not gay enough

Some years back, I was in a new city I went to a popular homo bar I'd read about in the Damron Guidebook on a slow Sunday afternoon looking to meet some "family". Without being asked I got told pointedly that "I hope you know what kind of bar this is. You can leave now if you want to. If this kind of place doesn't bother you then buy a drink and shut up." All this said without me getting a chance to speak one way or another by a flaming little gym queen who brought me my beer (bottled -didn't even offer me a glass) then made a point of walking away to talk with the only other three or four folks at the bar, occasionally scowling over in my direction but otherwise ignoring me. Screw 'em if they can't take a joke, I thought and so I left after drinking my beer.

Another time, there was this bar in a VERY secluded location, called the "Barking Spider" You had to search for a tiny sign several miles from the bar just after a turnoff near a highway exit. Then you drive a few miles till you found the place. The bar was in an old VFW Post hall, set back from the road aways and otherwise unmarked. You HAD to know what kind of bar it was to even stop at the place. I went in, and got carded, questioned at the door and told there was a cover charge before I was allowed to go into the place. Several other obvious effeminate types, and some little preppy boys were admitted without paying the cover. The bouncer obviously knew the boys entering, greeting each of them by name. I did stay, actually had a pretty good time once I got in (they also had a spread of food and good music) but I never went back.

Yet another time, I drove all over creation trying to find another in-the-middle-of-nowhere place someone at a pickle park told me about. This place was sort in the middle of a wildreness area not far from hunting and camping trails.

At the front door a BIG heavy set queen (he had a lisp and lilt in his voice down pat) stopped me, his ample frame blocking any entry into the place. [actually, had he just stood there silent I would have though he was kind of hot looking].

Our conversation went something like this:

"Are you aware this is a GAY BAR honey?"

"No. I just drove all over hell and back and decided to stop here since I saw cars parked." Hesitate then "Of COURSE I know its' a gay bar. You guys don't even advertise and there's no sign out front. Somebody has to tell you about the place don't they?"

A roll of the eyes and a pout before, "Well, don't get angry dear. We're just protecting the customers." Then, "Since you have no problem with that are you aware we have a cover charge of $5 tonight?"

"No I wasn't. You got a buffet then?"

"Oh no honey..." (the guy is now giving me a SERIOUS once twice over check out with his eyes) "...but there's beer nuts and pretzels at the bar"

"Then you must have a band coming in, eh?"

A coy grin again before "...no, but we will be playing disco when the dj arrives ..."

Then that coy look again, a smile, a blatent stare at my crotch and "...won't you come in for the cover fee?"

"Fuck no! For what?" The queenly bouncer shrugged, turned around and walked back in. I went home and beat off to porno mag pictures.

I did go back to this last place another time. The bouncer wasn't there and there was no cover charge. I found out it was run by a couple of real nice dykes who were a bit overprotective for their clientele. The place made me uncomfortable, not cuz it was a gay bar, but cuz I'm not one that does well in bars in general. Over time I met a few real hot charcters there. Eventually that bar closed as well. I'm certain that the lack of publicity and the overprotectiveness contributed to their demise.

As for "not looking the part" -I often have people get all whacked when they find out I like tube steak over beaver. Don't understand this at all. Once I told a woman at work (who was coming on to me politely) that I was not only gay but that I had regular steady chum and she blew her coffee out in shock. "you should have warned me" she said apologetically. After that we hit it off just fine.

And, recently, a man and woman who live down the road from me and the guy I've been living with for almost eight years, asked their neighbors why I was living with him since he was "quite evidently gay" but they couldn't figure me to be "that way" at all.

Baffling ain't it?

Curiously, in my lifetime, some of the most outrageously feminine men I've known have been heterosexual, and at least one was mortified to find out that many guys he worked with assumed he was gay (I had to be the one to tell him. I was new to town and asked my co-workers how I could meet some gay guys in the region and they thought he would know. He didn't.)

But all of this I mention cuz' to me it provides yet another reason for those of us who "don't look the part" to be out and open about it so non-bent folks get accustomed to the fact that we are here as well.

Until then, I suppose I'll have to still hear folks look at me with surprise sometimes and tell me "...but you don't LOOK gay.." However, I'll STILL wonder 'what the hell is THAT supposed to mean?'

What's the gayest thing in my apartment?

Okay. This isn's about me. It's a question raised by some character by the name of Paul Ryan, who for some reason wants to know if people would drop by his place and, based on what they say there, think that he might be well, GAY [not that he has a problem with that].

A lot of this is based on his discomfort with Tony Bennett on vinyl and having a cheesy lookin' lamp [check out the pictures below] on his bedstand. Hell. It isn't even kitch far as I can tell.

Anyway, he sought input, so this is what I told him:

This is difficult, man, but I'd say given what you've offered as options you don't seem gay enough. No hot babe is going to be fooled into believing that it would take much for you to swing her way. She might not see you as enough of a challenge to, ah, convert.

If you are trying to pick up chicks with the "Gay" thing, you have to be really convincing which means you have to be more fey or [conversely] hyper-butch.

Point being, you seem to be hopelessly heterosexual.

Having said that, the Tony Bennett album cover does appear well worn, maybe if it were playing when she entered the apartment, followed up with the slip on clogs, though that would be pushing it.

The lamp? Nah! That's just schlock, which doesn't rise to the level of kitsch. Unless you are being ironic, and then you ought to have a set of two, and bigger ones.

I'd suggest going out and getting a modest sized statue of David [placed in the bathroom] or a 20x30 poster of David Beckham with his shirt off and pulling up his socks. THAT would be gay.

Anyway, Paul seems a nice enough feller. Go visit his site and rack up his hits counter.

What you get is what you get!

I'm a grandfather; partnered; a homeowner. I live in a small village in a rural area. I'm a gay male country dweller

Most of my friends are not gay least as far as I know, though I do find I socialize with an awful lot of "straight queers" (y'know, what they call metrosexuals nowadays).

I just don't fit in with most of the other gay folks I've met in my life. Maybe it's just that I don't have the right genes. Gawd knows, I've tried! But truth of the matter is that, contrary to popular cultural stereotypes, I lack some important "gay culture" criteria. To wit:

• I'm basically a slob
• Don't know a show tune from an aria
• Never been a member of a Royal Imperial Drag Queen Court
• I'm no gym bunny; I've got a beer gut [oops, that gets into the area of "bears" ...but that's a different topic altogether]
• I've got the fashion sense of a flea

True, I’m more fond of men, more comfortable with another man (and feel inherently right in saying so) than I am with a woman. And I’m comfortable saying –for I believe this- that I was born "that way." I have consciously known this since I was about 5 years old. For the most part, I am completely at ease with this reality. Not always, mind you. After all, I was wed to a woman for over 6 years and sired a boy-child from that union. Mighty glad I was able to do this too! But this didn’t last. I got divorced for reasons quite unrelated to my sexual misadventures (and no, I won’t tell you about it. It’s none of yer damn business. Don’t even think about asking me about it)

But that you ask if "I’m homo" has some curious connotations as well. Particularly considering what I do and where I work. Being "homosexual" was once decreed to be a form of "mental illness."

And the very term "homosexual" was one born out of clinical terminology. Part of the real slimy part of the mental treatment industry/system is that folks in the field increasingly refers to it as "behavioral health."

Now, the evolution of same sex couplings from something that no one gave second thought about, to the medicalization of these same actions/affections/inclinations, grew out of a late 19^th century unnatural coupling all its own. Namely, it was the union of preachers (those self-appointed standard bearers of moral correctness) together with a cadre of scientific types [not scientists they, mind you] (these latter with intentions of creating for themselves a cloak of professionalism to disguise the fact that all they really wanted was to maintain social control over other human beings).

And in the process, they made same sex unions "aberrant" by announcing them to be so. In and of itself, the assertion of something doesn’t make the premise valid. But I digress.

Once I eventually became comfortable with this facet of myself, (that I am a real queer) I never tried to pretend to be anything other than what I am. Sure, I didn’t fit the social construct of what a homo should "look like" [choose one- (a) limp wristed mincing fairy who knows every Bette Davis movie script by heart (b) hyper masculine Neanderthal with big muscles, a big penis (or the fantasy of having one) and an ego large enough to think that any and every other guy on earth is fair game for having his fudge packed lemme know how to get in touch with this one]. This made things somewhat more complicated. But I never hid.

I don’t go around wearing a sign, for gawd’s sake, but if anyone asks, I ain't gonna lie about who I really am or what makes me tick.

Getting Started

Hey there folks. This is the opening of Jake going cyber and independent. This is also the cleaned up version of Jake's world. So no nasty stuff, eh? Immature people could be watching.