Why Change?

Whenever I read articles or websites that purport to help the "tortured" homosexual find their way back to heterosexuality, I am filled with anger at how they prey on the questioning individual by telling them half-baked ideas and outright lies.

These websites always focus on the "sex" part of homosexuality as if all we do is have wild, depraved orgies. So not true! Our orgies are always polite and courteous. We always say "please" and "may I" before fucking you in the ass. In my orgies, I always provide wet naps because I think they work best with dried spooge. I am the consumate hostess.

I am also appalled at how these people twist things around to make it seem that our sexuality is what is causing us anguish. Such lies. Homosexuals are anguished because there are so many ways to accessorize and not enough parties to go to. We are really only somewhat annoyed that there is homophobia and gay discrimination. We try not to have deep feelings—it causes wrinkles.

So why should homosexuals change? This site has all the answers.

In a survey of 200 men and women conducted by one Dr. Robert Spitzer, the following are the top 6 reasons given by the gay respondents on why they wanted to go straight. The kind doctor looked at his survey pool and pronounced to these people that the root of all their problems is homosexuality. Let's examine them shall we?

1. Living as a homosexual felt wrong and conflicted with my moral beliefs or my beliefs about God's will for my life (10 responses)

NMP: There are people out there who are morally conflicted on everything from divorce, contraception, abortion, war in Iraq, pre-marital sex, cussing and showing one’s boob in the Superbowl. You don’t see them wanting to become hairdressers or flight attendants. Moral conflict is what makes us human. Besides, nobody told you to live with a bunch of homophobes—move to a more fashionable neighborhood already.

As for 'living as a homosexual,' see #2.

2. I felt emotionally unfulfilled in a gay life; it didn't meet my deeper needs (8 responses)

NMP: Gay life. Oh you mean like going to bars, drinking, cheating on your loved one, doing drugs, promiscuity, obsession with youth and beauty, one-night stands? Or do you mean show-tunes, lip-synching and Liza Minelli? If it is the latter, I could have told you that only Madonna can ever meet your deeper needs. The former sounds a lot like straight life to me.

3. I wanted to one day have a wife and children (8 responses) or wanted to hold together an existing marriage and family (5 responses).

NMP: If you're looking for someone to do your laundry, make you dinner or give you a blowjob, I think you are looking for a housekeeper or a member of the Swedish bikini squad, not a wife. For companionship, I suggest falling in love, gender notwithstanding. Children? I think you should give Sally Struthers your dollar. Or adopt a kid who is waiting desperately for the love of a parent.

Heterosexuals divorce for a lot of reasons: loveless marriages, they want to escape an abusive partner, poor body hygiene. You want to hold together your marriage because you are not attracted to your spouse. Haven't you heard? Married people don't have sex. Give yourself a break, stop beating yourself up about it. Nobody expects you to have any sex ever again. Bonus: you're still faaabulous.

4. For me, homosexuality was addictive, obsessive or compulsive (5 responses)

NMP: If we're talking about sex, I guess somebody forgot to tell Paris Hilton that she is a homosexual. Don’t you watch Sex and The City? This is called sex addiction, not homosexuality. Addiction to Versace however, is another matter which probably requires intensive reparative fashion therapy.

5. I couldn't find "Mr. Right" and stopped believing he existed in the gay world (5 responses)

NMP: Well, he doesn't exist in the straight world either. You should probably read Cosmo or something, they have articles like "How to find Mr. Right in Five Easy Steps." They have all your answers, none of them requiring electro-shock therapy.

Did you even try hanging out in some place other than a bath house or a dark forest preserve? You know, judging a man by his abs is not exactly the best way to find Mr. Right.

6. I feared disease and early death (5 responses).

NMP: Last I heard car accidents, lung cancer, heart attacks were not gay diseases and are much more likely to kill you, unless you live in Podunk, Minnesota—then you'll probably die of boredom.

If you wear a condom and stay monogamous, you increase your odds of not getting a sexually transmitted disease. AIDS is global epidemic that affects everyone. With proper medical treatment, one can live with it much like people do with chronic illnesses like diabetes. Besides, haven't you heard of wanking? It is a very nice past-time which could only let you get to know yourself better.

If these 200 gay respondents gave me these reasons, I would ask them look closer at their answers. Being gay is not a lifestyle. Living a modest, introspective, spiritual life is not in conflict with being gay.

Let me ask you this: what if you were raised in an environment that said we were planted on Earth by aliens who lived in Heaven and we would one day rejoin them when we see the Hale-Bopp comet in our skies by committing mass suicide while wearing Nike shoes? Would you have known any better? I mean Nike shoes are soooo 80s--

I am not comparing Christianity/Islam/Judaism/Buddhism/etc. to an insane cult, but think about it: You're willing to die for your beliefs, they are willing to die for theirs. Clearly, devoutness is not a barometer for spiritual truth. In fact, what blind devotion indicates to me is a lack of plain common sense, which God, in his/her infinite knowledge has bestowed upon every one of us.

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Gays
Ex-Gays
Ex-Ex-Gays

The Awful Gay Agenda

Apparently, the Heaven's Gate cult isn't the only one which believed that God is a UFO. Meet the Raelians.
Have a Virtual Religious Experience
Which Enemy of the Christian Church Are You? - a quiz
Egad! Another Angry Asian Man
If you want to get really angry, look at this. Izzy's reponse.

This is NOT a Test

"If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in His name, He'd never stop throwing up." – Woody Allen, Hannah and Her Sisters

I am not the tortured human being that the Religious Right paints me to be.

The only thing that tortures me is the pair of Fluevog shoes that I bought one size too small last year. The memory of that hasty purchase at an amazing half-price sale still haunts me and my poor, bleeding feet.

I am at peace with myself and my homosexuality. I am also at peace with God--yes, the Christian one, not the one who lives in The House of Dior.

When I was growing up, I often asked God why I was made to be gay. Why was I singled out to suffer this pain? Am I being punished for trying on my mother's lip gloss? It was only because it smelled like strawberries, I promise! Our pastor always said that when you suffer, God is testing you. I prayed for him to test me on Algebra instead.

I suffered in other ways too. One Christmas when I was ten, my godmother gave a single present to my twin and me to share. It was a plastic toy machine gun that lit up and made a loud rat-tat-tat whenever you pulled the trigger.

Oh how I wanted it for myself! Why are people so cheap that they buy twins only one present? Why do I always have to share all my toys with my brother? I prayed to God that he take my brother to heaven so I don't have to share my toys anymore. My brother would be happy singing with the angels, I would be happy shooting down imaginary people with their horrid paisley ties.

So I suffered and suffered.

Until one day in college, in my religion class, the professor who was also a Catholic priest, said (well yelled, really) something really quite amazing. He said:

You are responsible for your life! You are responsible for every good and bad thing that happens to you!

If you have a Chemistry exam on Thursday and you spend Wednesday night playing video games and flunk out, don’t come to God crying, tears rolling down dramatically, "Why? Why?!? Why are you making me suffer? What are you trying to teach me?"

In fact, don’t bother God with your petty suffering. God didn’t make you suffer, you made yourself suffer. And don't pray to him if you lost your house, your life savings or get a venereal disease. You could have paid the mortgage, kiss your boss’ ass or worn a condom, all of which you have control over!

That last sentence woke me up. It made me realize what that curious itching was down there.

It also changed my life, because from then on, I realized God did not make me gay to 'test' me. I am suffering because I let people around me dictate how I should feel about myself. I let them interpret for me God's will.

I left all of that behind. I decided to move to Chicago. I started to live my life as an openly gay man. In taking responsibility for my life, when I stopped assuming that God was punishing me, I found peace very easily. I realized that the suffering I had experienced was at the hands of people, not God.

Now, this is the point where other Christians would probably quote Bible verses to me, about how I got it all wrong. But you know what? I can read the Bible too. God gave me a brain and I have used it. You say po-tah-to, Dan Quayle says potatoe.

When I read the Bible, I see only that God loves me as I am. Where did I find that? The same place that Reverend Fred Phelps says that GodHatesFags. How can one man find hate and another find love in the same holy book? I know the answer to that, but do you? The Bible holds no contradictions for me, absolutely none.

Before I end this post, I want to point out something that somebody a long time ago asked me about born-again Christians: what is it that makes Christianity different from other religions?

The difference, I said, is that Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ--it is not a set of doctrines or beliefs. That is why their faith is unshakeable.

When I heard myself say this, I realized that the stress is on the personal relationship.

Not what other people told me to believe about God. Or their own interpretations of the Bible--but what my own heart believed.

That, for me, was when the torture ended.

Bagel Sandwich

When I say "no cheese," I mean NO CHEESE. But it never happens that way.

When in a restaurant, I have come to expect that I have to send my food back although somehow, it always seems to make me the one at fault; that if I didn't special order it, everybody wouldn't have to wait until I got my food right before we could go on our way.

I admit that my brand of dairy phobia is quite weird and has so many loopholes in it that my friends have given up trying to understand what it is that I will and won't eat. Maybe one of these days I will write a definitive list to get people off my back. It could become the rider to my contract whenever I am invited to grace a dinner party with my celebrity.

I hate going to dinner parties. I hate having to discuss with the host my food eccentricities. I often avoid it entirely. Instead, I would eat before going to a dinner party expecting that I cannot eat anything. At some point in the evening, I often have the urge to shout "Look! Is that Hugh Jackman?" so I can shovel the uneaten food into a baggie while everyone is distracted.

In people's eyes, I am Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, the kind of high maintenance guy who thinks he's low maintenance; that I am making things difficult for people because I can. Sure, sometimes I may not offer my preferred seat on the bus to the infirm or elderly, but mostly I am as easy-going as your wallet and the trick you had last night.

Besides, I don't think asking for no cheese is that hard considering other people ask for things like peanuts, shellfish or cilantro to be withheld. I mean, talk about high maintenance! Sheesh! Who asks for no cilantro? Amish people?

Brian and I went to get bagel sandwiches at Einstein's. His was a bacon and cheddar breakfast bagel. Mine was a Santa Fe bagel, a sandwich with turkey sausage, salsa, pepper jack cheese and jalapeno cream cheese. I'm sure you can figure out which of these ingredients I don't want.

Now, when I order food, I never toss out "no milk, please" or "no sour cream" or "dry toast" nonchalantly and giggle afterwards. I look deeply into the person's eyes, and say the words slowly and solemnly, with proper gravity. I say it very much like the perpetually sun-burned Phil Keoghan on The Amazing Race:

"Paul and Brian. *suspenseful pause* You are the last team to arrive. *regretful pause* You have been eliminated."

Ten minutes later, we get our food and one look at my sandwich and I see that the bagel is slathered with some kind of orange colored cream cheese which smelled vile. I took the sandwich back to the guy and said, "I didn't want cheese." He frowned and said, "You didn't say cream cheese."

What if I said I didn't want meat? Would he say, "Duh, you didn't say 'turkey'."

Back at our table, I bitched while we waited another ten minutes for my new sandwich. Brian said, "You give people too much credit. Most people don't think of cream cheese as cheese."

"Really?" I said, "I thought the word 'cheese' sorta gave it away."

I ranted on. "I mean, people should pay attention more! What does it take to make a sandwich? Bread. Condiment. Condiment. Vegetable! Filling!! Bread!!! We're not inventing a cure for yeast infection!"

"Chill out," said Brian. "You'll get your sandwich soon."

"It took ten minutes to make that first sandwich. That's ten minutes of my life that I will never get back. I could have won the lottery in those ten minutes!"

"Oh," Brian smiled, "Somebody's gonna give you a winning lottery ticket?"

"No, but I could have walked out of here, found a lottery ticket that somebody dropped and won a million dollars!" I said, "But now, all I will have is a bagel sandwich that the guy probably added his 'special ingredient' to. I want my goddamn ten minutes back!"

I coulda been a contendah! I coulda had a meeellion dollars!

I cursed fate and I cursed my dairy phobia. I cursed my fucking cheeseless Santa Fe bagel sandwich, which tasted like so much cardboard in my mouth.

Hello, Pretty

I am the king of parallel parking!

I consider it a particular challenge when I see a parking spot that has been passed over by other more timid drivers; a parking spot that left only an inch of clearance between bumpers. I would back into the space confidently, turning the steering wheel sharply right just at the sweet spot right at the end of the passenger side door and ease the car into the space.

I am not averse to bumping the bumpers of cars to get into a tight parking space. There's no other way, unless you want to drive for another hour to find a bigger spot. That would be like looking for true love in a gay bath house. You can find it, but what's the point? Your hair will be all frizzy from the steam and humidity and your relationship is doomed from the start. Everybody knows the foundation to a long term relationship is good hair. When a guy stops caring about his hair, that's when he starts taking you for granted. Besides, that's why it's called a bumper, right? It is meant to be bumped.

Sometimes, I would see people who are trying to carefully back into a spot without touching either car in front or back. Very often, these drivers would be sweating, looking harried or frustrated; their girlfriends outside signaling frantically to turn this way or that. I would shake my head sadly, thinking about how much time is wasted, how the driver is missing out on the satisfying crunch of bumper on bumper. I think about their movie theatre going dark or a maitre d' canceling their coveted dinner reservation—all for the sake of not bumping bumpers.

But then, that all changed.

I bought a new car. A 2004 galactic blue Volkswagen Jetta GLS. It is beautiful. I could go on and on about its virtues: the grey leather interior, the sound system, the moon roof, but I won't bore you. Let's just say that this winter, when you are freezing your ass off getting into your cold, cold car, my ass will be greeted by a warm seat courtesy of built-in ass warmers.

A stray thought: what if ass warmers become so wide-spread that it caused the end of the world by lowering sperm count? What if scientists found out that birth rates plummeted because of raised testicular temperature of those who drove these cars?

When you get a new car, it's like having a new baby in the house. You fanatically keep the interior clean, picking up any microscopic lint or spore. You buy special wipes to polish all surfaces. You refuse to give your boyfriend blowjobs in the car because saliva and spooge might stain the leather.

Outside, you worry about whether you're parking too close to the grocery cart corral at the supermarket. You drive around parking lots evaluating which car would likely not give you a ding by a careless driver opening the door. You avoid cars with any sign of duct tape.

You go shopping at places like Pep Boys or AutoZone, places you normally avoid because their bathrooms have no glory holes. But now you find yourself considering a shelf of nodding dogs, their curious, glassy eyes imploring you to take one of them home.

Of course, once the new parent figures out that the "baby" is not made of glass, they start to relax and become more tolerant of the little scrapes and falls. They don't freak out and start yelling at each other about who parked too close to the curb or why there are coffee stains in the cupholder.

I'm sure that day will happen soon. But right now, the car is shiny and new and pretty as can be.

Yes, "Pretty." That's what Brian's been calling the new car. I personally call it "myyy pret-teeee" while rubbing my palms together, cackling. I don't know if the name will stick. It's a new car's name. Maybe when it's not so new we'll call it "Pretty Dingy" or "Pretty Crappy" or something.

This is Pretty. Very Pretty.

Straight Cop, Gay Cop

Why does buying a car have to be such a fucking hassle?

Why does it have to be such a pain in the ass? Buying a car is worse than going to my dentist. At least my dentist always tells me politely to say "ah" before ramming his cock down my throat.

And why can’t two people pay the exact same price for the same car? I don’t think anybody is averse to having a car salesperson make a profit. But I feel very strange if I had to pay more because I didn’t bargain like a hard-ass. It’s not like this is a flea market and we’re arguing about the dubious value of Beanie Babies.

It’s like you have to have a strategy to get a good deal, whether you play the fresh-faced college grad, tough-talkin’ construction worker or a soft-spoken white woman. It’s a ruthless game played with a smile pasted on your face.

Brian and I came up with a strategy which is a variation of the Good Cop, Bad Cop routine:

Straight Cop: The engine’s smooth man, and the styling is very cool. And you can get it with helicopter blade rims?

Gay Cop: Guuuurl, the interior’s a hideous shade of beige. I can’t image how anybody can mess up a neutral color, but that’s like, fucked up. It's all wrong for my skin tone, umm-umm-ummm! *waves index finger, chin does a three-point-turn*

Straight Cop: Roomy backseat, man, perfect for tail. *raises eyebrows* Very niiice. Leather too?

Gay Cop: You call this a power package? There isn’t enough power here to run my vibrator!

The dealership could also be playing the Good Cop, Bad Cop game. Typically, the salesperson is the Good Cop because they are the ones who are going to bat for you, persuading the Bad Cop Evil Sales Manager to give you an extra discount just this one time because you’re so, so special. The salesperson will come back shaking his head ruefully as if he fought the battle of his life and lost and says the Manager said that $1,000 over Blue Book is his best offer. He throws in free splashguards as a consolation.

I wonder what the salesperson and the sales manager really talk about in the office while you are waiting for a quote? I suspect they were talking about how much of a discount I was gonna get after they screw me over. I heard Saddam Hussein was a car salesman before he became a ruthless dictator.

Yes, I’ve heard that you can get a better deal when you buy at the end of the month, end of the year, or at the end-of-model clearance sale. But the reality is, the car dealers have you by the balls. They won’t make the sale if they are not making a nice profit—I don’t care how desperate or accommodating the salesperson is acting.

So if you’re a teenager who wants mom or dad to buy you a car, then please, I implore you, give them some slack because the car dealer won’t—they will be squeezing every penny they can from your parents’ nuts. With giant, rusted pliers.

Our strategy fizzled out after about 15 minutes; we were not the seasoned veterans the dealership was. At one point, I remembered that I just kept nodding my head even though I didn't understand a thing about the great deal the salesman claimed we were getting. According to him, his cards were all on the table. Buyers have all the power right? We looked at our one-pair and we folded.

For days after buying our new VW Jetta, I second-guessed myself. Did I do my best to get the best possible deal? Was I too easy? When people ask me how much we got the car for, I say the amount apologetically, not knowing if they know someone else who got a better deal. I remember having the same sort of feeling when I bought my first car, Helen.

I hope that the new car lasts awhile. I hope it will be as enduring as Helen. Don't get me wrong, I love the new car; it drives like a breeze. I just really don’t want to have to go back to another car dealership any time soon.

I really don’t.



Next: The new car - Hello Pretty!

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Stormy Summers had shared some of her expertise as a former car salesperson. Check out her Car Salesperson's Guide to Buying a Car. You could save yourself a bunch of money!

Goodbye, Helen

She had been nameless for five years before one found her.

Helen is—or I should say was—the first car I’ve bought with my own money. She was a 1993 Subaru Impreza. She was a trusty four-door, a quirky, crimson streak on the road.

My best friend Joe and I were driving around our gay neighborhood, windows down, music blaring, having a gay ole time when it just felt right, you know, to name the thing that is giving you pleasure, like my ex-boyfriend’s dick or the knife I used to slash his designer suits when we broke up.

It was serendipity or something when Church of the Poison Mind by Culture Club came on the radio. If you know this song, you know that the soulful wail of Helen Terry, the band’s backup singer, commandeers the song’s bridge before a joyous harmonica takes over. When you are a die-hard fan of a band, you know the names of all their back-up singers, girlfriends, pets.

I had joking called the car "Helen." Everybody knows how you get stuck with a stupid nickname right? Can you explain how you got the nickname "Curly," "Red," or "Asshole"? Your friends playfully use the name a few times and then suddenly it sticks. And now you’re afraid that it will end up in your tombstone.

"Helen" stuck.

Now, I don’t normally name random non-living things, but naming Helen must have unleashed some kind of dam. Since then, other things in my house had garnered a moniker, most significantly my body pillow which I had christened "George" after the Looney Tunes episode where Marvin the Martian captures Bugs Bunny to give him as a pet to the Abominable Snowman ("I will call him George and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him"). God, anyone ever notice how those old Looney Tunes shows were so gay?

I have lived in Chicago for twelve years; Helen had carried me faithfully through work, leisure and love for eleven of those.

Helen still looked great despite a graze on one of her rear doors. There is a depression on the driver’s seat that conforms nicely to my shapely aerobicized ass. Under the seat, probably $3.62 in lost change and a two year-old french fry. I had been in at least five accidents while driving her, none of which I am at fault, or so my attorney says. I could have lost my life in one of them but I had walked away deeply shaken, but unscathed.

Sometimes I think of her like an old dog: loving, loyal, arthritic. The spirit is still there, but the dog poop ends up in the house instead of out in the backyard. In the back of my mind, there is a sense of dread.

In my job as a consultant, I drive a fair amount to my client out in Naperville, over an hour away by car. A couple of weeks ago, the air conditioning which had been sputtering for awhile finally conked out. The repairs were going to be over a thousand. I had already spent $800 to get the tie rods fixed only a month ago. For a car whose Blue Book value was less than $1,500, it made no sense to get Helen repaired.

Brian and I went out and got a new car. A dark blue 2004 Volkswagen Jetta. At the dealership, the sweaty guy behind the desk offered us $100 as a trade-in for Helen.

I fucking lost it, man. I yelled at the guy, I did. He offered me another $100 as an appeasement. After all, the deal was nearly done, why fuck it up? He’s already made his money. I had no fight left, I gave in.

We took our old plates and put them on the new car. It felt weird. It’s like somebody other than Sarah Jessica Parker wearing the "Carrie" nameplate necklace.

I loved that car.

Goodbye, Helen. I will miss you.




Next: Getting a new car - Straight Cop, Gay Cop

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Pictures of Helen: 1 2

Hear the famous Abominable Snowman quote
Pillow is Perfect Boyfriend - courtesy of Peter, Changes in the Glass

What Constitutes an Asshole
Another Asshole. How about a blown-out asshole? (It's gross, but you know you want to see it)
And this one is just plain weird (not work safe)...

Culture Club and Helen Terry singles
Carrie Bradshaw. The other Carrie.

Make your own License Plate
Goodbye, Cruel World
Goodbye, Internet

At The Ice Cream Aisle

From The New Yorker

When Will It Be My 15 Minutes?

Andy Warhol said that in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. That future has come and gone into the recylcing bin. I would now like to make an amendment to this famous quote:

Everyone under thirty will be famous for 22 hours.

I think that when Andy commented about fame, he was predicting that modern media and the news would come together and create a kind of celebrity that would last for as long an average person’s attention span or masturbatory session. However, Andy couldn’t have predicted how Reality TV would change the nature of fame; casting only people under 30 and run for a season spanning 22 episodes.

Used to be that people became famous gradually. First at a local level then hitting the big time on Star Search. Now, all you have to do is get drunk and unruly on your own stoop and you can be on Cops. Or if you’re more adventurous and have a penchant for semi-homoerotic stunts involving testicle torture* and you could be on an emptyVee show like Viva La Bam.

I don’t know if I could handle this kind of sudden fame. I was born in a reticent age where people didn’t air their dirty laundry or sell them on eBay—a more innocent time where child stars end up on crack, in porn or both, because they made it too fast, too quick.

These days, parents train their children to be ready for the money shot, the kind of defining moment that can catapult you into fame or infamy, doesn’t matter which, as long as you can merchandise it. And success is measured on whether you’ve had a Bobblehead made in your image.

But I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to be famous or a blonde hotel heiress. You can tell because I’ve whored myself out to Blogsnob and Blogarama. Does that make me shallow? No matter, I’d rather be shallow—I'm easier to amuse that way. Being deep just requires too much therapy.

Cindy from Michigan State University invited me for an interview for an article she’s writing about the blogging phenomena. I don’t know if she is going to mention me at all in the final draft. But maybe I will be front and center. Maybe this will be the start of my fifteen minutes, one I can parlay into a 6 episode arc on Scrubs.

Bring it on. I am ready for my close-up.

Read the interview (warning: it’s long) in the sidebar. Use the arrows to navigate.

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* Nutball. Check this out.

Discharged!

Continued from
Part One: This Is How It Happens
Part Two: Emergency Room
Part Three: Misery
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If you haven’t been reading my blog lately (shame on you!), a couple of weeks ago I spent four days in the hospital for bowel obstruction. In other words, for some reason, the shit in my intestines had formed a blockage—impenetrable, much like Dubya’s rhetoric or his wife.

I ended up in the Emergency Room after experiencing stomach pains which felt like an extreme case of gas and bloating. The gases building up in my stomach could probably destroy an entire city block with its foul smell of rotting cabbages. It’s a good thing the Al-Qaeda didn’t get a hold of me. I could have been used as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.

After four days of hunger and misery, the doctor said that I was ready to be discharged. However, in order to be sure that the obstruction was gone, I had to take a crap.

This is not as easy as it sounds given that I had not had any food for three days. On the morning of fourth day, I was given the clear liquid tray: chicken soup, Jell-O, sherbet. I wolfed it down in 4 minutes. Then I asked for another tray without thinking (Do you think they will charge me for the extra tray? I don’t wanna find a $452 item in my hospital bill for chicken soup).

I peed like a racehorse afterwards—but no crap.

I was getting worried. I really wanted to be discharged that I tried sitting on the pot for a good 30 minutes without success. Finally, Brian suggested that we replicate my normal toilet pattern by giving me a book to read in there while he’s acting like he’s impatiently waiting outside for me to finish my business.

As I sat in there, I thought that something else was missing. So, I told Brian to pretend to be my cat Cordy and scratch at the door to be let in.*

That worked!

It was small and round, like a little brown melon ball. I was elated. I literally clapped my hands and whooped. I looked down lovingly at the little turd floating in the toilet bowl. I felt like I should save it, take it home in a clear plastic bag, like a goldfish from a pet store.

I didn’t have the heart to flush it, so I turned away while Brian did the deed. A few hours later, I was home.

For the next few days I was hyper-aware of all the various comings and goings of my digestive system. I stayed on a soft diet on my own; the doctors left no dietary restriction. I was afraid that another obstruction could occur.

I even debated whether White Castle hamburgers should be my first solid food. On one hand, vegans claim that remnants of beef stayed in your intestines for up to ten years. On the other, being called “sliders” was comforting—I was assured that they would quickly find their way out.

These days, I am feeling healthy and normal. I thank you all for your concern and well-wishes. It is much appreciated.

My time in the hospital had really got me thinking. So, I leave you with this final thought: take life by the horns because one day you’ll regret it when you can’t give a shit anymore.

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* I don’t know what it is about my cat Cordy, but when I close the door to the bathroom, that’s when she will mew and scratch outside the door to be let in. When I let her in, she sits and stares up at me until I scratch her under the neck, which she loves. I guess she thinks that with the door closed and my pants around my ankles, I am a captive audience.

Other posts in this series:

Part 1: This Is How It Happens Part 2: Emergency Room

Part 3: Misery Part 4: Discharged!

Dubya can't seem to find the Weapons of Mass Destruction, but you can! Play these games:
Dr. Strangeblix: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Looking for Bombs
Help GWB and Tony Blair look for WMDs
UN Weapons Inspector Game
Rock, Paper, Saddam

Torture innocent goldfish: T-Bone's Stress Relief Aquarium
Or, save them from the Frying Pan!

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle

My past ruminations about poo:
Dropping The Kids Off at The Pool
A Fastidious Bird

Misery

Continued from
Part One: This Is How It Happens
Part Two: Emergency Room
-----

They say you don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it.

When you are all alone in a hospital room, trapped in bed, weak from hunger, you have a lot of time to think. You think about the Big Questions in life. How Did I Get Here? What Do I Need To Change My Life? Why Are There Only Fifteen Channels On The Hospital TV?

I had forgotten what it was like not to have cable TV. I mean, how do they expect people to get well in the hospital when you give them no reason to live?

With tubes attached to me in four places, one of which was a catheter attached to my penis, I was effectively bed-ridden.

I have had nightmares like this, where I am chained to my bed, surrounded by naked, beautiful, nubile women trying to convert me back to heterosexuality by giving me endless hot, steamy blueberry muffins. With no exercise and fatty food, I would quickly become hetero. How did they know that homosexuality is caused by six-pack abs?

Being helpless and immobile is disorienting. Without access to distractions, your imagination starts to go wild. Coupled with a gnawing hunger, you can start to think that your smiling, slightly deranged looking nurse is really somebody who has been reading your blog and fancies that she knows you. Like, really really knows you.

She wants to ease your pain, help you through your Misery in hopes that you would write about her in your blog. You hope that there are no wooden mallets in the closet.

Your heart races every time she injects something into your IV drip. You wonder if that air bubble slowly going through the tube is going to kill you when it reaches your heart. When you are still alive several minutes later you are relieved.

The first two days in the hospital were the worst. I was exhausted even though I had not moved from the bed. I could not read. I didn’t have the strength to prop up the hardcover book* Brian brought for me to read. The words on the page competed with the pain caused by the tube in my nose as they struggled through the neural pathways to my brain.

The pain won. All I had left was the brain capacity to passively watch TV. Or read teen magazines. What is it about teen magazines that makes you feel like you need to write a fan letter? I desperately wanted to write one to Benjamin McKenzie of The O.C.

TV was dismal. Basic channel line-up. Reruns of reruns, Spanish language programming, bad movies you’ve already seen a bazillion times. My limp hand was flipping the remote to the next channel, next channel, next channel, mechanically like a zombie or the last time I had to give my ex-boyfriend a handjob.

Drowsy, wide awake. Numb, in pain. Should you ask for morphine even though it makes you throw up? Being in the hospital really screws with your mind. What am I asking?!? Morphine? Throw up? Sign me up, Mary Kate!

I was glad when my friends came to visit because it relieved the tedium even as I wished they would get the heck out and leave me alone. They would chat with each other or flip through the channels until the requisite amount of visiting time is over and then there is that silence where everybody looks around, trying to decide if they want to be the first one to say they had to leave.

Then you are alone.

God, I wished I had cable TV.

---

As Seen on Hospital TV
Channel Guide: this is a list of all available channels in your hospital room. Press the up or down button to change the channel. If both your hands are in a cast, then you’re S.O.L.

1 – Welcome Channel
Welcome to our Hospital. We will provide you with the best health care we can provide or the quality of your health insurance, whichever is lower. Don’t wish you chose the PPO plan now? If you need assistance, press the red button. If you want to experience being in a gay bar, press the pink button and all the male nurses on the floor will come to your room, stand around and ignore you.

3 – Chapel
Camera monitor of our Hospital Chapel. Mass daily at 6am and at noon. No sound provided for your convenience—you can sleep through the service just like you were right there in the chapel.

4 – Telemundo (Spanish)
Talk Show – "I Slept with My Mother’s Lover"

6 – Univision (Spanish)
Talk Show – "I Slept with My Daughter’s Lover"

10 – Religion Channel
Currently: A debate on the existence of Heaven and Hell. Very useful information if you are currently hedging your bets. Highly recommended if you are considering your options in the afterlife.

13 – Clock Channel
It is now 9:59am. Coming up on the Clock Channel: 10 o’clock.

2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12 – CBS, ABC, NBC, UPN, WB, Fox
Reruns of the shows you wouldn’t watch the first time around. Or another airing of The Bird Cage.

---

* "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Leather" by David Sedaris


Next: Discharged

-----
Other posts in this series:

Part 1: This Is How It Happens Part 2: Emergency Room

Part 3: Misery Part 4: Discharged!

Look what I found: Panty-less Nurse on Parade
How to give a Muslim Handjob

Emergency Room

continued from This Is How It Happens
-----



Did I tell you how much I love my gay, gay neighborhood?

In my neighborhood, when two well-groomed guys walk into an emergency room, people don’t assume that they are straight. They assume they’re male nurses coming into their shift.

I can imagine what two straight men might experience here:

"He’s having severe stomach pains...yeah, for about an hour now...what? Am I his partner? No, dude, we’re just roommates...what’s that smirk for? Listen, I told you, we’re not life partners, he’s holding on to me because he’s in pain...leggo my arm man, this dude thinks we’re gay...do I want to accompany him? No way, he’s on his own, dude, I don’t wanna see his naked ass..."

Brian didn’t have any problems accompanying me to the ER. The gay-friendly staff never questioned who he was and why he was wearing a t-shirt from Target. They just took it for granted when we said we were partners. To be honest, I was terrified of having to be alone, not having him by my side to hear the doctor’s verdict. If I had to go under the knife right then, I would like to be able to tell him that I loved him, and to make sure he go and tell the guy at the comic book store to hold the next issue of Promethea.

The doctor examined me as I lay on the ER bed in pain. Damn, he was cute. His warm and friendly eyes reminded me of George Clooney but without the annoying political views. I tried my best to do the sexy version of my moaning and writhing in pain. He pressed the cold, metal surface of his stethoscope on my hard, glistening chest, listening to the quickening beat of my heart. He pushed and prodded my stomach under the thin hospital gown. I wondered idly if he took house calls. I could use a good massage when I got out.

Then Dr. Clooney brought two one-gallon plastic containers of what looked like milk and asked me to drink it all. It was a barium solution that is used to make your internal organs show up in a CAT scan. Just the look of it made me want to throw up.

I am serious about my so-called dairy paranoia. Dairy is the only thing that keeps me from earning my "No Gag Reflex" merit badge—something every cocksucker, I mean boy scout, aspires to have. Lactose intolerance is not glamorous enough for me; I have to have an irrational fear and disgust of all things dairy, real or faux.

For example, I refuse to eat anything made with coconut milk because it has the word “milk” in it. I refuse to eat anything with coconut in it by association. And don’t bother trying to convince me to drink horchata or rice water even though there is no dairy in it—it looks disgustingly milky.

Holding my nose and closing my eyes, I was able to drink about four glasses of the milky substance before the urge to hurl overcame me. I told the nurse frantically to give me something to throw up into. She gave me a shallow, kidney shaped metal bowl, like one might use if one were having a kidney transplant or serving Hannibal Lecter dinner. There was milky water and the remnants of my late-night Taco Bell dinner everywhere. I was sooo embarrassed. I had been telling everyone I was a vegetarian.

Later, when the doctor told me I had a bowel obstruction, I panicked for a second. Did I forget to take the gerbil out of my ass? Then I remembered—that was last week.

It was at this point that Dr. Clooney decided to admit me to the hospital. If I knew then that I would have to stay there for the next four days with no food, a tube through my nose, down my throat and into my intestines, pumping out crap, I might have demurred.

As they wheeled me to my hospital room, Brian by my side, we passed by another male couple, hands clasped worriedly, conferring with their doctor, a few beds over in the ER. We overheard their doctor say that the appendix had to be taken out; the patient had to be taken to surgery immediately. One guy gave the other a reassuring kiss on the forehead while the medical staff looked on...

*contented sigh*

...did I tell you how much I love my gay, gay neighborhood?


Next: Misery

-----
Other posts in this series:

Part 1: This Is How It Happens Part 2: Emergency Room

Part 3: Misery Part 4: Discharged!

Stray Bar

This Is How It Happens

This is how it happens. It's a Friday night, the end to your work week. You're eager to hang with friends, have some fun, blow off some steam.

Your stomach feels a little full. You wonder if you should take some time to do number two. You’re supposed to be at the restaurant in twenty minutes and your boyfriend argues that you’ll sit in there too long like you always do, doing god knows what, like maybe trying to read your fortune in the shit floating in the toilet bowl.

This, from your normally even-tempered, patient, sweet boyfriend, now sour, now in a kung power trip.

Suddenly, you’re in a fight. It’s stupid, but the annoyance doesn’t dissipate even as you give in. It just hangs there as you hurry to the restaurant where you’ll probably end up waiting for all your friends who are late. The silence is palpable you could cut it with Mary-Kate Olsen.

So you’re avoiding each other’s eyes because you’ve never mastered how to transition from anger to normalcy, much like many, many women going from day to evening wear.

The night wears on, your stomach still a little bloated, but you’re both finally relaxed and in your friends’ amiable company, throwing about jokes, light barbs, like crabs jumping about in silky, pubic hairs. Good times, good times.

This is how it happens. Your boyfriend’s ex, the one whose guts you hate, whose face you want to bash in—yeah, the one with the winsome smile and the goddamn Ph.d.—shows up and starts talking to you both, but mostly to him, probably because your smile is frozen insincerely on your face.

Though your boyfriend’s being friendly, he’s also within the boundaries, respectful of you. It doesn’t help your jealousy because you know they broke up amicably. You’d rather that there had been drah-mah, lots of it, preferably with the police and a tranny hooker involved.

Suddenly, the evening’s not so much fun anymore, and you just want to go home, maybe get some Pepto-Bismol for your aching stomach. You wish there was one for your jealous heart.

You get home, there’s no Pepto-Bismol. You decide to tough it out. After all, what’s a little stomach-ache compared to excruciating pain you endured when you wore 9" stiletto heels a couple of Halloweens ago. Just think of the Laura Bush and what she has to endure in bed. It’ll pass, it’ll pass.

It’s 2am, the pain is worse. Your boyfriend is asleep, you leave him be. You decide to go to the drugstore to get some medicine.

At the checkout counter, you clutch your stomach under your sweatshirt, trying not to double over in pain as you wait for the three idiots who decide to pay for their separate gum purchases with loose change. You want to scream "fuuuuuuuUUUUCK!!!" in the middle of the store, but you grit your teeth instead. You’re almost there, almost there.

An hour later, a double dose downed and no relief. The pain is like a stabbing knife, unbearable, like Hilary Duff covering "Our Lips Are Sealed."

You start thinking that you probably need to see a doctor. You rouse your groaning boyfriend from his slumber. It’s probably your useless appendix. Why is it the useless body parts that always cause trouble? Tonsils, foreskin, Jessica Simpson’s brain, the earlier you get them taken out, the better.

You worry about your crappy medical insurance; what’s covered, what’s not, how much it will cost. You think, shit, if you can only stand the pain, you can still buy that Helmut Lang jacket. Pain is temporary—a classic designer jacket is forever.

Suddenly, the pain is just excruciating.

This is how it happens. Your evening starts with a little light-hearted romp and ends in a trip to an emergency room...


Next: Emergency Room

---
This happened a week ago, I was admitted to the hospital for a small bowel obstruction. I was there for four days while they suctioned off the blockage with a tube that went through my nose and down to my stomach. I am fine now. Hopefully, I will be writing about my experiences in the hospital...


Other posts in this series:

Part 1: This Is How It Happens Part 2: Emergency Room

Part 3: Misery Part 4: Discharged!

Soyouwanna Read Tea Leaves
Homestar Runner's Fortune Cookie Game
Have your Palm read on the Internet
What your favorite Sushi can tell you about your future

Recipe for Kung Pao Chicken

Walk Like a Man

My father was the first person to figure out that I was gay.

Even when I was unaware of it myself, he sussed it out, he saw the signs: the first indications of a limp wrist, the hint of a sway in my hips.

He saw me replace the tacky floral print wallpaper in my sister’s discarded Barbie Dream House by gluing pages cut out from a House & Garden magazine. He became suspicious when I evicted Barbie, moved in Ken and GI Joe, and installed a tiny home gym made from matchboxes. But it was the house's avant-garde art pieces I fashioned from Play-Doh that confirmed his suspicions. That and the cotton swab topiary.

I was only about eleven or twelve, an age where you’re old enough to know about sex, but young enough to not know what sex meant. I don’t know about you, but I was fifteen when the idea of sex clicked—understandable, considering the bulb in my head was not going to light up in comprehension by rubbing two electric plugs together.

I was hungry and looking for a snack. My father was in the living room watching TV. As I walked past him on my way to the kitchen, I heard him give a loud, disgusted "tsk!"

I stopped. Usually, I only heard this sound when he was losing at playing mahjong with his buddies.

"Hay, naku!" he said. These are the Tagalog words indicating exasperation.

He got up from the couch and stood beside me. "Walk like a man, son," he said firmly in Chinese. He pulled my shoulders back and pushed out my chest. I felt like I was about to do the chicken dance.

"Strong," he said, puffing out his chest. "Purposeful," shoulders back. Then he walked, like John Wayne challenged to a gunfight.

I tried to imitate him. "No, no, no!" he interrupted, "Don’t waddle like a duck!"

"Determined!" He cried. He demonstrated again.

I tried it. But even before I completed my walk, I could see from his expression that I wasn’t cutting it.

"Tsk!" he went, shaking his head, "Tsk!" Then he lost interest and turned back to his TV program.

Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore. My father’s casual indifference sucked the hunger from my stomach leaving a cold, dead void. Sometimes parents are cruel in their impatience, their disregard. Sometimes a child just wants to please, to be worthy in his father’s eyes, to do something right for once.

I took myself back to my bedroom and shut the door. I took three bath towels and laid them end to end on the floor up to my mirrored closet door. I squared my scrawny shoulders and looked into the mirror in front of me as I practiced walking on my little terrycloth runway.

More Blake Carrington, less Alexis Colby! I coached myself. Purposeful! But not as if to get Krystle into a catfight! Strength comes from within! Not from oversized shoulder pads! I kept practicing...


Two weeks ago, I attended my graduation ceremony. I am now officially an MBA. My brother Peter is the only member of my family who was able to attend my graduation. I would have liked for the rest of my family to have been there. I would have liked for them to see me in the black cap and long, flowing gown which was perfect for my Stevie Nicks twirling gypsy impression.

As I stood on stage, the tassel from my cap touching my left brow, among the other solemn graduates, waiting for my name to be called, I thought about all the opportunities I have had in my life to get my name legally changed to "Derek" or "Lance." It would have sounded more glamorous than "Paul" over the speakers.

I thought about my father and the bare handful of life lessons he taught me. I thought about that day that he tried to teach me how to walk like a man.

It would be a few years before I successfully learned to walk like my father. I didn’t understand it right away—"walking like a man" was not the combination of stance, posture, cadence. It is a state of mind. It is to walk with strength, purpose and determination.

As I thought of him sitting on that couch, watching TV, a million years ago, I heard my name being announced on the speaker in the auditorium.

I walked, across the stage, just like he taught me.

-----
Photos from my graduation: 1 2

Cute little Asian boy and his chicken, dancing
The Ultimate Dynasty Fan Site
Stand back! It's Stevie Nicks!

Walk Like A Man: What happened when I crossed the gender barrier

Walk like a HUMAN: The National AIDS Walk Directory

Never Lose Hope

(continued)
Part One: Shirts vs Skins
Part Two: The Model Minority

Note: If you don't wanna to hear a faggot rant, then please go away.
---



...and puh-leez, I’m sick of hearing the "you can choose not to be gay" bullshit. If I can choose to be straight, then you can choose to be gay. So go ahead and prove to me first that you can be gay before you expect me to go and do any carpet munching.

And none of that girls-gone-wild, girl-on-girl kissing for TV crap. If that’s what you think homosexuality is, then you’re just embarrassing heterosexuals everywhere.

I want you not only to have some I-love-fucking-this-person-of-my-same-sex-blow-my-mind-orgasm experience, I want you to fall in love with that person as well.

If you can do that, write me an e-mail and I’ll personally fly to wherever you are and kiss your feet. I will declare you Mr. or Ms. Heterosexual Who Can Be Homosexual At Will and give you a crown, a sash and a tacky plastic scepter. I will be the first to admit to you, yes I was wrong, you were right, and follow your lead to whatever fashion disaster you direct me to.

But you can’t do that can you? Because if you can, then you are saying you have control who you can fall in love with. You are saying that you can create physical and sexual attraction, intimacy, affection, devotion to somebody on demand. To me, that is perverted.

My friend Johnny* told me that he hates being gay. He came to me once in utter despair. He told me bitterly how hard it was to find somebody to love and love him back. He has all this love to give and nobody to give it to.

I don’t think he means that he wants to be straight. I don’t think he means that he would be happier if he could have relationships with women. I think he is frustrated at how hard it is to find someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. Even more so when Metrosexuals are fucking up your gay-dar.

Well, Johnny, I am telling you right now, just as you want to love and be in love with someone, some gay guy somewhere is also hoping for the same thing. You just have to keep looking and never lose hope. Because, just as I found Brian so unexpectedly, someone could walk into your life today.

I know that these words are no consolation for those times when you woke up in the morning, racked with loneliness. But you have to persevere. You have to make yourself ready for that opportunity. It means that you've gotta clean house if you want somebody to move in, get a cleaning lady if you have to.

Isn’t that all one could hope for? To find somebody to love and be loved in return?

I cannot choose who I love. I bet neither can you.

---
*not his real name

You gotta see this, seriously: Linda Clement's "What You Don't Know Might Not Be So"
Take my poll: How Long Do You Think You Can Act Gay?
How to Save the Straight Marriage
Canadians concerned that Marriage Rights may be yanked
ESPN's top Metrosexual Men in Sports

The Model Minority

Continued from Shirts vs Skins

For those of you who happen to be here at this site for the first time, I guess you should know that not only am I an Asian but I am also a gay man. So, I can speak of my experiences being a minority in two distinct categories—three, if you include "comic book collector."

A lot of people think that Asians are the "model minority," which when I was younger excited me, because I thought this meant that I would have a career in haute couture. I practiced walking down the runway endlessly in my bedroom. Imagine my horror when I found out this really meant that I was expected to be a pocket protector-wearing math nerd, or a metal-mouth band geek. I was mortified.

The main difference I think is that when people look at me, they see an Asian, not a homosexual. Of course, this is until they hear about the way I idolize Sarah Jessica Parker, and then the jig is up. I mean the woman is a goddess—she made it ok for grown women to wear tutus on the streets of Manhattan.

I have been lucky I guess. I have no telling mannerisms that I am a gay. Despite my literary flourishes in this blog, I am sad to say that I am just a "regular guy". I do not have a high pitch voice. I do not have excessive hand gestures. I do not have frosted hair.

Others are not so lucky. When some gay men talk, a pair of capri pants falls out of their mouths. When they shit, a pair of capri pants falls out of their asses. This is the reason the hideous fashion statement that is men's capri pants won't go away.

Some people think that if we do not act stereotypically gay, then we would not be subject to all the discrimination that we claim we face. Some people say "why do gay people have to shove their gayness in my face all the time?" Some people think that if we turn off the switch, if we don’t talk about who we are, we would all be accepted into society and everybody would live happily ever after.

Well, honey, let me ‘splain something to you. Even though I am not your average flaming homosexual, I do not "act" straight. I don’t turn anything on or off, except my penis pump. If you cannot tell that I am a card-carrying faggot, it is not because I have misled you by subduing my instincts to swish.

And for my other gay brethren who may lisp, sashay, wear flannel or think of Home Depot as their second home, I would say, by and large, they are not acting either. They may take it up a notch for special occasions like an awards show or a really, really good sale, but I would say generally, this is the way they are.

So if you want the more stereotypical of us to turn this "off," you’re asking us to be someone else. Now you’re asking us to "act."

It is too hard to act anything for more than 5 minutes. Y’all should know that, after all, you weren’t really enjoying giving oral sex to your lover last night. You just pretty much moaned and mmmmm’d your way through it, hoping they would just cum already.

Even Disney theme park castmembers only have to act for 30 minutes at a time. We are supposed to act like somebody else 24-7. We're supposed to wear shirts with an ungodly percentage of polyester; use non-salon approved products to wash our hair; wear our underwear until it disintegrates.

You think this should be so easy, but you do not understand its ramifications.

To let you understand the magnitude of this, not only can you not try on that pair of Manolo Blahniks for kicks, it also means that if somebody asked you to bring your significant other to a function, you have to say no. It means that if somebody asked you why you are crying, you can’t tell them that your girlfriend is sick and in the hospital. It means that when you have children, one of you will have to sit out their school play. It means when other people have pictures of their families, their loved ones, their friends at their desk, all you can put up on yours is the picture of your dog Rusty.

It means that when you want to hug or kiss or hold the person you love’s hand, all you can do is look at them in the eye and hope that they know what you feel.

Next: The Rant

---

Shirts vs Skins

Once, at a gay bar, a drunk guy stumbled his way towards me, reeking of a mixture of sweat, CK One and alcohol. If it was closing time, I might be willing to ignore this combination of odors, but at 12:30a.m., I didn’t want to seem too desperate. There’s time enough for that later.

"Where are you from?" he slurred.
"I’m from Chicago," I tentatively replied, not sure why he was talking to me.
"No, no! I meant, you’re Asian, right, so like where are you from?"
I looked at him blankly.
"C’mon, say sumthin’ in your native tongue," he cajoled.
"Cun-nee-leeng-gus," I said.
"Cun-nee-leeng-gus," he repeated. "What does that mean?"
"It means 'I love my mother' in my language," I replied.
"Wow, can you write that down so I can tell my mother later?" He said. "Write down your phone number too."
"My pleasure," I grabbed a napkin and wrote down the syllables and the number to my favorite Chinese take-out.

I was really surprised by this guy’s question. I mean, I made sure to park my rickshaw where you couldn’t see it.

I also have a typical Midwestern accent, so your only tip-off that I was not born in the good ole U. S. of A. would have been that I, like Avril Lavigne, have a tendency to pronounce David Bowie’s last name "Ba-wee" instead of "Bo-wee."

Normally, I would find this only mildly annoying. I would just say I’m Chinese-Filipino and be done with it. Maybe it was the Attitude I was getting from the royal queen bitches parading at the bar that night that put me on edge, making me unforthcoming to this drunk.

I found it offensive that he assumed that despite my Aberzombified attire, I was anything but a corn-fed Midwesterner—you can check my toilet, I’ve got the corn kernel encrusted poop to prove it. I even use an extra-strong deodorant to get rid of that fresh-of-the-boat odor.

Being treated like a "skin" or racial stereotype is a universal experience: Latinos, blacks, white people from Canada—we’ve all experienced it. We cannot control what assumptions, prejudices, stereotypes, people put upon us. It’s a part of human nature, like a short-cut to getting to know someone. I mean, I do it all the time when I meet new people: if you talk to me, I assume that you want to go to bed with me.

There are certain things that you can do to control people’s impression of you: your job, your car, the smell of your feet. When people look at me, they see that I wear designer labels, fancy watches and Italian shoes, and they conclude that I have maxed out my credit cards. For me, it’s really important that people don’t think I’m boring. I think it’s much, much more interesting to be superficial.

But there are certain impressions that I cannot control. That is, despite what logo shirt I wear, it is the color of my skin, the shape of my eyes, that registers in the back of your brain.

(Continued)

-----
*I realize of course that cunnilingus is not spelled like it is above. Don't shoot me. :)

The Gay Experience

These days, the fabulousness of the gays is hard to contain. At no other time in the history of humanity have gay rights been the focus of so much attention in the media.

You’d think this would happen sooner, given the popularity of musical theatre.

There has been so much accomplishment in terms of achieving equality for gay people around the world. Gay people can now be free of discrimination, free of prejudice in hair salons around the country. People are finally understanding the fear, the terror we face when confronted with enlarged pores.

Many gay people compare this fight for equal rights and non-discrimination to that of African-Americans. However, members of the African-American community have not taken this comparison kindly. In this very site, someone said that "the experience is not the same". I take this to mean that the discrimination that gays face is not the same as that of African-Americans primarily (as it was claimed) because gay people can "choose" not to be gay.

I don't know what it is like to be black in America.

However, these things I do know:

• A seven year-old boy was scolded and forced to write "I will not use the word gay in school again" after he told his classmates he had two mothers because they are gay.



• Gwen Araujo, a transgendered 17 year-old girl, was killed by two men after they discovered that Gwen was not biologically female.



• Theron McGriff was told by an Idaho court that he cannot see his own kids unless his male lover was not present in his own house.



• A Chicago high school kid was kicked out of his home by his own father after telling his father that he was gay. Hear his story in his own words.



• Gay, lesbian and bisexual youth make up 20-40% of homeless youth in urban areas.



• 22.2% of gay youth skipped school in the past month because they felt unsafe en route to or at school.



• In 36 states, it is legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation. In 46 states, it is legal to do so based on gender identity.



• By 2003, nearly 9,000 men and women in the Armed Forces were discharged because they were gay.



• In 1998, when Matthew Shephard confided to two men that he was gay, they deceived him into leaving with them in their car. He was robbed, brutally beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead. He died several days later.

If it were a choice, I think all these hundreds and thousands of people would have chosen not to suffer, face hardship, lose friends and family, their jobs and their lives.

I would never presume to understand the struggles of African-Americans. Gay people are not saying that being gay is the same as being African-American (unless of course, you are gay and African-American). I don't have to learn the Snoop Doggy Dizzle to be cool. But I know that I only have admiration for their achievements.

If we compare ourselves with African-Americans, it's only because we've seen what they have achieved and that's what we want for ourselves.

---
Some interesting discussions going on in my LiveJournal mirror.

Also, I highly recommend you listen to this Chicago teen's story from NPR. I found it very moving and distressing at the same time. I think it is worth 5 minutes of your time (requires Real media player - download the free version).

My Project

In case you haven't noticed, I started a project (see sidebar) where I will be quoting from various blogs that I encounter. I hope to share with you these voices from my community. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Come Together

Warning: some links are not work-friendly—you may want to wait until you get home.

Last weekend, my friend Han and I decided to check out International Mr. Leather (IML). Hundreds of big, burly men from all over the world descend into Chicago for this notorious event.

It would not be unusual to see a group of men seeing the sights, shopping, in full leather regalia: motorcycle jackets, leather straps, maybe some ass-less pants. The reaction of other tourists to the latter always makes me smile: incredulity, laughter, disgust—it is pretty much the same reaction I have to the tourists’ outfits.

Unfortunately, the biggest threat to gay civilization occurred that weekend: It rained.

Due to some ditziness on our part, we did not look up the exact venue thinking that we would just follow the trail of leather-clad men. However, with the rain pouring down, there was nary a mary to follow. I had to call my brother Peter, who fortunately was also planning to attend the event and got directions.

I knew we were close when I caught a whiff of the heavy, thick, manly scent of...Chanel No. 5?!? I wonder why I am surprised.

Han and I were the only ones I could see in civilian clothes. I really felt out of place in my sneakers and t-shirt. We didn’t fit in, much like the guy with the man-boobs squeezed into a tight rubber tank top. But then I thought--waitaminute--I'm not the one with my hairy ass in full moon.

By then, I really needed to pee. I got in line for the restroom right behind a couple of guys with shaved heads and full beards. After several minutes of waiting, I wondered aloud why we hadn’t moved. The guy in front of me turned around and said, "This is the line for men who want to get peed on." And then he winked at me and said, "I’d be happy to relieve you right now..." I stammered an excuse and went in.

Inside, there was heavy cruising going on, men eyeing each other, exchanging meaningful looks. As I am already "taken", I ignored it and picked a urinal and started to pee. Unfortunately, as it sometimes happens, the relaxation of my bladder caused me to fart.

I forgot that farting is like a mating call among these folk. I am suddenly surrounded by amorous men, sniffing appreciatively.

"Smells like a spinach omelet, and um, maybe with a side of bacon," says one. I didn’t know whether to blush or give him a prize—that’s what I had for brunch. I settled for a polite nod and high-tailed it outta there.

While IML is ostensibly a convention for SM and bondage enthusiasts to get together, share ideas and techniques, in its heart, it is a beauty contest celebrating the hyper-masculine ideal. I don’t think anybody can deny there is a lot of irony and dry cleaning going on here.

The competition is fierce as contestants from around the world model their original leather creations, strutting and posing onstage. Contestants are judged rigorously and scored on their looks and their "leather presence." In between events, personal assistants help touch up hair and wipe off excess sweat; perhaps a mustachioed "seamstress" waits in the wings armed with a sewing kit or bolt cutter ready to make last minute adjustments.

And although I didn’t see the actual competition, it’s not hard to imagine the last two finalists standing next to each other, hands clasped, waiting tensely to hear the final tally. It’s not hard to imagine the runners-up crowding around the winner as the leather sash is bestowed upon the new reigning International Mr. Leather.

It’s not hard to imagine how through this event, these men have come together as a community.

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Wanna play the Urinal Game?