Search results that brought a visitor to this blog

Another google search using the question “is it gay to tuck your pants into your boots?” directed a visitor to this blog.

Oh cripes, gimme a break.  Insecurity rules among young-uns.  Go tell a motorcycle police officer this stuff….

This is what Kevin described in his comment to last Friday’s post on this blog. This type of query on the internet is another indication of “fear of label” — that is, homophobia by fear of being called gay, simply by tucking jeans into one’s boots.

Sheesh, this is absolutely ridiculous. I learned from Kevin’s remark, and believe it, that some guys are really afraid of having that label applied to them because it can very well mean trouble. Name-calling has led to some vicious attacks resulting in bodily injury and death — simply because someone is “accused” of being gay by the way he talks, walks, or what he wears. This must stop!

If you’ve got a hang-up due to “fear of label” about wearing boots with jeans tucked into them, then don’t.  But if you have courage enough to seek more information and if you’re man enough to wear your boots with jeans tucked into them and with pride, then see this page on my website: Jeans and Cowboy Boots.

Life is short:  grow up if you worry about such matters.

I thank my friend Kevin for pointing out the following opinion piece in a recent edition of The Christian Science Monitor whose title is:  “Homophobia Hurts Straight Men, Too.”  The full article is here.

The main point of the article is made at the top, where it says, “men rarely sustain intimate, long-standing friendships with other males after childhood. And the reason might surprise you: According to a large body of research, they’re afraid of being seen as gay.”

The article describes a time, not that long ago, where it wasn’t strange or uncommon for adult men to enjoy physical closeness: a hug, holding one another with arms around shoulders, etc.  But not today.

Today, you can barely shake another guy’s hand before he steps back to establish a large physical distance from you.  It saddens me that men have distanced themselves physically and emotionally from each other for about the past three decades — for fear of being labeled as gay.

The article further demonstrates how name-calling from school carries into adult life.  In school, kids call each other all sorts of names.  But none are intended to be as hurtful as being called “gay, queer, or fag.”  The expression, “that’s so gay” refers to actions or behaviors — anywhere from wearing jeans tucked into cowboy boots to having another guy ride as a passenger on a motorcycle operated by a guy.

A paragraph in the middle of the opinion piece spoke directly to this matter.  It said, “But to fight intolerance against gay boys, we also need to acknowledge its toll on straights – and our entire culture. Homophobia hurts all of our boys, by driving a wedge between them. Sharing your deepest feelings with another man? That’s so . . . gay. Or so we’ve been taught.”

That’s what bothers me a lot about the straight guys I know.  I sense that they would like to be more open and demonstrate greater sensitivity, but society has taught them through homophobia to back off, clam up, and “be a man” by being the strong silent type.  

Oh cripes, gimme a break.  Guys have feelings too, and should show them (besides losing one’s temper.)

The summary of the article is so true, and telling:  “And you can hear the message still, at any school or playground, where they call each other homo, fag, or queer. That hurts the gay kids most of all, as the awful death of Tyler Clementi reminds us. But it hurts the rest of us, too, by limiting the ways that men can act and feel. And that’s bad news for all American men, and for anyone – male or female – who loves them.”

Come on, straight guys, GET OVER IT!  You can’t and won’t “become” gay by associating with other men who are gay, or by enjoying physical closeness with another guy beyond a handshake.  It’s okay, being gay isn’t a disease and isn’t contagious.  A boy is gay when he is born, as I was (though I didn’t realize it until adulthood.)

Life is short:  get over your hangups, and enjoy close camaraderie with other guys!

I am writing this post on Tuesday evening, whilst my partner is making me suffer through viewing a show on the Logo network called “A List: New York.”  The show was composed of several interviews of “fabulous” gay men in New York City who are so full of themselves and “who they know and where we go” (to select parties, nightspots, etc.) …

…that it just made me sick.  Gosh, if these guys are supposed to be the trend-setters, then send me back to Oklahoma in my jeans and cowboy boots, whilst riding my Harley.

All I can say is yuck, ick, sucky, gross….  definitely NOT me.  The only thing these gay twits “set” is not trends, but stereotypes.  I finally insisted that he turn it off and watch something else.  It was that bad!

The review of this show in The Washington Post ended with these two paragraphs, which in my opinion, clearly describe what’s bad about this show:

The message in “The A-List” is that it’s too easy for gay men to get caught up in whatever status war happens to be available, and nothing is quite so withering as the dismissive sneer from an A-gay. You get all the way through the torment of being gay in small towns, high schools and churches, move to the big city, and find, as Karen Carpenter sang, we’ve only just begun.  No one really talks about why gay men can be so strangely cruel to one another, nor do they ever talk about how gay cliques might inhibit the broader effort to win equal rights.

“The A-List” is, of course, a poor excuse for a social study. Like all reality shows, it quickly turns its attention to the Jacuzzi, and here, at least one measure of equality is achieved: Gay men turn out to be just as distasteful and empty-headed as all the straight people on reality TV.

Life is short:  read a book.

Lately the case of the suicide of 18-year-old Rutgers University student, Tyler Clementi, has made world news.  It is alleged that Tyler’s dorm roommate and his girlfriend secretly captured webcam video of Tyler kissing another man and then broadcasted the video to a wide audience.  Tyler committed suicide soon after he found out about the internet broadcast of a very private, personal situation.

This is a clear case of cyber-bullying, and it just has to stop! 

I have blogged about how I felt as a kid in junior high — always picked on and bullied.  But the bullying was done in person by name-calling and physical attacks when teachers, other adults, or my taller “protector super-jock” twin brother weren’t around.  I was picked on simply because I was an easy target.  I was small for my age.  I was weak and undeveloped.  I took everything personally.  I was easily hurt.  I couldn’t hold a “poker face” so the bullies knew they were getting to me.

They would call me names like “fag” but I really didn’t take it as being related to my being gay.  I really meant it when I said that I never really knew about my sexuality until much later in life.  I really was a “late bloomer.”  I wasn’t interested in girls or guys when I was in my teens.  But I know that’s not true for lots of teens who have active sex at young ages, and some of those sexual encounters are with someone of the same sex.

Nonetheless, I guess I was lucky that Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet when I was in junior high school, as assuredly I would have been picked on via social networks and other ways had those methods been available when I was 13 years old.

A commentator on TV said that the problem with the Internet is that bullying can continue, non-stop, and inside someone’s home — where he (or she) feels safest.  That scares me.  I think Ellen DeGeneres statement says best about how I feel about this situation, too.  I have embedded it here:

Life is short:  be civil.