Homo Standard?

I was talking to a male friend about Halloween in West Hollywood the other day. I have never celebrated this holiday in Los Angeles, though I did spend one crazy October 31st in the Castro, the San Francisco equivalent. My friend, Javi, was discussing the intricate and impressive costumes of the many celebrants. As he told the story he then mentioned a distasteful experience when a man pinched his butt cheeks.

My response was, “Well, was he cute?” Javi was not amused by said comment and retorted, “I turned around and said, ‘What the fuck? You faggot!’ I was ready to throw down but he had a lot of friends with him so I let it go.”

When I told Javi that it was unnecessary to hate on the man for simply going after what he liked, in a gayborhood, there was no call for yelling, “faggot.” Obviously, this Halloweener thought my friend was cute and when I told Javi he should be flattered, he told me he wasn’t into that gay shit.

Let’s back up the truck. I asked that he imagine another situation in which a woman had grabbed his ass. Javi took a minute to contemplate the fingers of this fantasy woman caressing his caboose when he said, “Well, if she’s cute then I would love it.” And what about a woman expressing her desire for another woman through the pinching of a cheek? He couldn’t comment on that…

This pissed me off. To begin, violence is so unbecoming, why must every action result in the swinging of a fist? Here this man was, having fun on All Hallows Eve, when he saw an attractive ass, gave it a little smack, and is that really cause to knock the fan’s lights out? Furthermore, what I am betting really irritated my friend was that he liked it. He, of course, would be unwilling to admit this, but check this out:

There is this fabulous documentary called “Middle Sex” which follows the lives of homosexuals across the globe. In part of the film there is an experiment conducted by the University of Michigan to test homophobia. The researchers collected a sample of straight men that were completely at ease with other gay men, and in another cluster they recruited a group of homophobic men. In the tests, they had each man individually sit in a room and watch gay porn while being attached to machines that tested their biological responses. In all cases, the straight non-homophobic men had no reaction, whereas the homophobic men were often sexually aroused.

This is a scientifically tested reaction to a fact we already know: those who are homophobic experience these feelings in response to their own repressed attractions to the same sex or other insecurities about their sexualities. Javi’s reaction to the man who grabbed his butt was an example of this: it enraged him that a man would do that. Granted, I might feel violated if a random man did that to me, though I would probably not feel inclined to scream, “you fucking heterosexual.”

After seeing the aforementioned documentary I recalled a friend I used to travel with while an undergrad at CAL. I had this friend at UC Berkeley, who was against gay marriage. She was married to a man, technically, though was on the global market while traveling. Although she claimed that gay people should not have the right to marry, I couldn’t help but get thrown aback one day when she told me about the time she had a girlfriend. We were eating turkey burgers at Blake’s on Telegraph one day after Spanish class and she started telling me about her brief interlude with women. She said that she tried it but that the woman she was with was crazy and thus, it did not work out. I found it utterly fascinating that this woman had actually had a same sex experience and yet was still against gay marriage. Although I don’t know what sort of authority she thought she was on the institution of marriage, seeing as her husband had no idea what she was doing while in Argentina…

Another thing that enrages me is the homosexual double standard: So often on television it is seen as attractive for women to make out or experiment with one another, and yet when it comes to men, this is not seen as desirable. I have this homophobic male friend, who, one day, was listing the reasons why gay people should not have the right to marry. However, when talking about television, he said he was a fan of The L Word. For, it was “hot” to see women dating one another, and while they may have given him many a boner, he was not willing to repay their kindness with a marriage certificate. Go figure.

Sexual attractions are complicated and even for those who do not identify as homo/bi/transsexual, we are all a little bit gay by nature. There are varying degrees to this gayness, but there are qualities that we are attracted to that are found in both men and women. A good friend recently reminded me, that as Nietzsche says, there is no right or wrong, only good and bad encounters.