowledgement or support. Bush, has indeed stated that, while not agreeing to meet with them, he WOULD accept a donation or endorsement from the Log Cabin Club, thus qualifying him for the “Hypocrite of the Month” award. The really frightening thing is that, as the Republican front-runner, Bush probably will ultimately receieve an endorsement.

Or maybe the Log Cabin Republicans can all join the Reform Party and bend over for Pat Buchanan in a back room at the convention. Hope they don’t plan on getting near the podium, though…

I’m so queer that…

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I had sex for the first time on National Coming Out Day.

Actually, it was 11 October 1980, and there wasn’t really a National Coming Out Day yet; that didn’t happen until 1988.

But it was good enough for me, anyway.

I was 16. My parents were doing something that night and I had the night off from McDonald’s, so I drove up High Point Road to the neighborhood dirty bookstore. Somehow, without being told, I instinctively knew that was a place where things might happen. Maybe it’s because the place was called “Dudes.” Once illegally inside, I browsed the literature that was on display, much of it more photographic than textual. And older guy (he must have been thirty) approached me and somehow coaxed me into one of the video (actually 8mm film, I think) viewing rooms in the back. Things happened. Surprisingly many things. I was not as shy as I might have expected.

It was not really all that enjoyable. I wasn’t really excited by the guy. I was just excited by the fact that it was finally happening. There was a certain inevitability about it; it was something that just needed to happen with whomever happened to be handy. I have no idea what the guy’s name was. I didn’t really care all that much. I still don’t. To be brutally honest, I just sort of needed to get it over with so I could (a) know for sure it was what I was supposed to be doing, and (b) start focusing on doing it right with people I was actually attracted to.

I may have done it at that bookstore one more time, but I quickly graduated to the tearoom scene, because the mall was ultimately a safer place for a high school kid (especially one with a fairly recognizable car) to hang out than the dirty bookstore. I had fun with it. I regret nothing.

As an adult, though, despite the fact that I had sex in some fairly lurid and semi-public places, I never really did the bookstore scene again. It always kind of gave me the willies.

My first time was a checkbox on a list, not a romantic scene from a movie. And I’m really OK with that. I think the number people who hear angels playing harps or whatever the first time they have sex is probably not very great.

And just to complete this romantic story, Dude’s Adult Books became a sketchy used tire store several years ago.

It was 40 years ago today…

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… that I first had sex with a man in a bed.

I’d had sex with men before, generally in sleazy cruising spots that were really the only option available to a queer teenager in North Carolina at the time, but I’d never gone home with someone and done it in a nice respectable apartment with a nice respectable bedroom.

I was 17 years old and was coming out with a vengeance. We met, as was the custom at the time among those of us too young for bars, at a tearoom at Four Seasons Mall. He was 23 and was (I swear) in a fraternity at UNC Greensboro. His apartment was actually just a couple of blocks from my house. I don’t remember a lot about the sex, but it was an important moment for me because of the location and because I actually had time to talk to the guy for a while. It’s one of the first times that ever happened for me, actually conversing with a fellow sodomite.

This encounter obviously made a big impression on me as I’ve never forgotten the date, and as I kept having sex with other men (many, many other men) over the years. I’ve seen many apartments and had many conversations. I even picked up another member of that same fraternity a couple of years later, quite by accident.

I’m happy to say that I don’t do frat boys or tearooms anymore, but I do still have sex on occasion. It usually happens in a bed now with someone I already know, so that part of the novelty has worn off.