Category: ultragay

Always Be Prepared

As if I didn’t have enough to do already, I decided to throw together a wee little something about the whole Boy Scouts brouhaha, with a few reference materials pulled from my vast archive of fun stuff.

First, an excerpt from a Boys Scouts of America guide to physical fitness, ©1968:

Another subject about which there is much misinformation is homosexuality. This term is generally used to describe a fixed adult pattern of behavior in which an individual is sexually attracted only to members of his own sex. Many boys before they become interested in girls develop strong friendships with other boys. This is perfectly normal and will lead to many strong friendships for the rest of their lives. It does not mean they are homosexuals or are not manly or will not develop an interest on girls. As they grow and widen their circle of friends and activities, they will become attracted to the opposite sex. If a young man has any questions about this area of friendship, he should certainly consult his parents and spiritual adviser for guidance.

That color is fabulous on you!There’s been a lot of hullaballoo about the Supreme Court’s ruling that supports the right of the Boys scouts of America to exclude gays from the organization. Despite my inherent belief that gays should be able to do whatever the hell anyone else can do, I must admit that I’m with the Supreme Court on this one. If the Boy Scouts are willing to stand by the idea that the right to exclude homosexuals from membership is a central part of their mission and their ideological foundation, then they should have the right to do so. The flip side to this is that they have to take a situation that they would probably prefer to ignore and make it a central part of their ideological foundation.

I hope the scouts do make this a big issue, but I really hope that people have the good sense to take them to task for making exclusion — rather than acceptance — a central part of their mission. I hope this is something that forces to the scouts to reevaluate what it is they’re doing. scout literature talks a lot about upholding ethical and community standards, but the organization is acting as if those standards are static, and not subject to evolution or variation from place to place. That’s crap. I wonder if something like this happened to Jewish scouts at some point. I wonder if the scouts will change this as homophobia continues to erode in this country. I wonder if this will cause a splintering of the organization as people involved at the local level who believe in the more humanistic ideals of the organization decide to stand by the gay people they know. I wonder.

I don’t really have anything against the Boy Scouts, except for their reactionary stance on this particular issue. I was a Cub Scout for two years, and I thought it was pretty lame. But I know other guys — gay and straight alike — who had a number of good experiences with the scouts, and think they are better for having joined them. (As a matter of fact, I know guys who had a number of good sexual experiences in the Boy Scouts. Will they have to institute a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy? I wonder.) But I think that now’s the time to ask if the scouts are really doing such good work if their idea of preparing young men to be good citizens is to just out those who don’t agree with them. Or who might — heaven forbid — help them live up to part of their own Oath: “A scout is a friend to all. He is a brother to other scouts. He seeks to understand others. He respects those with ideas and customs other than his own.”

Gay Shame

It’s Homo Overload…whoops, I mean Gay Pride Week here in New York, so I guess it’s only fitting that I chime in on the subject. But before I do, I just want y’all to think about this question posed by the Paris ACT UP chapter: “Proud of what?”

Gay Pride doesn’t inspire any particular pride in me. In fact, it makes me cringe with embarrassment and loathing. Not the idea of it, but the actual event in all its glitzy, our-way-or-the-highway madness. I don’t even know where to begin. (Paul Baker’s Burn Your Jockstrap site articulates my frustrations with gay culture much better than I ever could, anyway, so go look at that.) The homos are pretty homogenous — at least within each of their cliques — and it irritates me that there’s a parade to prove it.

The thing to keep in mind is that I love being gay. I mean, there’s no question about it. I’m really, really gay. And yes, I’m proud of it. I don’t mean that I’m a prancing nancy, or a pumped-up pretty boy, or straight-acting bear (all of which are terms that could be used to describe people I love). I’m Sparky. I am, among other things, an enthusiatic lover of other fellas. And goddamn I’m proud of that! It’s a part of me, and a pretty significant part, one which influences a lot of the other parts.

Coming out wasn’t a huge dilemma for me, even though I did it at the ripe old age of 21. I did it when the time was right for me, when I had the insight and energy to deal with that aspect of life. No trauma, just a couple of awkward conversations. But to get to that point, I had to figure out some stuff about my life and the world around me, and that’s good. If I weren’t gay, I may not have thought as much about what makes me the person I am. I’m proud that I had to ask myself difficult questions, and proud that I sorted out some sort of direction in a sea of conflicting opinions. I’m proud that I chose for myself what I want, and didn’t hold myself to what my folks or my school or my friends naturally assumed would be the way things worked.

I didn’t shut off that way of thinking when I confronted gay culture, which is why I get so incensed by this feeling that the so-called gay counter-culture would, if it could, impose the same kind of rigorous expectations on me as the so-called mainstream. screw it. I’m not any more likely to go to the gym to beef up my tits than I am to marry the girl next door and settle down in a house in Nutley, New Jersey, or shoot heroin in a crack den. I said “no” to all that. And I don‘t wish to be told I’m a loser for not making any one of those things a priority.

For me, gay pride is an everyday fact of life. An excuse to say, “That’s me, dig it or ditch it,” just like any other aspect of myself. I don’t want to be like every other gay person in the world, especially not if they’re trying to be just like everyone else (except, of course, for more inherently fabulous because they’re gay). If I were to let that happen, I’d be a whole let less Sparky, wouldn’t I?

What’s the Rumpus?

You know, even in the 12 years or so since I’ve been in high school, I can see that things have really come a long way. Check out this great story about New Orleans’ gay prom. It’s so sweet I’m about to pass out from a hypoglycemic fit. All things being equal, I would much rather worry about finding the right skaterboy to take to the prom, rather than finding the right beard or sympathetic female friend. (Props to Don for the link. Go read his saucy site.)

And for the record, I did not go to my high school prom, even though it was being held at the swanky Plaza Hotel. However, I did go to another prom at the end of my freshman year of college at the highly overrated Tavern on the Green. It was there that I began to really appreciate the charms of the beautiful woman (not my date, but that’s another story altogether) who I would date for the next year-and-a-half. Yes, it’s true. Actual, true love — with a chick! Life is a journey, as they say.

Now that I’m working from home again, I’ve been playing all these CDs I have that I never liked enough to listen to all that much. (Ouch! Did that sentence throw grammar to the wind, or what? You try diagramming it.) so I slap in this Hooverphonic CD someone sent me and suddenly realize that I own the piece of music from the vapor-colored Volkswagon commercial that everyone seems to be scrambling to identify. I guess I was cool enough to dismiss it months ago. By the way, does anyone else think that every under-30 dot-com millionaire is scrambling to be one of the 2000 lucky owners of those things? I bet we see a hundred of them up on eBay before too long, at double the price.

The Most Homoerotic of All Wrestling

Mmmmmmm, oily Turks. A short while back, I read a couple of news articles (no, I’m not going to look for them to give you a link) about a minor uproar over this traditional Turkish event where all these guys dressed in leather breaches, covered themselves in oil, and wrestled each other. Yes, that’s right: Turkish leather oil wrestling. Apparently, the Turks were a bit upset about foreigners seeing homoerotic connotations in this. They claimed that there are no homosexuals in Turkey. Yeah right, just like there are none in Latin America. Anyway, look at some pictures and decide for yourself.

Our Heroines

The fun keeps on coming over at the Personalized Village People survey. Check out the results, and don’t be shy about sending in your own response.

I finally saw Valley of the Dolls this weekend, and it was more delicious than I could have ever guessed. The musical numbers! The wigs! The scenery-chewing! The bitchy retorts! The giant plexiglass mobile! The necklace that becomes a bustier! I was speechless. Considering how deeply saturated my pop-culture awarenes is with elements from this movie, it’s amazing that I had never seen it before. I’m glad my first time was at a movie theater, so I could get the added effect of the crowd clapping and cheering at favoite moments throughout.

Swedish Models Are Just Like You and Me

Swedish models and smart porn. Got your attention there, didn’t I? I couldn’t help but chuckle when that picture popped up in David K.’s Diary on Nightcharm, illustrating a remark about magazine ads that make you embarrassed to be gay. First of all, yes: It’s so blatantly targeted to the vain gayboys out there that I used to wince every time I saw it fly by on a bus or peek out at me from a magazine. More distracting, though, is the fact that the model is my friend Jakob, an obscenely beautiful and scruffy swedish straight boy (and a brunette) I met in grad school last year. (He cashes in on the occasional modeling job to supplement the cash from his web design studio.) And since coincidence rules my life, I had been talking to Jakob for the first time in months just the day before I read David K.’s post.

(Don’t get me started on coincidence and the Web. I could write a fucking book. Or at leat draw a sprawling wall map.)

I’ve never wanted to up and ask Jakob if he realizes how trashily fey the ad makes him out to be. I think he’s already embarrassed enough about how cheesy that dye job is.

Fresh Start

The big news, if I haven’t blabbed it to you yet, is that I finally quit my job. Woo hoo! No more two-hour commute (on a good day)! Back to doing freelance work in the comfort of my own home! Of course, whenever I quit a job, I always feel huge pangs of guilt. I didn’t hate the place or the work, just the grueling trip back and forth. Too bad it couldn’t have worked out another way. Oh well, at least I’m free to help out the glamorous world of public television for a few months again.

Movies for Gay Boys

That Gregg Araki, he sure does make a sexy movie. Not to mention pretty goofy and fun. His pop culture allegiances also strike right to the heart of the teenage New Waver that would later become Sparky. Unfortunately, most of his stuff isn’t out (ba dump bump!) on DVD yet, so it looks like it’ll be a while more before I finally get to see Nowhere or Totally Fucked Up (no asterisks for this cat).

Also, check out the ultimately happy story of Rusty. It’s cute.