You know you're bisexual when ...

This morning I woke from a powerful erotic dream of ... my wife.  We were making love, doggie position, and it was, well, very satisfying.  It would not have been a good idea to wake her too, at 5 am, to finish off what my subconscious clearly wanted.  Not a good idea at all.  So I lay there staring at the ceiling and thinking about our life together, nursing a massive hard-on.

The day before, I was woken from another erotic dream, this time with a bloke.  We were in a hotel room, high up, with a view over some city.  He was very handsome, with dark curly hair, pretty much like the bloke in the pic.  Perhaps that was where the dream came from.   Anyway, I was impaled on him in an entirely pleasing, sexy and fulfilling way.  In this case, I also woke up before the climax.  (Is there some hidden pattern here?) Perhaps the nicest part of the whole dream was that I could feel his desire for me.  I could see it in his smile, in his face.  Definitely wish fulfillment, that!

Your subconscious doesn't lie.  When you dream of a man or a woman sexually, or of both, it's reflecting a profound reality, a truth, from deep inside.  There was a time when I thought bisexuality was a con: a transition phase to gayness.  And for some people it is.  Many straights I've mentioned this topic to are inclined to believe that if you desire or love another man, you are by definition gay, even if you also love and desire a woman.  If you have one drop of gayness in you then you are ipso facto gay, just as it used to be considered in regard to black blood.  Which is rubbish.

Our culture likes nice convenient labels and divisions.  Somehow, if we can just say 'it is thus', we can come to grips with complex phenomena, we can make the world less scary because we have labelled it.   We confuse the label with reality.  But reality is much more diverse and complex than these simple categories.  I am what I am.  I respond emotionally and sometimes sexually to men.  But I also respond emotionally and sexually to woman.  Some people would call me 'gay', others 'self-deluding', or 'in a phase'.  Some 'hypocritical' or 'dishonest'.  Actually I have news for all of you.  I am me.   Put me in a box at your peril.

Meanwhile, later today, after my lady gets home from work ....

I have written about this a lot.  Here are some more blog posts:

Labels

Queer but not gay

Saturday Night Thoughts

Special

Thought Experiment

Gay Sex by Any Name

Letter from Thomas

What Makes Us Gay

Saturday night thoughts

For thirty years after I married my lady, I considered myself a gay married bloke who loved just one woman, his wife.  It never seemed plausible to me that I might be bisexual.  I believed (foolishly) that bisexuals were dishonest, pretending to be half-straight when they were really gay.  And after all, I wasn't attracted to other women.  My emotional and sexual attraction was exclusively to men.  I was faithful to my wife (as I still am!) and didn't pick up men.  To most people I would have appeared completely straight.

Seven years ago I started writing gay-shaded fiction. My motives were several.  I had been through hell when I realised I was gay, and I wanted to write about gay and bisexual characters in a way that celebrated their gayness, not denigrated it.  I hoped that that would help young blokes who were struggling to accept their sexuality to be happier, and to believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay.  To be honest, I also hoped to make some money.  At the time my children were at pricey private schools and uni, and I wasn't earning much.  Untold wealth hasn't happened, sadly!  So far, I've made a princely $80, for my story Redhead. 

I had lived a life quite outside the gay networks which exist.  I knew no gay or bi men -- that I knew of; as with me, perhaps there were many that I didn't know of because they were closeted or "straight-acting".  But the essence of a network is that it is known, if not necessarily obviously visible.  What gay fiction I read didn't resonate with me.   I travelled along, occasionally attracted to a man, always, so far as I could tell straight, never talking about what I thought I was or what I felt, and never acting on my attractions.

And then I started writing, and started posting my stories in online groups.  And I started talking via email with other blokes out there, many of whom were bisexual, had been or were still married, who thought it quite ordinary that a man might be attracted to both genders even if he preferred one or the other.  And I found that my own definitions shifted as I learned more.  Remember, I'd been very ignorant.  I'd had sex with a few men, fallen in love with one, and then met my wife and married her.  But it became perfectly clear to me that I too was bisexual.  Oh, I was for the most part emotionally and sexually attracted to men, but once I allowed myself to feel it, I was often attracted to women too.  The labels and the boxes were too rigid and confining.

These days I have come to believe that whether you are gay or straight is absolutely unimportant.  Of course, I'm not saying gay rights don't have to be fought for.  Gays in many countries are still persecuted and murdered, and vile laws which discriminate still exist.  And that should stop.  But in most Western countries, gays if not yet equal, are certainly accepted in ways I never thought of 30 years ago.  I'm not talking about the law and custom, though, I'm talking about my perceptions.  I have gone through a transformation, where my intellectual acceptance of gayness has translated into a spiritual and emotional acceptance of my straight-shadedness, if I can call it that.  A bizarre journey,  but when you come to think about it, perfectly logical.  Acceptance does that.  It's liberating.

I feel tremendously free, free to think and feel what I want, untrammelled by convention or custom.  I hope one day the whole world will regard it as irrelevant and insignificant as I now do, and accept that people will run the gamut from gay through all different bisexualities to straight and it won't matter to anybody.  We shall overcome.  And it will be wonderful.

Hug

Closeness matters, even if you're straight.  A hug makes you feel better, if it's sincere.  It shows that he cares.

GI Kiss

Thought Experiment

Let's suppose you're a straight man (just for argument's sake, since I'm assuming I have no straight male readers, though I know I have many straight female readers.)

Now, you haven't had sex (even the kind you bestow upon yourself) for a while.  A close male friend is with you.  He's good-looking, easy-going and fond of you, and you like him a lot too.  You've had a few beers together.  He also hasn't had sex for weeks.  Assume also (for the sake of the argument) that there are no Christian-Fascists, no constant churchly drip of homophobic poison, and society really, really doesn't give a toss whether you're straight or gay.  You and he pull each other's wires, have a bit of a cuddle and a kiss.  It's fun; the release of oxytocin binds you a little closer together; as you lie next to him afterwards, you admire the line of his jaw, the swell of his pecs, the muscles of his thighs thickening into gold; you congratulate yourself on having him as a friend.

Right, so far, so good -- a story which is a staple of Nifty wish-fulfillment.  But, does this encounter make you or him gay?  Even if you repeat it?  Or does it just make you friends with benefits, enjoying what the French delightfully call an amitié amoureuse? Both of you are essentially straight.  Does the fact that you have, and enjoy, sex with with each other make you gay?  Are you bisexual?  What kind of bisexual?

OK, what about those famed circle jerks?  I haven't experienced one myself, but then I missed out on all that adolescent male bonding stuff.  Are the guys who strip off their kit and wank themselves in front of each other gay?  Bi?  Straight with a gay edge?

Let's invert the scenario.  You're a 100% gay bloke, so you thought.  You see what you assume is a beaut bloke (as I did on the train once).  His hair is longish but cut boyishly.  He's wearing a checked man's shirt with the sleeves rolled up, loose worn blue jeans, and rather cool hiking boots.  You enjoy a fantasy with him and you and then suddenly realise he is in fact a she.  Does (s)he suddenly become less desirable, now you know there's no cock between her legs?  Why?

Or take Dil in The Crying Game, a transvestite with whom a straight man falls in love thinking he is a woman, who vomits when he discovers that Dil is not a woman, yet remains in love with him, and has sex with him.  Or the bloke described by the Nick Archer in The End of Gay who goes to bars in drag, picks up straight men and when it's clear they're attracted, tells them he's a transvestite and invites them home with him. Most accept; some even bottom for him.

Or two straight best friends, who love each other and have sex together yet remain primarily attracted to women?  Or the attraction so many men feel for other androgynous men?  The "straight" blokes who have sex with men, and admit they enjoy it, and are happy to continue as long as you don't tell their friends.

I could go on.  What all this suggests is that in the right circumstances with the right person, straights are capable of enjoying sex with (and loving) a man, and gays are as capable of enjoying sex with (and loving) a woman.  It doesn't mean that the straights aren't straight, or the gays gay.  It certainly doesn't mean that the Christian-Fascists are right and that there is no such thing as "gay".  That would be like saying that just because you can have different shades of grey, black doesn't exist.  But look at it another way.  Perhaps it really means that almost everybody is potentially bisexual: in the right place, at the right time, with the right person.  The popular perception of a bisexual is someone who is attracted to both genders equally.  This is plainly wrong.  There are many bisexualities, in all the flavours I've talked about above, and in others too.

When I was wrestling with my sexuality, I conducted a similar thought experiment.  I said to myself, what if I found this really sexy man, and took him home and when we got down to naked skin discovered that he wasn't a man?  Would I stop making love to him (her) or would I go right ahead?  I concluded that if I were randy enough I would go ahead.  I then asked myself what the difference would be if I found a really beautiful woman, and took her home, only to find a cock neatly concealed under her dress.  What was I really?  Gay or straight?  Or bi?  What?  I realised then that it was silly to turn away from someone just because they weren't a man.  And I stopped automatically assuming that women weren't sexy.

Don't get me wrong.  I myself am mostly attracted to men, and mostly for emotional rather than sexual reasons.  But I also love my wife and find her intensely erotic.  Am I a closeted gay married man?  A bisexual?  A straight in denial?  Is it just, as the ex-gay movement persists in maintaining, that I don't have enough straight, manly hugs from straight manly men?  (I'm open to offers, all you straight, manly men out there.)  Am I in fact looking, in a relationship with a man, for friendship? No, as it happens, you ex-gay fanatics out there: just because my primary connection to other men is emotional doesn't also mean I don't find some of them sexy and fuckable.  There's something very erotic about a chin with stubble; the narrow hips of a man; even his smell.  In the end what is it we're attracted to?  How much of attraction is mystery and layers and inner and outer perceptions?  Labels -- so misleading, so useful.

What is, I think, unarguable, something we can all agree on:  we are programmed to love.  Even our own gender.  And it doesn't necessarily make us gay or bi or even confused.  It just makes us human.

[There have been some insightful and illuminating comments, so have a look at them too]

Confession

I know this will be controversial, and I'll get grumbling and snarling emails, but I don't like straight men--or, to be precise most of the straight men I've encountered (see Anel's comment below).  Oh, I know one or two straight men who are decent enough blokes.  But they just don't get it.  It's too hard for them to understand what we're like.  For them, their sexuality is innate, "normal".  There's never any doubt, any problem.  They're turned on by women and they never have to wrestle with being an outsider, with being different, with having feelings and desires which are not congruent with the "norms" of society.  They never had the agonising over their love for a male friend.  They never had to pretend to have a girlfriend, so that a judgmental society would not put them in a box and close the lid.  Yet they say things like "why do gay men make such a fuss about being gay?" and "I don't want to hear about your sex life" when they've just regaled you with their love for their girlfriend/wife.  I hate their assumption that you inevitably find them attractive.  I hate their blithe assumption that all is well with the world.  Their world.  The world where culture, politics, law, custom, popular fiction and films, TV, sports, shops, restaurants, public transport, schools, hospitals and universities embrace heterosexuality and "normality".  I'm so fucking sick of straight men.

And I have to confess also to sorrow and dismay when bisexual men embrace the macho crap of the hetero lifestyle and maintain they dislike the feminine in us, even while they're having it off with their blokes.

Yeah.  A dyspeptic post.  Yet, sometimes I get so furious with the follies and narrowness of mankind.  And every so often I feel a compelling need to shout or groan or weep from the rooftops.  Consider this a rant.  Normal programming will resume tomorrow

Jake Gyllenhaal

Some might not like his looks.  But I think he's sexy.  Very.  I know he's straight, but he was able to act a gay-shaded bloke with complete conviction in Brokeback Mountain, and he was obviously very close to Heath Ledger.  Every time a straight actor acts a gay or bi man without resorting to cliches, every time we are shown to be real people, then the homophobic bias against us is diminished.

Alas, his lawyers have just written to Queerty demanding that they take down a photo purporting to be him in his undies as it "defames" him.  I wonder whether he asked for this to be done?  If so, he's gone down somewhat in my esteem. 

Either way, enjoy the pics.

My Buds

Good-looking guys, showing their affection for each other.

 

I was never this close to any straight-ish guy. Alas.

Deep Secrets

It's a staple of all the conversations we have, gay men and straight women, that straight men are emotional pygmies, that they don't want intimate friendships, that they can't express their feelings, that they don't love other men.

It's worse than that, actually.  They do, when they're young.  It's only as they grow up that they deliberately step away from intimacy into emotional indifference.  This newly released book , Deep Secrets: Boys' Friendships and the Crisis of Connection, makes the the point that intense intimacy among boys in early and middle adolescence is very common, but it is replaced by competition, mistrust and loneliness as they grow into men.

As the publisher's puff says:

“Boys are emotionally illiterate and don’t want intimate friendships.” In this empirically grounded challenge to our stereotypes about boys and men, Niobe Way reveals the intense intimacy among teenage boys especially during early and middle adolescence. Boys not only share their deepest secrets and feelings with their closest male friends, they claim that without them they would go “wacko.” Yet as boys become men, they become distrustful, lose these friendships, and feel isolated and alone.

Drawing from hundreds of interviews conducted throughout adolescence with black, Latino, white, and Asian American boys, Deep Secrets reveals the ways in which we have been telling ourselves a false story about boys, friendships, and human nature. Boys’ descriptions of their male friendships sound more like “something out of Love Story than Lord of the Flies.” Yet in late adolescence, boys feel they have to “man up” by becoming stoic and independent. Vulnerable emotions and intimate friendships are for girls and gay men. “No homo” becomes their mantra.

These findings are alarming, given what we know about links between friendships and health, and even longevity. Rather than a “boy crisis,” Way argues that boys are experiencing a “crisis of connection” because they live in a culture where human needs and capacities are given a sex (female) and a sexuality (gay), and thus discouraged for those who are neither. Way argues that the solution lies with exposing the inaccuracies of our gender stereotypes and fostering these critical relationships and fundamental human skills.

At sixteen, my best friend and I loved each other completely.  It had nothing whatever to do with sex and everything with intense friendship.  It was entirely innocent.  It never struck me that perhaps we grew apart because we were both "manning up" -- though we were an unusual pair, neither of us sporty, both of us fascinated by ideas.  I always thought that the reason we grew apart was because he found girlfriends and I, well, I didn't, not really, not like him.  After all, it is the expected path of our society that the intense friendships of 12 or 14 or 16 are replaced with the intense emotion of marriage.  You are expected to love your best friend less than you love your wife.  Because loving another man  -- even non-sexually -- is simply not kosher.  It's something you might indulge when you're sixteen, but real men end up loving their woman more than their man.  That's the way it is.

I never had a problem being intimate with my friends.  But the men I tried to befriend did.  They were uncomfortable with intimacy, even when they didn't know my sexuality.  They found it hard to talk about their fears and weaknesses, their loneliness, their need for love and empathy.  I'm told by blokes who have navigated the rapids of male friendship more successfully than I have that sportsmen (o happy breed!) can bond, and ultimately can talk about those things which are dear to their heart.  For me this is an alien world.

Men are afraid to be intimate, to show their pain, to discuss their lives because, as the blurb above says, "human needs and capacities are given a sex (female) and a sexuality (gay), and thus discouraged for those who are neither".  

In this context there is no more sinister phrase than "you have to man up" or "making a man of you."  The users of these baggage-loaded horrors have someone like John Wayne in mind, taciturn, noble, violent, suffering in silence, a loner who doesn't even connect to his women.   Real men are strong, of course they are.  And noble.  And brave.   But they're also empathetic, caring, compassionate, loving, supportive, generous, and friendly.  Straight or gay.  And our culture takes sensitive teenage boys and turns them into lonely, unconnected automata.  As my elder son says:  so much of the sex obsession men have is really about trying to connect in the only way they know.   And that is desperately sad.

Majorca Flats -- 87

Keith stared down at the linen table-cloth and the shining “hotel silver” cutlery. Then he looked at the array of liquor bottles stored on the shelves behind the counter.

Jason waited patiently,

At last, Keith muttered, “Have you ever wished you weren't gay?”

Jason thought about it. “Well, at the beginning I had a relationship with a bloke at school. It didn't seem such a big deal, in a way. I read this book called The Charioteer which starts with a scene in a boys' boarding school. It's written by, um, …..”

“.... Mary Renault. Yeah, I know it. What gay guy doesn't?”

“ … anyway, in it she says something like 'some people are like cattle, which will lick up salt wherever they can find it if they are deprived of it. What she was saying is that with us 15, 16, 17 year olds, we wanted sex, and since we couldn’t have girls, being in a boys' boarding school and all, we were attracted to each other. And it was half expected but by the same token totally expected that after school we would get over it and get married, and most of the men did, eventually.”

“But you didn't?”

“No. But it never seemed 'gay' to me, if you know what I mean. My guy,” and here Jason had to stop and swallow the lump in his throat, “my guy,” he went on, his voice strained, “ he was so straight-acting. He was just a regular bloke who loved me. We didn't go to gay pubs, we didn't sleep around, he had lots of straight friends who knew about us. It was so … ordinary. So I've never felt 'gay'. I mean, I am, but ….” And he thought of Luigi, and decided that he had to see him again, just to tell him the truth about himself.

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Majorca Flats -- 83

Rock Hudson -- straight acting

Grateful that Keith understood, Jason smiled back, and said, “I like you Keith, and I have to work with you, and I don't want us to be enemies. And … you know … if we … well, afterwards ….”

“Don't worry about it. It's no biggie.” Keith reached across the table and patted Jason's hand. “I never meant to push. It's just … sometimes …. I get lonely.” He looked away and then self-consciously took a sip of his coffee.

“Yes. Yeah, I get lonely too. And I'm sorry now that I had sex with that guy. He was a nice bloke, but so sad. I think he'd had some loss or his guy had turned out straight or something and so after, we had a long heart-to-heart. He chucked me out because he thought I was straight!”

“You?” Keith gave a great shout of laughter.

“What dya mean, me?” replied Jason, grinning, but pretending to be angry. “I'm not so obvious.”

“Yeah, true. Maybe I just have a very sensitive gaydar. I could tell at once. I mean, even if you hadn't come into The Lord Grey for a job, I would've known.”

“Actually,” Jason drawled, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head, “I didn't even know that it was a gay pub. And when Tom told me not to fuck the customers I was …. shocked.”

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Reese Rideout is straight!

Say it ain't so!  But according to this frank interview with him and his wife, he is.

First a few pics ...

Reese Rideout is the top in every image.  And not only is he manifestly having no problem getting an erection, but in the last picture he is quite clearly also in ecstasy ( or is a consummate actor. In a manner of speaking.)  He says, in the article I linked to above:

Now I watch footage of women or think about Beckie while I'm filming.

O-o-o-o-kay ....  If you say so.

It's always been easier for lesbians to "pass" than for gay men.  Women are not expected to "perform", unlike the man.  Because the fact of the matter is that a man can't force a hard-on:  if at some deep level you're not turned on, you won't get hard.  A woman, by contrast, can always pretend to be aroused.  But Mr Rideout has no problem getting hard, as these images attest.  So at some level, he must find men a turn on, or at any rate, he must be turned on by the men he's filmed fucking.  Admittedly, they are kinda hot.  But still.

I don't care that he calls himself straight.  I know there are many men who do not define themselves as "gay" because they see it as a cultural definition rather than a clinical one.  Maybe it's time for a new label: straightish -- you call yourself straight but you can easily have sex with men.  Or perhaps straight but not strait or strict (all three words are of course cognate and have come into English via three different other languages)

The question I have for any Kinsey 6's reading this is whether you could get hard for sex with a woman.   And for any Kinsey 0's (why are you reading this blog, I ask myself ), could you get hard for a man?

Meanwhile, straight, strait, bi, gay or just gay-shaded, he has a magnificent body.

The Australian Religion

Whereas the majority of Americans believe in some organised religion or other, the majority of Ozzies have no religion.  So they say on the census forms anyway.  But it's not true.  They do have a religion.  Sport.

If LA vanished under the sea because the San Andreas fault had slipped, and there was a footy game on at the same night, guess which would be on the front page the next day?  Guess what the topic of conversation would be when the straighties got together to bond manfully at the water cooler?  You can't?  After all those blatant hints?  Tragic.

And right now there is some tennis thingy on in Melbourne.  Frigging sodding tennis.  Which means the trains are full with sodding tennis fans going to the tennis.  So I didn't get a seat.  I mean, what do my old bones matter, when you're going to cream your pants at the tennis?  I'm a practitioner of sports atheism, after all.  I deserve to stand.

OK.  I'm broadminded.  Even liberal (in the old-fashioned sense of the word).  People should be allowed to play and even watch sport (shudder) as long as they don't act too gay in public.  Did I say too gay?  I meant too sporty.  You know: bouncing balls up and down (not theirs, that would at least be interesting), talking knowledgeably about the fracking teams, for His Noodliness's sake, wearing green and gold or ghastly versions of the Ozzie flag.  Good grief!  Can't they just stay home and drink insecticide so I can get a seat on the train?

Anyway, one good thing, this photo of Lleyton Hewitt leapt out at me from the pages of The Age.  (They do it too, you know, The Age.  Worshipping at the shrines of sport.  It's shameful.) 

I took it home with me and played with my . . . sports . . . . equipment.  You can too, now.  Enjoy.

Majorca Flats -- 45

He was muscular, with a slim waist, broad shoulders and rugby-player thighs. His eyes were a startling grey-blue and his chestnut shoulder-length hair thick and curly. He had the knack of half-closing his eyes when he wanted something which made them glimmer seductively. You never got the feeling with him that he was deliberately charming you, at least not when you were with him, because it all seemed so genuine. Afterwards, you'd ruefully think back on how once again you'd been conned and he'd got what he wanted. While you were with him, he made you believe that you were the only person in the world who mattered. Even though you suspected that he forgot about you as soon as you'd left his presence, it never seemed to matter.

That first night at the bar, Luigi just smiled at Cody. He made no move to respond to Cody's advances, but he didn't repulse them either. He didn't shrug off the arms over his shoulders, and he smiled enough to let Cody know he wasn't put off. But he was too scared to respond to Cody's overtures by touching Cody in return.

At the end of the evening Cody had given him one of the charm-filled smiles he specialised in, and asked, “Do you come here often, mate?”

Greatly daring, Luigi had replied, “Only in the mating season. With the right person. .”

Cody gave a shout of laughter and then, his eyes sparkling, he'd pushed his fist gently against Luigi's forehead, and said, “See you here tomorrow, friend.”

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Majorca Flats -- 44

Luigi went into his tiny kitchenette and made himself some tea. While he was sipping it he thought about Cody.

He'd met Cody at a café-bar on Brunswick Street. They'd been sitting next to each other at the counter, sipping a latte, and Cody had grinned at him. After they'd talked for half an hour Luigi realised that Cody was flirting with him. At first he hadn't believed it. Up till then he'd never had sex with a straight bloke. He'd never even been friendly with straight guys. And all of a sudden there was this macho, muscular, sporty straight man teasing him, flirting with him, making eyes at him. Luigi had no idea how to respond. He'd been just twenty, not sure whether this bonhomie, this arms-slung-around-shoulders, this intimate gaze, these nods and becks and wreathèd smiles were normal among hyper-masculine guys. He was afraid to respond, because he might get beaten up. Yet he was tempted, for Cody was gorgeous.

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[pic from GAYTWOGETHER]

Gay Sex by any name . . .

 . . . "but I'm straight"

This is an old report, but I remember commenting on it then, in a group which has now vanished.  The article reported a major study comparing men's sexual identity compared with their actual sexual activity.  About 10 per cent of men who say they are straight have had sex with other men, yet claim they are not gay.  Seventy per cent of them are married.

Point one:  this was ten per cent who admitted to having gay sex.  Yes, the interviewer may have promised anonymity, but  . . .  The report indicated a class divide with working class or members of a minority group or the foreign-born having a higher percentage of men who do this.   I don't know what this means.  Are middle-class whites more in tune with their inner selves, and therefore more likely to be open about their sexuality (which would imply a higher proportion of middle-class than working-class or minority men identify as gay) or are they just better at not telling the truth to unknown interviewers?  It's very hard to believe that the same-sex class divide reflects real divisions in same-sex desires.  But it surely reflects differing perceptions of "truth".  And given unwillingness to admit to a shameful/sinful social predilection, the real number is probably the higher one.

Two:  in the article, a local (Ozzie) spokesman said "many of the 10 per cent would be unwilling to be identified as gay because of the fact that same-sex relationships are still stigmatised, even in a relatively liberal place."  Well, yeah, some.  Except they would prolly not have told the interviewer about the fact they were having sex with men, would they?  Actually, they may simply not think of themselves as gay, either because they like sex with women as well as men so are bisexual (or, better, identify with one of the many bisexualities), or because they regard "gay" as queeny men who dress up in feather boas and wear thong undies.  They're not like that, they believe, even if they do like to fuck men or be fucked by them.  Labels.

"Male" men may enjoy and seek out sex with men but still think they're "all man". If we start talking clichés here, these are men who will bond by talking about how the cement they're standing on has been laid (a recently overheard conversation between two ostensibly straight guys) , or what their car is, or which footy team they barrack for.  They think of themselves as belonging to the whole male tribe (in a way I don't.)    And the cultural majority has defined "male" as identical to "not gay".  Therefore, in their own eyes, and in the eyes of all the blokes they know, including possibly some of those they're fucking, they're straight.  No matter how many times you and I might say "straight? yeah, right," they regard themselves as essentially male except that they fancy a root with a bloke.  Who'm I to piss in their Wheaties?

Three:  these are big numbers.  The UK income tax authorities (not known for their heart) did an analysis about the percentage of the population who would use the new civil marriage provisions, because this would cut tax paid by gay and lesbian couples.  They decided that 7% of the population was gay or lesbian.  This suggests that something just under 20% of the male population either identifies as gay or identifies as straight but is having sex with other men.   Kinsey said:

25 per cent of the male population has more than incidental homosexual experience or reactions (i.e. rates 2-6) for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55. In terms of averages, one male out of approximately every four has had or will have such a distinct and continued homosexual experience.

(from my article The End of Gay: the reference "2-6" is from the Kinsey scale, and means all except exclusive heterosexuals)

Think about this:  in a randomly selected group of men, say the blokes in the train or on the tram or in a supermarket, one in four (according to Kinsey) or one in five (according to this analysis) has had more than incidental sex with another man.

 

Four: because these blokes don't think of themselves as "gay" they probably won't support gay rights causes.  It doesn't mean they won't favour gay rights, but we tend (on the whole) to fight harder for causes closer to home than those which (appear) not to really impact us. Similarly, the Christian-Fascists and rocko rightists can say that there are few gays.  The man in the tram will go on thinking that gays are flamers, not "real men" like him, because the at least one in ten of the men around him who have periodic sex with men remain invisible. This is of course why gay rights advocates get so pissed off at these men: the more gay-shaded men are hidden, the more stereotypes are accepted, the harder it is to fight for the right to be accepted as normal.  Hence the continued need for gay pride parades, stereotypes and all.  But do the stereotypes make it more likely that straight-acting gay men or the men discussed in this article will be less willing to support us?

I used to feel that I was the only man I knew who was attracted to other men.  But I have become convinced that there are many, many men who might have sex with other men in the right circumstances. Those "right circumstances" will vary: two sportsmen who are attracted but convinced they're not gay because they're both so "manly": the man on the path in New Zealand who flirted with me (he's not gay, perhaps he thinks, because he hasn't fallen in love with a man, and doesn't want to share a house with one, even though he likes sex with them); the man who loves his wife and his kids but likes to bottom sometimes; the man who simply feels that his affection for his mate needs to be expressed sexually; the man who doesn't even notice the cultural mores, so doesn't really "know" that having sex with your friends is "wrong".  Male (and surely also female) sexuality is much more fluid than we are led to think.

Homophobia and behaviour modification

Years ago I read about a psychology class who decided to test the theory of behaviour modification. Their professor used to lecture peripatetically*, wandering from one side of the lecture room to the other. They wanted to see if they could stop him doing this. So, every time their prof spoke on the left side of the room, they would all hum, look out of the window, scratch, and pretend not to listen. When he was on the right side of the room they listened avidly, in absolute silence, rapt. It took just one lecture to get him to stop going from side to side and to lecture only from the right side of the room. Elated by their success, they decided to try to get him to talk from the left side of the room in the next lecture. But he abruptly cottoned on their plan, and resolutely and ostentatiously began to once again walk from one side of the lecture theatre to the other.

Now what is this telling us?

If you don't know about other people's attempts to try and influence you without your noticing it, you may be subtly persuaded to do what they want. But once you do become aware, subtle persuasion can have the opposite effect: it can make you obstinately do the opposite of what they want. It can make you annoyed, angry, furious.

Why does this matter to us?

Well, let me give you a personal example. My upper back, just below my neck has been aching and hurting for a while now. It gave me headaches and made me feel sick. The muscles either side of my spine were too sore to touch. It was horrible. But all at once I realised that I had been walking around avoiding others' eyes, bending my head forward so I didn't have to look at them. Because I was ashamed. No, not for being gay. For being old. And poor. I recalled both previous occasions when I was laid off from work. I felt that I was no longer a worthwhile human being, that I had failed, that I was a nobody. And I avoided their gaze. I tried to avoid being noticed. I realised that I was doing it again.

If you are a rich old person, you are looked up to. Rupert Murdoch, you may be sure, does not hide his head. He is powerful and rich. He is respected because he is powerful and rich. He respects himself. He feels confident and proud of what he is and what he's done. (Without good reason in my opinion, but that's neither here nor there.) I am neither powerful nor rich. I -- unconsciously -- felt ashamed that I had failed to earn a vast salary, drive a Mercedes-Benz coupé, go on holidays to Paris flying business class. Now you may say this is foolishness, and so it is. But once I realised it I was angry at myself. In a rueful sort of way. I started walking upright again. I have to keep reminding myself, because I had fallen into bad habits, but I started walking upright, strongly, proudly. I may be poor, but being poor is not a moral failing. At least not to normal people. I can't answer for the neo-cons and others of their ilk -- for them poverty is a sign of moral turpitude. As good as reason as any to reject their philosophies with contempt and derision.

This train of thought was prompted by the news item I linked to in Darl. In the article, the writer talks about elderspeak, a patronising and belittling way of talking to older people:

'Elderspeak sends a message that the patient is incompetent, and begins a downward negative spiral for older persons, who react with decreased self-esteem, depression, withdrawal and the assumption of dependent behaviours.'' Researchers found that those who have a positive attitude towards ageing live an average of 7½ years longer than those who don't.

Obvious when you think about it. And it applies to everyone. Talk down to a homeless street person and their self-esteem is damaged even more. Love one another as I have loved you. Love means respect, it means having compassion, it means stepping outside your own skin to imagine what it's like to inhabit someone else's.

We gays and gay-shaded blokes are subject to a constant barrage of implicit and subliminal negative behaviour modification. Straights can get married. They can have children. Magazines, and newspapers and TV and films and songs and opera and ballet are filled with heterosexual love, happy or otherwise. Their love is sacred, uplifting, God-given. Ours is profane. It is constantly implicitly made clear to us that we are inferior, that we do not count. And that's without even mentioning the explicit hate-filled comments and opinions and behaviour of the Christian-Fascists and Islamofascists.

Our reaction is like those of the professor I started this rant with. If we are unaware, we unconsciously accept the negative impact, we develop internalised homophobia, we grow to hate ourselves and our tribe. We all know about closeted religious homophobes -- Ted Haggard, for example. Once we become aware, though, we get angry. I have a straight friend (of sorts) who asks me "why do gays make so much fuss?" Well, it's because we have to constantly struggle against the negative treatment of society. We have to fight back. We have to make a fuss. Or we are lost. Anger is liberating. It makes us walk upright -- and proud.

For decades gays survived in ghettos, just like Jews. In a gay ghetto, our tribe could ignore the hatred and the silent (but no less potent) disdain of society. And we didn't need to get angry. Other gays understood us. We were with our tribe. But even there there was deep self-hatred. I asked in the Darl post why so many gay men advertise for "straight-acting" contacts. I think you can see what my answer is going to be. But I'll leave that for next time.

(BTW, if you click on the pics, you can see where they come from. My way of giving credit where it's due. The lower image comes from a particularly interesting blog)


* another nice Greek word: peripateo means 'I wander around'.