Man About Town

Deny! Deny! Deny!

2010-01-31T15:32:00.002-05:00

Have we learned nothing from Bill Clinton?

Remember when, even during the 1992 campaign, all those stories about his mistresses started cropping up? Until the Monica Lewinsky mess and impeachment twisted his arm and forced him to reveal himself to be the hound dog we already knew he was, he adamantly denied the affair stories. When the truth was revealed, it was sad and pathetic. Did he really think we (and Hillary) didn’t know?

All of this entered my mind with the latest (and hopefully last) saga in the John and Elizabeth Edwards soap opera, “The Days of Our Crazy-Ass Lives.” John released a statement finally admitting he was the father of Rielle Hunter’s toddler, and apologized for the repeated denial of that fact to the America public and most grievously his family. Perhaps this was in part to get ahead of the upcoming book of his former campaign aide, who at first stated that he was the father but who later recanted and admitted he was covering for his boss.

Meanwhile, we learned Elizabeth kicked the Ken Doll out of the house and is on her way to filing divorce once North Carolina’s year of separation requirement is fulfilled. And apparently, she accompanied John last month to make a monitored visit of the 2-year-old love child. Remarkably, she had Christmas gifts for the child and encouraged a picture with his daddy.

I think John may be vilified in part because he’s a public figure whose first whiff of scandal wafted from the pages of the National Enquirer. But really, he’s exhibiting traits in human nature found in most of us.

When we do something wrong that threatens our relationship, the first instinct seems to be covering it up. Most of us talk about honesty but we fear that the misdeed or issue at hand will be the one that nets no points for coming clean. It will anger and hurt the other person and make he or she leave. So now the objective is keeping quiet and covering it up if need be.

The problem, though, is that, especially if it’s a biggie like an affair or a love child, you can run but you can’t hide. Forget karma. Circumstances will unlock those secrets soon enough. And then having to admit something you formerly denied becomes worse. You’re double branded for being a deceiver and liar and it looks like you’re playing your loved one for a fool.

From the outside, it’s hard to tell if the paternity of the mistress’ child was the driving force behind Elizabeth’s decision to split from John. But when we knew for certain there was only the affair and John’s claims that he wasn’t with Rielle during the time when she conceived, Elizabeth vowed they would work through it. But shortly after the paternity came to light, that desire to work through it seemed to evaporate.

I can imagine Elizabeth, already dealing with infidelity, was livid that in such a low point, John couldn’t bring himself to admit to everything. The final revelation made everybody foolish – in public, no less. And you couldn’t help but wonder if John copped to everything early on if the marriage couldn’t be saved. Yeah, it’s bad. But it’s easier to figure out what to do and rebuild trust when everything is on the table.

It’s funny how sometimes we think we can’t get caught or we fancy ourselves “protecting” our loved ones from a mistake, when it’s really about absolving ourselves from some of the accountability and ultimately making it easier for us (not the other person).

The whole episode made me think of the immortal words that Judge Judy likes to appropriate: “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining!”

Late Bloomers

2010-01-24T18:14:00.001-05:00

Is it a case of better late than never?

Recently, two once-famous Baby Boomer actresses – Meredith Baxter (“Family Ties”) and Kelly McGillis (“Top Gun”) – came out. It’s worth noting that both women are hovering around 60.

The public reacted with a shrug, perhaps in part because they haven’t been on the pop culture radar in so long. But when I heard, I wondered if their age may bring up a criticism that has been a bane of our existence: We supposedly choose to be gay.

I know many people wonder why if sexual orientation is really innate, then how can people like Baxter and McGillis lead heterosexual lives for decades, then suddenly “decide” they prefer their own gender?

First, we should remember the times these women grew up in. They understood homosexuality to be a “psychological disorder” into their early adulthood. Living a gay life was not presented as a real or legitimate possibility. So even if there were feelings, they likely saw themselves as not being able to act on them and have a happy career or personal life.

Secondly, and more important, that choice vs. birth argument undercuts a fundamental truth: the mysterious nature and complexity of sexuality. I think sexual orientation is derived from a combination of factors, including genetics and social environment. If one can concede we can never know absolutely everything about the human body and its wonders, how can we presume to be able to simply ascertain what makes up sexual orientation?

In recent interviews, Baxter expressed that she had turbulent relationships with men throughout her life and got to a point to where she didn’t understand why certain things didn’t gel. But embarking on a romance with a woman after her divorce made things fall into place. She obviously knew something was up but just didn’t understand what it was.

So an older man or woman who comes into his or her gayness late in life shouldn’t be looked at as suspect. It’s judgmental to say their previous lives were shams. I’m sure what they had at the time felt right. It’s not simply a phase, escape from boredom, or confusion for most. It’s a realization that happened to come late in life.

I suspect that as the generations advance, we’ll be seeing fewer seniors coming out because our society is tolerant enough to where coming to grips with who you are doesn’t seem a scary, isolated prospect. And we’ll be doing that much earlier in our lives.

Despite the age, I suspect Baxter, McGillis and others are finally feeling comfortable in their own skin. I also suspect they aren’t looking back.

A Matter of Life and Death

2010-01-16T18:37:00.005-05:00

We live in a time where we assume certain evils (slavery and the Holocaust come to mind) just will not be replicated or committed in this day and age. After all, we're in the 21st century. We're more enlightened. The world is more integrated and linked than ever. How can something glaringly base and wrong be propagated?

Well, it's 2010 but some things remain the same.

Uganda leaders are proposing a bill that would impose the death penalty on some gay men and women who live there. Yes, sexual orientation would be punishable by death.

It disturbs me somewhat to put a fine point on it, but the proposed legislation specifically targets those who are guilty of "aggravated homosexuality", when one of the participants is a minor, HIV-positive or a "serial offender", which basically includes all of those who simply live as gay men and women without choosing celibacy. And get this: the proposed bill would propose a sentence of no less than three years for someone who knows of "homosexual activity" and fails to report it to the authorities withing 24 hours.

Uganda's ethics and integrity minister (gotta love the irony) has argued that, realistically, the punishment would likely end up being merely life in prison. Well, I guess I was overreacting.

A leading evangelical in Uganda is leading a "million man" march on February 17 to promote the bill and denounce the "scourge" of homosexuality.

The United Nations, not to mention various leaders and gay groups in western countries, have expressed outrage at this. They rightly see that if criminalizing people based on race and gender is considered unthinkable even in most third world countries, how can a notion like this even be remotely entertained?

Perhaps the most disturbing response is the slow one, or lack of one, from U.S. evangelicals, many of whom over the years have forged close spiritual and financial ties with their biblicially conservative African brothers, especially those in Episcopal churches that have been the loudest bill supporters.

Prominent pastors like Rick Warren notoriously kept out of this for months before finally condemning the death penalty notion. Even more conservative American religious leaders have said nothing. Some of the Christian groups most publicly tied to Uganda have been the quietest. Joyce Meyer Ministries, Oral Roberts University, the College of Prayer in Atlanta — all have close ties and declined to express reservations about the death penalty.

Everyone is entitled to his or her view of homosexuality in light of faith or the Bible. But surely, the taking of someone's life because of who he or she is, is a heinous act that should be without debate.

This reminded me of James Byrd, an African-American Texas man who in 1996 was beaten and chained to a truck where he was dragged for three miles to his death by three white racists. The lynching-by-dragging ignited a firestorm but it also raised fears that something like this could happen in that day and age. Then Matthew Shepard was beaten and left hanging to die on a fence post in Wyoming. Suddenly, American society was face-to-face with the hatred in its midst that supposedly was of its past.

This week Uganda's president called for the bill to be withdrawn, saying it was harming the country's foreign policy. The sponsor has refused to do so, and it is expected to be considered in February.

In the age of Obama and a supposedly post-racial society, we can't forget that base fears and hatreds will spawn atrocious acts and policies. And we can't take for granted that we won't need to be vigilant in guarding against all forms of discrimination.

Even if we reach 2810, there will be no utopia. Not as long as there is human nature.

Catch a Tiger by the Tail

2009-12-19T15:11:00.003-05:00

Well, Tiger Woods is having a crappy Christmas, don't you think?

While he waits for the divorce proceedings and while we wait for the next alleged mistress to pop up on Extra, his whole embarrassing episode made me realize that our technology age has put a big dent into our ability to carry on sexual episodes - adulterous or not - with privacy.

When Tiger first crashed his car, who was first on the scene? The ambulance? Cops? Firefighters? Nope - TMZ. The gossip site's picture that brought Jazmine Sullivan's song "Bust the Windows Out Your Car" to life began the whole speculation about what went on.

Then we had the voice mail heard around the world. One of his mistresses saved a voice mail with Tiger pleading her to change her phone voice mail so his ever suspicious wife wouldn't put two and two together if she pulled up the number. And then that was released and played for everyone to hear.

I'm now waiting for the sex tape.

Yes, Tiger is famous and would be more vulnerable to being trapped in the cross hairs of a public relations nightmare than an average Joe. But our world is now set up to where privacy is receding and something we do, despite our best efforts, can come back to haunt us sooner or later.

Who's to say your next trick or dalliance isn't being secretly recorded by a Web cam or a Blackberry and will be posted on YouTube? Who's to say someone you dated won't post something embarrassing about your intimate life - or even just something personal - on Facebook or Twitter out of spite? What would you do if you couldn't help yourself and looked at your lover's cell and found friendly texts from someone you didn't know?

I have a few friends who used an online profile to find a hook-up and a third party somehow found out about their dalliances and pointed it out to other people and in one case, a friend's boyfriend.

And I've had many an occasion when I've had friends or acquaintances tell me some personal information - including HIV status - about someone with a recognizable online profile and then I've seen hat person out and about. And I'm sure he has no clue his life story is being circulated even more than his username.

We try to be careful - maybe never using names or real names, making sure people come to your place to ensure there's no funny business, setting up e-mail accounts solely for sexcapades - but something can always catch us. And all it takes is one misstep for something to be extremely public.

I wonder if that will make a lot of us just figure out more clever ways to be duplicitous or if that would make us second guess our actions the next time we cheat or do something else we feel deep down is wrong.

What is true for sure is that our technological advances have made us more communal but more vulnerable to gossip and lack of privacy. We can be so easily found out now. And we're going to have to be able to stand by our actions come what may.

Extra, Extra!

2009-11-26T12:59:00.003-05:00

When I took a business trip recently, I scheduled a meeting with my group's higher-ups and reporters at my former newspaper. When I walked through the newsroom, it felt like a ghost town. Vacant desks, offices, and whole floors. There must have been a fifth of the staff that remained after I left several years ago.

There was a sadness to seeing a shell of a former self. I was a lot sadder when I heard about the Washington Blade, the venerable gay newspaper that was a 40-year institution, suddenly ceased production and lay the future of LGBT news in serious doubt.

Its owner Windows Media also shut down the gay newspapers in Atlanta and Miami. And for many employees, they were informed with a padlock on the door. Even here in DC, the staff was given short clipped answers that weren't answers. No reasons why, no severance, no Plan B. Some of the Blade staffers have heroically started a small paper, almost an insert really, to keep things going.

When I first heard of the closing, online in a short news item, I immediately begain to think of the hole left. Who was going to cover hates crimes, gay marriage, and legislation that affected us? With mainstream and independent publications laying off reporters, reducing coverage, closing bureaus, and eliminating beats, we can't depend on established outlets suddenly investing in resources to shine a light on our issues.

We're our own voice and the totality of that has probably been taken for granted by a lot of us until this moment. Even the lighter parts of the Blade - advice columns, arts listings and reviews, ads, home and garden tips, comics - have been sacrificed.

For now, we have the DC Agenda [http://dcagenda.com] that has admirably, and in just a week, been able to restart the former Blade's news and features coverage. They have a long way to go but they recognize the importance of the LGBT voice and have sacrificed time, work, and, undoubtedly, money to get this off the ground.

Check out the site and make a donation, if able. And remember that not many media focus on our community. We can only look out for each other.

The Institution That Dare Not Speak Its Name

2009-11-15T13:33:00.002-05:00

Maybe the key in the gay marriage fight is actually not mentioning it by name.

Washington state's voters approved an "everything but marriage" law, expanding rights for gay domestic partners and giving them such benefits as the right to take sick leave to care for a partner, adoptions rights, and child custody and support.

Even though it's not full-fledged marriage, this marks the first time a U.S. state has granted a gay equality measure by ballot initiative, instead of through the courts or the legislature.

It seems that the difference perhaps is that because the controversial m-word wasn't included in the ballot language, voters were able to concentrate on the rights discusses as opposed to their preconceived ideas of an institution they see as only for a man and a woman.

I don't think it's a stretch to theorize that some gay marriage opponents aren't bigoted so much as fearful of change. Marriage is something that has become a religious and cultural institution for heterosexuals, laying down the foundation for family. It's not discussed or rarely evaluated in terms of rights, benefits, and equality given to its participants. But we've upset the apple cart because we've put marriage in those terms.

We've called attention to the fact that marriage laws, at least in this country, are pretty much exclusionary and discriminatory and make gays de facto second-class citizens. I imagine many straights think of the ritual - bridal gowns, nervous grooms in tuxedos, church organs, receptions - and wrinkle their nose at two men or two women adjusting that rosy, traditional picture. For them, it's like having church on Tuesday night or seeing boys playing with Barbies. It's just not how it's supposed to be

After Prop. 8 in California, Elton John remarked that what was making people uncomfortable was the actual word marriage. It seems he was prescient. Would similar wording on other ballot initiatives produce the same results? Is merely changing the framing of it all making the difference? Washington gives a strong argument for a yes.

In a way, it seems insulting. We have to parse words and not mention the unmentionable to persuade minds. Even though we're merely insisting on universal rights, we have to have hat in hand and offer careful arguments that don''t offend sensibilities. We're fighting for marriage but have to couch it in palatable terms because, after all, there are a lot more heterosexual voters than straight ones.

It may be kowtowing, but prejudices and presumptions are very strong. And sometimes the art of language makes a huge difference.

The Too Late Show

2009-11-07T12:07:00.002-05:00

What's the difference between being a defender and an apologist? It may be easier to point you to the supporters of Roman Polanski and David Letterman.

Let's start with the Oscar-winning director first. You surely know that he fled the country more than 30 years ago rather than face sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. As a consequence, he's never stepped foot on U.S. soil since, for fear of landing in jail.

Well he landed in jail anyway, but just over a month ago in Zurich, and he and his legal team are fighting extradition back to Los Angeles.

Immediately after his arrest, some big Hollywood names - including Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Harvey Weinstein - rushed to his defense. But you would have thought a saint was about to be burned at the stake. Many decried this as unfair persecution, pointing to his artistry, the grisly death of his wife to Charles Manson's followers, and his survival of the Holocaust as proof that he's suffered enough.

And then there's Letterman. A blackmail plot of a CBS producer thwarted by federal officials revealed he had several affairs with female staffers over the years. This from a man who joked for years about not getting any.

Quite a few celebrities, media commentators and fans thought there was no harm, no foul. All the sex was consensual, so who cares? And they feel that those who attack Letterman are moonlighting as moral police officers.

Well, I'm not one to shake a moral stick at anyone but I think both men's supporters are ignoring some inconvenient truths.

Let's start with Polanski. Yes, a recent documentary showed the judge in his case loved publicity and seemed ready to renege on a plea bargain. However, there's a powerful central truth. He plied a 13-year-old girl with champagne and Quaaludes and had sex with her over her protests.

The same documentary showed the same girl, all grown up, stating she forgave Polanski, has moved on and thinks everyone else should, too. But she also reminds the viewer that...Polanski had sex with a 13-year-old girl, which is illegal.

As for Letterman, a former female staffer (who did not have sexual relations with that man) recently wrote a piece exposing the environment created from Letterman's dalliances. While the staffer never witness anything she'd categorize as sexual harassment, there was indeed favoritism. Apparently, Letterman's girls, many very young and with negligible experience, got plum assignments. Some others employees were uncomfortable but felt powerless to speak up.

Plus, there's the general folly of sex in the workplace (Grey's Anatomy notwithstanding). Can a boss who chooses certain employees for sex really create a fair environment? At the very least, there's a skewed balance of power at stake. At worst, an emotional fallout could make things messy - and litigious.

Polanski may have been made into a monster by some zealots, but his supporters queasily go to the extreme in the other direction. They rhapsodize about the movie Chinatown but they easily ignore that...he had sex with a 13-year-old girl, which is illegal.

And Letterman supporters point out he's an entertainer, not a politician bound to a moral code. True. But he also crossed the sexual line on the job and humiliated his wife (who has been with him for 20 years) and the mother of his child with his unfaithfulness (Letterman himself has noted this).

The apologists need to realize that the only apologies in these cases need to come from the men who affected people's lives with their reckless actions.

Men Behaving Badly

2009-09-27T17:24:00.001-04:00

Well, it seems our political husbands have been behaving badly lately. And it makes you wonder. Why are so many policymakers intent on blocking strides to legalize gay marriage when they’re doing such a poor job with marriage themselves?

We have John Edwards, whom I thought was as scalded as he could be in the hot water he brewed for his affair with Rielle Hunter. Remember the good old days when it was only an issue that Edwards merely had an affair with the women in charge of making videos for his presidential campaign and maybe the baby she had was really his?

This past week, a book proposal leaked to the media from a former Edwards campaign worker who claimed that his admission of being the father of the baby was a lie to protect Edwards, the real father. Oh, and apparently Edwards told Hunter that when his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth dies, they will get married in New York and be serenaded by the Dave Matthews Band.

And of course, you recalled South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s moronic dance this summer. He was found to have an Argentine mistress, whom he visited on the taxpayers’ dime. I loved how he called his mistress the love of his life but said he would try to fall in love again with his wife, who bore him four sons. Apparently, she is shopping a book of her own.

Lump those jokers in with fellow adulterous (and Republicans) David Vitter and John Ensign – and throw in Elliot Spitzer’s romp with hookers and his resignation of the New York governorship - and you have a peanut gallery of men behaving badly.

And all of this behavior has made my blood boil, as I think about the gay marriage fight, especially as Washington, DC seems poised to approve gay marriage and is bound to face legal opposition. Let’s not talk about if some members of Congress intervene to kill it.

Why don’t these anti-gay conservatives who are trying to protect the “sanctimony” of marriage throw some criticism at married, straight politicians who don’t seem too concerned about respecting their own marriages?

Inevitably, we will have policymakers at the local and national level like Sanford and Ensign who oppose gay marriage and would deny a right to citizens on “moral grounds,” even while they act immorally in their private lives.

It isn’t merely about hypocrisy. It’s the diehard American tendency to uphold ideals that we don’t always follow personally as part of this idea of creating the greater good for larger society. So even if a politician has a dalliance, he likes to think of himself as protecting the family and moral landscape for the good of the country when he votes to strike down a gay marriage initiative or inhibit a woman’s right to an abortion because it offends his vision of right and wrong.

So when there’s another inevitable scandal, I can’t wait to see if the next stooge has gone on record fighting gay marriage and otherwise preaching moral standards. And he’d better be careful walking to avoid the shards from his glass house.

The Enablers

2009-09-20T22:46:00.002-04:00

It was supposed to be the moment that Whitney Houston achieved personal, if not career, redemption.

She sat across from Oprah in an empty theater Monday to divulge some unsavory aspects of the last decade of her life when she was at her worst under a haze of drugs and marriage to Bobby Brown. The interview may not have gone as well as Whitney hoped. People have already speculated that she wasn’t completely honest about all the drugs she did. Some thought the whole thing seemed stage-managed for both parties.

But what stayed with me is Whitney as Enabler.

When she was explaining her drug addiction, she said Bobby was the ultimate drug. She was weak with him. He was her addiction. When Oprah asked about abuse, Whitney declared that Bobby was not abusive. But when recounting their life together, she backpedaled.

It seems he “only” slapped her once and shoved her into a wall once (glad that wasn’t a habit, there). Oh and he spit on her – only once. But apparently he belittled her out of professional jealousy and painted evil eyes on their bedroom wall. If that’s not abuse, then what is? But she said everything – the drugs, the appearing very ghetto on Being Bobby Brown – was because she was being the good wife, desperately wanting to please him.

So one of the most popular and powerful women in the history of music didn’t feel empowered enough to leave a bad situation and, what’s more, felt cowed into doing things she supposedly wouldn’t do by a man with a fraction of her talent, wealth, and staying power.

This instantly reminded me of Rihanna another Enabler. After her vicious beatdown by Chris Brown, she was reportedly still seeing him and refused to say a negative thing about him publicly. And did you see Chris Brown’s lame mea culpa on Larry King last week? He was barely apologetic about what he did, refused to give any details of that night or his relationship with Rihanna, and tried to convince America the person that night was not really him.

Now that a judge has forced Chris Brown not to be in contact with Rihanna for five years, I guess she has moved on, if forcibly by law.

Are these women that weak? Are they behaving just as most of us would, convinced our partner “didn’t mean it” and must be supported? But there’s a certain point where accepting certain behavior under the hope of a change or the disillusion of loyalty makes us part of the problem, instead of part of the solution.

A few things have happened in my life personally, where I’ve examined people (formerly) close to me. It’s a battle. One action or even two doesn’t make a whole person. But it’s indicative of character. And there’s a line. Even with forgiveness, there’s a line. These women were clearly dragged over it, although both supposedly are stronger and know better. And one would think the logic they used to choose to stay with their men through the ugliness is faulty.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens again to Whitney, Rihanna, or anyone else. We so easily get sucked into believing things will be better and people will be better.

But we’d better be prepared to act on our own best interests if they aren’t.

The Measure of a Man

2009-09-04T23:55:00.001-04:00

As Bernie Madoff sits in his jail cell reflecting on his 150-year sentence, he may be feeling sorry for more than his $55 billion Ponzi scheme. He may be lamenting that his monstrous felony came from an inferiority complex for his small dick.

How do I know his is small? I don’t, at least from firsthand experience (perish the thought). But that’s a juicy truffle of information that comes from a new book written by his mistress who alleges that his insecurities, including those over his, uh, member, contributed to his reckless behavior.

Sheryl Weinstein, the former CFO of the Jewish women's volunteer organization Hadassah, details her yearlong extramarital affair with the world’s best known (and ugliest) swindler in Madoff's Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me. She waxes on his capability of sweet romance, but that will surely be overshadowed by discussion of an un-capability.

Weinstein unapologetically declared publicly Madoff’s poor endowment created issues. (Ya think??) She said in a Time magazine article: “I started doing some research, and it can impact the psyche from a very early age. I really did feel that this was a part of Bernie's makeup, a big part of his psyche. I think it started with feelings of inadequacy, his inability to accept failure, his fear of failure.”

A lot of men, at least those under ten inches, occasionally feel a little insecure about size, probably not enough to commit massive fraud but enough to make it – shall we say – front and center We tie our sense of manhood, masculinity, and vitality in our penis, probably without thinking about it.

We joke about friends who are size queens, but we all are in a sense. Do any of us look for small dicks? No. Just like we think about bulging biceps and six packs, we like to imagine big shafts. They’re hot and desirable, and we automatically assign them sexual prowess, though reality has proven that’s not always the case.

When I look back, it’s funny how some guys I met in person from online were proven to have lied about the size they boldly advertised in their profiles. The really funny thing is that some of these guys were nine-plus inches, yet they lied about that extra inch.

Most of us believe bigger is better. The flip side of it is that if we aren’t up to par – in the eyes of ourselves or others – then we become less than. And it affects our security, self-esteem, and ultimately our relationships if we left it.

I admit I give myself the occasional inferiority complex because of my size. I’ve fallen into the thinking that I would be sexier, more desirable if I were bigger. I’ve imagined if a lover felt the least bit disappointed, especially if I thought he was comparing me to someone else who was bigger. I consider myself to have a healthy sexual self-esteem but I work at it because our culture and my insecurities try to steer me on the wrong path. The funny thing is that at the core, I know better but still.

We place so much disproportionate importance on sex and what’s below the waist to define who we are and what we can be. Women seem to be smarter at it and don't have a similar complex. I don’t think Kim Kardashian wishes she were Dolly Parton.

Somehow it’s easy to be seduced into lazy assumptions of how size translates into manhood. I can imagine that money and power boosted Madoff’s sense of masculinity, and it may have assuaged his self consciousness of what Weinstein has painstakingly detailed for Borders shoppers.

Would people not have lost millions if Madoff was happier with what he had? Maybe not. But Madoff could have been happier, and at least knew having a mistress or a big dick doesn’t make you more of a man.

The Lion in Summer

2009-08-28T22:42:00.003-04:00

Over these next several days, the newspapers and the TV stations will talk about Ted Kennedy’s lineage, triumphs, scandals, speeches, and most certainly his loving relationship with his wife and his grand role as patriarch to America’s foremost dynasty. Very few are talking about his role as one of the LGBT community’s fiercest supporters.

I’m watching his memorial service live on CNN as we speak. Legions of leaders and celebrities have commemorated what Kennedy has done and what he’s meant. So far (and maybe I just missed it) I haven’t heard anybody talk about his extensive work and unwavering support for gays. It’s too bad that may end up being his most unsung quality.

In a moment to where our president seems to be waffling about his support of us, and when ignoramuses seem to be making a second career of quashing work done for marriage equality, someone as unwavering as Ted Kennedy feels refreshing.

The senator proved to be a brave ally way back in the 80s when he was an advocate for HIV/AIDS, a remarkable thing in a climate when many people, including his colleagues on the Hill, were antagonistic to gays and ignorant of the big disease with the little name. Since then, he repeatedly struck against those, including Jesse Helms, who disparaged gays and actively worked to discriminate against us legally.

Recently, Kennedy had mightily voiced his support Kennedy in 1996 was among 14 senators to vote on the Senate floor against the Defense of Marriage Act. When the Federal Marriage Amendment came to the Senate floor in 2004, Kennedy spoke passionately against banning same-sex marriage in the U.S. Constitution.

“Make no mistake, a vote for the federal marriage constitutional amendment is a vote against civil unions, domestic partnerships and other efforts by states to treat gays and lesbians fairly under the law,” Kennedy said. “It is a vote for imposing discrimination, plain and simple, on all 50 states.”

I met him in person very briefly over two years ago when I worked for a nonprofit that sponsored at an event where he spoke about, among other things, income inequality. He was very nice and passionate about what he believed.

He also proudly and consistently identified him as a liberal. He believed in universal health care, eradicating poverty, and equal rights for all. He frequently reached out across the aisle and was even good friends with Orren Hatch of all people. But that didn’t mean he abandoned his beliefs for political expediency or survival. That’s instructive as we watch President Obama concede large swaths of his health care proposals because of protests and GOP disapproval and refuse to curb the sweetheart deals insurers are receiving in this proposal (and receive on a daily basis).

Obama can take a cue from Kennedy over the coming months (or years?) and show us the support of LGBTs that he pledged in the campaign. The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and gay marriage are just two topics up to bat. The president has been distressingly quiet on our issues, but he can stand to swallow down a cup of courage and prove his convictions.

The Lion of the Senate has given the Lamb of the White House a lot of lessons to learn.

For a full list of Sen. Kennedy’s leadership on LGBT issues, please visit: http://www.hrcbackstory.org/2009/08/sen-kennedys-leadership-on-lgbt-equality/

The Path of Least Resistance

2009-08-20T21:48:00.002-04:00

Well, it’s officially been sanctioned that it’s harmful to be forced to play for the other team. But it’s not all cheering from the sidelines.

The American Psychological Association earlier this month repudiated gay-to-straight counseling in a report, stating that this reparative therapy actually led to depression and suicidal tendencies. And, by the way, it totally doesn’t work.

When I first heard the news, I let out a whoop. The whole notion of using psychology to “change” someone into something more “desirable” left a bad taste in my mouth to say the least.

Under the guise of helping people, gay-to-straight therapy introduced the patently false idea that orientation – indeed a viable identity – could just be changed for the sake of hewing to a societal norm, whatever that is these days. It also brimmed with the cruel irony that idea that steering someone from something “unnatural” was actually betraying that person’s nature.

It’s good to know that an organization that just 40-odd years ago saw homosexuality as a mental disorder is now advising its members, and implicitly all psychiatrists and psychologists, to stop getting clients to magically turn straight.

However, there’s a fly in the ointment, and it’s a buzzing, annoying one.

In addition to instructing members not to seek to change a patient's sexual orientation via therapy because there is no evidence that this is successful, the APA also issued additional guidelines advising therapists how to deal with a patient struggling with their sexual identity. And these guidelines explicitly state that it may sometimes be appropriate for a therapist to help a client deny his sexual orientation because of his faith.

Basically, if the client still believes that affirming same-sex attractions would be sinful or destructive to his faith, psychologists can help him construct an identity that rejects the power of those attractions, the APA says. That might require living celibately, learning to deflect sexual impulses or framing a life of struggle as an opportunity to grow closer to God.

Oh, yeah, that sounds lovely and fulfilling. I don’t belittle faith as I have it in abundance. But it seems to me this exception is a back door method of placing the conflicted person back in the land of shame. Sure, shrinks no more are saying they can or should change orientation, but they will facilitate making the orientation into an eternal struggle that can’t be fulfilled and is violating the person’s Maker.

So, the APA’s new report isn’t quite the progress it seems on the surface. But at least it helps that you have seen ex-ex gays decry their reparative therapy. And fresh on my mind is the Sigourney Weaver TV movie “Prayers for Bobby,” based on the true story of Mary Griffith, a gay rights crusader whose teenage son committed suicide due to her initial religious intolerance. The story painfully conveys the tragedy of shame and self-hatred of one’s sexuality.

I wonder about those gay men and women visiting their therapists who are no longer pushing the fallacy of an orientation change but aren’t encouraging them to embrace who they are. Those poor folks are in a no man’s land. They don’t even have a team of their own.

One Moment In Time

2009-08-13T23:34:00.002-04:00

The NAACP just turned 100 and we’re at a crossroads in more ways than one.

In an address to thousands of civil rights leaders, President Obama marked the centennial of the NAACP by paying tribute to its history but calling on activists to tackle modern-day problems. One of these problems was homophobia, and Obama addressed it head on in his discussion of how the pain of inequality long felt by African Americans is felt by people everywhere.

Obama said: "By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights."

Considering the historical reluctance of the African-American community to embrace gays – not to mention the inherent furor for some that gay rights can ever be mentioned along with what’s traditionally seen as “civil rights” – I can imagine that statement was met with polite applause if not a stony silence by some members of the audience.

But that tide is turning. The NAACP's LGBT Equality Task Force was unveiled at a session that spotlighted anti-gay hate crimes and discrimination in schools, employment and marriage. Even five years ago, you wouldn’t have caught me guessing that LGBT issues would be dealt with directly inside the NAACP.

And luckily there are some who are eradicating this false line between the black and gay world. As the National Black Justice Coalition's "At the Crossroads" reported, black LGBT men and women can be disproportionately hurt by government policies harming gay families because, for example, black same-sex households are nearly twice as likely as white ones to having children.

While the traditional civil rights movement is becoming more gay-friendly, it is also incumbent upon gay rights leaders to be more black-friendly. If there was one thing that the Prop. 8 debacle called attention to is that black and gay leaders were not communicating with each other.

The NAACP’s new president Benjamin Jealous seemed to throw down the gauntlet. In an interview, he said, “If gay rights groups want to change the opinion polls in the black community, they have to invest in it. It’s a long-term conversation. The battle to oppose Prop 8 could have been much better run. They came to the black community late, with the expectation that they were going to get certain results.”

Jealous clearly expects gays to mobilize African Americans instead of the other way around, and that’s not a bad idea. There will be a moment that, despite our different histories, we will see that we’re fighting some of the same battles against larger society. And we’ll remember there are those who are African-American AND gay, and we need to fully acknowledge that.

There’s no reason that moment can’t be now.

American Idle?

2009-05-21T23:10:00.002-04:00

Well, my favorite American Idol contestant Adam Lambert lost last night. He was easily the best vocalist of the season. And even with his second-place showing, this marks the first time an openly gay contestant has made it this far….whoops! Can’t say that!

Well I kinda just did. But Adam hasn’t really said it. And he still may wait awhile, that coy son of a gun. When he was cornered by the paparazzi a couple of weeks ago and asked, “So if you win, how would it feel to be the first..?” the interviewer veered into silence and hoped Adam will fill in the oh-so-obvious blank. But Adam just smiled and pretended to be stumped. “First what?” he responded with a smirk.

On one hand, Adam’s ascension speaks volumes on how far the country has come in its attitudes on sexuality. Here’s a contestant with all the gay tropes – spiky hair, sequined jackets, super tight pants and jeans, painted fingernails and more eyeliner than Tyra Banks. Oh, and there was that picture of Adam playing tonsil hockey with another man blasted on the Internet. Yet he sailed through the competition, soon surpassing Danny Gokey to become the favorite.

It’s worth remembering that American Idol, at least until recently, was a red state show. The first five winners were from the South. The winners were solidly middle-of-the road, easy-to-root-for types with inspirational backstories. No one was ever too edgy, certainly not “theatrical,” the adjectives the judges and the media loved to use to describe Adam when they weren’t using “Broadway.”

On the other hand, his sexuality, which infuses his work, becomes something forbidden for discussion or acknowledgment. And it’s an odd and perverse step backward for us. Did Adam worry perhaps that being more out would have cost him votes and he wouldn’t have been the runner-up? Did he not want to be an instant role model? Was he already worried about how he could be marketed (You know his CD will drop in about a year, and he has a good chance of outselling Kris Allen)?

Some may think people like me who make a point about his sexual orientation are the ones stepping backward. Haven’t we come to a place where it doesn’t matter? Well, not quite.

Haven’t you noticed that American Idol goes crazy with hometown footage that mines the personal stories of his contestants? I heard 500 times that Danny lost his young wife to cancer not even a few months before his audition. I learned about Kris’ wife and church group. But Adam I learned hardly anything about. Yeah, I saw his proud parents, but everyone has those.

American Idol studiously avoided delving into Adam’s personal life. What are his friends like? Where does he go for fun? What are his hobbies? It’s like everyone was complicit in the code of silence.

If we embrace Adam, than why is there a hesitancy to embrace all of him, least of all by Adam himself? Just today at Entertainment Weekly online, a reporter directly asked Adam about his sexuality. Adam said, “Like I said, I think speculation keeps things very, very interesting.” He’s still not budging.

Some blogs have already speculated whether homophobia played a part in dark horse Kris stealing the crown. That’s not too likely. First, Kris is actually talented, very cute, and connects with the audience. And he was an underdog, and we love our underdogs. Besides, if homophobia were that rampant, Adam’s campy persona would have robbed him of votes a long while ago.

If there’s anyone holding anything back it’s Adam himself – and American Idol itself. It’s ridiculous that a talented queer singer is hiding in plain sight.

Victor/Victorious

2009-05-06T21:50:00.001-04:00

Just last week, transgender rights took a huge step forward.

A federal judge awarded Diane Schroer of Alexandria, Va., a former Army Special Forces commander, nearly $500,000 because she was rejected from a job at the Library of Congress while transitioning from a man to a woman. When Diane applied for a terrorism analyst job, she was still a man named David Schroer. When David announced he was having surgery to change his gender, the offer was suddenly rescinded. The judge ruled that was sex discrimination and Diane was entitled to back pay and damages.

I have my own trans workplace story. And no, I didn’t used to be a “Woman About Town.” When I worked as a reporter at one of my former newspapers about a decade ago, I had my first face-to-face experience with someone who is transgendered.

S/he worked on the business side, and was a very nondescript man I barely saw or remembered. Then one day, he came up in the newsroom wearing heels, a skirt, blouse, and badly applied make-up (hey, he was a beginner). The hair was a little different, too, not that you noticed it with all of the other stuff going on.

I adjusted my eyes. Honestly, it was kind of funny, like a homemade moment from “Tootsie.” Did he lose a bet? Was he trying to be funny? What was the deal? A few of us snickered about it. But soon someone told me that he was trans, the real deal. Apparently, he felt he needed to become a woman and he aha started talking pre-surgery hormones. And he decided upon the change in dress and appearance to begin the transition.

I didn’t realize he had on-going conversations with his co-workers in his department and his boss to tell them about his decision, and how that would go medically and socially. So the downstairs folks knew, but the upstairs folks like me had to learn about it through gossipy leaks. Someone else mentioned he was formerly married with children. Someone else whispered one or more of his kids weren’t talking to him/her anymore and s/he would lose custody. I certainly wasn’t going to ask him, um, her. Why delve into his, um, her personal life when I barely knew the (wo)man before?

I did learn the new name: Amanda. (I can’t recall his former name.) One of my co-workers couldn’t resist with a joke: “Maybe he chose that because people respond, “He was really ‘a man…duh!’” Sorry, it’s reporter humor. When I went downstairs for a matter, I would notice his co-workers calmly called him Amanda and didn’t react abnormally at all. Soon, we all did that. Once we discovered what was going on, it was no biggie. Besides, he learned how to do his hair tighter, and he started wearing better ensembles.

When first confronted with the new Amanda, I was a little weirded out, puzzled and uncomfortable at first, especially not knowing what was happening in Amanda’s life. And I can imagine that’s what the Library of Congress officials felt. Soon, it wasn’t about the qualifications, it was about feeling unsettled by a change they didn’t understand.

Well, it’s too bad they ignored the transition period and let fear and discomfort morph into hostility and discrimination. Perhaps if they had the time my co-workers and I had to learn the situation and become a little educated, they could have realized being transgender didn’t have to negatively affect the job or themselves.

Because people seem to wake up when they suffer financially, perhaps this will be an alert to employers on this type of discriminatory behavior. Transgendered people have to make a living, too, and they need a modicum of respect that should be afforded to every other type of human being.

The judge’s ruling is a victory not only for Diane, but also for Amanda.

The Young and the Fearless

2009-04-29T20:31:00.001-04:00

I didn’t go to last Saturday’s Youth Pride Day celebration at P Street Beach to join in the celebration, although I thought fleetingly about going by.

No, I’m not twinkie hunting, especially as I’m partnered. Rather, I liked the idea of seeing happy LGBT teens and young adults, already and fearlessly out and proud. I admit I’m a little jealous.
I always envied friends and exes of mine who came out early, particularly in their teens. Sure, the merciless high school caste system is hell for almost everybody who doesn’t fit into the designated norm. But I always felt like they got their “real lives” started a lot sooner.

They quickly learned who among their friends and family was a true supporter. They had open dating lives sooner and no double lives (at least as an adult). They freely participated in social or political activities in high school, college, or beyond. Crucially, their sexuality, accepted and embraced, becomes integrated in the development of their adult selves – character, personality, dreams, and goals. They don’t have to begin again, as it were.

But, with most things, there is a shadow that covers some of the brightness. Over the past couple of weeks, two kids, who never even identified as gay, killed themselves because of anti-gay bullying. Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old sixth-grader from Springfield, Mass., hanged himself with an extension cord in his family's home after being subjected to continuous anti-gay harassment at his middle school. Less than two weeks later, Jaheem Herrera, an 11-year-old fifth-grader from DeKalb County, Ga., also hanged himself at home after being the subject of anti-gay taunts from classmates.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, and those who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to do so. Two of the top three reasons secondary school students said their peers were most often bullied at school were actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender expression, according to a 2005 report by GLSEN and Harris Interactive.

In the same report, more than a third of middle and high school students said that bullying, name-calling and harassment is a somewhat or very serious problem at their school. Furthermore, two-thirds of middle school students reported being assaulted or harassed in the previous year and only 41 percent said they felt safe at school.

In addition, The Trevor Project fields tens of thousands of calls from young people each year, both straight and LGBT-identified, with rejection and harassment by peers being one of the top five issues reported by callers.

The flip side of youth embracing their true nature is that there are others who are ready to quash it. My fear is that teens who are emboldened to be true to themselves become fewer in number because they may see their well-being – and very lives – are at stake. I wonder if conservative political activist Alan Keyes’ daughter Maya ever thought her father would literally throw her out on the street and cut her off financially because she was a lesbian. But he did. Luckily, she rebounded with outside financial help and attended college, ready for the world professionally and personally.

But it’s disturbing to have such a wicked dichotomy of a more modern time when gays are more accepted but homophobia, and its violent offspring, is still steady. What’s more, plenty of families still soundly reject or disown gay members.

What I hope are those young adults still find the strength to be who they are and find the support they need. Youth Pride Day is making a bold statement just in the fact that being part of the LGBT community is reason to celebrate. Now we need to work on ensuring the bright future they are positive about comes into being.

No Shelter In This Storm

2009-04-22T18:59:00.001-04:00

Could homophobes be gasping their last breath?

If patriotism is the refuge of the scoundrel, then desperation may be the last refuge of the bigot. Case in point: This group named National Organization For Marriage has made a video clip posted on YouTube called “The Gathering Storm”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp76ly2_NoI

There is a multiracial group of people, all with forlorn faces, standing in front of a background of dark clouds and lightning bolts as an ominous piano bangs away. Essentially it’s a 60-second ad that sees homosexuality and gay marriage as a threat to American life just like, you know, terrorism. Several individuals each provide their biggest fear in succession:

“The winds are strong and I am afraid.”

“My freedom will be taken away.”

“I’m a California doctor who must choose between my faith and my job.”

“I am part of a New Jersey church group punished by the government because we can’t support same sex marriage.”

“I’m a Massachusetts parent helplessly watching public schools teach my son gay marriage is okay.”

“The advocates want to change the way I live.”

But then, lo and behold, the clouds dissipate as a man vows that a “rainbow coalition” (an ironic nod to Jesse Jackson or gay people?) of folks are coming together to do something about the problem. One of my biggest shocks was finding out this ad was produced and broadcast for $1.5 million, when it looks like a parody Saturday Night Live would air in its last half-hour.

This sketchy group, formed in 2007, is really a fund-raising and propaganda-spewing Web site fronted by the right-wing Princeton University professor Robert George and the columnist Maggie Gallagher, who was an architect of President Bush’s abstinence-only marriage initiatives.

The response has been swift … by people who think this ad is a total joke. First, there is a funny parody, also on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0pPEAdDn64. On Stephen Colbert’s show, a clip shows lightning from “the homo storm” striking an Arkansas teacher, turning him gay. A “New Jersey pastor” whose church has been “turned into an Abercrombie & Fitch” declares that he likes gay people, “but only as hilarious best friends in TV and movies.”

What struck me most was that this seems to be the conservative’s right most prominent response to the gay marriage victories in Iowa and Vermont. But fewer people are buying this tripe. Media stories with evangelicals decrying the marriage victories as a moral apocalypse have been scarce.

Are the homophobes losing their touch? Even Miss California’s fumbling response to gay marriage in the Miss America contest – remember how she said she had to be “Biblically correct” and declare marriage is between a man and a woman only – earned her some audience boos and public derision.

Suddenly, it seems kind of ridiculous to decry gays and gay marriage. The problem is the homophobes can never really explain what the threat is and how it will manifest. Remember when they said we were coming after their children? Didn’t happen. Well, supposedly gay marriage will destroy the family and the institution of marriage. But how? They never really say but just know it will. Sorry, but my mother was the only one in my life with whom I tolerated an answer of “Because I said so.” And that hasn’t worked in 20 years.

So this empty mantra of threat gets repeated without discerning the how and why. And, despite an ever-present homophobia in this society, the logic behind that homophobia is falling away quickly. So becoming an anti-gay spokesperson is losing its luster and effectiveness. I think some of these conservatives are seeing they have little to argue against – or for. Punchy quotes only get you so far.

Look no further than Dr. Laura – she of former “gayness as a biological error and gateway to pedophilia” thinking – recently declared on Larry King committed gay relationships as “a beautiful thing and a healthy thing.” Yes, they are and just as valid as straight relationships.

If only the National Organization For Marriage used that money for something more useful, like a donation to a food bank. Their side show is playing to smaller capacity crowds these days.

Author, Author!

2009-04-15T22:03:00.003-04:00

I’m a writer trying to get published. I learned Monday that being a gay writer was apparently an obstacle on Amazon.com.

Just a few days ago, writer Mark Probst began a nationwide furor after he posted on his blog that he'd noticed the sales rankings on hundreds of gay and lesbian books -- including the newly released Transgressions by Erastes and False Colors by Alex Beecroft -- had suddenly disappeared on Amazon.com. Even established and distinguished writers, including Gore Vidal, Annie Proulx and E.M. Forster, suddenly lost their best-seller ranking, which is the number that Amazon uses to show how well one title sells compared with another.

The rankings often help produce more sales. In response to a note Probst sent the online retailer, an Amazon.com representative said, "In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude 'adult' material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists."

Apparently, it was found that this "adult" tag was also being given to Heather Has Two Mommies (remember that one??) and Ellen DeGeneres' autobiography. If you’ve ever seen DeGeneres’ writings, concerts, films, and of course TV talk show, you know the woman hovers under PG-13. And get this. The explicit memoir by porn star Ron Jeremy and Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds, which includes pictures of more than 600 naked women, are still being ranked like nothing ever happened.

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth by me. As it is, online retailers and bookstores often marginalize LGBT literature, and literature by authors of color for that matter. We often have a small section in a store or on a site apart from everyone else. Something like this makes it worse.

It hit home with me because I’m in the middle of efforts to self-publish my first novel, and it will likely involve a print on demand option, whereby my novel would be available online and link to sites like Amazon.com for exposure. I imagined someone acquainted with me looking for my book or other books b y gay authors and not finding them.

Amazon.com later came out with a statement declaring the tag was a search error that has been resolved, adding that it also affected books in the area of erotica, health, and medicine. There apparently was no deliberate effort to shot out LGBT-themed work. I’m a little skeptical. How could Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds not have been tagged in the erotica category? I’m not even going to talk about Mr. Jeremy.

This was tantamount to an electronic, if temporary, ban of sorts. Even if there was an error, someone had to program certain key words into the system in the first place. And it makes me wonder why words like “gay” and “lesbian” – and apparently the sexual orientation of authors – became some sort of red flag that banished literary works into the forbidden category.

Would this have been corrected if no one had raised a ruckus about it? I have my doubts. I’m very concerned because amazon.com is the #1 portal for not just books, but other products online. You have to wonder if other sites that sell literature, movies, or anything else could do the same thing to censor gay content.

When it’s my turn to get out there, I don’t want to be blocked or censored. It’s enough for any writer these days just to win and maintain an audience.

Married to the Idea

2009-04-08T23:33:00.000-04:00

Geez, my mourning over the Prop. 8 debacle had barely subsided when, all of the sudden, gay marriage opportunities seem to be popping up over the place. Like just this past week.

I know President Obama ushered in change but April is proving to be a watershed for us at a ridiculous speed. First, the Iowa Supreme Court approved gay marriage. Then on Tuesday, Vermont's lawmakers defied Governor Jim Douglas with a veto override, making their state the nation's first to establish gay marriage by a vote rather than by judicial decree. That same day here in Washington, D.C., the city council chose to give legal recognition to gay and lesbian residents who have been married elsewhere, similar to New York state’s current policy.

All of that news was good to hear and I smiled at each development I heard. Being a DC resident, it felt like marriage rights were within grasp. But I have a bucket of lukewarm water to throw. On a federal level, we’re still behind and may never catch up in our lifetime.

Let’s not forget about the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal law that makes it illegal for the U.S. government — as opposed to individual states — to recognize gay couples as married regardless of the marriage or civil union laws of a particular state. Even talk of federally recognized civil unions is meaningless until DOMA is repealed, since the act also prohibits the appearance of marriage, no matter what the relationship is called.

Remember, even in Massachusetts, we can't enjoy the tax benefits that straight couples do. For example, when one half of a gay couple who live together and co-own their house dies, the survivor still has to pay an inheritance tax. Spouses of gay federal employees cannot be covered by government health plans.

And federal immigration laws can still force couples apart with deportation regardless of marital or civil union status I just read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a lesbian couple – registered as domestic partner for 23 years - with twin 12-year-olds. But one of them, who is not a U.S. citizen, will have to be deported to the Philippines in a couple of weeks. Can you imagine a situation of being plucked from your partner and family suddenly and being deposited in another continent?

But that’s the rub, and that’s why these recent marital victories are short-lived when you put them under the glare of the big picture. It’s like getting 65% of your rights.

Considering that Obama and many members of Congress have pledged support for civil unions as an alternative to gay marriage, it’s difficult to imagine who would champion gay marriage as at the federal level. And let’s not forget many federal judges, including a few Supreme Court justices, are conservatives put into power by President Bush. A national gay marriage victory is very unlikely if a case goes to the higher courts.

So while we may have won a few battles, we are hardly winning the war. It will take a long time for truly full and equal rights, I suspect. Perhaps I should be more joyful about celebrating what we have earned. Some prominent evangelicals interviewed concede they feel the ground shifting beneath their feet. Could we truly be reaching a new era?

This is an instance to where I hope I’m proved wrong and it all will be in our grasp. Cool. I can have fun imagining being registered at Bed, bath & Beyond.

Guerrilla Warfare

2009-04-01T23:46:00.001-04:00

Are the breeders trying to take over?

A note from a columnist of Out Magazine, in its latest April edition, struck me as funny. The writer Jesse Archer nearly snapped his neck with whiplash when he entered a gay bar and saw a man and a woman kissing. He went on to fret about how straights, perhaps out of curiosity or a sense of rebelliousness, are invading our gay spots. According to Archer, the straights’ “insistent, increasing appearance on the gay scene is cause for global concern.”

With a nod to interesting timing, Metro Weekly’s latest cover features the trio behind the Guerrilla Queer Bar. The group organizes outings where a bunch of gay men and women descend on a straight bar or restaurant unannounced, kind of a triangle invasion on the breeders’ territory. The whole idea is to promote social integration between the orientations, as it were.

Well, Jesse, there is no homosexual apocalypse on the horizon. In fact, your fears are unwarranted and your thinking is perpetuating a segregation philosophy we don’t need.

First, after bar and club hopping at numerous cities over my lifetime, I can safely say the percentage of straights present – minus the requisite fag hags – has always been very small. It’s more likely that Canada will take over China than straights will take over a gay hangout.

Anyway, I thought Archer’s response, though partly tongue-in-cheek, failed to look at the other side of the coin. How would he respond if a gay couple showed some sign of affection in a place mainly populated by straights, and a few of them gave the couple the stink eye. Surely, he would be appalled at such a negative reaction. We get in trouble often when we have an attitude of someone “not belonging.” Where do we draw the line? Class? Race? Gender?

I get feeling territorial about our hangouts. In sheer numbers, there are more bars and clubs dedicated for straights. So we feel like any perceived encroachment is war. It’s ludicrous to think straights can take us over socially. Besides, our culture often sets trends so it’s no wonder curiosity is sparked.

But I side more with the attitude of the Guerrilla Queer Bar. Groups have their own needs and desires to get together with their own. But people will, and need to, mix sometimes. It’s healthy. Besides, how can we hope to spread tolerance of gays when we steadfastly remove ourselves from the wider world and straights don’t get to know all of who we are?

Sadly, Guerrilla’s current trio of coordinators is stepping down so there’s a big question mark of it will continue. Even if the group becomes no more, I hope the sentiment remains.

It's A Wrap

2009-03-25T21:06:00.002-04:00

Next time you reach for that pack of Trojans, just remember the pope is somewhere shaking his head at you in disapproval.

You may have heard Pope Benedict XVI, on a recent trip to Cameroon, told reporters on his plane that when it came to the AIDS crisis, "You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem."

That statement was rather ironic, considering he was making a goodwill trip to sub-Saharan Africa, where three-quarters of all AIDS deaths worldwide in 2007 occurred. The region is also where some 22 million people are infected with HIV — accounting for two-thirds of the world's infections, according to UNAIDS.

At the risk of not being invited to the next party thrown by one of my Catholic friends, I think the pope’s message is downright dangerous and he deserves all the condemnation he’s been getting and will get. France and the United Nations are only two entities that have been critical of the pope’s statement over the past week.

And I side with them. How does using something that has been proven to reduce transmission of the HIV virus increase the problem? It appears His Not-So-Excellency is using his ideology as a blunt force instrument. I get that as a strict Catholic, he frowns on premarital sex, birth control, and such. But when you have a health crisis, pragmatism — not religious dogma — needs to be in the driver’s seat.

Senior Vatican officials have advocated fidelity in marriage and abstinence from premarital sex as key weapons in the fight against AIDS. Fine. But don’t also exclude and condemn something that is a proven measure to prevent HIV infections. If the pope is serious about HIV, he should focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how to use them. Like with any major dilemma, there needs to be a multi-faceted approach.

The pope’s message reminds me of the Bush administration officials and conservative forces who pushed for abstinence-only sex education in schools. In their world, everything would be perfect if we were all heterosexual, got married at 25, and only then proceeded to have sex. Well, the world isn’t – and never really has been – like that. Even those who go to mass and church service regularly have sex outside of marriage regularly. Are we going to let a religious ideal be the guiding light in getting through this?

The facts don’t support the abstinence-only supporters. Study after study has found abstinence-only efforts are not effective in fully educating young adults, reducing teen birth rates, or slowing the spread of STDs. In fact, a news article I read found that polls suggest a vast majority of parents want comprehensive sex education, which would include an abstinence component.

Even some priests and nuns working with those infected with the AIDS virus question the church's opposition to condoms amid the pandemic ravaging Africa. So do ordinary Africans.

My fear is that regardless of what some may feel about the pope and the Vatican as a whole, the words of Pope Benedict XVI carry a lot of weight and influence. Africa, for example, is the fastest-growing region for the Catholic Church. It’s not ridiculous to assume that some followers will take the pope’s words at face values and not use condoms, to the detriment of their health and others.

The pope also said last week he intends to make an appeal for "international solidarity" for Africa in the face of the global economic downturn. He said while the church does not propose specific economic solutions, it can give "spiritual and moral" suggestions.

Well, the condom thing is one suggestion that needs to be shelved. Forever.

Solitary Man

2009-03-11T20:39:00.000-04:00

Do you remember that screechy treacle of a song from the 1970s “All By Myself” that Celine Dion had the misjudgment to remake in the 90s? That song made me laugh when director Gus Van Sant used it in his satire “To Die For.” Nicole Kidman’s character, at the funeral of her husband, turned on a boom box to play it during the service and telegraph her sadness.

The song, or really the mere title, popped into my head when I chatted with a friend and asked him if he was dating someone. He merely shook his head. Then he added very calmly that he no longer plans his life assuming it will be shared by a significant other. He said not everyone’s lot in life is to have a partner into your twilight years.

It made total sense. Yet that idea is scary to a lot of us. Being alone. Straight or gay, friends and relatives needle single people about their status. “When are you going to settle down?” “When are you going to get partnered, or married?” “Everyone needs someone.” “I’m worried about you.” “What if you get old and there’s no one to take care of you?”

It’s like a reflex with people. I heard some of that in my single periods in between relationships, and I got sick and tired of the supposedly sympathetic gestures. I was never scared of being unattached. Let’s face it. Independence, freedom, and variety can be fun and good. I had to convince people I was fine with singledom, and even then, some thought I was just saying something out of pride.

Yet, I can be a culprit too. When I talk to my single friends, one of the first few questions will likely be if they are dating someone. It’s almost an inborn reaction. I don’t react negatively if they say no, but yet why is it such a priority when there are a thousand other things to talk about?

It may be something innate within us that sees being single as unnatural and even tragic. Look at the Metro Weekly “Coverboy Confidential” section. Over half of the responses to the question of greatest fear are being alone. If a man or woman has friends, family, and financial stability, is not having a boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse a really big void to fill? Ideally, you are a happy person without a relationship, and the other person only adds to your blessings.

It’s rather silly a lot of us are troubled by singledom when all of us have been through it and will face it. After all, unless you’re Jennifer Lopez, you have had space – weeks, months, or even years – between relationships. Who hasn’t had a break-up for a divorce? And even if you are partnered now and it lasts 30, 40 years, one of you will die eventually, and you or the other will be alone. Everyone experiences singledom. So why do we insist on making it scary and daunting?

And isn’t it funny that “alone” is used only in context of a romantic relationship? Is an unpartnered man or woman with a good job, friends and loving family really alone? No, he or she is single or unmarried. Perhaps someone with a fervent goal of a partner and perhaps a family does see being single as an unhappy state because it represents an important goal that’s unfulfilled. That’s fair. Hopefully, that person is not seen as a failure of an ideal.

But people like my friend shouldn’t be pitied in the least. He’s made peace that happiness comes in various ways and if he’s meant to have a mister, it will happen eventually. Until then, he’ll be a happy bachelor and we will talk about a lot more than dating.

Abuse of Power

2009-03-04T23:34:00.001-05:00

Well, it seems Rihanna has reconciled with Chris Brown. Pause to let my eyes finish rolling.

Unless you’ve read so much about Octomom that you forgot the original story, Brown allegedly battered Rihanna last month, sparking so much chatter some of us forgot we were in a recession. Well, Rihanna took him back, perhaps giving up her self-respect in the process.

Almost everyone I talked to about it just couldn’t believe a young, pretty, talented, and wealthy woman would go back to someone who physically abused her, no matter if the man is a heartthrob. Okay, forgiveness is a good thing. So is atonement if it’s sincere. But is their reconciliation sending a bad message that physical abuse can be tolerated?

As straights are debating this, it makes me wonder how big of a problem abuse is in the LGBT community. I suspect it’s largely a silent problem. It’s funny that reflecting on anecdotal evidence, I only can think of two LGBT people who were in physically abusive relationships. One was an ex and one was a friend of a friend. Both stayed with the significant other for awhile afterward.

Reliable statistics about domestic violence among same-sex couples are hard to come by, experts say. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, there were 3,534 reported incidents of domestic violence against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons in 2006, the most recent statistics available. The data, however, is taken from major cities where anti-violence programs are found, such as Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Houston. Imagine if rural and outer areas were included.

The Campus Violence Prevent Project, affiliated with the University of Wisconsin, assembled some statistics in 2006 from national surveys done a few years earlier. They concluded:

· The prevalence of domestic violence among Gay and Lesbian couples is approximately 25 - 33%.
· Each year, between 50,000 and 100,000 Lesbian women and as many as 500,000 Gay men are battered.
· While same-sex battering mirrors heterosexual battering both in type and prevalence, its victims receive fewer protections.
· Seven states define domestic violence in a way that excludes same-sex victims; 21 states have sodomy laws that may require same-sex victims to confess to a crime in order to prove they are in a domestic relationship.

So it seems we can neither get married legally (in most places) nor get fair legal protection for domestic violence. Great. If we don’t feel the law gives us a fair shake, I imagine some LGBT abuse victims would never seek help in the first place.

Also I suspect there are many silent sufferers of abuse. And having a same-sex dynamic complicates things. I imagine some men and women are too ashamed to go to anybody if they’ve ever been abused by someone of the same gender, primarily because society gives us a snicker instead of sympathy. People think a man should be able to protect himself from another man, and so on. Traditional gender roles can interfere with abuse being taken seriously and being dealt with swiftly.

I hope no LGBT friend or family member has been an abuse victim and is remaining quiet. If the Rihanna situation at least has brought domestic violence to the forefront – at least for a moment – let’s hope the questions of how we need to deal with this linger long after the next tabloid fixation.

Morals Clause

2009-02-25T18:20:00.001-05:00

When does a gay event involving sex warrant a protest? Or warrant a warrant?

Last month during Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend (which kinda got overshadowed by the inauguration that same weekend), a religious group that believes homosexuality is “evil” tried to keep a leather S&M party from happening at the Doubletree Hotel in Arlington.

The head of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, a group “dedicated to exposing the homosexual activist agenda,” tried to stop a “play party” because such an event in a hotel conference room is “illegal and a public health concern.” Oh, and it’s also immoral.

From what I’ve been able to gather, the party went on as scheduled. It seems Truth wanted to protect our sense of morals, but it’s a very selective set of morals.

First, think about just how wrong the president’s statement was. What exactly is illegal? Unless money exchanged hands, there’s no prostitution. And the last time I checked, people were allowed to have consensual sex in a private room. (Perhaps there’s a whip-brandishing prohibition in the state legislature that we overlooked). And the hotel allowed a private suite for this. At midnight. Impressionable youngsters would hardly be ambling into the room for the shock of their lives.

As far as a health concern, I don’t see an added risk different than straight couple or groups getting together (and don’t for a second think that doesn’t happen). Maybe Truth assumed everyone at the party would be doing it raw, but somehow I don’t think the group was fixated on condoms and safe sex.

The real reason is the “moral” issue, but it seems to be more about finding gay sexuality threatening and trying to shut it down. This is a city full of gentleman’s clubs and little flyers tucked under windshield wipers with pictures of half-naked women for clubs, parties, or whatever. And since when is S&M a strictly gay concept?

I would have more respect for this Truth organization if they flew to Los Angels and showed up at the Playboy Mansion to protest Hugh Hefner and beseech him to close down his bunny den of iniquity. After all, people don’t go there just for the champagne. Hell, some of Hefner’s playmates have their own reality show on VH1 – indicative of a kind of middle-America acceptance.

But something that advertises “pig sex” seems to be the final straw for some moralists. The already grim view they hold on gays becomes stretched to the breaking point. They may not be crazy about the Playboy Mansion, but because heterosexuality is their idea of the only “normal” orientation, Hugh and Co. are relatively forgivable. But men in leather who dare to fly their freak flag are sick bastards.

I think people like Truth members don’t pick up on the inequity of their moral focus. It reminds me of straights I have met who castigate homosexuality but have sex and/or live together outside of marriage. The virtue of being straight makes something seem not as bad as, you know, the other people.

Perhaps Truth needs to ask itself who and what it is fighting for, and to what end. It’s almost funny to have moral saviors try to rescue people who don’t need to be saved.

Going for the Gold

2009-02-18T23:01:00.003-05:00

The Oscars are Sunday and curiously few of my gay friends are mentioning any parties for the night. I thought we were supposed to flock to the TV like texting teens do to American Idol.

Anyway, I could end up watching Sean Penn stroll to the podium to take the Academy Award as Best Actor for Milk. I would be pleased as I thought he did a phenomenal job and it would be kind of a rebuke to a post-Prop. 8 country. A Penn victory would also make me wonder how far we’ve really come in the LGBT community as a whole.

Sounds strange but give me a minute. Penn would be the latest line of straight actors getting Oscar gold for playing gay. Think about Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, and Charlize Theron in Monster, for example. And remember Sunday’s lock for a win – the dearly departed Heath Ledger aka “The Joker”, who was Oscar-nominated for his turn as a closeted cowboy in Brokeback Mountain.

I don’t want to take anything away from these great performances, but they reveal a double standard that plays into how we’re still viewed in society. Straights playing gay even now are lauded for being “brave” and “daring.” Wow, look at how they fiercely portray a gay man or lesbian, risking their image and the rumors that are sure to circulate.

What the hell? They are just playing other human beings. Hollywood is quantifying their celluloid leap as controversial and giving them unbridled praise because, in part, they are playing “the other.” That’s what we still are in many minds, even in Hollywood, even in 2009.

Why is it that few out gay actors are given gay roles in major movies? Is it a fear of typecasting on the actors’ part? Will the audience assume a gay man playing a gay role is not acting? And will Hollywood not cast openly gay actors in straight roles because they assume the audience will never believe them in those roles? Hardly seems fair it never goes the other way around.

When we see major gay portrayals on screen, it’s largely as the comic relief and/or the trusted fag hag to Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Anne Hathaway, etc. Those roles are broad and non-threatening. They don’t penetrate the surface and get under the skin of movie goers. They don’t illuminate the gay experience so much as pick a few superficial traits to flaunt. So we can be Jack on Will and Grace, but not Harvey Milk. We can’t tell our own stories in the studio films.

Are we still in a space to where an entertainer who comes out has to worry about his or her career? It seems so. Think about major figures whose sexual orientation has long been questioned: Anderson Cooper, Kenny Chesney, Tom Cruise, Kevin Spacey, and the list goes on.

As Hollywood (and other big media) embraces gay portrayals, why do some of its native gay sons still feel the need to stay in the closet? In my above list, I’d bet my life at least two of them are 100% gay, and I’m sure there are many others.

I hear people sympathize with celebrities with double lives because they still think coming out is a career killer. Is that just paranoia or are we just feeding off the vibes we get from larger society, many of whose members still experience a discomfort of gayness? Will we be in 2039 and having gay actors still afraid to come out and having plum gay parts going to straight actors who can make it clear that it’s just a role and they’re not really…you know? Will we still be imagining ourselves as a more tolerant society despite evidence to the contrary?

I just read that Jim Carrey will star in a new movie called I Love You, Phillip Morris and play a gay character, based on a real-life conman who falls in love with his cellmate in prison. The movie played at Sundance and already it’s getting raves, and some are praising Carrey “for daring” to play gay.

Carrey doesn’t help matters as he freely admitted it was “scary” to have to kiss his co-star Ewan McGregor. (But darnit, someone has to do it!) This feeds into the ass-backward Hollywood double-standard of praising our stories (portrayed by straights) while tacitly following the common thinking of being gay as “shocking” or some other life form altogether.

By the way, isn’t it funny that no one ever asked Anthony Hopkins if playing a cannibal in Silence of the Lambs would ruin his career? Well, I guess it’s just a role, right?

Haggard Faces

2009-02-11T08:24:00.001-05:00

Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out who’s been making the biggest media tour of self-promotion under the guise of justice and truth-telling – Ted Haggard or Rod Blagojevich?

Since Blago is a pompous windbag who was impeached and is really yesterday’s news, let’s go to the Colorado pastor who famously was evicted from his flock after revelations of gay affairs that he insist do not make him gay. See, isn’t that more fun?

In case you don’t own a television, Haggard has been on Oprah, Larry King, and other news outlets on the heels of an HBO documentary on his life directed by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter. The married evangelical is openly calling himself a liar and a hypocrite for anti-gay declarations and fighting gay marriage when it turns out he had sex with men.

In 2006, Haggard confessed to a money-for-sex relationship with former escort Mike Jones, from whom he also purchased crystal meth. Haggard was forced out of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the National Association of Evangelicals. Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that Haggard was sexually involved with former church member Grant Haas.

It’s interesting that Haggard’s self-flagellation doesn’t extend to his admitting that he’s anything near gay. Instead, he has gone one to say that he is “heterosexual with homosexual attachments” or “heterosexual with complications.” Coy? Oy!

Haggard reminds me of presumably straight men who sleep with men but don’t see themselves as gay. For them, dalliances with men are just sex and not any point of identity. The irony is that they almost totally define gay men by their sexuality.

Gay critics (deservedly) have scorched Haggard with fire-breathing criticisms. I despise his character too, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say I feel sorry for him.

I don’t mean sorry as in I would give him a hug and say everything will be alright. I mean pity that he’s in deep denial and contorting his true nature to where his insides are more of a puzzle than his replies to interviewers’ questions. He’s creating his own Dante’s inferno without the Dante.

Even while Haggard praises his wife and makes pains to say he has a happy marriage and still wants his wife sexually, he still admits he’ s attracted to men – but he is no longer acting on it or trying not to, anyway. Perhaps the years in a religious environment that is virulently anti-gay, he morphed into a homophobic crusader even as the elephant in the room grew louder. Or maybe he thought any life without wife and kids seemed not normal and unspeakable.

However free he may sound, I know he in anguish. Those “feelings” won’t go away because they are a part of who he is. Haggard is just one soldier in an army of men who lead double lives and for whatever reason, can’t bring themselves to acknowledge and embrace gayness they have. For them, sexuality is never free because it’s bound by doubt and shame. He’s not overcoming anything so much as supplanting everything.

Some people are angry that the documentary seems to paint him in a sympathetic light. It does to a large degree. But it also gives us the picture of a man perpetually in conflict, trying in vain to convince people – maybe more so himself – that he’s not “really gay.”

So he can get a six-figure book deal, a talk show, and maybe a new church. But he doesn’t really win. As long as he tries to cocoon himself in a façade of heterosexuality, he will continue to break his own heart every day.

A May-December Affair To Remember

2009-02-04T21:32:00.004-05:00

The rising politician gets felled by sex scandal when his affair with a young intern comes to light and makes headlines, followed by calls for his resignation.

No, you’re not in caught in one of those Lost time warps, landing back in 1998 to watch the Bill-Monica fiasco. You’re watching the nation’s most prominent gay mayor – Sam Adams of Portland, Ore. – sweating in the spotlight after he copped to romancing an 18-year-old intern and then lying about the relationship before his election last November.

Adams, 45, last month publicly acknowledged that as a city commissioner he grew interested in Beau Breedlove, then 17, and had sex with him after he turned 18, the legal age of consent in Oregon. Adams has admitted lying about the relationship in 2007 as he was considering a run for mayor and asking Breedlove to lie about it, too.

The state’s attorney general is investigating to see if a crime was committed, namely third-degree sex abuse. What, you say? Well, twinkie Breedlove admitted that they kissed at least twice while he was 17, including a “lingering” smooch in a City Hall bathroom (I was ready to guess near the lockers after algebra class).

All this mess has made me wonder if Adams (and by extension Breedlove) will be treated differently because he’s gay. I suspect so.

Because sexuality is our most defining trait, fair or unfair, in the public mind, matters involving sex then take a disproportionately larger role in people’s perception of us. So some people wanting to bury Adams are motivated in part by their disapproval and disgust of homosexuality and gay sex.

Too much of a leap? Critics, including reporters, bloggers, officials and local residents, have already taken to calling Adams a "predator" and a "pedophile." It’s worth noting many of these criticisms came when all intimacy between the two was thought to occur after Breedlove’s 18th birthday – when both were consenting adults in the eyes of the law.

It would be one thing if these criticisms emphasized the unequal balance of power in this relationship, which I think is a key point of concern. When someone is technically your boss, are the boundaries completely set? Can you really go to 100% professional mode from 9-5, and freakydink mode at night, and no issues of control and power ever come into play? I doubt it. That was a legitimate issue with Clinton, Leader of the Free World, and Lewinsky, flirtatious Valley girl.

The bigger problem is that Adams lied about it and asked his former lover to lie. If he did nothing wrong in his mind, why cover it up? And there is the age difference. Breedlove claimed that he knew the full ramifications of what he was doing even when he first met his “mentor” Adams – more than twice his age – before the hanky-panky. Yeah, I thought I knew everything when I was 17 and 18, too.

But most of the current flack really comes from the idea of Adams as chicken hawk swooping down on boy Breedlove. The “pedophile” tag comes out of hoary stereotypes linking homosexuality with child abuse.

Unless this investigation does determine laws were broken, I don’t think Adams should lose his job, just like I didn’t think Clinton should have lost his. That’s not to say Adams did nothing wrong. He behaved inappropriately in his capacity as a local lawmaker. If he had a hankering for barely legal things, he could have gone to Portland’s version of Apex on Thursday nights instead of City Hall. Just like Clinton shouldn’t have been blown in the Oval Office while waiting for Yasser Arafat’s phone call.

But it’s not quite the same, is it? It’s hard to assume if Breedlove were female that Adams would be seen as a threat to all impressionable young women, like he’s seen as now with impressionable young men. Clinton, and other straight politicians (think John Edwards, David Vitter) caught up in sex scandals, are rascally and tacky skirt chasers. Gay politicians, or those caught up in a gay scandal (think Larry Craig), have a deeper shadow cast on them. They become “sick,” “disgusting” or “predatory.” There's an exaggerated sense of shock and titillation perpetuated by the media.

Maybe that’s why Adams lied. He knows there are different standards and perceptions. And once the haze of romance cleared and the reporters started sniffing around because of the affair rumors, he knew he’d be dead meat if he was honest. Unfortunately for Adams, that may happen anyway.

A Whiter Shade of Pale

2009-01-28T22:08:00.003-05:00

Two good friends attended last week’s “Out For Equality” Inaugural Ball, hosted by the Human Rights Campaign.

When I asked one of them the day after what he thought of the event, I was expecting tales about noshing on shrimp with Melissa Etheridge and getting Thelma Houston to sing the hook of “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” Instead, they were kind of bummed because the Mayflower room hardly had any people of color. Apparently, it was whiter than the population of Maine.

Here we were, ushering in the nation’s first African-American president and the diversity didn’t extend to the gayest event in the city. I don’t blame organizers because, well, they con’t populate the hotel with a greater racial mix if that mix isn’t already in the gay power structure.

And that’s the bottom line. The Mayflower that night reflects a reality and a constant problem that the gay movement is still embarrassingly un-diverse. And it will continue to cost us.

Exhibit A: Prop. 8. The voter turnout – with a majority of African-Americans and Latinos voting for the anti-gay marriage measure – and the postmortem analysis by gay activists revealed a lack of outreach efforts by gays to minority groups on this issue. There was an arrogant assumption that one minority should always be in the corner of another minority.

What it also showed is that increasing diversity from the grassroots level to the big financial and political players is not a priority. Things may be a little better that ten years ago, but there is still a startling lack of people of color in gay activism. For example, can you name three non-white leaders or spokespeople of mainstream gay groups or interests? I’ll wait.

Now part of the problem may be a Catch-22. An organization or group that is vastly white may make an effort to recruit members of color. But gay minorities, suspicious there aren’t very many people like them, may demur because they are uncomfortable with the lack of diversity. So two well-meaning sides can’t meet in the middle.

The time has come to not assume every LGBT person is progressive and knows to be inclusive within our community. Look at how many gay DC residents willingly segregate themselves on racial terms when they socialize. Look at how some gays and lesbians scorn, or are uncomfortable with, transgendered people.

It only benefits the greater cause when the gay movement becomes more integrated, incorporates different points of view, and amasses a bigger collective of people that can change the world as much as President Obama likely will.

Sadly, the fact that we are discriminated against by heterosexuals doesn’t seem to lend itself to us being conscientious about our own prejudices.

Below the Surface

2009-01-21T17:34:00.000-05:00

Since e-Harmony doesn’t want us, perhaps it’s time more of us who are relationship-oriented and seeking potential partners took the law of romance into our own hands.

That’s what psychotherapist Ken Page did over four years ago. The New Yorker led retreats on personal growth and wondered if there was a less superficial way for gay men and women to meet.

Out of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center in Manhattan, he led a workshop called “Deeper Dating” one day in 2004. Just like the format that endures to this day, the event started with a talk on sexuality, intimacy, and spirituality and then led to social exercises where participants mingle and share personal feelings and insights with others. Each attendee was allowed to give a paper with a name and phone number to 10 other people, who had to accept the contact information but were not obligated to have to go out with that person.

Some 100 gay men attended the original workshop. On average, Page says, 50 people monthly turn out now for Deeper Dating in New York, which is always led by a trained clinician. (Page stopped leading the exercises but oversees the program.)

“It’s like speed dating with soul,” Page said. “I thought I’d do it once but people didn’t want to leave. People just don’t realize there’s a gentler way to do this.”

Deeper Dating (http://www.deeperdating.com/) promotes the idea that a desire for a substantial relationship also entails having deeper personal values, such as a sense of community. And unless we choose lovers – and friends for that matter – with similar values, Page believes, we will feel out of place and possibly lose a shot at happiness.

So far Deeper Dating is also in Provincetown, Boston, and New Jersey. (There have also been versions created for straights, lesbians, and bears at last count.) DC may be on the list sometime in the future. I think a lot of Washingtonians would welcome it.

Offhand, the premise of Deeper Dating may sound too Oprah-ish and feel-good for some folks. Values? Feelings? In some ways that flies against the currency of the gay modern dating world where cynicism and superficiality often muscle each other out for first place.

But there are plenty of us who have grown tired of what the dating and club scene has to offer. And from what I’ve been hearing anecdotally, match.com – which allows gay and lesbian online dating profiles unlike e-Harmony – hasn’t seemed to be the golden ticket for some subscribers.

Page said the idea for Deeper Dating percolated after a talk with his best friend on the travails of relationships, which made him realize that dating wouldn’t work with men whose values he didn’t share. So he set to work on designing a dating forum that would put emphasis on personality, feelings and values, what Page fancies as “re-learning dating skills.” He also feels Deeper Dating helps people avoid the tendency to create an “airbrushed” version of who they really are to try to impress people.

Sessions, for example, focus on not just going after others you find attractive, but conversing with someone who may not be your physical ideal, yet who shapes up to be interesting and inspiring. Attendees answer questions such as which faraway friend or family member is very important to their lives and why, so others get a better sense of their priorities and thoughts.

“The conventional wisdom is that you have to improve yourself, like lose weight,” he said. “The task is not to improve ourselves but be ourselves.”

Page, who has an adopted son and is still single, said this emphasis on relationships has helped him in his dating life. He is much braver about approaching people, and less afraid to let men know he’s interested.

“The people I date now are so much better people,” he said. “I wanted an event where people show the best part of themselves.”

Silent Prayer

2009-01-14T16:38:00.003-05:00

Next Tuesday, I’m braving a crowd of millions, cold weather, and a wickedly high people-Porta Potty ratio to see Barack Obama sworn in as our next President. Yes, I’ll be huddling on the Mall with my partner and possibly a few friends watching the ceremony from a JumboTron screen if truth be told, but I’ll be there.

I’ve been asked how I’ll react when Rev. Rick Warren steps to the podium to deliver the invocation. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Obama’s pick of Warren to open the ceremony in prayer caused a furor from the LGBT community because of his vigorous support of Prop. 8 and his past remarks comparing gay marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy. And until just last month in fact, his Saddleback Church in California had language on its Web site stating gay people would not be accepted as members.

When Obama announced his pick of Warren, I was truly disappointed. If he wanted a massively popular evangelist to prove he was reaching out to the other side of the aisle, why not someone like Joel Osteen? At least from what I’ve seen on his recent “60 Minutes” profile, Osteen is all about extolling the positive qualities of Christianity, not the divisive ones. He avoids politics and “those people” talk.

But I won’t boo or hiss Tuesday morning. I’ll listen to what Warren will have to say, albeit without applause. I’ve learned over these few weeks, though, not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Despite being a lackluster choice, I don’t think it reflects Obama’s character or the progress we will enjoy with him in the Oval Office.

First, if Warren’s opposition to gay marriage is a sore spot, then that inauguration platform would be mostly empty. Remember, even Obama (yet) doesn’t endorse full gay marriage. And not very many pastors, even those who are affirming, do.

Yes, Warren is ignorant about homosexuality, despite professing that he loves us and he had a very nice talk with Melissa Etheridge at some event. (I had a nice talk with my calculus professor freshman year, but he still gave me a C.) But here’s why Warren’s presence fades when the big picture arises:

1. Obama chose Rev. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, an openly gay bishop who advises him on gay issues, to open the inaugural festivities Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial. The Episcopal bishop said he was not asked in reaction to the furor over Warren. "They made it very clear with me, and I certainly do believe them, that this was in the works for some time," Robinson told USA TODAY.

2. The families accompanying Obama on a train ride to DC from Philadelphia on Sunday include a lesbian couple.

3. Obama has recently made several gay appointments. Nancy Sutley, a Los Angeles deputy mayor, has been named to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Gay advocates say they believe more gay appointments are in the offing. Fred Hochberg will head the Export-Import Bank, and Brian Bond will be deputy director of public liaison.

4. Incoming White House spokesman Robert Gibbs recently declared that Obama plans to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that requires gay members of the military to hide their sexual orientation.

Obama fancies himself showcasing different voices, even ones that offend, and encouraging reconciliation and that in of itself is not a bad goal. It’s worth noting that when Robinson’s role was announced, the Christian right started making declarations that Obama was remiss for selecting someone whose views offend some Americans (sound familiar?). And let’s not forget the ceremony will be closed out in prayer by Black minister and civil rights leader Joseph Lowery.

The bottom line is that Obama can and, I believe, will do more for gay rights and gay equality than any previous president, or any leading politician for that matter. So when Warren does his thing, I will quickly forget about him and think about the man who will later place his hand on the Bible, take his oath, and lead our country out of this mess.

Safety In Numbers

2009-01-07T11:04:00.004-05:00

Friday after next, Mayor Adrian Fenty will meet with the group Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV) and discuss ways to end anti-gay violence in Washington after a spate of assaults and one murder.

Finally.

It took more than a little coaxing for that group and other activists to make Fenty and other officials finally pay attention to the string of incidents where gay men have been beaten up and, in a case not even a month old, murdered.

It’s interesting that someone like Fenty, who courted the gay community like mad in his election campaign (I think he was at more gay events that year than I was), repeatedly spurned the idea of a community meeting with police, top city officials, and residents to discuss anti-gay violence, including hate crimes.

It’s not unreasonable to assume Fenty’s acquiescence came in part after GLOV released a statement criticizing Fenty’s lack of response, while pointing out members of other entities – including the U.S. Attorney’s office and the City Council – have already discussed this disturbing trend with the group. He seems to have been embarrassed into action.

Even in the assault and killing of innocent people, sexual orientation becomes needlessly political. If another group – say the elderly, children, or immigrants – was being targeted, I imagine there would be a bigger deal in the mainstream media and on the lips of local policymakers. Can you see it now? “Old people victimized! Film at 11!”

But because the victims are gay men, you can almost feel the sea change of sympathies and priorities. Perhaps because many of these victims were coming from a known gay bar or club, some DC residents likely had a subconscious thought that these men were out partying and reveling in the “lifestyle” and, well, what do you expect? And if people are firmly homophobic, they see the victims as “the other” whose lives and well-being are of no consequence to them.

And I imagine officials like Fenty are timid about getting into the fray because they see the criticism coming. “Dozens of black men are murdered or assaulted each year,” critics cry. “So why are you spending your time on the gays? Are you with us or them?”

As if the police and the lawmakers have to choose? Why can’t resources be directed to wherever the needs are? Can’t we solve crimes in both the gay and black communities, for example (and whatever communities need our help the most at a given time)?

As with other more prominent cases (think Matthew Shepherd in Wyoming or, more recently, Sakia Gunn in New Jersey), the senselessness of the death and the toll it took on the victims’ families often took a back seat to discussions on how people feel about homosexuality. The bottom line should be someone was needlessly killed or assaulted. Period. And we should all mourn over an unfairly taken or compromised life.

I’m invested in seeing this dealt with not just because I’m gay, but also because I live in Logan Circle, where the recent attacks occurred. I’ve thought about all the nights I’ve walked home from bars or clubs late at night, and sometimes alone, and I took my safety for granted. Thank God for guardian angels.

But I can’t help but wonder if there will be a temporary chilling effect on some men and women wanting to go out because they fear they will be the next victims. Being in a group may not matter. Even one man with a gun instantly outnumbers five or six people. Violence is a great equalizer.

Perhaps Fenty will be enlightened during that Jan. 16th. Just once, he should imagine what it might feel like to have a target on his back.

Auld Lang Syne

2008-12-31T14:40:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is my anniversary.

I met my partner at a New Year’s Eve party last year hosted by a mutual friend. When he walked through the door and I got a first look, I couldn’t stop looking (yes, this is kind of cliché, but indulge me). Who is this handsome man, I thought? I made sure to make my way over to have a conversation, and the rest is history (my last cliché, I promise).

An old friend from L.A. just last week asked me how serious I was and if I was in love. It’s definitely for real and for the long-term, I told her. I thought it was a strange question. After a year, would she think I’d still be dating someone casually?

But the question made me reflect on ways this relationship is different.

In my previous relationships, I pretty much had a “take things one day at a time” mentality. I didn’t project far ahead, partly because I was protecting myself. I have had the rug pulled out from under me more than once, so it was safer not to pin hopes on an ideal that could easily be dashed. Moreover, I’m an independent person with so many other things going on already – career, writing, friends, family, social outings, church, etc. A man was never needed to fill the space or be the missing piece of the puzzle – two phrases that make me vomit when I hear them being used.

And whether it was cynicism and/or pragmatism, I flatly believed nothing was forever and it was ludicrous to have expectations and set myself up for failure. After all, life happens as you're making plans. A man here today can easily be gone tomorrow.

My thinking has changed, though, and I've adopted a fresher perspective before I knew it. Finally, I felt comfortable imagining a partnership 5, 10, 20+ years down the road. I realized I can have my long-term goals of my career and such, and know my relationship can fit into that.

I have more of an acute sense of longevity and what work may have to be done to attain a goal I routinely scoffed at. I feel like whatever changes life brings, I can grow with my partner. And there’s not a fear a long-term relationship will reap mendacity, complacency, and resentment. It can bring constant discoveries, new adventures, and happiness if we allow it.

After many months, I began referring to my boyfriend as my partner to most everyone. I did it without thinking and can’t even remember when I started. ‘Boyfriend’ sounded too temporary, even teenager-y. The word partner just felt right.

This all makes it seem I never had great happiness, respect, honesty, communication in my previous relationships. I had most of those qualities in various degrees, but it all never seemed to come together until now.

It also makes it seem like the relationship is perfect, but it’s not and we’ve had a few hiccups along the way like every other couple. When you have two different people, you have challenges and embark upon a learning process.

The key is knowing that I can’t control my future, but I can control my viewpoints, priorities, and goals. And I can reach for the brass ring without worrying about doubts and “what if”s holding me back.

So I will ring in 2009 counting my blessings like before, but realize the great potential of what lies ahead. I can’t wait for the second anniversary

Secret Santa

2008-12-18T13:40:00.002-05:00

Someone once said you spend Thanksgiving with the people you want to, and Christmas with the people you have to. You’re blessed if those two audiences are one in the same.

For me, the gatherings are almost always different for each holiday, but it’s not due to drama. It’s mainly because a) I prefer not to leave town on Thanksgiving (the day before is the busiest travel day of the year and I like my sanity), and b) I have such a big family on both sides, I rotate my destinations to try to see everyone.

Most of my friends have asked if my partner is going with me back home to L.A. He’s not, because of his work schedule. But my family knows about him and many will eventually meet him. Most of his family now knows me, and I spent Thanksgiving with all of them and enjoyed it.

But many gay couples will never have to think about this scenario. Because one is a secret from the other’s family.

An informal survey across my friends reveals something remarkable: many of them have not told their families about their long-term relationships, even as they hit the 5-year mark and beyond. So you can guess the holidays are resolutely a separate affair for them. But does this kind of arrangement devalue the relationship?

Family is tricky in of itself, let alone when you bring a boyfriend or girlfriend to the equation. You feel like you spend a lifetime learning the complicated rhythms and personalities of your family members, and how they can be incorporated into your life. And your plus-one may not be able to blend into that scene well. That alone can make someone hesitant to bring in a veritable in-law.

Some others have a more tangible fear. Their family may consist of conservatives, religious or otherwise, who would virtually disown them for their gayness. Or maybe the family is abusive or dysfunctional to where they don’t want to bring the unsuspecting partner into a dark milieu.

But an informal survey of friends and acquaintances doesn’t uncover such drastic scenarios save a very few exceptions. It frankly seems to be an extension of how out they are in general, and how comfortable they are making their homosexuality known.

My question, though, is how long can you keep your partner from the family, or be hidden from your partner’s family? And what purpose does it serve in the long run?

I can see if you’ve only dated someone several months, and don’t know the long-term potential. You don’t want to do the family rounds and then break up shortly afterward.

For me, keeping a partner in the closet for a long time is putting fear, pride, and a desire for acceptance above your relationship. And is that the priority list you want? Conceivably, a family member can scorn you for your career choices or your style of dress. So are you going to keep everything you think might elicit the slightest bit of disapproval away from the family to “keep the peace”? When does it stop?

When I bring this argument up to a few friends who fit the scenario, they bristle and see the words “closeted” and “fear” as judgmental. Their ears hear me saying that they are cowardly wusses. It’s complicated, they say, and I wouldn’t understand. One friend years ago said that it’s “not important” his family knows. Another unabashedly said he would never introduce a boyfriend to his family to avoid a sense of shame and discomfort that would be generated, even if it meant losing that boyfriend eventually.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve met many men who are out to their friends, and maybe even co-workers. But family is still put behind the great wall, essentially creating a double life. One argument is you can get new friends, but not new family members. So even if prejudices fuel tensions and divides that may arrive due to sexuality or a relationship, it’s better to avoid that situation. Blood is thicker than water.

But if your long-term partner is as important in your life as a parent or sibling, why keep those important parts painfully separate? Sooner or later, there has to be a breaking point. I mean, will someone tolerate a 10-year closeted relationship? Will you be age 50 or 55 before you officially out your relationship? And isn’t that a teeny bit ridiculous?

Oddly, I know situations where one is out, but the other is not. So while the couple is enmeshed with one family, you only hear crickets on the other side. I can’t help but think that eventually the out person is going to feel resentful and throw down the gauntlet.

Sometimes, outside factors motivate outing the relationship – a prime example is if one or both has children. If the other person is serious, you scarcely can spend time with the kids and leave out the significant other.

If someone is bent on having separate holidays and separate lives, I can’t convert them. But they’re missing something good. Why talk about the turkey dinner and the glee from unwrapped gifts over the phone, when you can be there in person?

Eight Is Not Enough

2008-12-03T16:19:00.003-05:00

In the aftermath of California voters barely passing Prop. 8, which shot down gay marriage, many of the pundits seemed to dwell on one fact: nearly 70% of Black voters in the state voted for the proposition.

My first thought was disappointment that so many of my own people pulled the lever against a right I, and other LGBT people, should have had in the first place.

But in all the sniping from some White gay leaders who were infuriated that one minority group couldn’t understand the perspective of another minority group, and with all the grousing from some Black gay leaders that there are bigger priorities in life than marriage, there’s a lesson lost.

We’re not communicating with and reaching out to each other before crucial decisions are made. And as a vote from the DC City Council on gay marriage will be coming up in early 2009 in a city that is 60% Black, we need to do this like yesterday.

First, the Black vote fixation was myopic. Apparently, some people didn’t realize that upward of 80% of Republicans, conservatives, white evangelicals, and weekly churchgoers also voted yes on Prop. 8. The initiative would have passed, albeit barely, even if not a single African-American had shown up at the polls. Besides, Mormons pumped $20 million into the “Yes on 8” campaign, so it’s safer to say they really tipped the scales.

The morning-after chattering confirmed that a crucial problem was messaging and outreach. Apparently, the African-American outreach from mostly white gay groups was sorely lacking. There were a couple of town hall meetings in the state and an urging of the NAACP to issue a press release. Uh, that’s it?

Imagine if you had large numbers of LGBT campaign organizers approaching churches, community centers, civil rights groups, nonproifts, colleges, and local leaders to discuss the benefits and importance of gay marriage and to offer to hear out and dispel myths and worries. Imagine if you had a series of town hall meetings in which gays of all races and ethnicities discussed in detail the discrimination they faced in health care, employment, education, and the like. Imagine a scene where Black gay couples with children discussed the legal hurdles and challenges to their parental rights to various audiences (Remember there are still states, like Florida, Utah, and Arkansas, where gay adoption is illegal.)

A good friend in L.A. who has marched in protests in the aftermath of the election believes this idea is rather naïve. In his mind, there is nothing anyone can say or do to persuade a homophobe, particularly a Bible-thumping one. I’m not so sure. You can never convert everyone. Some conservatives will never, ever believe global warming exists, for example. But putting a human face on an issue can change some hearts. It’s not so easy to condemn neighbors, metaphorically and literally, who live, work, eat, and go to school just like you. (Besides, if Americans gave up on an idea because it would be met with some resistance, we wouldn’t have declared independence from England or created the Civil Rights movement).

But my friend did bring up a good point. In general, there are relatively few out, prominent people in the Black communities, whether they are in entertainment, business, politics, or sports. We don’t have our own Elton John, perhaps because fear of backlash and rejection have allowed timidity to govern, instead of courage.

When comedian Wanda Sykes publicly came out after the election and declared she had a wife and she was angry about Prop. 8 setting us back, I was proud and pleased. But quickly, I also thought, “Where the hell was she before Nov. 4?” Wouldn’t it have been great is Sykes and other celebrities also went around to stump against Prop. 8. And what about high-profile Black heterosexuals who are gay-friendly providing a voice? On that front, things were eerily quiet, and that’s a shame. And I think it cost us.

So there’s some blame to go around. But the key is there was little dialogue between communities on the campaign trail. People were either suspicious of the other or took things for granted. Now that D.C. will be in the middle of a national debate on gay marriage soon, we should be in a position to do things differently and set a better example.

I read this week in the Washington Blade that some DC gay leaders were looking to connect with Black groups and leaders, straight and gay, to help elicit support for gay marriage if it goes to a referendum vote like in California. They’d better do it fast. Prop. 8 was a wake-up call, and we can’t be caught sleeping at the wheel.

No Longer a Prince Among Men

2008-11-19T14:25:00.003-05:00

What do you do when a hero of yours – an icon, for crying out loud – not just has feet of clay, but also brain of Jell-o?

I’m talking about Prince, one of the most brilliant musicians of our time and still so, I must grudgingly admit. But if you haven’t heard, he thinks gay people are kind of disgusting. He said the Bible opposes homosexuality and God has said “enough.”

In an interview that appears in the Nov. 24 edition of the New Yorker, Prince talked at length about his Jehovah’s Witness faith. When asked for his views on social issues--gay marriage and abortion--Prince tapped his Bible and said, "God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, 'Enough.' "

My first reaction when I read this was not anger, but laughter. After all, this is a man who:

1) Has worn high heels, make-up and flamboyant, often sequined, clothes that at one time had the butt cut out of them.

2) Wore a Speedo on the cover of his 1980 Dirty Mind album, which featured a song that fantasized about him having sex with his sister (in the appropriately tiled song, “Sister”).

3) Has sung frequently, exhaustively, and graphically, if imaginatively, about sex.

4) Has fragrantly played with sexual and gender roles in his performances and music, one-upping David Bowie and Madonna. (Safe bet that he’s had a sexual encounter with at least one man.)

5) Has had sex with numerous people, numerous times.

Apparently that Prince is behind us and lo, a new one has taken his place. But does religious faith mean he has to turn into a hypocritical homophobe? I grant anyone the right to change his or her values, lifestyle, and belief system if it edifies peace of mind and quality of life. But that person doesn’t have to cast aspersions on those he or she still considers in the wilderness.

Prince has basically ascended to a higher moral level and has ruefully peered at those behind the pearly gates he shut behind himself. And the whole “people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever” quote. That’s something base and ignorant, and it sounds like it’s coming from the mouth of a seven-year-old – or Fred Phelps.

This article made me think what would happen if one of my gay male friends, a consummate partier, changed his ways due to faith, a partner, etc., and he proceeded to strike out at those who used to be like him. It would rub me the wrong way. I’d appreciate and respect his new life. But that kind of judgmental thinking doesn’t do anyone good. The “moralists” feel superior and the “heathens” feel lacking.

The ideal in life is that each of us becomes responsible and accountable for his/her own life without telling others “the way.” Besides, who decides what the way is, and couldn’t there be more than one way.

Prince doesn’t have to worry about fallout from this article. He has his millions, musical legacy, and mansions to cushion him against any blows. (Although I wonder what his music industry and Hollywood friends have to say about an anti-gay tirade).

But he lost the respect of one die-hard fan. I’ll keep all the CDs and downloads, but the thrill is mostly gone.

Porn To Be Wild

2008-11-12T13:27:00.002-05:00

OK, we have the love that dare not speak its name. How about the hobby that dare not speak its name?

I’m talking about porn. Very recently, the idea, and even the word itself, have come under some attack.

First, there’s the Kevin Smith movie Zack and Miri Make a Porn. Several cities, including Philadelphia, banned outdoor advertisements of the film because 5-year-old Mary Beth may see the word on a billboard and ask Mommy what that means.

Last month, Australian researchers claimed a link between clinical depression and an online sex life, after stating in part that, "1,325 men from the U.S and Australia were surveyed about their Internet sex habits, which might include trolling for porn, participating in online chats, or doing things with webcams."

And there’s this crazy, extremist group Stop Porn Culture that uses a traveling road show that displays over a hundred extreme hardcore images to tell us that porn is harmful. They perpetuate myths and unsubstantiated claims that all porn – even though they are bent on only showing the extreme stuff (without requiring ID to see this little exhibit, mind you) – is responsible for exploiting women, providing dead-end economic choices for young girls, fostering racism and sexism, and being a causal factor in rape, child abuse and domestic violence. Oh, yeah, the group claims every porn actor ever has been abused as a child. (The group sheepishly admitted it had no proof or studies to back this up).

To rebel against the porn assault, I promptly went to Hot House Entertainment and stocked up on six DVDs and bought 15 hours worth of streaming video – just kidding! But the hullabaloo made me think if porn has a negative or harmful side.

I watch porn now and then. It’s a casual and fun diversion that is akin to flipping through nudie magazines. I like seeing good eye candy and the physicality turns me on and occasionally has given me a few ideas for real life. It’s never replaced my sex life. And when I’m satisfied in my sex life, I tend to seek it out a lot less. I prefer the real thing.

But what if some of us who watch porn on a regular basis get really caught up in it and it does affect our sex lives. For example, watching impossibly buff bodies and seeing impossibly big dicks and impossibly toned bubble butts may make real men seem impossibly disappointing. And could one get to the point to where when having sex with a lover or partner, he fantasizes more about the guy in the movie than who he’s with?

And what about couples to where one wants to use porn as part of the lovemaking on a regular basis? Is the porn just merely in the same category as a bubble bath, soft music, and silk boxers – something to get the mood going – or a necessary part of the engine to keep things going? And does it make the couple dependent on porn? Who’s to say porn can’t merely be a sex life enhancement, just like certain toys?

And do those who can spend an hour, or two, or three at a pop exploring different sex sites just having fun, or does desperation and loneliness propel them? The Australian study broadly paints online enthusiasts as sad loners. But that can’t be the whole story.

It’s a hard thing to draw a line on what’s healthy vs. unhealthy sometimes. You can’t judge solely by time spent or fetishes enacted. For me, the litmus test is addiction and dependency. Porn is just like alcohol or many other things of that nature: you can enjoy it without it being harmful. But too much too often can affect health and behavior and give it a disproportionate place in your life that muscles out other people and bigger priorities.

Hopefully, any individual or couple is attuned to comfort level and the place porn – or other things for that matter – plays in their lives. It can be very fun or it can make you dependent, and affect your well-being and relationships.

I hope none of us succumb to the porn-is-bad, judgmental generalists I describe above, though. They’re just as bad for sex as the worst-case pornography scenario could ever be.

Voting For Change

2008-11-05T13:48:00.003-05:00

We did it!

Barack Obama will be our next President! I’m already planning where I’ll be planted on the inauguration parade route.

But the refreshing thought of a progressive Democrat dismantling the conservative and devastating Bush regime made me wonder. Will DC feel gayer now?

People who are from DC or who’ve lived here more than a decade tell me that under the Clinton years, DC distinctly felt freer and more liberal. Bill was never quite the P-FLAG-equivalent politician (he did after all sign the Defense of Marriage Act), but he denounced discrimination and homophobia – more than any other president ever did. And his White House made small but meaningful gestures like recognizing the gay community through official resolutions.

You know W. stopped all of that. And those same people I talked to said that antagonism filtered downward and somewhat stained their optimism. Things just felt different.

But Obama is ushering in new way of thinking and riding a wave of a public seeking a sea change. It’s not a leap to suggest that the actions of policymakers have some influence on how we feel about ourselves, our relationships, and our status as a sexual minority without many rights shared by heterosexuals. We can pretend like our daily lives don’t hinge on who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but that’s not so.

Think about it. While Bush was in the White House, many officials in his administration were unabashedly conservative and anti-gay. And in the 2004 election campaign, Bush’s architect Karl Rove and his minions shied away from real issues and pumped up the “threat” of gay marriage and other bullshit red meat for the conservative base. We had leaders occupying our own city, denouncing us.

Considering we now have elected Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress, there will be more policymakers merely miles or minutes away from us who will be more respectful of the LGBT community and responsive to our demands.

A real test for DC – and the clincher – will be early next year, when a gay marriage bill is likely to be approved by the D.C. City Council as early as April 2009, according to local activists and City Hall insiders. Apparently, the vast majority of the council would approve such a measure and, most important, a Democratic congress would be less likely to intervene and overturn that.

Imagine the country’s capitol approving gay marriage, especially as it looks like California’s Prop. 8 squeaked to a victory and (for now) will ban gay marriage in the biggest state. DC would enter an exclusive club and I’m convinced would set the tone for a re-thinking of homophobia and a realization that gay marriage and other rights for us are not a breakdown of the family, but creation of full equality. Such a victory would make me a prouder and happier DC resident.

Over the years, several people who have hailed from Philadelphia and even New York have told me that they see DC as a more gay-friendly city, in terms of little gestures like seeing two men and women openly hold hands.

But come Inauguration Day on January 20, we could begin to be even more gay-friendly on a deeper level. Hopefully, we all just won’t be holding hands. We’ll be changing hearts and minds.

The Audacity of Nope

2008-10-29T11:16:00.002-04:00

You have to wonder. When they were mere nobody high school lads growing up, were perennial heartthrobs like Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, and Mario Lopez already 10’s? Did they have first dibs on the head cheerleader? Did they create their own social caste? And did they not once experience rejection?

That last question is fun to transplant into the gay dating world, where looks are king (or queen?) and there is a firm pecking order when it comes to available men. Someone – and I’m not exactly sure who runs this thing – has created strict rules governing appearance and accessibility. Lines are drawn on how attractive you are and who you are allowed to approach.

It sounds like a demented LGBT version of “Mean Girls,” but that’s the way it goes. Perfectly nice-looking guys get rebuffed by prettier boys who assume they’re better and deserve better. And woe to some of those whose body types and looks are more like Joe the Plumber. And look at how many of us decide whether someone is “in our league” or if we qualify to be “in his league.”

I thought of this during a recent outing with some friends. One of the friends – a handsome and single professional – saw a muscular work of art walk in the bar and so badly wanted to talk to him. But my friend didn’t because he just assumed he would be rejected. After all, this guy was a pretty musclehead and he probably just wants another pretty musclehead. It was a little disturbing to see my friend shortchange himself and what he had to offer under this disturbing dating matrix we fall under.

And the whole thing works in other ways too. I’ve seen plain-looking men refusing to even talk with other plain-looking men because they have their sights set on the hot ones. One former acquaintance, who was OK-looking and overweight, complained about going to a bar and seeing guys who had hot bodies but busted faces. He was a lot more John Goodman than John Stamos, yet he looked over his own lack of perfection while expecting that perfection from others. He lamented that he probably got a lot of no’s because he was fat, but he also admitted he would not date someone who wasn’t thin.

What a conundrum. The 5s and 6s think they are better than their peers and want 9s and 10s. Of course, the 9s and 10s won’t even think about 8s and under. Hell, many of them only want 10s. Some of the 7s and 8s are perfectly happy with other 7s and 8s, but some of the 7s and 8s have a nagging feeling they can do better and ward off the advances of their peers. But even the rejected 7s and 8s won’t dare approach the 6s and below. They have a reputation to keep, and what will people say?

Yes, I know this is not universal law and some of us have taken the red pill and left the disturbing dating matrix, choosing to approach people with respect and, more important, respect for themselves.

But you gotta admit that there are too many of these ratings and appearance rules. We don’t know who started it, but we’re playing along. I’m guilty, too. I’m not a shy person, but on a few occasions in the past, I was intimidated by someone’s body or good looks and I simply admired from afar. And who’s to necessarily say those men wouldn’t have gone out with me?

Some friends have been paralyzed by constant rejection and they have recalibrated their social manners and expectations to fit “reality.” I don’t see that as a very healthy development, but I guess it’s pragmatic. I think someone needs to recalibrate the 1-10 scale. We all could get better results.

Separate But Equal?

2008-10-22T14:19:00.002-04:00

The idea of gender wars dawned on me as I sat last weekend to watch one of the movies that was part of Reel Affirmations, the LGBT film festival in DC. A man took the podium to briefly introduce the movie. He said something to the effect of, “Enjoy the show, gentlemen.”

Here’s the problem. There was at least one woman in attendance, and she was sitting in my row. I looked over and she just laughed it off. It was easy to see that because the movie was male-dominated, the speaker assumed the audience was all gay men.

I could give the speaker grief, but who can blame him? Socially, LGBT men and women segregate themselves. It’s like we take great pains to create our distinct spaces and never the twain shall meet.

Reel Affirmations always supports this. How many times have we men looked through the festival guide and immediately skipped over films starring women? One year, I suggested a lesbian-themed movie to a friend while we were sitting in the audience waiting for another movie to start. He responded with a “Yuck!” and seemingly ignored the lesbian behind him who could have beaten him up with one hand tied behind her back. But many women are guilty, too. If it ain’t The L Word, they ain’t going!

To some degree, separation makes sense. I largely think of bars. After all, men and women want very different things. And yes, perhaps there are quirks and facets of gay male life that lesbians aren’t frankly interested in, and vice versa. I understand issues of interests and preferences

But that doesn’t explain why you’d be hard pressed to go to restaurants, movies, museums, almost anywhere, and see a group of gay men and women together. Most gay men I know – and I’m including myself – have few if any lesbian friends. And the same goes for gay women.

This shows that there is pervasive gender segregation in the LGBT community. My volunteer work, including the mixers my group sponsors, is really the only time I see everyone fraternizing. And even then, there’s not full integration. Often, many of the volunteer groups I join to help out a particular cause are 90-95% men. One time, I helped out at the Mautner Project just for a change in scenery.

Frankly, many gay men and women don’t care about this. But in my mind, separation can breed animosity, distrust and misunderstanding. Considering that we’re a persecuted minority, is it healthy for the genders to so willfully separate and refuse to integrate? Don’t we need to be, or at least feel, more united?

My theory is that a lot of us don’t start the gay journey determined to cut ourselves off from the other gender(s). But as we venture out to bars, clubs, and parties to create a social network, we tend to stick to a familiar path. If our social life foundation starts in a gender-exclusive environment, it probably doesn’t branch out too far from that. A lot of gay men, for example are just satisfied with other men and the requisite fag hags. If you mention lesbians, you get eye rolls or ugly faces.

I’m going to challenge myself to be more inclusive in my social circle. Just watching and thoroughly enjoying the new liberal star Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, I became an instant fan and found myself thinking, “I’d like to be friends with someone like that.”

But I also have to overcome attitudes. Just look how I started this column with the idea of “gender war.” I guess I assume gay men and women will be perpetually at odds.

You Just Keep Me Hanging On

2008-10-15T11:56:00.001-04:00

According to Newton’s First Law of Motion, inertia means in part, “A body at rest tends to remain at rest.” It makes me think if Newton also had good insight on relationships.

A couple of friends are going through relationship crises, and the odds of them remaining with their respective partners for long are slimmer than the girls on the new 90210. But perhaps what strikes me the most is that they are in situations where they knew long time ago things weren’t working, but they just don’t act even as they become more miserable.
So why do people remain in bad situations longer than they should?

Madonna and Guy Ritchie announced their split today. However long trouble was brewing, they finally saw it wasn’t worth staying together. But many others don’t follow suit.

So far, my longest relationship has been a year, so this whole phenomenon of being months, or years, past the due date has escaped me if only because of my lack of longevity. But, as a good friend recently pointed out, I also follow my bliss. If I’m not happy or fulfilled, I’m out. I put time into at least seeing if an issue(s) can be worked out before I see an endpoint. But sitting through a bad relationship is like sitting through a bad movie and staying until the credits are over.

One friend in this situation has practically checked out because he realizes he and his partner want very different things, can’t realistically reconcile their needs, and bicker incessantly. But do you think he’s had the sit-down with his partner on if they realistically make each other happy, and if not, how they should end things? Nope! I ask him why he just lest time goes by as if nothing is wrong. I can practically hear the shrug on the phone when he responds repeatedly, “I don’t know.”

Another friend knew shortly after her marriage she made a mistake. Well, it’s more accurate to say she knew before the ceremony. But she’d known him for years, the biological clock was ticking, and she thought she could deal. She can’t. She has never once brought up separation or divorce with her husband, though.

I suspect it’s the whole idea of “Better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t.” You can find security and familiarity even in unhappiness, and sometimes those traits are preferable to the unknown. Being single, even with the promises of freedom and a fresh start, seems scary because you don’t know when or if you’ll find that happiness you’ve been seeking with someone (again). And some people equate longevity with a sense of satisfaction. Regardless of the quality of the relationship, they feel there’s something to be said for having someone who can take care of you if something bad happens or at least will be there when you get home.

Also, even amid the overwhelming issues, there’s this realization that of the love and history with a partner and it feels painful to see that go, even if it’s in the best interest for all involved. I’ve talked with divorced or split-up people who see their break-up as a loss of an investment. Just like with today’s plummeting stocks, there is a nagging feeling that you must hold on to them because they could come back better than ever, and you’d be sorry if you let them go and miss out on the returns

I saw too many marriages in my family where the spouses were not truly happy (and I wondered if they even liked each other). The logical part of me wondered why someone would spend years or decades with someone and be resigned to lack of fulfillment. The unhappiness I saw made happiness a priority I refused to sacrifice.

And I suppose that’s the litmus test. Happiness. Despite relationship issues everyone has, the ideal question to ask is, “Can I remain happy or get happy again?” None of us should be afraid to ask the question and, most important, we shouldn’t be afraid of the answer.

Bailouts and Earmarks - Dating Style

2008-10-08T00:57:00.002-04:00

In the idealism of romance, one is tempted to think superficial things like money don't matter. After all, it's about love and good stuff like that, not the cars, the bank account, clothes, shoes, and job title. Although with this crappy economy and Wall Street meltdown, money seems to be what a lot of us are thinking about even if it's the fact we've been losing it.

Even though it's not a pleasant thought, money can make a difference. Whether you date or meet someone who makes considerably less, or considerably more, you can't overlook the fact that financial differences can affect the tenor of a (potential) relationship.

I'm going to be frank and say I avoided broke-asses in my singledom. Period. Notice, I didn't pick a certain income level that I expect, even though I'm a professional who makes good money. I mean men who perpetually seem to be in financial turmoil.

I've met many men with various jobs who suddenly get anorexically thin wallets when a date is planned. I've suggested such relatively cheap things as a movie or a Mexican place and got responses such as, "Well, I have a financial situation," or "Not until after the first of the month."

That was cue for "Seacrest, out!" If you didn't have an extra 20 bucks at any given time, I was gone. Considering I'm in my 30s, I couldn't help but think the other guy - assuming he's around my age - could't handle his business. And I pay for things on a date because I want to, not because I have to.

My cold realism originally didn't mesh well with my egalitarianism. I want to think that we are all equals with things to contribute in very different ways. But I unabashedly steered myself to professional men. So did I unfairly marginalize six-pack Joes unlike Sarah Palin?

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized it's not really just someone's social station or income bracket, but their behavior. I've dated men that I knew made less money then me because of their profession, but there weren't any problems because they had life goals and managed whatever they had well. We went out normally and things were equally paid. My feelings about financial discrepancy only loomed large when I thought about the big picture.

One ex bothered me because he was older and practically lived hand-to-mouth in a studio. But the thing is he had no desire for a career or even wanted to imagine what he could be doing in five years. No direction, ambition, or drive: I have those things in spades. He anticipated being taken care of. That's one of the main reasons I broke it off. I want a partner, not some who doesn't bring much to the table.

But I've had it the other way: dating six-figure-plus men whose income intimidated me a little. Sure, it's nice to be treated to a show at the Kennedy Center or a French dinner, but I didn't do that on the regular. I didn't like the idea of remotely being a kept man or not contributing enough. I dated one lawyer who liked to wine and dine and would refuse me to chip in anything. At one restaurant, I grabbed the check from the waiter to head him off.

A good friend has a boyfriend who makes mucho dinero. The boyfriend is so used to the finer things he'd suggest fancy weekend trips and foreign vacations as if he were ordering a pizza. And my friend had to gently remind him that while he made good money, he just couldn't do anything at anytime. And my friend refused to let the boyfriend just pay for it all. So they worked out a system to where costs are shared and traded.

And it reminded me that those who do make a lot more money also can be put in a difficult situation. Should they be expected to scale back the fun things they like to do to accommodate the comfort of the other who doesn't make as much. And if the well-to-do men have to end up paying for most things, does that lead to a sense of resentment - or entitlement? And if we're talking about two men - creatures with a healthy sense of pride and control - does constant financial bargaining take it's toll?

My partner is a professional who's conscientious about finances, so I scored big time. Our income levels are different but our thinking is the same in terms of sharing and striving for equality in contribution.

We can act like money doesn't mean anything, but if we've ever asked for a raise, pined for a nice car, or figured out how much to save for a house and retirement, we obviously care about finances. And why wouldn't that concern creep into our relationships?

"Money doesn't matter" is an ideal, but may not hold up to pragmatic living. Ask someone who used to work at Lehman Brothers.

Come Out Come Out, Wherever You Are

2008-10-01T11:38:00.003-04:00

When Clay Aiken broke the news to People magazine last week that he was gay, my initial reaction was laughter.

What’s next, I thought. Brooke Hogan issuing a media advisory announcing that she’s stupid? George Clooney holding a press conference to declare he’s marriage-shy?

And then Lindsay Lohan confirmed her relationship with DJ Samantha Ronson in a radio interview last week. I checked my calendar to see if this was Celebrity National Coming Out Week. It wasn’t. But the rash of declarations made me wonder if they have any influence of regular Joe and Janes who are still firmly in the closet.

I have several gay friends who are not out to family, most friends, and/or co-workers. What’s more, many will stay that way indefinitely. The reasons vary. Some worry coming out will end relationships with conservative loved ones. Some want to stay above identification with the gay world or what people perceive that world to be, so it becomes an image issue. Some just see sexual orientation as a privacy issue. Others think making a declaration is tantamount to making a fuss and if they date the same gender, so what?

I don’t automatically knock reasons because each person’s situation is particular and what may seem illegitimate on the outside may not be so in one’s reality. After all, my coming out was a process. I revealed my orientation to various people over a period of time, starting with ones I assumed would be the most open-minded. And I’ve never been a Michaelaneglo Signorile type, wanting every LGBT person to be out if not at first by choice, then by force.

But I can say that being closeted for me was living a double life, and it became wearying to edit myself in certain company, change pronouns (or evade them), nod at untrue assumptions made by people, or uncharacteristically close down upon questioning. I became different versions of myself, and I wanted it to stop.

Besides, doesn’t not being out have a root in a fear and shame of gayness? And isn’t omission of an important fact lying? My belief in this rankles some of my closeted kin because they see it as harshly judgmental. They see it as I’m essentially calling them spineless wussies who care too much about what other people think, and the truth is trickier than that.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the vast majority of these people are older than me (sometimes more than a decade). They still remember when the American Psychological Association had homosexuality on the books as a mental illness, and coming out led to forever dissolved relationships. It still happens now but perhaps at lower rates now that gays are an inescapable influence on and presence in mainstream culture and there are more progressive minds out there.

But being out changes minds. I’ve experienced this firsthand as my being gay has forced some family and a few friends to rethink things. When an issue becomes personalized, things are taken to a new level. This hit home as I work on a story about religion and sexuality. One source discussed how a gay Christian just being out in a congregation (no politics or declaration, just being honest) can itself have an impact with that person’s family and friends, as well as fellow members who may not so easily demonize gays when one is sitting next to them, worshipping the same God and giving the same tithes.

The personal experience is what led Aiken to decide to come out (publicly). He told People he didn’t want his newborn baby to grow up and feel it was OK to lie or hide things. If he was worried about losing fans or getting angry e-mails from homophobes before, he's not anymore.

Perhaps the question we all need to ask is what’s really at stake from coming out and what's the benefit of remaining silent? I got over the fear of losing people. I want people in my life who support me and accept me for who I am. The rest can drift because if they don’t edify my life anyway, why be so worried about their absence?

Being closeted in different degrees may or may not generate a sense of turmoil for said person. I just hope whatever the scale of coming out is for each person, that the person has peace of mind.

The Sexual Board of Review

2008-09-23T21:16:00.007-04:00

"Never give a damn about my reputation

I never said I wanted to improve my station

And I'm always feelin' good when I'm havin' fun

And I don't have to please no one

And I don't give a damn about my bad reputation"

Joan Jett sang that with gusto some 20-plus years ago, and I believe she still means it. But some of us do care about our reputations, particularly when it comes to bedroom performance.

This whole thing popped into my head when I remembered a time recently when I ducked into 30 Degrees here in DC to have a drink. When I was upstairs on the dance floor (when the place actually had decent music), a group I was with nudged his head toward one of the bartenders, a pretty-boy type whose muscular body popped out of tight jeans and a T-shirt.

"I knew a friend who slept with him and he was lame in bed," he simply and brutally announced.

We all looked at the barkeep with a mix of pity and disappointment that Emmy viewers must have had last Sunday for the sucky five hosts. I bet you 50 bucks that if any of the guys in this group was propositioned by the barkeep, they'd demure because of hearing this latest review.

The looming thought I had was the fact that I heard shit about a stranger's sexual ability. He didn't know me, but I sure heard about him. What if there were mitigating circumstances like maybe the barkeep was drunk and wasn't his best? But the criticism was out and it stuck. This bartender had a reputation - fair or unfair.

I had a second looming thought. What did some of my ex-lovers think about me in bed, and exactly how many people did they tell and how positive or negative was the review? Are there people out there I don't know, but who know me, or rather heard of me and what I do or did or didn't do? As much as I like to declare I don't care what people think, I kind of do on some matters and this is one of them.

In one situation, it got back to a friend that one hook-up praised me. Any anger for indiscretion qucikly sunbsided into mental chats of "Yes! I'm Da Man!!" In another case, though, a former friend told a current friend that I must not be versatile based on what he heard from this one guy I was with briefly. As if just one night told everything about me. I was miffed.

I'm not above helping to cast reputations. I told plenty of my friends about one guy who had the tiniest dick I'd ever seen and another guy who just lay there like a sack of potatoes (this one, I pointed out to my friend when we came across him in a bar). Now my experiences with these and a few other guys were not pleasurable, but that doesn't mean they are terminally bad in bed. Who's to say that they haven't hooked up with someone, and there was magic?

I firmly believe in the idea of a unique sexual chemistry between two people that goes beyond body type and looks. I've been with pretty boys where the sex was mediocre and okay-looking ones who knew how to push all my buttons. It's just the vibes and how the stars align. It's not always about pure technique, which can't be completely ascertained in just one session anyway.

Yet we get sucked into assumptions and classifications. And since sex talk moves as fast as the best gossip, we can find ourselves with a reputation - good or bad or alternating between the two.

Is it wrong to tell my friends what happened with that guy last night? Nope. Is it wrong to create a picture of potential and ability from a moment or moments and sell it as gospel. Yep. Perhaps the guy with the bartender was a lousy lay himself and he just cast blame instead of looking at why he didn't have a good time. Who knows?

But the human nature dynamic duo of judgment and pride makes us vulnerable to what people say and believe. We're like those Broadway actors who claim they never read reviews - the comments get back to them anyway and they are affected on some level. And since we men give virility a prominent place and use that to judge our (and each other's) manhood, a little gossip here and there going the wrong way can cast a reputation with an oppressive shadow.

Those who can win a gold medal in sex each and every time don't care because they bring it with confidence and the reputation will be a positive one. And there are ones, maybe in the spirit of Joan Jett, who do their thing and don't fixate on what is said about them, because no one's opinion is more important than their own. In the big picture, both types are rather lucky. A review doesn't matter because they already have decided who they are.

Hello and Good-Bi

2008-09-10T10:38:00.001-04:00

Sept. 23 is Celebrate Bisexuality Day, so in advance I throw some parade streamers out to the bis.

However there are some of us in the gay world who act like the B in LGBT doesn’t exist, or rather we wish the B didn’t exist. You’ve heard the line snorted by a gay man or woman, “Bi now, gay later.”

The assumption is bisexuality is used as a safety zone where the person in question
acknowledges queerdom just enough to reap the benefits of gay culture but keeps a foot
in heterosexual waters to curry favor with straights and appear “not really gay.”

Quite a few gays have told me bisexuality is a bullshit concept, plain and simple.
Basically, the skeptics insist bisexuals are really gay but either confused or cowardly for
not completely being “on our side” or “one of us.” And I think that’s what the fuss is about. A sense of (dis)loyalty appears to be at stake.

I’m one of those legions of men who, shortly after coming out, did use “bisexual”
because it seemed easier and didn’t sound as drastic. I got over that in, like, two weeks. I
knew who I was but just needed to couch my language in new territory. I have been on
both sides of the fence but I never truly straddled the fence.

So, yes there are truly gay men and women who use bisexuality as a cloak, whether out
of fear or self-hatred. But I’m convinced that some self-proclaimed bisexuals are the real
thing and are truly oriented to the two genders.

Full disclosure: I have a couple of friends who are bi. And, yeah, I didn’t understand it the first time either. I had no scorn or animosity, just a little confusion. I thought that having a lasting relationship would be fairly impossible. Wouldn’t someone with a man after awhile get a hankering for things only a woman has, and vice versa? And as someone who has had no sexual longing for a woman during his gay adult life, it was hard to imagine switch hitting. For me, it can only be men all the way.

But one of my bi friends just explained that she ultimately is attracted, sexually and otherwise, to the complete package (er, person) and it’s more like her receptors are more wide-ranging that most other people’s. And she promises she’s not just being greedy.

But the fact that she explained her orientation reminded me of many times I had to defend my sexual orientation, whether it was people charging me with “choosing” this lifestyle or berating me for being a “woman-hater.” They couldn’t understand what I was about and found it easier to attack and deny me.

So aren’t we doing the same thing when we sneer at bisexuals? Just because we may not get it 100% doesn’t mean that the orientation is invalid or nonexistent. It just means that we may not fully understand that perspective and it’s OK. And theoretically, why should we be so caught up in what someone else does in the bedroom?

Besides, I don’t necessarily see bisexuals as having a charmed life despite having a bigger dating pool. For many straights, anyone who isn’t a heterosexual is “the other” and is treated as such. And because some gays shun and disrespect bisexuals in many aspects in life, some bis can be without very many advocates and true friends. They may date both ways, but they get the missile fire both ways too.

It’s awfully hypocritical for gays to judge bisexuals when they resent being judged by heterosexuals. The B got inserted in LGBT for a reason, just like the T did. We all may have discrete struggles, but we all have the same challenge of fighting discrimination big and small and getting the world to see our identity as true and valid.

So on Sept. 23, even if some of us don’t completely understand the bi world, perhaps we can at least acknowledge the authentic bisexuals and their pride in who and what they are.

Grand Old Party Poopers?

2008-09-03T00:22:00.005-04:00

OK, most of you know about Manhunt.net, that shiny online beacon of gay casual sex (or voyeurism if you just peruse profiles with no intentions of hooking up). But you may not know that some gay men and women want the head of the site’s co-founder on a platter.

It’s because he is a, gasp, Republican! Gay blogger Andy Towle dug up the fact that Jonathan Crutchley, also a wealthy real-estate developer, donated $2,300 to John McCain’s presidential campaign. Crutchley has been the recipient of so much grief he may want to hire a bodyguard and a food taster.

Seething online comments call for a Manhunt boycott and long-time gay activist and radio host Michelangelo Signorile called Crutchley "asinine" and hissed, "Delete your Manhunt profile!" Even Crutchley’s life partner and Manhunt co-founder Larry Basile distanced himself from his man. Basile wrote an open letter online that declared in part, "PLEASE never refer to me as a Republican. I consider it an offense." Oh, and the Manhunt board of directors made Crutchley step down, though he’s still co-owner.

Gayness is a sexual orientation, not a political one. But we can be just as intolerant about politics when we make our dating and friendship choices, although we feel justified in doing so when we consider our social station. But I wonder how fruitful that thinking is.

By and large, finding out a man was a Republican took down his stock in my book. I’m a liberal who always had GOP visions of country club exclusivity, stock market fixation, contempt for the have-nots, and the Christian Coalition. Yuck! I always figured we’d end up arguing about current events on each date anyway. And I do have Republican friends but admittedly not very many. I tend to fall under the common habit of associating with like-minded people because it’s easier and (on the surface) more harmonious.

The vitriol that stems from the Manhunt case comes from the idea that a Log Cabiner is a sellout who is fraternizing with the enemy. So we think a prospective friend or lover is a self-loathing agent of dark and intolerant forces who is forbidden in our beds or social circles.

Yes, Republicans as a whole tend to be less progressive - or frankly regressive - on many social issues. And it's safe to say there's a lot more racism and homophobia among the GOP ranks compared to Democratic ones. Trent Lott or Pat Robertson anyone? So a gay Republican starts to sound as ridiculous as the idea of an Asian skinhead. But that equation isn't quite that simple.

Isn't it really the person as opposed to the affiliation? Look at our dear friend Bill Clinton. He's implicated in two legislative, homophobic fiascoes. First he capitulated to critics and abandoned his promise to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, an absurdly discriminatory rule that has bounced thousands of qualified gays from military service and garnered criticism from high-ranking straight officers. Worse, he signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which stymied gay marriage efforts, to garner conservative votes for his re-election. Meanwhile, Gov. Ah-nold, a Republican, spurned conservative pleas to interfere with California's historic court ruling that legalized (for now) gay marriage. Party line isn't so black and white, is it?

I get the visceral reaction of wanting an apparently clear allegiance. I was reminded of a white dude I went out with once. He was against affirmative action and my immediate reaction was that he was against a major policy that benefited my people. Did he care about my welfare and would he get the social realities I face as a person of color? Considering he acted like life was a meritocracy until this policy came along, probably not. But I've heard self-described Democrats make racist and sexist remarks on various issues. I wouldn't trust them much either.

After my umpteenth bashing of gay Republicans some time ago, I realized I was not following one of the basic principles of liberalism - being tolerant and open-minded of others not like me. I did have a Republican ex, so I learned not to be so stringent about crossing party lines. And as far as making new friends, I'm going to be looking for good character, not voting records. Those two things don't always coincide, you know.

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

2008-08-27T00:09:00.004-04:00

Picture it. August 22, Miami Beach.

Ricky Martin rushes to the penthouse suite where he agreed to meet Anderson Cooper for a fancy dinner and a nice long talk. To make up for being late, Ricky paid for a bottle of Dom Pérignon to be brought up. After a meal of filet mignon, lobster tail, asparagus tips, jasmine rice, and crème brûlée, they relax and chat.

"This is my last time for a vacation before the Democratic convention next week," sighs Anderson, kicking back in a recliner. "These South Beach Latinos are wearing me out."

"What clubs have you been meeting these boys at?" asks an incredulous Ricky as he poured another glass of champagne.

"Are you crazy? An assistant scouts them out, makes them sign confidentiality agreements, and whisks them through the freight elevator. I can’t critique Obama’s speech and be in a picture on Perez Hilton with white drops coming out of my mouth."

"I hate him! He’s a pretend Latin. And he’s always giving people like you and me shit."

"It’s not just him. It’s all these damn journalists and activists saying we’re cowards for not coming out. Well, their careers may have been made on being gay but it could derail ours. Look at big-mouth Rosie. Even she waited until her talk show was off the air before she became the raging lesbian. She’s no fool."

"I’m sooooo glad she got rid of that blog. Ugh!"

"And the Advocate pissed me off for putting me and Jodie Foster on their cover." Anderson interrupts his huff to order another Dom Pérignon. "I hate the games the gay mafia plays. I mean Jodie did it right. She never talks about her personal life. She’s not scared, she’s private just like me. Otherwise, they force you to be a spokesperson."

"I hate that whole, ‘Well if gay teens see prominent and successful out celebrities embracing their sexuality, they will have role models to encourage them to be who they really are and it will make homosexuality more accepted.’ Role model, schmole model. It’s not our responsibility to change attitudes. We’re entertainers."

"Um, you are. I’m a serious journalist."

"Ok, Mr. ‘Look at My Muscle Shirts During On-Location Assignments.’" And your memoir that avoided mention of any romances? Who do you think you’re fooling?"

"You should talk! Remember that picture of you and that other guy in bikini briefs doing push-ups on the beach? And when’s the last time someone saw you with a woman? By the way, getting that girl years ago to say you were a 10 in the sack? Puh-lease!"

"Hey, beards do no harm and keep up the fantasy. At least I’m not Usher and marry one."

"Stop being a bitter queen! It was one weekend and he never promised you anything."

"Whatever. But seriously, man, I have to shake my bon-bon for the ladies. I can’t be queer. Most of them will stop coming to the concerts. Even Luther Vandross kept the ‘she’s in his song right up to the end, God rest his soul. I just imagine the panties that girls throw on stage are 2Xist boxer briefs and I’m fine."

"I’ve done so many stories about victims of different types of discrimination in all parts of the world. My work speaks for itself, so why do I have to? I deserve some props!"

"Right! Remember when I applauded Christian Chavez of the Mexican band RBD for coming out last year? No one gave me a fist bump on that, either, even though that took guts. I spread a message of tolerance for God’s sake! I do my part."

"You know, I have to admit I’m jealous of people like Neil Patrick Harris and T.R. Knight. They come out and people applaud them for bravery. But it’s different for us."

"People don’t appreciate what we do. We work long hours, cultivate an image to satisfy our bosses and the public, and force lovers to be invisible players in our double lives. That’s a shitload of pressure and responsibility."

"You said it, papi. If I have one more fight with a boyfriend who complains I never take him anywhere so we won’t be seen, I’ll just spit."

"Do what I do. Keep their butts in the mansion with delivered food and DVDs. Let them do the club and party scene on their own time."

"I imagine you’re at home a lot now that you’ve got those twin boys. They’re so cute!"

"Thanks, silver fox. We have a play date with Jennifer and Marc and their kids tomorrow. My babies haven’t slept through the night yet. The nanny has her hands full as we speak."

"I know it’s a little tacky of me to ask but did you…"

"Oh, God, no! Surrogate all the way. How could you even think I’d go there? Yuck! Besides, my man would be jealous, especially since he helps with the kids and all."

"Your man?" Anderson raises his eyebrows. "You bitch, you never mentioned anything about a boyfriend all this time! How could you leave me out of the loop?"

Ricky drains his glass and his ears perk up when the bellboy rolling the champagne cart knocks on the front door. "Just like you, Andy, I’m private. Don’t take it personal."

Spanish Fly

2008-08-20T08:11:00.000-04:00

Leave it to that cinematic trickster Woody Allen to make me think I was only going to see a breezy romp about a ménage a trios (well, four technically) and then give me some weighty relationship issues to ponder.

I went with a friend to see "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," a story about two aforementioned women who vacation in the aforementioned Spanish city and simultaneously get involved with a sexy painter who has a crazy ex-wife (the latter two become a two-for-one deal).

Cristina and Vicky are archetypes on the surface, but they have traits and distinctive views on relationships that can be found among us. Cristina is impetuous, passionate, and afraid of boredom. She’s had many short relationships that burn out. Hmmm. Sound like any gay man you know? Vicky prizes stability among all else, perhaps even true happiness. The viewer quickly gets the sense her lawyer fiancé was a pragmatic choice, not an emotional one. Those women – and men – are certainly out there.

The movie is imperfect, but I like how it shows the drawbacks of the relationship mindset that each woman swears is ideal (at least at first). Cristina dives headfirst into an affair with the painter and even when the ex-wife shows up, the three become a unit sexually and otherwise. OK, Scarlett Johansson (Cristina), Javier Bardem (the painter) and Penelope Cruz (the ex-wife) together? It can hardly get more exciting than that. And Cristina seems to do nothing but take scenic pictures, make love and drink wine.

But for Cristina, even that unusual arrangement turns ho-hum. If this isn’t exciting for long, then what is and can be? Cristina reminds me of that old joke about gay men in L.A. They’re all 10s looking for 11s. Cristina is Exhibit A of Restless Bed Syndrome. Victims set themselves up for possible long-term unhappiness because side effects include constantly thinking something better will come along and they’ll miss it.

They fancy themselves as chasing happiness and not settling, but the upshot is that they never can be satisfied for long (or perhaps don’t allow themselves to be). What if, in the course of this chase, the runner passes out of exhaustion or runs by the mark s/he really needs? In my singledom, I had some Cristina-esque moments. I hated routines and got bored easily. I was worried a lot more about settling than being hasty with dating choices.

Vicky is the other side of the spectrum. Sensing chaos from a life unplanned, she seeks solid long-term relationships with no bells or whistles. The painter’s bald offer of a weekend getaway with clear intentions of bedding both women offends Vicky. First, she’s engaged. Second, it’s illogical and unsafe to get involved with a stranger. She sees Cristina’s eagerness to say yes as another "crisis" that Cristina creates for herself.

But then Vicky unexpectedly falls for the painter and sees the Spanish exotic as more virtue than vice. Her fiancé never makes her feel special or even notices how the flamenco guitar music floods her face with emotion. He’s busy talking about golf and apartment hunting. She realizes that maybe she was dumb for doing the "smart" thing and marrying a well-to-do but unimaginative lawyer. Is stability worth unfulfillment?

If you actually read the Q&A that comes with Metro Weekly’s Coverboy Confidential layout, you’ll see that the most common response for biggest fear is "being alone." And that fear propels the choices some of us make. We’d rather have an unsatisfying or just bad relationship than none at all. Men and women with much going for them fall into this trap. Another person supposedly provides the needed support system, but how much support comes from a failing system?

You can imagine Vicky making a list of suitable traits for marriage and deigning her man worthy. A laundry list of features is nice for computer shopping, say, but not necessarily for man shopping. What about desire, instinct, and flexibility of expectations? The painter makes Vicky see things she willfully overlooked for the sake of order.

The movie does miss the boat on one thing. The implication is that you can either have a life of boring monogamy or fleeting free love – someone needs to tell Woody the ‘60s are over. There is such a thing as a relationship that offers serious commitment, yet has romance and passion. (I have one, and so do some of my friends).

And that big-picture idea of a relationship can make you happy and keep you covered, even when the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.

Oh Come All Ye Unfaithful

2008-08-13T09:31:00.000-04:00

Oh, Johnny boy, say it isn’t so.

It’s funny how infidelity is as old as the hills and yet, there’s always this gasp when you hear about a famous figure – in this case John Edwards – who cheats and gets caught. Most of us have been touched by it, whether instigator or victim, so why the shock and awe? I’m more interested in what we nobodies, who would never be profiled in The National Enquirer or on Nightline, think about it and why we (don’t) do it.

Many years ago, I was very black-and-white about cheating. My line of thinking was if my significant other was unfaithful, I would end the relationship. It’s a violation and breach of trust. I still believe that last part but, just like many things in life, my thinking has evolved with experience. Cheating is still a difficult thing to deal with, but I’ve learned there are many layers underneath that motivate our actions.

We men have largely been taught to think the worst of ourselves when it comes to sex. I’ve heard my mother, aunts, cousins, sisters, female friends or girlfriends complain with some variation of "Men are dogs," "Men are weak," or just an exasperated "Men!"

A sense of fatalism can quickly develop. Many of us feel we have a license to cheat because that’s what men do after all – instant self-fulfilling prophecy. Many of my male gay friends and colleagues seriously think monogamy is not possible and have never had a monogamous relationship. It’s hard to fight against stepping out if you assume it is expected or inevitable.

As plenty of straight men cheat – some can argue they have taken it to high art – a conundrum bedevils gay men, I think. Part of our identity is our sexuality. Heterosexuals aren’t defined by their sex partners as we are because gays are "the other." Sex playing such a prominent role in the culture provides wrinkles and more than a little insecurity. For a lot of us, our value and self-worth come from our sex appeal – how many men we can attract, get, and please. Being committed to one person can suddenly seem a little oppressive. The desire to be noticed and wanted feeds our ego and vanity, and trouble may follow.

I’ve never cheated on anyone because I couldn’t stand being disloyal or deceitful. But part of staying faithful has been outright forcing myself to keep the big picture in hand and not assuming I’ll be good just because I love my partner. I’ve scaled back going out to clubs, and avoided chat rooms because I’m not going to willfully create a situation that will be that much difficult to get out of. Without my asking, my partner took down his online profiles and even avoided the showers at his gym because of that same mentality.

An informal survey of some friends who had a relationship over the last several years that involved cheating revealed few cases of breakaway lust, like going away on a business trip and getting seduced by Doug in accounting. Most were in situations with looming unresolved and/or uncommunicated issues that led to seeking solace or escape in straying. In a case where I was cheated on, we were clearly at the beginning of the end and he checked out.

Infidelity is no longer an automatic deal breaker for me. Sure, I’d be sad, hurt, and angry but it depends on the situation. If my partner has a one-time fling and can be honest about his mistake and show contrition, I don’t think I can throw it all away. After all, one of the measures of a man is the ability to admit when he’s wrong and do what it takes to be right again. And besides, one mistake does not represent anyone’s full character.

Now if someone were to have an affair(s) or stray multiple times, that’s different. It’s continuously diverting some affection, attention and work from our relationship elsewhere and it’s sacrificing not just fidelity but faithfulness in the concept of "us."

I’m not sure what John Edwards was thinking. His admittance of narcissism made me think the usual politician’s mea culpa was now a breath of fresh air. Then he wanted to make me knock the fresh air out of him when he stressed his dalliance happened when Elizabeth was in remission for her cancer – as if it makes it all better. He became preening and calculated, and his glib answer made it all seem so simple.

But Johnny boy, it ain’t simple.

Unease With Disease

2008-08-06T08:47:00.000-04:00

OK, the lecturer/father/disciplinarian in me is about to come out and it won't be pretty.

Well, the news isn't pretty. Updated analysis released last weekend by the Center for Disease Control found there were about 56,300 new HIV infections in 2006 (the most recent year for which data are available), about 40% higher than CDC's long-standing estimate of 40,000 for each of the last several years.

The caveat: According to CDC, the number of new infections likely was never as low as the previous estimate of 40,000 and has been relatively stable overall since the late 1990s. But there are disturbing trends among men of color. Blacks accounted for 45% of new infections while Hispanics accounted for 18%. Keep in mind the general population for both races is much lower.

I'm sure part of that is attributable to declining funds for public health and prevention, but let's face it - a very substantial part of that pie is risky behavior.

A scroll on Craig's List, Adam4Adam, Gay.com and a host of other sites confirms that too many of us are being deadly complacent. I'm so tired of seeing all these guys who want to bareback still. Barebacking?? I mean, really. I'd like to ask these guys if they'd want to try running across I-495 at 5:15 p.m. to see if they can dodge the cars.

Maybe that's just it. STDs just don't seem that scary anymore. When you see pristine, young faces on advertisements for HIV drugs, it's easy to think any virus or disease can be contained. Any bad result can be fixed with a shot or a pill and you can go back to what you were doing. The vision of a haggard, sunken-cheeked Tom Hanks languishing in his deathbed in Philadelphia seems antiquated now.

I have been amazed at how many sexual partners in my past were ready to make a move without condoms. Perhaps they just saw a (outwardly) healthy, professional man and automatically assumed I wouldn't be "the type" to do anything foolish or "have something"? If that's true then why do the knuckleheads turn around and then do something foolish? I’ve remained STD-free but I could have been lying about my status to them for all they know.

True confession: I’ve been lax (i.e. condomless) twice (outside of a monogamous relationship) and thus can be categorized as a temporary above-mentioned knucklehead. I chose to continue to be swept up by the moment. But I shouldn't have, out of principle, and I have never made that mistake since.

I have several people in my life who are HIV-positive. In three cases, I discovered a pattern of unsafe sex in their lives. I like to consider myself nonjudgmental but, admittedly, my initial feeling was deep disappointment in them. But I soon realized their lives have changed forever and no amount of lecturing from me can make them feel worse than when that nuclear bombshell of a discovery resonated inside their heads.

Part of the problem is a lack of education, considering I still come across some guys who assume a top can never get HIV, for example. The other pieces include a myth of infallibility ("I’m young, dammit, and can always win Russian roulette!") and this sense of inevitability of STDs, just like some of we African-Americans think we're fated to get diabetes, not realizing how much of that we control in diet and exercise.

Another thing is laziness. I didn’t consistently ask about STD status every time, so I got complacent even with the glove on. And some of us are so focused on HIV, we may be ignoring the consequences of other unprotected acts apart from penetration and other, more easily-transmitted diseases like syphilis and hepatitis.

If disturbing trends like these don’t make us ditch this ludicrous abstinence-only sex education habit the Bush administration is intent upon pushing, I don’t know what will. Sexual behavior is so complex that young and older adults need comprehensive education and real conversations about what is out there and how we can enjoy our sexuality in a healthy way.

OK, lecture’s over.

Living In Black and White

2008-07-30T16:16:00.000-04:00

Well, this has been a week for me to reflect on my people and my orientation simultaneously.

I have been reading the Washington Blade’s series on perceptions of gays among members of African-American communities. Apparently, a survey says African-Americans are by far the least tolerant racial group when it comes to homosexuality.

I also heard the feedback of a good reporter friend who attended last week’s UNITY, a national gathering of minority journalists that was in Chicago. Apparently, the National Association of Black Journalists, which largely started up UNITY, scuttled an attempt yet again to allow entrance to the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Apparently UNITY is only for ethnic and racial minorities, not sexual ones.

First, let me get the disclaimer out of the way. Every perceivable group of people has members who are anti-gay. Homophobia, just like the DL, is not an exclusively Black thing. And I sympathized with a Blade letter to the editor from a Black reader who felt the whole series magnified a generalization that most Blacks are provincial bigots while every other race else has “progressed” and is cool with Will as it is with Grace.

But let’s also get a little real here. Stereotypes have at least a grain of truth and there’s no exception here. As someone who has befriended, dated, and worked with people of every imaginable ethnicity, race, color, and creed, I do have to say that my own people seem disproportionately opposed to, or at least uncomfortable with, homosexuality.

One episode that leaps to mind happened at an African-American Student Union meeting I attended as a college freshman. Following a rash of hate calls and other incidents, students from a gay group visited to see if they could join up with AASU and other groups of color to do something, assuming one minority group sympathized with another. Well, it degenerated into name-calling (one Black student actually used the words “fags” and “dykes”) and repudiation from a student’s mother, declaring the gays should be ashamed for their audacity. A near–unanimous vote shut the door on any alliance.

But perhaps more often – and I feel this acutely with some of my family – there is a code of silence. There’s no obvious vitriol but an unwillingness to ever bring it up. I’ve seen how family members ask straight relatives who they are dating, etc., but there’s stony silence with me. They’d rather not know. And few are willing to debate or discuss things like gay marriage. It’s like, “By the way, how about those Lakers?”

My theory: Much of it likely comes from the role the church has played in many of our lives. Like I explained to my partner recently, the Black Church has been a cornerstone of community and way of life – not just something done for a few hours every Sunday. The civil rights movement sprung from the church, as well as many of our recent leaders and spokespeople. There is a rich and impressive history. But that same church (I mean some people, not God or Jesus) casts a long shadow. Even if someone these days isn’t a regular church-goer, the lessons and the culture shape his or her attitude on issues.

And unfortunately, a disdain of homosexuals has been a lesson that has been pushed in many of our pews. In my old church, gays were “sick” and needed prayer, help, and/or the Holy Spirit. The pastor would sometimes express these notions when they weren’t germane to the sermon, as if the congregation needed a refresher course on Moral Majority 101. Many other Black friends and relatives have reported the same things even, as we all laughingly point out, many of our churches had musical directors and/or choir members who were very much “family.” Few of my friends of other races, even coming from conservative congregations, have heard anti-gay rhetoric coming from the pulpit.

I wish I had a dollar for those, even non-regular churchgoers, cling to homophobia because they were taught homosexuality was wrong and, well, you know what the Bible says. God isn’t a refuge but a cover for moral indignation and bigotry. And that bleeds into a sense of internalized homophobia and self-hatred I see among many non-straight brothers. And that in turn affects the quality of relationships, our treatment of each other, and our self-worth. Being out and proud seems to be an affront to our elders and culture, so being closeted is easier and safer. But that just lets outsiders define us and devalue our relationships, continuing the cycle of dysfunction.

Will new generations turn the tide in perception of gays? I hope so, as I see a lot fewer people younger than me shaped by the attitudes of old. We need to go forward. I’m tired of looking back.

Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

2008-07-23T14:24:00.000-04:00

Imagine sex.

Now imagine not having sex. On purpose. For over three months. And did I mention you were in the prime of your life in this scenario?

Try to wipe the incredulous grimace or frown from your face. One young New York City man is doing this as we speak. But perhaps his endeavor will teach a lot of us something about sexuality and the emphasis gay culture places on it.

New Yorker Vince Sandoval started a blog called “Better Than Sex: Or Things To Do In New York City Without Sex.” [Go to http://betterthansexnyc.wordpress.com/] He details daily activities, many of them offbeat, which range from silent dates to museum jaunts to dressing up as a fierce female soccer player. The common denominator is that he’s not having sex. Even the cuddle party he just went to and chronicled outlawed dry-humping.

The Manila, Philippines, transplant moved to NYC just a few years ago but he quickly grew tired of the casual sex and drug use that was sometimes very pronounced in the gay world, wondering of anybody wanted to actually date – sober. Vince likes having fun just like anybody else, but wasn’t there more to do besides trick, barhop, and shop?

“The culture here was so different and felt increasingly empty,” he said. “I wanted to step back from that and see things from a whole different perspective.”

So he got the idea of having a 100-day sex moratorium. But why not make it fun and do new, often-unexplored things in New York? His adventures have also included going to a Turkish bath and city hall to see if he could spy a marriage ceremony in progress. The day Vince went he actually was asked to be a witness to the wedding of an Irish couple.

“In New York, you can have the time of your life,” he said. “I wanted to show people what the city has to offer. It’s been a whole exciting adventure.”

Vince’s female friends thought it was a cool idea. His gay male friends either thought he was sneaking sex on the side or just went crazy. It’s funny how Vince’s pledge of temporary celibacy, which admittedly was tested during the summer’s Gay Pride with its many shirtless and sweaty studs, seems so outrageous to many of us. If a gay man tells someone he waits until several dates to have sex, there usually is an involuntary rolling of the eyes or a chuckle. Some of us think the very idea seems so quaint – and lame.

I’m now happily in a committed relationship. But when I was single, I was very, very single. I never really thought about why. We can’t deny some force mandates and cajoles us to believe casual sex is a requirement, something we’re “supposed” to do and will be judged harshly for if we don’t. I remember an ex-boyfriend berating me on vacation for not hooking up with someone yet after a few days. Can I sightsee first, please?

But is it possible to have a healthy sex life, without sex seeming to be the most important thing all the time? I’m in a glass house and will not throw stones by suggesting a limit or cap on activity. We all have needs. But if our social lives are very sex-centered, it’s worth asking the why. We may find it’s a fear of commitment, or the maintenance of an image or reputation, for example. And are those good things to encourage?

What I figured out is that a key is balance. Is 90% of my free time in a bar or club trying to get laid? Or am I also doing other things with my time? In my singledom, I dated a lot. But I also wrote fiction, volunteered with charity groups, traveled, attended concerts and theater, read lots of books, visited museums and galleries, hiked, and watched movies.

And like Vince told me, it’s nice to spend some time having witty repartee with someone than just figuring out if you will be going to your place or his. Our biggest priorities, even when sex is among them, don’t take up all our time, attention, and space. There’s room for other things so we don’t lose perspective. Vince left me with these words:

“When you really make the effort and separate yourself from mainstream culture…you can find something else you can be passionate about.”

Kissing A Fool

2008-07-15T16:02:00.000-04:00

(Note: I was on vacation last week so I post this a day early to atone)

Every so often, a musical artist will come along and sing something that’s supposedly controversial and s/he gets kudos and attention for being “edgy.”

Katy Perry is one of those artists. If you don’t know the name, you surely have heard the song, “I Kissed a Girl.” I’ll admit it’s catchy, although she ripped off the exact same title from singer Jill Sobule, whose 1995 song authentically raised eyebrows for its time.

On the surface, Katy seems to be celebrating same-gender intimacy, trying on the veneer of the high school outcast rebel who boldly walks on the wild side and doesn’t give a damn what her classmates and teachers think.

Instead she’s indulging in a few of the hoariest gay stereotypes ever.

The hook, always the easiest part of a song to remember and sing along with, just describes a girl buzzed on alcohol who hopes locking lips with a cherry-Chapstick-wearing hottie doesn’t make her boyfriend mad. And she takes pains to emphasize she’s “not in love.” But the second verse is what really bothers me. Check it out.

No, I don't even know your name
It doesn't matter
You're my experimental game
Just human nature
It's not what good girls do
Not how they should behave
My head gets so confused
Hard to obey

Where do I begin?

On the surface, it’s tempting to applaud a presumably straight singer for “daring” to sing about a gay kiss. We’re assuming she must be cool with it – and gay people – if she sings about it. Artists like her sneakily advance our cause in the pop culture realm, and thus the attitudes and social mores of the general listeners, by trumpeting girl-on-girl action like it’s not a big thing, so some might say. She may even be a Girl Power advocate – an honorary Spice Girl.

But dig deeper, like a college writing teacher used to beseech to me and my classmates. First, I am so over seeing gays and lesbians reduced to experiments and games from those who want to test drive all afternoon but not sign the lease. This makes gays seem like an exotic adventure and worse, an overcoat that can just be slipped on and off.

That kind of mentality fuels the false thinking that gayness is not an orientation but just a lifestyle that can be temporarily adopted or chosen, which is still the way of thought by several family members of mine even as they say they accept me.

And what is it with this not being how “good” girls should behave? Sure, let’s paint lesbianism with a forbidden shade, as if it’s a gasp-inducing, OMG sin to share a same-sex kiss. Even as Katy purports to be liberated by the experience, she confesses to be scandalized by it at the same time.

Being edgy means behind ahead of the curve, not woefully behind it. Nowadays a same-sex smooch is merely a secondary plotline on Gossip Girls and likely the main reason viewers flock to MTV’s A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila. Of course there is always homophobia and backward thinking, but the currency of presenting things like this as shamefully illicit has long dropped in value.

Of course Katy Perry fans can argue that she (and the songwriters) is only presenting the kiss as a shock to show how ridiculous it is to place a sense of scandal on same-sex intimacy, thus making regressive souls re-think their assumptions and prejudices.

Look, I don’t know the girl. But I feel confident enough to bet $1,000 she’s not that clever and subversive by half. What’s more likely is that she and her record company wanted to release a tune with a title they knew would pique curiosity – and attract airplay and sales.

After all, the video conveniently declines to actually show her smooching an actual girl. So she’s big and bad enough to sing about it, but becomes too timid to actually show it. Whatever.

Flirting with gay territory has brought Katy a hit. Now I’m waiting for a song that describes a same-sex relationship with truthfulness, humor, depth, and cleverness and presents it as completely normal.

Now that would be edgy.

The Binds of Matrimony

2008-07-02T12:54:00.000-04:00

Take off the earrings and smear on the Vaseline. It’s gearing up to be quite a fight.

I don’t mean Obama vs. McCain, Christie Brinkley vs. her ex, or even Lauren vs. Heidi. I mean the Focus on the Family-type moralists who will do all they can to convince enough California voters in November to defeat gay marriage, a right the California Supreme Court granted in May.

The Court’s historic decision puts something in the grasp of Golden State gays and lesbians that many assumed would always be out of reach. Think of the lesbian couple in their 80s who were the first in the state to tie the knot after 55 years together.

My gay partnered friends in my home state are thrilled about our legal victory. So when are they going to get married? Um, maybe never. So what gives?

“I don’t think it’s for me,” said one of my dearest friends who will soon be celebrating seven years with his beau. “It’s something that never really crossed our minds.”

And considering that he and his boyfriend don’t even live together yet, he added, “It’s going to take us some time to get comfortable with the idea of getting married.” (His gay uncle, partnered for 16 years in Oakland, isn't getting fitted for a tuxedo either.)

Another good friend scoffs at the idea that gays and lesbians must run, not walk, to the nearest church or courthouse to enter into an institution in which heterosexuals still manage to produce a divorce rate that hovers at nearly 50%.

He’s been with his partner eight years and they enjoy rights under California’s domestic partnership laws. He doesn’t need “a piece of paper” to legitimize the relationship.

A lawyer acquaintance has been with his live-in partner for two years and, you guessed it, has no marriage plans. He is thrilled with the state’s ruling and figures the more straights see gays as neighbors, co-workers and now married folks, the more they see us as just like everyone else.

“It’s nice to have this ability. But perhaps the biggest thing is having the right without necessarily having to exercise it now,” he said.

The door to an important right is open but some of us are opting to not walk through it. On the surface, it seems almost illogical to not take advantage of this opportunity. But our history and place in society provides answers that have a lot of nuance.

First of all, if more than half of California voters pass the anti-gay marriage November referendum, then the rug would cruelly be pulled out from under us, perhaps indefinitely. And even if gay couples who wedded before the vote can legally retain those marriage rights, those rights feel perishable.

Second, many of us grew up assuming marriage would not be an option, so we conditioned ourselves to not calculate that into our lifetime goals. Suddenly having this opportunity option throws a lot of us and it feels like learning to walk all over again. Few of us have gay marriages to use as models for our unique circumstances, so marriage still feels alien. For many of us, living together is our marriage and it’s enough for us.

Third, this country has allowed religious institutions to shape and define marriage both as an institution and as a ceremony, and we know how much these institutions typically just love our kind. My boyfriend pointed out that marriage should be first and foremost thought of as a civil right for everyone. The equation of religion makes marriage understandably unpalatable.

Fourth, some of us – likely more gay men than women – enjoy sexual and romantic freedom from heterosexual conventions and spurn the notion of marriage and/or children as the “inevitable” next step.

Lastly, like the lawyer told me, “Marriage is a very big commitment.” Just because someone has been with his/her partner for x years doesn’t make marriage right or best for them. Look at straight couples who’ve spent many years together before marrying or opting not to get married for whatever reasons.

Besides if gays get married solely because the option is there and they like the idea of shoving a marriage certificate in a homophobe’s face to prove they are on equal ground, then those rewards are limited. Marriage can’t force validation and respect from society.

Because if my boyfriend and I could legally marry in California and bring those rights back to DC, we would still feel unsafe holding hands in certain neighborhoods and still get stares from people as we did looking at the cherry blossoms last spring.

So if you don’t see a gay man or woman jump into planning a wedding, don’t assume he or she is afraid of commitment. The marriage right is important because it is wrong for us to be second-class citizens. But the plunge should only come because a couple truly wants it.

Politics of Position

2008-06-25T16:51:00.001-04:00

Virgil is enduring a tedious conference when a respite comes in the form of a flirtatious fellow businessman. Soon, the two are in a hotel room alone and the mystery man makes a move. Virgil resists, but is tempted because his new pal is offering to bottom - something Virgil hasn't gotten in elephant years because his boyfriend is a total top.

These characters are in author Michael-Christopher's novel From Top To Bottom, featured at this year’s Black Pride literary program. But they exist in real life and represent a quandary in dating and hooking-up: Are neon signs on a total's ass that flash "exit only" - or "entrance only" - indicate mere preference or a selfish nature? And how much does the choice of a total (fill in the blank) result from fear, insecurity, and/or stereotypes that may be undercutting our sexual identities and experience?

Politics makes strange bedfellows but the politics of positions can make frustrated bedfellows, too. How many times have two totals of the same persuasion met each other and hit it off famously, only to instantly go their separate ways when they both find out they're "tops" or "bottoms" because God forbid either makes any detours on the Hershey Highway.

Some of us get caught up in roles that we quickly decide we must play. Some total tops get off on the idea of being "masculine," being in control or having power: You know how we men like our control and power. And some total bottoms feel like they can't be aggressive or they want to be the nurturing, compliant one (although in reality, an active bottom has a lot of say in what happens and how). Stereotypes? Yeah, but they hold at least a grain of truth.

A man I dated (very briefly as you'll see why) endured heckling from his brother about gays and only chose to defend himself when the brother made a joke about getting it up the ass. Sensing his manhood was mocked, he responded indignantly, "I never would do that." And when I switched from Girl World to Man Land almost a decade ago, I let my first boyfriend exclusively, ahem, take the lead because I wasn't completely confident in my newfound sexuality.

A friend of mine claims he is a total top because bottoming doesn't get him off and adds it has nothing to do with avoiding "being submissive." He would only consider flipping with a partner as an anniversary present. So basically my friend's future boyfriend can only be sure of getting a Benetton gift certificate.

Christopher, the author, came out 20 years ago in New York City, and firmly remembers position as being a non-issue. Most people weren't hung up on it and didn't ask. Magically, they let nature take its course. "It wasn't such a deal breaker and point of negotiation like it is now," he reminisces.

But perhaps it's our rush to peg people that contribute to the politics of positioning. Think about it. Many of us try to size up someone just by figuring out where he buys his jeans or who he's with on a dinner date.

And the rise of Internet dating and sex seems to parallel the position quandary. Most sites ask you to identify whether you're top, bottom or versatile, and so already you're putting your self in a box, as you advertise yourself to your metro area no less. And how many times has someone saddled up to you in a bar and soon tries to figure out your "classification?" I've been asked about being a top or a bottom before my HIV status or job.

True preference and personal taste are legitimate things. But if we're not acknowledging the mentality and influence that go into our decisions – and we're limiting ourselves and our lovers to one role perhaps because "that's the way it goes" – is that really making the most of our sex lives? I think some of us will eventually be like Virgil – imagining what we've been missing and why we're doing it to ourselves.

No Country for Old(er) Men

2008-06-19T01:19:00.000-04:00

Age ain’t nothing but a number. Well perhaps it’s also a deep bias.

There’s a movie that just opened in Manhattan last weekend that you may find very interesting. The documentary "Chris & Don: A Love Story" traces the relationship of two men who started their remarkably public Hollywood romance in the 1950s. But there’s something about the story that’s even more eye-catching. One was 18, and the other was 48 when they met.

The younger man was artist Don Machardy and the older guy was writer Christopher Isherwood. The relationship lasted until Isherwood’s death in 1986. Great story. But I bet that couple would face as much judgment now as they did back then.

Admit it. If you see a couple where there is a 20-something guy and one in his 40s or 50s, preconceptions immediately crop up in your head. The old fogy is a sugar daddy and/or chicken hawk with an insatiable appetite for young flesh and recapturing his youth. The twinkie is a feckless user with a daddy complex who wants to be taken care of.

Now I’ll admit it. If I’m approached or ogled at by a man who’s clearly 15-plus years older, I’m appalled. I want to swat the back of his hand with his AARP Bulletin because I see it as predatory (it’s funny how an aggressive guy my age or younger wouldn’t automatically elicit the same response.). And I assume he just goes after young guys all the time and I don’t want to be his prey.

I dated briefly a divorced man with two children who was in his 40s. He was attractive and I didn’t mind. But once we went to a restaurant and he held the menu, I dunno, eight feet in front of him to read it. And the reality hit me and he suddenly seemed so…old.

A good friend who’s just north of 40 had to deal with a lot of ribbing from me and some of his other friends when he had a string of dating these late-teen, 20s dudes. Please, I beseeched, find someone who can legally drink. And shoot for someone who can legally rent a car by himself.

Age may be the gay community’s strongest bias in terms of dating, maybe even more than race, which is already a biggie. In part, it’s because those who disparage age differences in couples are rarely corrected or admonished. Compare that to the reaction toward a friend or acquaintance who condemns an interracial couple.

Many of us just can’t believe those May-December couples are together without a suspect reason, fetish, or complex we are allowed to sneer at. After all, what can a hypothetical 25-year-old have in common with a hypothetical 45-year-old?

A middle-aged Brooklyn man I talked with recently told me about his boyfriend, 20 years his junior, and said the age difference is not a problem or a real factor in why they got together. He said they have in common hobbies and, more important, values. He considers himself very social and active and appreciates men who can keep up. His boyfriend values maturity and hates the rigors of the club and bar scene.

Besides, the picture can get nuanced. One DC guy just north of 40 actually complains about younger guys who approach him. They always seem to be flaky twinks who look to older men like him for stability and security instead of establishing those things themselves. Another 50-plus DC man feels assumptions about his motives, hobbies, sexual abilities, etc., are instantly made just upon seeing him.

It’s funny how older, straight men going after younger women are hardly ever shamed (although single women their age may resent a shrinking dating pool because of this). It’s probably because they have very visible role models. Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, George Lucas, and Warren Beatty have all dated or married women a generation younger. Yet notice how 30-ish T.R. Knight and his 19-year-old beau have raised eyebrows and inspired some guffaws.

I’ve realized that with the older man I mentioned, we had very different lifestyles. I liked to stay out late and go out to different places. He was a low-key creature of habit, and well-retired from the club scene. But I’ve seen men his age who could keep up with me.

And I realized I generalized too much about age, despite how open-minded I thought I was. And if I ever see "Chris & Don: A Love Story," I won’t snicker.

Sex and the Married Man

2008-06-10T23:59:00.000-04:00

If many wives out there get annoyed sometimes by their husbands, I also get annoyed – by the gay ones!

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, who apparently hasn't met a public bathroom he didn't like, is writing a book to be released next year. Apparently, there will be a "little" of the infamous airport bathroom sex sting scandal that led to his not seeking re-election. But he will concentrate more on his dismay at the "dysfunctional and hyperpartisan Senate."

Okay, now that I'm done laughing, I'll concentrate on how Craig is sadly one of those married men who tricks his mind into thinking his tip-toe forays into gay life and gay sex don't count and he's as straight as an arrow (yeah, like the one Steve Martin wore on his head in the 70s).

Now some of you may caution that, technically, we don't know for sure he's gay or bi or DL or whatever. But I'm pretty sure he's done this before as not even Homer Simpson would be so accident-prone as to give the whole list of signs for anonymous sex while taking off toilet paper from his shoe. From my viewpoint, the incident reinforced what the believers and the deniers already thought beforehand.

I know about this married man thing, and not quite in the way you may think. I've been propositioned many times, mostly online, from these men but I never took the bait. One guy I had a moment of weakness for and planned a meeting with eventually stood me up – perhaps wifey came home earlier than expected. Another guy went so far as to declare the love for his wife and his intention of not wanting her to get hurt, as if to assure me he was being not just a regular adulterer but a conscientious one.

But many others saw it as a side trip that has nothing to do with their "real" orientation. And that's where the interesting – and sad – part comes in. I've resisted because I don't like that idea of being enjoyed for my sexuality, than having the other person deny it once it's over. I become something to do or to be messed around with and not acknowledged, even in his own mind, for the physicality that just happened. He's not gay like me, because that's gross. I'm just something to past the time, or so he thinks.

So when Craig made the interview rounds last year and declared he was not gay, I believed him insofar as that's what he's likely been telling himself all these years. I'm confident Craig cruised and dallied but I'm sure he rationalized it as an occasional impetuous hobby. For him, having sex with his own gender was not gay even though the main definition of gay is having sex with your own gender.

It didn't "count" because eventually he went home to his wife and three children, and he loved his wife and had sex with her and he went to church and he condemned the "lifestyle." So how could he be gay? Besides, he never saw "Sex and the City" (the movie or the series) and he doesn't know Marc Jacobs from Marc Anthony.

Craig and many others can somehow step outside of their gay sex and see that as different than what they supposedly are. And the consequence is that they demean and trivialize gayness even as they gain pleasure from it. It's amazing that Craig hasn't even been pushed to answer how this entrapment – as he likes to declare from his shaky tower of so-called innocence – may be unfair to real gays who seek consensual sex in a public place but find themselves posing for a police station camera instead.

I thought it was interesting that soon after the news hit, Dina McGreevey, soon-to-be-ex wife of former Gov. John McGreevey, also a married man who liked men, released a statement about this trend of husbands sneaking out. She knows a rat when she smells one. And she knows that pretending to be someone you're not hurts everyone involved.

For me, the jury's still out on the complicity of Craig's wife. She could be a too-trusting spouse who takes her husband's word as bond. Or she could be one of those wives, just like Dina, who knows in her heart that something is amiss but takes the cue of her husband and turns away from the music. After all, he pays the bills, works hard, and takes the whole family on nice vacations. All that "other stuff" doesn't really matter because he comes home at the end of the day.

People now are guffawing over Craig's book as much as his induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame months after he was arested. He'll likely polish up some talking points for the inevitable Larry King sit-down to sidestep "the other stuff" and talk about the life he wants people to believe he lives.

It's too bad there's a "wide stance" between who he says he is and what he really is.