That's Soooo Gay!

I haven't published in a few days. We just got a new dog, and lots other stuff has been going on. I also haven't had anything I was inspired to write about. Until now. I was reading the forums at Augusta Underground yesterday, and discovered a thread about Brokeback Mountain. Now, I know some of the guys who were posting, and don't know most of them, but what I discovered was that a lot of them are (1) grossed out by two guys kissing and (2) worried that Hollywood is entirely too politically correct (i.e., w.r.t. homosexuality and race matters). I found myself wondering why the fuck they care. I mean really, who cares if "Humpback Mountain" as one person called it, won an Oscar? Mostly it sounded to me like high school locker room paranoia about gays. Really makes one wonder why supposedly hetero guys are so threatened by two guys getting it on. Is it true, perhaps, that we hate and fear most what we despise and fear about ourselves?

I mean when I think back to my high school days, I was about the same way. Being labeled a fag was one of the worst things that could happen. My friend Evan (a confirmed bachelor, if you know what I mean) was assaulted by redneck jocks at his high school. They beat him up, duct-taped him, and tossed him in a dumpster. I've always had a vexed relationship with the queer aspect of sexuality. On the one hand, so much of my life I've been surrounded with the uber-macho front of, for example, sports, the Marine Corps, punk rock, etc. On the other hand, I have had... experiences, shall we say, the first of which was in the Marine Corps. With a Marine. Well, with all of those fabulous uniforms, I guess it's not too far a stretch. Frankly, I really wonder sometimes how many supposedly straight men in the military have had a taste of the love that dares not speak its name.

The more I live the more I think that most people sort of fall somewhere in between totally hetero and totally homo. I've heard estimates that about 10% of the population is gay or lesbian. I wonder if it's also a fact that only about 10% of the population is completely heterosexual. I'm not saying that everyone in between is partaking of the full smorgasbord of human sexuality, but rather that they have the potential, the tendency, to be attracted sexually to people of the same sex. But there's a problem with it: These feelings and tendencies conflict with the cultural assumption that one either is or is not straight or gay. So, a lot of people have to overcompensate to reassure themselves that they are so totally straight. Methinks they may protest too much, if you know what I mean. If they really are so very not-a-fag (!!!), then why the constant obsession with and kneejerk reactions to all things queer? That may be a bullshit argument. I'm not sure. Nonetheless, where does all the consternation about queerness come from? Obviously people have strong feelings about it, but if you're not a religious freak, then why worry about who someone else fucks, if not to bolster one's own sense of righteous heterosexuality? As Dan Savage wrote in Skipping Toward Gomorrah, and I'm paraphrasing here, what could someone possibly do to a person who wasn't gay that would make them want to gladly, joyfully, lustfully have same-sex relations? What's the problem, then?

Anyway, so what does this have to do with schooling? It's this: As hard as growing up is, how much more difficult must it be for queer kids? When everyone and everything around you (for the most part, at least) militates against what you feel in your heart. When there are people who will condemn and assault you. When your family will disown you? When you loath yourself. When you wish you were dead. When you are so very much in love with someone who literally would turn the school against you if they knew about it. Think hard about that situation. What a brutal and austere lifescape for queer kids, especially in some schools. Rural areas must be hard on them, especially. Religious schools must be, shall we say, hellish. Military schools? Please. Rejection, beatings, ostracism, mockery, with no end in sight? No wonder queer kids kill themselves at such a high rate. It's hard enough being a teenager without also being queer.

I really get tired of hearing people complain about, mock, and frantically distance themselves from all things queer. What are they afraid of? Frankly, it speaks volumes about how hyper-masculinity, for one example, is more a reaction than a state of being. Think about it. One of my writing teachers, of whom I've already spoken, Ehud Havazelet, remarked that, "Isn't it strange how nothing ever happens in Western movies until the men are far away from the women?" Cowboys are pretty damned gay when you think about it. Many of the male bastions--bodybuilding, the military, the police, martial arts and ultimate fighting, and so forth--are, upon analysis, pretty gay. Kinda "brokeback," shall we say (thanks to the Boondocks for that one). Brokeback, in this sense: Something that on its surface is so very manly (e.g., cowboys, NASCAR, ultimate fighting) that upon analysis seems gayer and gayer. Even those sad soft-porn magazines for young men (e.g., Maxim) are more or less Cosmo with pictures of "hot chicks" (and a surprising (or not) number of "hot" guys. Hmm... Really makes you wonder doesn't it?).

One last observation. When my daughter was born, I was teaching at Georgetown College in Kentucky. The school was Baptist and most of the kids there were pretty conservative. I can't remember how it came up, but one of the guys in my class, a starter on the National Championship Georgetown College football team (Sweaty men, tight pants, so gay), asked if I wouldn't be upset if my daughter ended up being a lesbian. "Of course not," I told him. "Why would I?" He was flabbergasted. He literally could not conceive that I wouldn't be devastated by such an outcome. What I didn't say to that student was this: "I love my kid. I don't care if she's a lesbian. In fact, I'd much rather her be a lesbian than to marry some hyper-religious redneck asshole like you, you barely closeted, self-loathing little faggot." I'm so glad I'm able, at times like that, to show some restraint.

Sela. Pause and reflect upon this.