In Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang we had a butch gay detective. With Brokeback Mountain, we have butch gay cowboys. And on Desperate Housewives, we have butch gay teenagers.

Three portrayals of butch gay guys? Yeehaw! If this was Time Magazine, that would be more than enough to declare a full-fledged media “trend!”

I have mixed feelings about media portrayals of butch gay guys. On one hand, I'm all for anything that upends the stereotypes of GLBT folks. On the other hand, the implication of the previous sentence is that there is something negative about non-butch gay guys. After all, no one cares about media stereotypes that are positive, right? I mean, Jewish people don't exactly complain to the networks when television shows have them encouraging their kids to “get an education.”

On the other other hand, straight people can relate more to non-effeminate gay characters. And anything that gets them to take us and our issues more seriously is a good thing for the gay community, even for our effeminate members.

Right?

Or maybe not. Maybe offering butch gay guy media role models is just another way of selling out to the majority, of conforming to arbitrary standards of what it means to be a man –- a variation on fashion magazines offering only light-skinned blacks.

I'm so confused. But let's face it, this is a confusing subject.

Full disclosure: I'm a pretty masculine gay guy. Of course, I've seen other guys call themselves “pretty masculine,” and if they were any lighter in the loafers, they'd be hanging from the ceiling like possums.

But I really am masculine. Or at least I think I am. Maybe I'm fooling myself. Hey, I'm not claiming I'm Vin Diesel!

Anyway, I used to have a problem with effeminate gay guys. I used to say, “Why do they have to be so...obvious?” (Frankly, I still have a problem with campy gay sexual double-entendres, which some effeminate gay guys use. Double-entendres got tired for me in the eighth grade. Yes, yes, “come” has two meanings--can we all just move on now?)

When I used to see portrayals of campy gay guys on television or in the movies, I would sink down in my seat and think to myself, “Why do they always have to portray gay men so stereotypically?”

Then one day years ago, I was driving with a friend of mine who is very effeminate. He was talking, and finally I said, “Why are you like that?”

“Like what?” he said.

“Um, effeminate,” I said.

Luckily for me, he wasn't one of those effeminate gay guys who don't know they're effeminate. And to his credit, he wasn't offended (like he should have been).

Instead, he just smiled and said, “This is just the way I am. It's the way I've always been. I tried to fight it for a while, and I was absolutely miserable.”

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