theories on pride

throughout my life, ive been scared of many things – scooby doo, little becky kirkpatrick in the 4th grade, failing out of school, losing my job, and even being rejected by the occasional girl.

but theres one thing ive never been scared of and that is gay men.

i will be the first to admit that it sounds odd (and slightly ignorant) to say that, but A) its true, and B) its an odd but important distinction to make.

because most heterosexual men are scared spitless of homosexual men.

now, before anyone accuses me of feeding flames of hate, or silly nonsense like that, id like to adamantly state that this is not meant to be a post supporting the conservative right. in fact i would almost dare to say that it’s the exact opposite.

this is a post about why straight men need to get over it (or in this case get over themselves). and by that i mean – they need to overcome their two biggest fears of gay men:

- straight men need to overcome their fear that a gay man will be attracted to them and subsequently want to 'tap' dat ass. (ha!)

- straight men also need to overcome their fear that being around gay men will make them… turn gay.

which sounds stupid… right?

and of course it does, afterall we (i.e. MEN) were the ones who thought this shit up in the first place.

but stupid or not, all of the hate, all of the anger, and all of the negative attention directed at homosexual men can be traced back to these two gay myths.

most straight men are thoroughly scared of being gay – which is why many men go to such lengths to degrade and denounce anything and everything that is gay.

(~) ‘faggot this…’ and ‘homo that…’ and ‘thats gay…’ are all terms that have developed out of our fear of something that we don’t understand; or more specifically out of our fear that we WILL understand it all too well (just look at how easily straight men embraced pink and purple striped collared shirts this year). ha!

and for most men, these thoughts (these fears) are too much to handle.

so instead we lash out in any way we can.

which is unfortunate, because a little common sense, and some serious thought on the subject can go a long way to dispelling such nonsense.

but we’re men – who ever said we had common sense or the ability to think? ha!

without common sense or thinking to get in the way, its very easy for men to let ego and ignorance take the wheel.

because we all know how much the male ego likes to drive… ha!

ego plays such an important role in the gay myth – afterall, how self centered does a person have to be to actually THINK that they are attractive to an entire sexual demographic? because that is basically what most straight men are worried about – they are worried that they are SO damn hot, that gay men will come aflockin’. they are worried that they are SO damn hot, that gay men will force them into uncomfortable ‘homosexual’ situations. in other words, gay men wont be able to control themselves around the oh-so-hot-straight-man. riiiiiight.

im not saying that it cant happen… but in my experience it is very unlikely for a prototypical homosexual male (coiffed, fashion conscious, tanned, jacked from hitting the gym) to be interested in the prototypical heterosexual male (beer gut, dressed in gap and old navy, slightly out of shape, sporting the office peon sock tan).

you get the picture.

granted, there ARE straight men who don’t necessarily fit this stereotype – i happen to be one of them. but i KNOW that my looks and demeanor barely put me on par with the average boystown partygoer. which would really hurt my ego… if i wasn’t so straight. (ha!)

for men, its always natural for our ego’s to get us into trouble; unfortunately history has shown that our ignorance is just as likely to mess things up as our ego is.

in this particular case, ignorance cant be excused as readily as most situations since this is more about common sense than it is about knowledge or experience. not everyone has the opportunity to meet gay men or be exposed to gay culture – not everyone lives only a couple of blocks away from ‘boystown’; but the ignorance that im talking about isnt about exposure, so much as it is about common sense.

after all, the idea of ‘turning’ gay is pretty preposterous.

from what i understand (and i don’t understand all that much), homosexuality is not a switch that can be turned on and off at your will. my understanding is that you are either born as someone who is gay, or you are not. which (in my opinion) makes a lot of sense, because being a gay man (or women) in america is not an easy life to lead – if you could turn it off, im sure many people would.

which is something that i think a lot of straight men should think about before they get worried about being ‘turned’. dontchya think?

unfortunately straight men have a lot of negative reinforcement that SUGGESTS that turning is physiologically possible… after all isnt that the ultimate male fantasy – every manboy dreams of being able to ‘turn’ a really hot playmate lesbian away from lesbianism into our own male dominated hetero sex toy. ha!

we really are dreamers aren’t we. ha!

this past weekend chicago held the 2005 PRIDE parade. i was proud to be out on the parade route supporting the men and women who are stronger people than i could ever hope to be.

(~) im not proud of it, but even i am prone to use these terms.

***i am not an expert on homosexuality – im not even an expert on heterosexuality. but i wanted to share some of the unspoken fears and confusion that most straight men often deal with. its easy to see that men are uncomfortable or even ‘scared’ of gay men. but why? ask your guy friends if im right – id like to hear your feedback.

no milks interview on hairdressers turning to the darkside ~ yay! i write like a guy. ha!