Yeah, I used to be cool.

So I know a lot of my friends wouldn’t believe me if I told them, but I was totally the coolest person back in school. I was friends with everyone, and everyone wanted to be friends with me. Sometimes people knew my name before I knew theirs. I think I even remember breaking a couple girls’ hearts.

But it all ended in 7th grade. In 7th grade something weird happened. It wasn’t anything particularly isolated; there was a wide-sweeping change in how we organized ourselves and related to each other. I think it was puberty. But the bottom line? Well…I was placed at the bottom of the line. I was no longer cool. And particularly among men, I became a target.

As I’m sure my parents can attest, I was a very energetic little kid. In terms of gender performance, I was just like I am now – a healthy mix of femme, mostly andro, and the occasional spout of earnest butch – except that when I was little I acted as if I was constantly wired on caffeine. This meant, I think, that when I was femme, I was really femme. I would roar around with my trucks just as much as I would dance little pirouettes in the hallway. I was so energetic that everywhere I went it felt like a production. Maybe that’s why, in elementary and middle school, I was so popular. A big part of my self was bouncing around and having fun; I was a fun magnet. Lots of little kids are.

So you’re probably wondering why this loser is talking about how he (used to be) cool in elementary and middle school (and you’re also thinking: no wonder he’s not cool anymore). Well, it’s because of this age thing, I think. I wasn’t cool anymore because my way of behaving as a male – at our around the time when everyone else my age hit puberty and began reorganizing according to gendered expectations of sexuality and resulting behavior – no longer became acceptable. What was interesting was that, even despite my gender variance as a kid, I had a ton of male friends growing up. At puberty, however, a gender mechanism initiated; “appropriate men” actually had to reject the company of gender variant boys. So, at or around 7th grade, no longer was I (in the confident, gender-variant way I behaved) an appropriate kind of boy for another boy to be friends with. In the company of women, I don’t think the rules were necessarily the same; there were complications when it came to romantic interest that set up a standard of rules and regulations for how to interact, but most of the time that wasn’t as big of an issue.

I’ve been reading some stuff lately by Nancy Lesko, and she’s really awakened me to issues of age when thinking about the construction of identity in adolescence. She advocates for a reorganization of primary and secondary education (and, I’d argue, child-rearing) that transforms the child-parent/child-teacher relationship into more of a mutual educational relationship as opposed to this slave-master relationship whereby information and rules about behavior are funneled one-way into the child. I really don’t think, in most schools, there’s enough done to encourage harmless, deviant behaviors from the norm. Shouldn’t that be encouraged? I guess it’s easier said than done. But I do think it would neutralize some of crazy moments of behavior shifting and make middle school a tiny bit less horrifying.

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Why I'm Voting For Hillary, or: GO VOTE!!

So I was sitting there like an idiot watching the MTV debate this past Saturday. Amid all the blaring technical errors with the videocasts (were you there when MTV made Ron Paul sound like a robot?), the totally off "instant polls" (if they were accurate, they would have made the candidates truly uncomfortable like the thing intended to), and the wholly obnoxious reporters from Washingtonpost.com and the Associated Press (I liked the kids' questions better than anything they said) -- I sat there, thinking. Up until this shitty waste of a political moment in the campaign, a tv show most people in the engaged, political stratosphere would deem inconsequential, I had no opinion. I was an uneducated voter at 23, watching an MTV special in the hopes that it would prepare me for voting in the primaries in three days.

I had done a little preparatory work, however. In my hands sat a huge binder with materials I put together: printouts of voting records, 'nonpartisan' collections of assorted information, and countless stanced articles, blogs, and reports from major media dated from the past half year. Eventually, the banter from the MTV debate reduced itself to a steady hum, and finally I could feel that I was starting to focus. Before I opened the binder, I tried to picture what the faces of our country might look like a year from now -- both president and vice president.

My gut whirred with exhilaration at the thought of a Hillary/Obama team, but my gut also told me that only one combination of the two would ever come to play: Hillary would never bottom...for anyone. Even after a thorough reading of all the materials in my binder (a reading that led me to agree with the same points Hillary's campaign emphasizes -- more experience [especially in foreign affairs], a more competent and convincing speaker/debater, a stronger connection with the players of this country), my gut was getting louder by the minute. If I thought that Hillary even had an ounce more quality as a candidate for either presidency or vice presidency, I needed to vote for her as president. And here's why:

My gut first started rumbling when I read Gloria Steinem's article from the New York Times back in January; she touched on the gender-oriented anxieties I have had for a long time about the election that I could not yet put into words. Our country may strive for equality on paper (if that), but we still live in both a white supremacist AND patriarchal society. Most sociologists and gender theorists would agree that both schemes of institutionalized marginalization are deeply embedded in many pockets of our country (and I would argue, most importantly, among the ruling groups with the most power). But my concern is this: When society sits back and thinks about the face of their country a year from now and who could effectively sit in the seat for vice president, Hillary's identity as a woman disempowers her far more than Obama's non-white racial status would if he were to sit as VP.

It's not politically correct to explore the race vs. gender game, but each identity status operates differently in different social spaces of our society, and the social space occupied by political candidacy cannot be ignored. If Hillary was VP next to a president Obama, she would be a lost face in the political and social landscape. She would be subject to the same hierarchy of gender that she has been fighting all along, a hierarchy where Obama's maleness pulses a fervent lead, leaving Hillary struggling for an appropriate gendered balance of fashion and rhetoric -- I'm inspired by her butch, commanding demeanor, but as VP she'd be silenced. Obama would face no such barrier whatsoever. If he were VP next to a president Clinton, I think he would be effective at changing our country for the better. I want both Obama and Clinton up there in the top seats of our country, but Clinton must be in the highest seat for both of them to have major influence as leaders and agents of change.

My thoughts about the election were interrupted by a loud commercial inbetween MTV shenanigans, but after the break it was Hillary's turn to speak to the youth of our country. She was eloquent, convincing, and seemed real. I felt similarly about Obama, albeit just slightly less convinced. But I knew that for a better society, it has to be Clinton. And I pray that Obama will take it like a man and be the VP. Clinton gets tested regularly, and I know she's safe.

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Boy, Oh Boy!

Manontheside got me thinking about my dating history, and in the style of his most recent post, I started thinking about what barriers exist that prevent me from finding the so-called One. Seeing as how many of us, it seems, are on this quest to find completion with another person, to find a match that will validate us as successful people, to attain this state that will somehow fill the missing gaps and end the lonely moments singleness brings…I think it’s understandable that we think a great deal about what exactly might be standing in the way of the ideal of partnership.

For me, I think a lot about what I look like, and what I act like – two things that the gay male community, from what I’ve gathered, seems to care about most when looking for dates (manontheside seems to take a less superficial route, an image of gay dating that goes beneath the skin…admirable, but I still stand by the fact that I think most guys are romantically a bit shallow). Looks are certainly what I tend to care about most, at least at first. To start, I’ll take a snapshot of myself, what factors I think shape my chances:

- attractive, boyish look
- moderately short at 5’8” tall
- down the middle mannerisms; not quite femme but not really butch at all
- very shy, mostly around guys

And now to tear it apart:

The shy thing, I think, is the biggest obstacle – shyness lends itself easily to awkwardness, and when you’re trying to meet people it just hands-down means you’ll meet fewer people; potential dates just won’t ever have a chance to be potentials.

But now for the part I think the most about – the look, the boyishness. Boyish guys in the gay market occupy a certain space in the attractive game, I think. They’re not inherently masculine, and so a big portion of the gay market out there with masculinity fetishes (Abercrombie gays, preppy gays, Colt gays, butch-minded gays) typically won’t be into boyish guys. I think there is a window, however, in the Abercrombie/preppy gay market for boyish dudes – but they have to be tall, frat-like in behavior -- also not me.

This, I think, is what I have left. Mikey of Queer as Folk fame – boyish, submissive, geeky, short; not top hot market but still “cute”, with an in-show dating record that truly suggests a dom/sub man/boy thing goin’ on. While my dating history isn’t exactly as NAMBLA as I think Mikey’s (or even Justin’s) characters play from, I can’t help but worry that I’m too much of a sad stereotype. Is it all self-imposed? I don’t entirely think so; as I was coming out, I was rewarded with compliments when I looked boyishly cute (my Fievel Goes West costume was a big hit in college). And so I guess I’ve tried to act the part. But maybe I just worried that I didn’t know any other way to act. Isn’t that sad? TV, tell me who I should be!!

And yet, I’m still surprised from time to time by the reality of a flawed gendered performance – I recall one startling encounter when I was watching Eragon with my date and he was talking about his crush on Edward Speleers. For the first time in my life, I was instantaneously jealous – jealous of an actor my date thought was cute, an actor in one of the worst movies I had ever seen. I already knew that my date had a thing for fair skinned, boyish people…but for some reason Mr. Speleers drove me into a crazed state of anxiety. Yes, he’s toned, something theoretically I could achieve if I worked hard enough (never gonna happen). But he’s a hotter boyish guy. My category was invaded. It seems that even though I sometimes feel limited to a category by my looks, I’m not beneath competing within the category.

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Tough Transitions

Okay, so I’m going to finally write about trans stuff. The problem is, I’ve been hesitant to write about it because I fall into the category of one of those folks who wants to be as supportive as possible of trans issues and help create some dialogue, but I’m still not as educated as I would like to be in order to confidently stand at the front of the picket lines. I majored in gender and sexuality studies in college, but ironically very little of it led me to the study trans issues; we were too busy talking about the gays, gay this and gay that with a little dabble of gender norms here and there. I guess I just need to bite the bullet and write, and risk making a mistake or two. So feel free to call me out.

When the ENDA poo recently hit the fan, I was really upset…and it kind of struck a chord with me from a very, very similar situation I was in a couple years ago:

Back in college I interned for a state-wide gay rights organization in a state where no protections existed in any shape or form against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Our organization was fighting to put a protection on the upcoming ballot, a protection against discrimination for state employees (a protection now required by the passed ENDA). The reality was, and everyone knew, that this move would never pass to be included on the ballot…but they were doing as a symbolic statement to show these rights were in demand. Quite progressively (considering the very red nature of our state), our organization put forth legislative language that included protections for both sexual orientation and gender identity. I admit I kind of expected it; as a young, eager college activist, I thought: “Of course a gay rights organization would be fight for the rights of trans folks. How could one marginalized group leave another one behind?”

A couple weeks into the push to include this on the ballot, powerful (read: $$$$) members of the organization confronted the director about the language on the bill to protect gender identity. One member even stormed into our office in outrage, and I was in earshot of the conversation he had with the director in another room. He first argued that including gender identity would make it impossible for the bill to pass (a reality they already knew would happen anyway). After my director spoke with him about his exact concerns he started to calm down, and then he told a long-winded story about how as an effeminate, gay-curious teenager he was subject to transphobia; people made fun of him saying that because he was gay he was more like a girl than anything, and his family would worry he would become a transvestite and want to maybe have surgery to become a girl (something he resented and has violently rejected since his youth; he was gay…not, God forbid, transgendered).

And that’s one of the big sources of where my frustration with the ENDA comes from. It’s a fear that underneath all of this political stuff about “just getting it to pass” (and I believe the reality is that it really would not pass if it included gender identity), the deep truth is that gay people around this country are uncomfortable with our country's multifaceted transgender community, and further – gay people are excruciatingly uncomfortable with their own gender issues. And while this is definitely for another post, I think the reason this is so is because gay men are being reconfigured in our heteronormative, gender-normative society that can only tolerate other forms of gender variety when they're mocked.

I realize I’m not being particularly objective. I promise something better soon!

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Dear Dumbledore,

So I heard.

While I'm really happy there's a gay character in the Harry Potter books, it must have been hard to be the only one in a seven part series. No wonder you were so hidden all the time, so restrained and soft-spoken.

And I heard the truth about Grindelwald, too; I can't imagine what it must have been like to have fought the one you love, and then be subject to years of stories about the time you defeated one of the most evil tyrants in history. It's hard for people to understand things unless they're completely black and white.

But perhaps the most horrible thing of all, the part I feel the worst about for you, is that the person who knows you the most deeply, a person who you trust to represent you to the world community, your creator...OUTED YOU!

In this day and age, most of us know about the repercussions of outing someone's homosexuality to the rest of the world. And what was most interesting was that the way in which your friend, J.K. Rowling, went about doing it -- at a book reading she answered a question about your romantic history, noting nonchalantly that you were in love with a man, that you were gay, that she knew it all along, that she knew as she was helping your character grow with each page. This also means, as I'm sure you're well aware, that she planned to hide your sexuality in a way not unlike the hidden, lost-to-the-world homosexuals from some of the more repressive works of Victorian literature.

So the way this all rolled out was really interesting. A lot of people like me were upset with Rowling for not including a queer character in the series, but with this announcement it seemed like she answered our pleas. The news set in and fans everywhere were shocked; scores of people, I'm sure, flipped back through each chapter of your history, from the moments when you shared wise advice with the children of Hogwarts, to the time you brought Harry to his foster family, to the momentous time you saved Harry from Voldemort using the most astonishing magic, to flashbacks in the later books giving snapshots of your past. With but a few sentences, Rowling refashioned your entire history for the world to see. Your character was, quite honestly, hijacked.

But I guess that's how outing works, how coming out often works. You "come out" of supposed hiding, and the world sees you in a different light; sexuality is a huge part of one's identity -- whether it's discussed or not (heterosexual or homosexual), it shapes many of our thoughts and behaviors in life. The question then becomes, it seems, is whether Rowling did you real justice or not.

I would argue that Rowling is operating within the framework of the literary market, making choices about her characters that seek to "gently push" rather than "revolutionize"; she did not include gay characters in the story because, well, the sociopolitical climate in which Harry Potter most profoundly exists is one that does not welcome gay characters in children's literature -- the books wouldn't be bought. ("I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy." *) And while in many parts of our country the notion of a Victorian gay sexuality, a gayness that can only exist behind closed doors and in deep secrecy, is disappearing...children are still seen as at risk; real gay characters, real gay mentors, gay teachers, are a threat to their childhood and their growth.

And so, dear Dumbledore, I'm sorry that you had to live your life like the many gay characters we have seen from movies past, their youthful romances stifled by fear of heteronormativity, their identities quelled into a restrained silence. When you watched over the children of Hogwarts, you did it so they could grow to be themselves, free of unjust limitations and empowered by love.

But Dumbledore, for all the good you have done in your life and the happiness I am sure it brought you, I am still left with one telling image -- an image of you standing in front of the Mirror of Erised with Harry, describing the view in front of you, a view that reflects your life's deepest wishes: "I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks. One can never have enough socks." For those in hiding, mirrors can be the most debilitating; you looked in the mirror, and you were forced to see...nothing.

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Transgender Workplace Diversity: ENDA - The Sin of Omission

Dr. Jillian Todd Weiss joins us from Transgender Workplace Diversity:

According to the Washington Blade, House Democratic leaders are strongly considering omitting anti-discrimination protections for transgender persons from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, legislation that would ban employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The paper said this occurred after an internal Democratic head count last Wednesday indicated that, if the bill continued to include “gender identity,” it would not receive the votes necessary for passage. The Blade implied that a “sexual orientation” standalone bill would receive the necessary votes for passage.

The idea of deleting gender identity from ENDA, and creating a stand-alone gender identity bill, is an idea that completely undermines the fairness message of ENDA. There is a wonderful post by Nadine Smith at Bilerico on this issue. She gives historical examples of legislators that sought to exclude a controversial minority at the last moment, and how those bills went on to victory without exclusion. This is very instructive about the nature and function of remedial civil rights legislation, like ENDA.

A classic debate among legal scholars is the question of when law in a democracy should follow public sentiment, and when it should lead. In most cases, legislators enact laws because, using their political instincts, they believe the majority of their constituency wants it. If the majority don’t want it, they don’t vote for the law. It’s a simple calculus, and it’s the backbone of democracy. The most good for the most people. There are times, however, when this utilitarian creed serves a society poorly. Sometimes the majority is ignorant about a subject, and in need of an education. Sometimes a society is prejudiced, and needs to know it. Sometimes there is a small group of people who are suffering quietly, stifiling under the arrogant judgment of an intolerant majority, and in need of a higher authority to set it right. There are times when legislators must support a proposed law because it is the right thing to do, even though the majority is against it because of prejudice or ignorance or intolerance. The very act of taking this courageous stand propels the issue into national debate, and the legislation becomes the very instrument of the education needed to enact it.

The Employment Discrimination Act is such a bill. It seeks to give a remedy to people who cannot keep their jobs because of the prejudices of their employers against their sexual orientation or gender identity. This injustice is keenly felt by all those in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities, but it is especially hard-hitting in the transgender community. The transgender unemployment statistics are much higher that the statistics in the general US population. The unemployment rate is about 8 times higher and the poverty rate is about 5 times higher. It should be no surprise that, of all the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities, the problem of employment discrimination is especially hard-hitting in the transgender community, because transgender identity is the least understood identity of the GLBT spectrum, and the most subject to prejudice. And for precisely this reason, gender identity is the category that most needs the protection of ENDA. So transgender people are both the most in need of protection and the most likely to be voted off the island. Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of prejudice against transgender people within the gay and lesbian community itself, as I have detailed in my article in the Journal of Bisexuality, entitled "GL vs. BT: The Archaeology of Biphobia and Transphobia Within the U.S. Gay and Lesbian Community."

“But isn’t it better,” the utilitarians ask, “to propose a law for some of the GLBT community that is assured of winning, rather than a law for all that is uncertain of passage? Why sacrifice the many for the few?” They suggest that we create an ENDA without gender identity, which, they say, will ensure its becoming the law of the land, and may create a climate favorable for the later passage of a separate bill to protect gender identity. But this suggestion has a gaping hole in its logic. President Bush is going to veto ENDA with or without gender identity. There is not going to be any ENDA this year or any year until President Bush no longer sits in the White House, as there are not enough votes to override a veto.

This exercise of putting ENDA to a vote is an academic exercise. The whole point of ENDA now is about ENDA the next time. Next time, when there is a Democrat in the White House, the legislation will be voted in without a veto. Next time, the people will have heard about the need for a law against employment discrimination, and will favor it in larger numbers. So there is no sacrifice of the many for the few if gender identity is retained now. Rather, the whole purpose of this legislation, and the vote, is to create a robust debate about discrimination, capitalism and the American Dream. ENDA is about high-minded principle, the idea that it is a fundamental U.S. value that all working people have a right to be judged by the quality of their work and not by completely unrelated factors. Here is the chance to educate the people and their representatives about our many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens, and their sufferings under a regime of popular prejudice. There is an opportunity to teach those who are willing to be open that GLBT people are not the mentally-ill pedophiles, sexual perverts and prostitutes of media portrayal, but are mostly citizens like themselves who want an opportunity to participate in civilized society. The idea of leaving transgender people out of the bill and out of this education process not only leaves transgender citizens behind, but also creates the idea that transgender people are so contemptible that even gays and lesbians want nothing to do with them.

The notion that passage of a gender identity bill will follow passage of a sexual orientation bill is dishonest. Given the extreme prejudice against transgender people, and the small size of the community, no one can seriously believe that there will be sufficient political will to pass a gender identity bill in the future. The only hope of protection for transgender people is with the help of those millions of gay people. The example of New York State demonstrates how forlorn is the notion of passing a gender identity bill. In 2002, after a contentious debate, the New York State advocates for an ENDA-type bill deleted gender identity. They promised that, after victory, the GLB community would come and rescue the T community by passing a bill on gender identity. Unsurprisingly, after the bill was passed in New York State without gender identity, the gay community moved on to the marriage issue. There’s been no push for the gender identity bill by gay and lesbian constituents, the few organizations helping the bill to limp along are voices in the wilderness, and it’s gone nowhere. There is no relief in sight for the New York State gender identity bill.

“But if the bill is defeated,” say the utilitarians, “then it’s much harder to pass it the next time if it goes down in defeat the first time, because representatives will fear changing their votes, lest they be accused of ‘flip-flopping’.” But this is a flawed argument, because ENDA was defeated in a vote in 1996, and yet it is still viable. It has been introduced in various versions since 1974, and has never died completely. ENDA is not like a health insurance proposal, or a bill to revise the tax code, or a measure to create a new spending program. Its viability is based on the needs of millions of GLBT people in our society, and it is not going to dry up and go away because it gets voted down once or twice. Rather, it will create an opportunity for millions of Americans to become educated about gay, lesbian, bisexual AND transgender citizens, and the terrible injustices done to them daily because of ignorance and prejudice. Sometimes, the purpose of legislation is the stimulus of debate, the creation of a “teachable moment,” and education of the populace. That is the purpose of ENDA in this legislative session. It’s not going to become law in any event in this session, even if enacted, because of the veto. But it is going to be the subject of a national debate.

Pushing transgender people out of the way undermines the fairness message of ENDA, and will be a terrible misstep. ENDA is about not allowing prejudice to have its way, and I commend that message to the sponsors of ENDA.

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beltcasts - eDating Dos and Don'ts

Today's beltcast is a discussion built from Fannie's post, ZOMG 100th Post!! aka eDating Do's and Don'ts. Outlawed moderates, and panelists include Fannie, Manontheside, and NforNeville. As always, you can listen to beltcasts from the beltcasts widget on the right pane of the blog.

Highlights include: discussion of various situations addressed by panelists in their recent posts, including the idea of dating HIV+, closeted, or married individuals, as well as other general questions about eDating. People interested in dating any of the panelists should tune in, as this is likely going to be more revealing than any gay.com profile you might stumble upon!

Sincerely,
ts

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Gaycraft

It’s not a big surprise for some, but queers make up a huge percentage of people out there who play video games in some shape or form. Just take a look at Gaymer.org or GayGaymer.net. As a gamer for some time now, I have a decent sense of the kind of culture out there for gamers, and I am particularly sensitive to the culture that exists in the world of MMORPGs. But I noticed a moment in recent gaming history that struck a deep chord for genderqueer-minded gamers across the world. The game in question is World of Warcraft [WoW] (with more than 7 million players worldwide), and the catalyst for this massive event was none other than:

The Male Blood Elf

In the years since the game’s debut, devoted queer players of the World of Warcraft have observed the horrifically homophobic culture of online gamers – “fag” is easily one of the most frequently used words in the game. As a result, gamers started creating guilds (such as the Spreading Taint), or clubs, within the game for LGBT-friendly people. These kinds of groups were met with opposition, however, and by none other than the game developers: the administration of Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard tried to suppress queer guilds by claiming that such organizing violated its policy against sexually explicit language or lewd behavior. After being confronted by the LGBT Task Force, Blizzard changed its tune, and now homo guilds can run around doing their thing.

But back to the Blood Elves. In early 2006, Blizzard surprised the gaming world with its announcement of an expansion, The Burning Crusade; the most important component being the introduction of the Blood Elves, a highly anticipated and much adored in-game race. But there was a twist nobody expected:

Blood Elf men are FLAMERS. Not just skinny, European metrosexuals, as most expected the Blood Elves to resemble. They are queeny, fashionistos, worthy of Fannie fierceness. Their clothes included belly-shirts; even their scripted voice phrases were steeped in queer subtext (“Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot…like…me?” “Sigh…I could really use a scrunchy…yeah, you heard me!”). They were completely unlike the rough-tough macho-male races in the game that resembled the pinnacle of Grecian physique. Blood Elf men were gender variant.

Immediately after Burning Crusade’s launch, thousands upon thousands of messages were posted on the official WoW message boards: “Why are the Blood Elves so gay?” “Sign petition to make Blood Elves men straight!” “Blood Elves are for fags.” Typical debates unraveled on the message boards about gays and straights, if gays should be on WoW, and whether the characters should be changed. How did Blizzard respond to all of these complaints?

They didn’t.

In fact, it was clear to see that despite all of the gay hate going on in the forums, thousands of people were creating new Blood Elf characters every day; even though it was super, super gay…it was still infinitely popular. Blood Elves dominated the realms, and the social culture, slowly but surely, started to change.

In my opinion, nerdy gamers in worlds like WoW, where hate-filled, homophobic people can hide behind the anonymity of their in-game avatars, are the most free they will ever be to say words like “fag” and go around calling everyone cocksuckers as often as they like. By creating a popular character that just so happens to act a little gay, Blizzard may have changed the global nerd culture to be friendlier to homos.

And I think they did it on purpose.

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beltcasts - Logo Debate

A milestone for Below the Belt, indeed! Today, BTB launched a new widget on our right-hand menu, "beltcasts". Beltcasts are streaming audio segments produced by our contributors. The widget conveniently maintains a library of our programs, much like any other music player.

Today's beltcast is a discussion of the recent Logo Debate. Manontheside moderates, and panelists include AskFannie, Outlawed, and Toughstuff. Highlights include: discussion of the general ebb and flow of the debate, questions about honesty vs. political/constructed personalities, Hillary's clothes (YES!), and ...well...an opportunity to hear the awkward voices of some of our contributors!

Sincerely,
ts

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Children

I love the fact that I know many people who are pregnant, have just had children, or have very young kids. I love kids, kids love me, and I can’t wait to adopt three kids from various continents around the world. Seriously, I can’t wait. I have wet dreams about traveling the country with my partner in search of lgbt-friendly, family-friendly neighborhoods with good schools. I’m going to be that guy with the station wagon, the baby on board stickers, and a rainbow fanny pack filled with baggies of trail mix (no raisins, though – they’re gross).

But it wasn’t until I entered a party supplies store the other day that I was reminded of a big obstacle I will have to face when I one day have kids (and, well, a big obstacle my kids will have to face, too). As I walked down the long aisle designated for children’s parties, I was attacked on both sides – screaming pink on the left, and a defiant blue on the right, items hanging over me almost ten feet above my head, both sides whispering in my ears: “choose”.

After walking through that nightmare, I was reminded of theory explaining how gender is most intensely imbued into our psyche when we are very young. As I’m thinking, I can’t imagine any kind of child-related event that is not somehow gendered hardcore according to the binary. Why is it that we barrage kids with things that are blue or pink, tough or girly – from clothes, to toys, to party favors, to gifts? Wouldn’t it make the most sense to get a better idea of what the kid really wants instead of an assumed set of gendered behaviors and interests, most of which they won’t have even fully cultivated into their personalities until the age of 4 or 5?

For all my bitching, though, I have to admit it’s likely harder than it looks. When you’re raising a kid, worrying about their health and general well-being, why do you want to waste time making sure everything you buy is gender neutral? What if your partner has dreams of their son becoming the greatest basketball player, or aspirations that their daughter will be the most beautiful girl in school? And let’s be really honest – how do you tell your husband you want to give your son a dollhouse, and how do you tell your wife you want to give your daughter a football? The thought would make most people’s skin crawl. I still think that aiming for gender neutrality (or less gender-related stress) is important, but I can tell you that I understand it may be difficult for most families.

I guess I’ve just tried to ignore the gender-specific talk from my friends about their children, how different it would be to raise a boy as opposed to a girl and vice versa (“I’ve been raising a boy for so long…I just don’t think I’d know how to raise a girl!”). I remember when I got a call from a colleague of mine who gave birth - I reported the news to the rest of my coworkers. “Is it a boy or a girl?” they asked, desperate for more information. I, however, had forgotten to ask. They were horrified: “How could you not ask?!”

I was actually kind of proud of myself. The sex wasn’t the biggest news to me – it was the fact that the child was born. And that makes me way cool. Right?

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Mary Potter: The Boi Who Lived (Fabulously!)

I’ve wanted to write a post about the big H.P., but I haven’t been able to think of something I could write about cohesively. For a little while I wanted to talk about the few (but horrifyingly obvious) sexual innuendos in the movie (Ron: “So what was it like?” … Harry: “Kind of…wet.” Delay. “…Because she was crying”). Then I wanted so badly to talk about how I finished the last installment overnight and which parts I loved most, but nothing really seemed to resonate particularly with the theme of this blog community. Then, after a few conversations with queer people, it hit me:

Harry, where are the GAYS? Now I realize this is kind of a modern dilemma whether it’s appropriate to create gay characters into major media that reaches children. Even if J. K. Rowling wanted to introduce a gay character, could she have?

If you devote enough ink to craftily introduce a gay character in a children’s series (and it would be a lot of ink – you’d have to do it carefully, sensitively, and you’d have to take on the role of educator much more than as if you’re taking about heterosexual teen dating), how can you talk about gay kids without prompting a magnifying glass on the character’s (the child’s) sexuality? Is it appropriate to suggest we could/should do this to children? And despite the problems of assuming heterosexuality for all children, it may create a bit of a window for gay kids to work out their identity internally before “choosing” sexuality. So, sorting through all these confused thoughts: As much as I would like a gay wizard at Hogwarts, I’m confused about how it should be delivered. Maybe it’s just because it’s never really been done before.

The other question I have about presenting gay characters in children’s stories is this: how do you actually, noticeably, present a gay character? It’s something the gay community has wrestled with for a while. If you made the gay male gender variant (read: gay), then you’re isolating gays who aren’t effeminate. But if you don’t make them effeminate (Brokeback-style), then you risk only making gay okay when it’s not overtly gay. And IF they’re not gender variant, then do you make them talk about their sexuality? Do you make them actively hunt other gay men? So many questions, with answers I don’t have.

But this is not to say that I’m letting Rowling off the hook. I believe she has done a very good job of creating, for the first time in popular children’s literature, a series that focuses intently on issues of mass media and exposure of identity. That said, couldn’t she have taken a little more responsibility? Ignoring the fact that Hermione, despite her smarts, is helplessly tiny and cries all the time (a gust of wind could knock that girl over); ignoring that it’s Harry’s mother, and not his father, who protected him with the obnoxiously feminized “power of love”; ignoring that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley (despite their charm) represent (and promote) the stereotypical, lower-class system of rigid gender roles; and ignoring that the highest ranking women officials always hit a glass ceiling (McGonagall, Umbridge) …why couldn’t she have appeased us all a little and thrown in a character with either a little gender variance or status as a sexual minority?

Possibly the most aggravating part of this all is that Rowling does, in fact, allude to gayness at least once in the series:

'I heard you last night,' said Dudley breathlessly. Talking in your sleep. Moaning.'

'What d'you mean?' Harry said again, but there was a cold, plunging sensation in his stomach. He had revisited the graveyard last night in his dreams.

Dudley gave a harsh bark of laughter, then adopted a high-pitched whimpering voice.

'"Don't kill Cedric! Don't kill Cedric!" Who's Cedric - your boyfriend?'

(Harry and Dudley, Book V)

So Rowling is willing to admit that gayness exists, and that it’s something that can be used as a tool for bullying – so, uh, in my book I think that means she created for herself the responsibility of playing the balancing act: if you mention gayness in such a light, you need to discuss at some point when talking about gayness is appropriate. Particularly relevant to the final book, in which Rowling suggests that identities are anything but static, and that people can change dramatically over time as they face the truth about the world and about themselves. That, and isn’t England supposed to be more queer-friendly? If this is the case, now I’m even more worried that Harry Potter’s lack of gay characters was purposeful.

So now that Rowling is charged with the task of writing Mary Potter: The Boi Who Lived (Fabulously), I leave her with a quote from wise Dumbledore:

'You fail to recognise Cornelius, that it matters not what someone is born,
but what they grow up to be!'

(Dumbledore, Book IV)

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Irrational reverence

In light of manontheside’s recent post on racial fetishization, I though I might chime in a little. I recently read David Eng’s Racial Castration: Managing Masculinity in Asian America, and while for the most part it was a review of everything I’ve already heard on the topic, the introduction was really interesting – the author provided a brief review of Fruedian fetishist theory to introduce the topic in a way I hadn’t heard before. So, in summary:

• Fetishes are sexual fixations that deviate from normative sexual behavior, and the subjects “are both inanimate and commonly considered non-sexual to an authoritative group in a society”

• Clinical psychologists typically diagnose sexual fetishism after six months of the above behavior, noting some kind of social dysfunction that results (anxiety, social displacement)

• “In the common English language, any degree of attention given to a singular inanimate object, body part, body feature or sexual behaviour may be said to be a sign of sexual fetishism. This use of the term is considered an overly compensatory gesture to the cognitive and emotional uncertainty caused by the liberation of sexual discourse, tastes and practices in the 20th century”

(thank you, Wikipedia)

For all the bad press fetishes have received over the years, doesn’t the above description of commonplace fetishism almost sound kind of normal? Perhaps an integral part of our socialization, perhaps the development of our sexuality, is founded upon fetish-like behaviors.

Now, I’m not saying that I support acceptance for cases of clinical fetishism that border on the extreme and are disruptive or damaging to the affected or the object. But the way I see fetishes described above, I can’t help but think that fetishes sound a lot like the product of the same socialized sexual behaviors we experience in the early stages of adolescence. I mean, how is it that we grow up and know how to have sex, as most understand it? We just turn 13 and realize that a penis going into a vagina is sex? Or we come out as lesbian or gay and then learn how to use strap-ons or perform anal sex, respectively (limited [and limiting] examples, I know, but bear with me)? I just don’t buy it. There’s a reason why we hear stories about guys who get off too quickly the first time they have sex with a woman – growing up, they dreamed about their first time for years; all those Playboys, porn from the internet, stories they hear from other guys. They were taught that putting their penis in a vagina is hot, empowering, infinitely pleasurable, and that it will turn them into a man – they are taught to harness their newly explosive sexual energy into an organized fixation around heterosexual, vaginal penetration. Sex isn’t natural; it’s a result of an accepted sexual fetishization.

So, if the above is true, then does that mean that most sexual practices we find attractive are the result of fixation? In many cases, “true love” is known as mutual fixation on each other. That’s nice. But what I’m interested in is how those of us develop our attraction. Rarely have I met sexual people that truly stand by their claim that “they’re open to dating most people”. Usually I meet people that adhere to a system of attraction that reflects western capitalist hierarchy. All gay men should know that the hottest guys are white and masculine, and the least favored are asian and flamers (black and latino men win points for being tough, but aren’t white, so often they hit a glass ceiling). Similarly, many heterosexual white women don’t realize that when guys “aren’t their type” they’re probably just not white or masculine either. Straight guys, of course, aren’t left out – thin women, white women, feminine women. We may be attracted to different things, but our systems of attraction, when analyzed, pretty clearly reflect a mindset created by the society they grew up in. There is of course room for deviation (we’re here for a reason!), but I speak of our society as a whole.

Then I guess the only way to deviate, or to escape how we were socialized growing up, is to fetishize. Maybe rice queens grow up learning to find many aspects of Asian/gaysian male culture extremely rewarding – among culturally rewarding factors, let’s talk sex: To deviate from society’s strong psychological push to infantilize Asian men, maybe some guys fetishize by race (and transform “the effeminate Asian man” from a repulsive concept to instead a perfect fit in a new, gendered sexual role that can fit like a glove – an exotic, submissive bottom) in order to get it up. Sad as that may be, I think it’s true in a lot of cases.

And I’m not escaping responsibility, here. Why do I typically find most attractive guys who are tall, scruffy, and white? Sounds pretty Brokeback to me – guess I fall into the trap of the western ideal. Recently, though, I dated an Israeli guy that I really liked a lot. When we went our separate ways, I really missed him. Now for some reason, I have a thing for Israeli guys – the dark skin just drives me crazy. What does this mean, having said all of the above? Is this okay, or is it racist? How much control do we have over our attraction? When do we reward our desires, and which behaviors should we suppress?

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Say my name.

I was talking recently with a friend of mine over a beer – we were comparing our college experiences. I went to a moderate-to-conservative private college in the south; she went to a famously open-minded private college in New England. Environment doesn’t always play a factor in one’s decision to identify deviantly, so to speak, but in my case I think it did. I was wound up so tightly that I needed to be in an community that pushed me out of the closet; I needed to be in an inflexible environment that disallowed any kind of identity that wasn’t completely In or completely Out.

But what I really want to talk about is the moment of truth, the moment I not only realized but the moment that I accepted. The point of no return. Here’s how I unraveled:

My first year at college was a nightmare, and it was mostly my fault. I was quiet, anxious, and afraid of being called out. I was afraid of being noticed for fear that someone might see parts of me I wasn’t comfortable baring. The combination of my own inflexibility with the general social inflexibility of my college created a bit of a psychological time bomb in my head. I chose to deal with my unhappiness at college through complete disbelief: everything was fine, and everything will be better when I transfer, everything will be better after I graduate.

The problem is, for whatever reason, the gays on campus found me. Over the matter of a semester and a half, I befriended the gays on campus, curious as to why they all managed to introduce themselves to me. They were the only real friends I had. Little did I know that by being so aggressive and friendly, they planted a seed deep in my brain – they introduced to me a new identity that somehow managed to get by, to live happily despite all the pressure on them to cease to exist. But I refused to go out and socialize with them; I refused to take another step across the diving board into what I considered a self-abating spiral of masculinity, into non-heterosexuality.

As the first year rolled into second semester, my friendships with the campus gays grew, and my perception of the community shifted to a more positive lens. I started to help with campus LGBT activism as a straight ally, collecting signatures for petitions I’d advertise in classes where I felt comfortable.

Now here’s where I’ve been leading – my meeting with Dr. Jones, esteemed professor of southern literature. After she encouraged me to make an announcement to my classmates about one of our petitions, I met with her privately to discuss my thoughts on a thesis I was developing for a paper. But she didn’t really want to talk about my paper.

“I really admire all the work you’re doing; I can’t even imagine the struggles you must have endured during just your short time here.”

I smiled blankly and nodded, confused.

“I mean, I myself studied at schools in the south, but there were still vibrant, encouraging communities for gay and lesbian students.”

I still smiled blankly and nodded, but my insides screamed horror. I was trapped.

“So, as a gay student, have you found your experience here to be as dreadful as I hear it can be?”

And with that question, with that presumption of my identity, I had been given a choice. Until this moment I had not considered for even a second that I was gay; it just wasn’t an option. But here, so innocently, Dr. Jones – a gracefully aged woman, looking at me with empathetic, concerned brown eyes – called on me to reidentify.

Something happened. It was entirely impulsive, like a twig snapping under someone’s weight. In those few seconds before speaking, I didn’t think about consequences. I wanted to finally be able to communicate with someone and feel comfortable and know that they felt comfortable, too. I wanted so desperately to really talk with her. I just wanted for one small moment – one small moment in the anxious existence I constructed around myself – to breathe.

And then, as I felt my lips begin to whisper, I exhaled:

“…it hasn’t been too bad.”

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On wanting to be a dyke.

Okay, it’s time. The pink elephant in the room needs to be acknowledged.

For too long have we rallied at pro-choice events, for too long have we attended Indigo Girls concerts, trailed the Aimee Mann roadshows, and followed the Ani Difranco dykescapades. We’re the gays who meet a guy and then u-haul after just a few great dates. For too long have we dressed unfashionably, eaten excessive amounts of tofu, and dreamt about a life full of suburbia, station wagons, and kids. It’s time we had a voice.

We are the lesbimans.


It’s a tumultuous existence, I admit. We’re loaded with incongruence: gay men, but drawn to lesbians; we find powerful women riveting; we believe overt, male-embodied masculinity is passée and often revolting. We wish we were dykes.

Why are we lesbimans?

Okay, okay. Mostly because we feel rejected or out of place in the mainstream gay male community. But this rejection isn’t really about not being cool or not being attractive enough. Actually…maybe it is. There’s a sense of security I find with lesbians, and it’s a security I can routinely find. No other group of people makes me feel so comfortable. But that security comes hand-in-hand with the fact that I am here because I am generally uncomfortable among gaggles of gays. I’m not pretty enough, I’m not quick enough, I don’t have a snappy retort or I’m not butch enough, I care about things like politics, family and equality, and I clearly – clearly – can’t dress myself with anything that doesn’t involve a hoodie.

But I can’t just say that I don’t like mainstream gays because I feel rejected by them – I have to come up with something else. I think a big part of it is that gay masculinity, as it stands, is far too anxious, far too restrictive for me to even want to try and deal with. After spending half of my college career coming to terms with my sexuality and my identity, I don’t need to spend the rest of my young life trying to maintain a gender image that in all honesty I find completely ridiculous. I love Jake Gyllenhaal, but Brokeback did more than make gay romance okay. It solidified the nearly unattainable gay ideal that is traditional masculinity and brought us back to the YMCA-singing, butch-fetishizing, self-hating Marys.

So how did this all start? Why are gay men, of all people, obsessed with being butch?

I remember going on a date with someone ten years my senior (he was 33, you do the math), and I tried to gently suggest that I have a lot of lesbian friends. He seemed off-put. “Lesbians?” he asked. I could tell he was trying to figure out if I was joking about being friends with them or not. He finally got that I was serious. “Of course I’m not friends them,” he replied. “I mean, they’re lesbians. They eat pussy.”

A former professor of mine once outright asked me if I hated women because I’m gay. Astounded, I tried to work out the concept in my head. My 33-year-old date filled in the gap I was missing; gay male culture, historically, has been organized around the desire for an environment completely void of vagina. Perhaps, back in the day, this was about creating a community and trying to stay alive. Perhaps it was about passing – being gay, but tricking the world into thinking you’re straight. And maybe even it was about self-censorship – being gay, but not offending anyone with any of that, god forbid, flamboyant behavior.

But times are a’changin’. Nowadays I’ll go to lesbian bars and actually meet guys I really like. There’s a community of us growing, and we don’t need to isolate ourselves by gender in order to find what we’re looking for.

Stay strong.

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Timberlady

Okay, so I admit it, I like listening to Justin Timberlake. His latest stuff is better and gayer than ever, with fun dance beats that make me want to dance in my room like the white gay boy I am. He’s hot, has a pretty face, and maintains enough scruff to keep me going. And even though, when interviewed, he talks and acts like a tough guy (he talks thug, and has the guy-swagger), like a guy trying to make up for the fact that he was in a boy band and regularly sings falsetto, I still think he’s very attractive and a good singer.

But I have a theory about J. Timbs, and it’s not that I think he’s gay. Actually? I think he’s a tranny.

The song in question is his big one: “SexyBack”. I remember listening to it the first time and thinking, is this really Justin? The beat was great, Timbaland’s voice was hot, and Justin’s modified vocals were interesting. Beyond that, the song is pretty sexual. Me gusta.

So, to repeat: the song is pretty sexual, and I think most people would agree. But what gives it that quality? They’re talking about girls, about getting sexy on, about partying, about how to get a girl. The refrain hit me again, Timbaland’s sultry voice singing: “Come here girl…Come to the back.” Justin’s voice then echoes in my head: “Go ahead, be gone with it…Go ahead, be gone with it.”

And then it occurred to me. Justin’s voice, altered as it is, kinda makes him sound like a girl. Really, it does. And…in fact…the way the refrain works? Kind of makes Timbaland sound like the man, and Justin like the woman in this storyline they’re creating with the lyrics. I know I’m asking a lot of the reader, and most of you might think I’m crazy, but just try and listen to this song with this idea in mind:

Guy at bar: “Come here girl.”
Girl at bar: “Go ahead, be gone with it.”
Guy at bar: “Let me see what you’re working with.”
Girl at bar: “Go ahead, be gone with it.”
Guy at bar: “Look at those hips.”
Guy at bar: “You make me smile.”
Guy at bar: “Get your sexy on.”
Girl at bar: “Go ahead, be gone with it.”

Hmm. So if you’re starting to pick up what I’m putting down, you might counter: What if he’s just “playing” a girl, or pretending to be a girl for the purpose of the storyline?

Good question. I’d still argue that Timberlake isn’t pretending; he’s unintentionally transgendering himself in this song (reidentifying as a woman). Why? Because if he were to pretend to be a girl, that would mean that Timbaland and Justin, for the purposes of the song, were pretending to flirt with each other and hint at the possibility of hooking up. Would that float for Justin Timberlake, the same man who wouldn’t willingly wear the gay label during an AIDS awareness video (December 12, 2001)? No.

And so, in summary, Justin Timberlake is a tranny. I’m sure many members of the trans community are screaming: “Take him back!”

Listen to SexyBack

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Don't feed the queers.

Remember criticism that shows like Friends and Seinfeld received in terms of their homogeneity (“How can a show based in New York City never have any people of color?!”)? While any given show might have good writing and directing and what have you, it can be pretty important to present a convincing portrayal of what’s being performed through the look and feel of the performers themselves.

Because Work Out has depressingly failed me as it finished its season, I’m moving on. It’s time to talk about what’s really important; the staple of my everyday television diet: The Food Network.

The Food Network boasts a number of incredible winners and a handful of terrible losers. Despite the fact that the Network is about food, the channel is entirely founded upon culture and old, new, and transformed representations of culture as demonstrated through the process of culinary preparation and how it is ultimately enjoyed. And by the way, it’s really queer. But I’ll get to that later. First, a quick snapshot:

I used to come home from work and watch Giada De Laurentiis as I settled down from a hard day. With her carefully applied makeup and low cut dresses, Giada prepares her food and invites the camera to zoom onto her hands as she chops; the camera lens dwells on her lips as she consumes high-fashion meals and sugary desserts. Though I admit that I mostly hate her for the implicit classism which her recipe choices exude across the television set; she’s filmed like a porn star – delicately masked with a sheeshy, “proper” demeanor – and it’s fun. Playboy Bunny Delaurentis.

After changing into something more comfortable and preparing some food myself, I’d eat my dinner with the queen bee of cuisine, Rachael Ray. All hail -- seriously. Rachael’s brought back the talkative Italian housewife to the mainstream, this time adding some serious tom girl action. What a tom girl. She’s cheap (or at least tries to convince us she’s on a budget), eager to roll back her sleeves and get dirty, and she can probably hold her liquor better than most.

After Rachael, I’d catch a little of Emeril. The biggest loser award, hands-down, goes to Emeril. What a tool. Every time he chops, stirs, sautés, or seasons I want to projectile vomit on the screen. Not one moment, not one motion of his show is uncalculated – for Emeril, it’s all about masculinity. When he cooks his food he struts around the kitchen; he flaunts his dominance over the raw meat and vegetables; moans “Oh, baby!” when pleasured by his own work; and occasionally even drops an awkward sexual innuendo about him actually getting laid. The kicker is that he’s threatened by Rachael’s success. During his show after he cut something cleverly, I actually heard him say: “How’s that, Rachael?" Awkward. Emeril, it’s not a competition if she isn’t trying.

But I guess my overarching point here is that to the naked eye, the Food Network seems pretty whitewashed. And according to the content of the shows, it is. But the irony, here, is that the Food Network has a huge queer following. Almost every homo I know watches the channel, has a favorite chef or show, and creamed themselves when Rachael and Giada faced off on Celebrity Iron Chef (Giada was SO bitter). The gays that love Giada are usually bitchy, classist queens; the mo’s that are into Rachael are typically dykes or butch-bent trannies and other queers; the followers of Sandra Lee are often the diva-loving, cher-worshipping, bleached-hair Marys.

But the question then, I guess, is how did this happen? How does the Food Network, of all things, become queered? Do we as queer viewers just automatically queer everything we see, regardless of the intention behind the viewed performance? Perhaps. But I can hardly believe that we did this all by ourselves. My theory? There’s something a little queer over at the Food Network headquarters. Every time the Barefoot Contessa invites her male floral arranger over for dinner with his “good friend”, I smile a little bit. As the Food Network wrestles to manage its viewership over time, from the truly closed-minded in middle America to the flaming queers across the country, my guess is that we’re going to start seeing a little more gayness each day. So keep tuning in, dear queers. As long as we’re cooking together, we’ll stay together. Until we have an openly queer cast member on the Food Network, feel free to relish in AskFannie’s version of Rachael. And what a beautiful vision it is.

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str8 acting muscle lkng4 same

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a shy guy. Gay bars are great for looking, but it’s not easy for me to make that move – to go up and talk to someone I find ridiculously attractive. I’ve been on the market long enough to know I’m a good-looking dude, but something still stops me from confidently walking up to someone I’m interested in.

So one option here would be to suck it up manontheside-style and go after what I want no matter what. Another option: log on to one of many social networking sites (MySpace, Connexion, Match, Manhunt, Gay.com, Facebook [yep], GLEE, and even the fellas on Craigslist) and hide behind the emotionally protective barrier that is my computer screen. Let’s guess for a second which option I more frequently select.

If we were to look past the standard depressing moments that the e-hunt can bring, i.e. that moment when you realize you’ve been perusing picture after picture for an hour; or when someone e-flirts with you for the second time…despite the fact that they already e-flirted (and failed) over a month ago and forgot; or when you e-flirt with someone and then realize that you already e-flirted (and failed) over a month ago and forgot. We can and should acknowledge that many people can and do really find what they’re looking for online. And, well…sometimes it’s a nice feeling to log on and find a number of anonymous compliments.

Last time I logged onto Manhunt (what I seriously believe to be one of the most honest e-portrayals of “What I’m looking for” – nowhere else do people feel compelled to say in the most blunt fashion what they find attractive [and unattractive]), I counted: 250 out of 340 profiles online in the western area of Manhattan listed “masculine” or “str8 acting” as a requirement for potential hookups. A requirement! Some even dared to publicly interweave race with gender: “sorry, no asns…not looking for girls..haha.”

I find it very difficult to believe gay guys who claim they don’t think gender prejudice exists within the gay community. It’s one thing to acknowledge that it’s there and they don’t care, but it’s another to say that it just doesn’t exist. Shouldn’t we be responsible for what qualities we’re attracted to? Flamers should be valued just as highly as butch guys. Something has to be done.

So my brain was swirling with all these frustrated thoughts the other night, as I was wasting time skimming countless profiles and deciding which ones I wanted to click for more pictures. One caught my eye: muscular shot of a headless torso with a bulging bicep in clear view; his personal ad finished, “Femme need not apply.” Before I had enough time to blink, the mouse had clicked.

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