A Queer and Meaningless Bark

Over at Gaybros someone asked: So guys how was your prom?  I'm asking this because I'm really depressed right now, I was going to go to prom with my friends of four years until this point. We were even going to pick outfits this week, until my closest friends told me: "We only had a few spaces in the limo. 'Tanya' got a date so she got the spaces. Sorry." So I'm curious how did your Prom go? And I replied: Went with a several of my geek/weird/punk friends. My date was a gal I really liked, she wore a red dress which, based on the way the popular girls were looking and muttering, was not the right dress to wear. But I was wearing a motorcycle jacket instead of the tux jacket and one of my friends was in a vintage Air Force dress uniform and another in a horrible 1970s tux so I doubt my date, in the only red dress there, stood out all that much. The band sucked, the high school looked stupid, and I was too romantically inept to have bother...

I am not really a jewelry kind of guy. Sort of. I like a ring if it looks like it could be something ancient and possibly mystical (I'm a bit of a geek/nerd/dork) but not recognizably so (no dragons, runes, skulls, pagan symbols, Elvish, etc.). And a pendant on a chain if it fits that criteria, too. But nothing flashy. And in the case of the pendant it's never worn over the shirt. I don't do bracelets but I'm a sucker for a good looking watch. Since the first of the year I started spending more time thinking about my queer identity. It's kind of odd as I've made it through several decades without putting much thought into it. With all that thinking came a minor desire to get some sort of pin or symbol that wasn't rainbowy. I was in a department store of sorts a few weeks ago and saw this machine that engraves pet ID tags while you watch. One of the tag options was a stainless steel dog tag like shape. I saw it and had an idea. I put in $6 in the machi...

FAG is a word I've come to like because it's so ridiculous and juvenile. I know the word had a lot of weight when I was younger but even though I have a pretty good recollection of my childhood I can't recall "fag" ever making me feel bad if it was directed my way. But then I also wasn't ever called "fag" beyond the context of the usual name calling where anyone might get called "fag" because it was considered a great insult. I also had a slightly whiney voiced cousin who used the word a lot. He was an OK guy but a bit of a dumbass in how he interacted with the world so when he called me "fag" it meant nothing. He'd call a dog "fag." And when he said "fag" in his whiney and nasally voice with a standard west coast drawl and a heaping dash of insolence it had even less impact. The first time I ever encountered "fag" in a positive light was at the Greyhound bus depot in Seattle 1990. I had be...

The prevalence of well worn queer cliches aside, the really annoying message TV and movies send about being a queer guy is:   If you're not queer but someone thinks you're queer it's hilarious! Why is it hilarious? Because no guy would want to be mistaken for being queer! Duh! Why? Because being queer is not a desirable thing to be! No guy in a sitcom or movie would mind being mistaken for a celebrity, millionaire, company CEO, athlete, doctor, artist, model, rock star, or even married (if it gets him some attention from a gal), or single (if it gets him some attention from a gal). But he wouldn't want to be mistaken for a thief, liar, murderer, cheater, fanatic, or queer. Hilarious!

Divas and drag are just two of the things that make me feel disconnected from mainstream gay culture. There's also celebrity gossip, musical theatre (and regular theatre), dancing, calling men by feminine pronouns, fashion, electro-pop disco music...OK, I don't mind a bit of dance music. But I don't dance. I also like the music of Dionne Warwick...Her 60s and early 70s stuff. And I think she's considered a diva. But I also like Burt Bacharach's music. I don't really care what Ms. Warwick is up to in her private life, I just like the music she made way back then. And I like interior decorating (hate the term...It sounds so...Decoratey) and I'm kinda good at it. (Hate trends, like timelessness. And cabins.) I can tolerate a bit of camp (or a lot if it's really clever) and I love Rocky Horror Picture Show , the Birdcage , Hedwig and the Angry Inch (which, by the way, is not at all like RHPS), and...Scratching my head for something super gay that I like....

COMING OUT is something I did a few years ago. But it's possible no one knows it. The reason people may not know it is that I didn't do the "I have something I need to tell you..." circuit chat with friends and family. Why? Because I didn't want to. Why? Because I'm sort of personal when it comes to a lot of things, especially love and sex. And I'm not really interested in love, sort of. I can't quite see the point of having a sit down chat with grandma to tell her I'm queer and that means I occasionally have casual sex with men and look at lots and lots of naked guy pictures online. Not only would it be awkward it's also none of her business. Now if I'd had a boyfriend who I was going to settle down with (or was just dating) then it'd be different. It'd be about love and relationship and an extra birthday card from Grandma with $5 in it for Chip or Barry or Steve or whatever the boyfriend's name was. (Hopefully his name...

BISEXUAL was a term I came across somewhere When I was in the 6th or 7th grade. It immediately made sense to me as I liked guys and girls. I considered myself bisexual from grade 8 on. I didn't tell anybody I was bisexual except for the few guys I fooled around with. As we were just doing standard young male fooling around stuff they didn't think anything of me telling them I was bisexual. (Or, more likely, they ignored my comment. I'm pretty sure they were all straight guys and probably didn't want to do much thinking about what they were doing with another guy.) But one guy, Tim, was just as interested in guys as me. He figured he was bisexual, too. We rarely discussed what being bisexual meant, we were just accepting of each other. And when we occasionally got together we were too busy talking about guys or looking at the Playgirls he shop lifted to give our sexual orientation much thought. Even though I identified as bisexual I was never wild about the term a...

ACCEPTANCE of the fact that I was attracted to guys was never an issue with me because from age four I was interested in boy down yonder bits (my own and others...But not in a problematic way). When I was older and learned boys aren't supposed to think about boys like that I kept my thoughts to myself (Sort of. I definitely shared them with any like minded boys), but these thoughts never felt strange or unusual like they do for some guys who stumble upon them in their teens or later in life. In my teens I developed the usual guilt and anger at myself of any good American conservative Protestant queer kid but it never was the full blown self loathing a lot of guys with the same sort of background have. Part of that had to do with the fact that I was also attracted to girls so I was half way to being "normal," but it also had to do with my having liked boys my whole  life. It didn't feel weird or wrong. But I was a hell of a lot luckier than most guys as far as sel...