Posted by “Dude, you’re a faggot!” I recently went to a Broadway show with a guy friend; an activity that caused another guy friend to label me a ‘closet homosexual’. That epithet was hurled in jest, to try to get a rise out of me – as if going to a show made me gay despite the fact that I’ve done pretty damn well with Argentine girls. Was I insulted?
Many heterosexual men, even those who aren’t homophobic, feel the need to define certain behaviors as ‘gay’ versus ‘straight’. If you enjoy going to the theatre or the ballet, you’re a fag. If you’re into cars, football and porn, you’re straight. If you like martinis stirred not shaken, you’re a girl. If you drink BEEER, you’re a guy. And if you don’t drink, well you just might be Muslim.
Now I know some guys who might be reading this piece and who don’t enjoy certain stereotypically non-male activities are thinking they don’t like these things because they just don’t like these things not because they’re homophobic. But which came first the chicken or the egg. Do you dislike certain activities because you were taught they were the arena of women and queers? Or are certain activities the arena of women and queers because you dislike them? Would you really be comfortable going to see an opera without a date or going to get your nails did?
All stereotypes have some grain of truth to them. That’s how stereotypes come into being, after all. But one’s sexual orientation can be a touchy subject. I LOVE FOOTBALL. I would also just as soon spend an evening at the theatre than sit on my fat ass at a bar all night. I’m queer and hetero.
Enter the Metrosexual, a man who is the purported happy medium between the best traits of straight and gay. However the recent popularization of this ‘lifestyle’ has had less effect on this country than most social commentators would imagine. I doubt think that Farmer Joe in Oklahoma puts on a moisturizer with SPF-15 everyday after showering, shaving with a cream instead of foam (after applying pre-shave oil) and washing with a non-hypo allergenic facial cleanser.
But even though hygiene regimens that were once the sole purview of women-folk are gaining more mainstream acceptance, I have no doubt that most Americans would label my artsy tendencies (and many others’ non-FOOTBALL watching, non-beer guzzling tendencies) as more in the sphere of homosexual than heterosexual. I can’t say that it doesn’t give me pause to be called a ‘fag’ because I wouldn’t mind going to an artsy event with a guy friend or a girl who’s not going to put out at the end of the night.
In the end, I suppose it all comes down to how comfortable you are with your sexuality. I don’t think anyone straight or gay is ever truly comfortable, not least as comfortable as they should be. To disagree is arrogance and the tacit admission of some modicum of discomfort. Here’s how I shut my friend up: when he called me a faggot, I said, “Ok.” When he told me I might be a closet homosexual, I said, “alrighty then.” By the way, Phantom of the Opera was spectacular but I definitely liked Rent better.
