Recently new hunky Hollywood it-man Gerard Butler was quoted as saying that he had dated men, as well as women, in the past, supposedly from a 1994 interview with Movieline magazine.  It turned out the quote was bogus, and while there is something interesting in the fact that it happened to come out RIGHT while he was promoting his new romantic comedy, what really interested me was the reactions on gay blogs when the news broke.  Peppered within typical variations of “I’d hit that” and musing about the “300” hottie’s body was something I hadn’t really thought existed… true bisexual bigotry.
What started as a standard dialogue regarding the questionable heterosexuality of Hollywood’s leading men (a common gay man’s pastime) quickly turned into a pretty heated, and nasty, debate on the truth of bisexuality in general.  From the old thought that bisexuality is just a layover on the way to gay-town, to rage-full rants on the convenience of the life of the bisexual.  That they get all the dick they want on the side, but when it comes to public fronts, they get to play straight and be part of “regular” society.  And then a very emotional response, which really got the words flying, from a bisexual man who rarely “outs” himself as bisexual as he had been completely abandoned by all of his gay friends when he started dating a woman after a years-long relationship with a man ended.  All of this got me thinking… do I really believe in bisexuality?

I partly blame it on being naïve and only being exposed to what the media had fed me at the time, but growing up I thought that all gay men were queeny.  That was just the way it was.  I soon realized this wasn’t true but there is a school of thought, even within gay men, that the “new” masculinity that has penetrated itself into gay culture over the past couple years is false, that part of being “gay” is to accept the fact that we are not masculine… and therefore all the facial hair and “straight acting” just cover up for… well basically acting girly, sipping Cosmo’s, and learning the latest Madonna choreography. 

Well, for the most part, I find this absolutely ridiculous.  Mostly because I don’t swish into a room, enjoy shopping, or enjoy acting “bitchy.” But there are also two sides of the coin.  And besides, the latest round of homo “new masculinity” is just that… another round.  If you counted all the mustaches in the West Village from 1974 to 1979… my point would be made.  So while you may (or may not) roll your eyes when someone quotes “Sex and the City,” calls you “giiiiiirllllll,” or does a finger snap un-ironically, I may (or may not) roll my eyes when you grow that full beard, re-discover flannel like it’s 1991, or think ripe pits are hot.  See the dichotomy?  And also, hasn’t it all been done?

It was just shy of three months from when I finally admitted to myself that I was gay from when I moved to New York City.  So not only was I coming to the city to start my big time career ambitions, but also my big new gay life.  Knowing little about what to expect, I came to just accept that, based on the scene I fell into, I wouldn’t feel cute enough, wouldn’t have the right clothes, and could only hope that I would get an invite to visit a Fire Island Pines house as I surely couldn’t afford it.  (Which never happened.) But after unsuccessfully fitting in with mainstream gay culture, I met the love of my life and stopped caring what other boys thought of me.

About two years into our being together I suggested we go to Provincetown, Massachusetts for the weekend.  I had spent summers on the Cape during school but never stayed overnight in the “gay town” at the end of the earth.  We went, and by coincidence it turned out it was the end of something called “Bear Week”.  At the time, we thought a bear was simply an animal that well… shit in the woods.  Let’s just say that despite living in New York, I hadn’t yet realized that not everything from our culture had in fact ended up in an episode of Queer as Folk.  Bear culture… what’s that?

So in this weekend of firsts I met not just bears, but cubs, muscle bears, and daddy bears.  I found out that there was a bear flag, a bear themed magazine, and that you can sexualize chest hair.  (Woof!)  And on day two one particularly friendly “bear tracker” (a skinny hairless guy that none-the-less had a penchant for pelt) said to me quite seriously:

“You know what you are?”

“Ah… what’s that?” I replied warily.

“You’re an Otter.”

“I’m sorry?”