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More recently, however, the genre seems to welcome gays.

Rumors of nu metal group Korn’s lead singer Jonathan Davis’s homosexuality have done little to quell interest in the band, even after the band’s controversial tune “Faget” off their 1994 self-titled album, where Davis screams, “All my life, who am I? I'm just a faget! Faget!” as he describes years of verbal abuse by his high school classmates.

Although a lot of listeners missed the point and imagined the song to describe Davis’s sexual confusion, they stood by their idol, who even has an HIV tattoo on his arm.

Finally, although Davis is married, he often jokes about his sexuality in interviews. In an interview with Spin magazine, Davis set the record straight, so to speak: "Everyone thought I was gay my whole life... so I have to joke about it just to deal with it," he said.

But that didn’t stop Ozzy’s wife Sharon Osbourne from telling Rolling Stone in 2002 that "Korn Are Gay" meaning they suck, and replacing them on the Ozzfest Tour with Judas Priest, who actually have a gay lead singer.

Priest's frontman, Rob Halford, came out of the closet in the late 90s, when he was not actually with the group (Halford was replaced by Tim Owens for a number of years, eventually rejoining Judas Priest in 2003). Despite being openly gay, Halford has actually been embraced by fans more than his replacement singer, if their recent packed touring gigs and successful new album Angel of Retribution (2005) are any indication.

There are a few openly gay women in heavy metal now, too, like the lead singer of metal band Otep.

Even more striking is a recent Blender magazine interview with Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, where he admits to at least contemplating a gay experience with a friend, who groped him, high on E. "Maybe if he was really good looking I may have slightly considered it,” he said. “But he was not my type."

Maybe straight heavy metal groups and fans are becoming more tolerant, and maybe, like Lee’s friend, certain gay men are fans of the genre because we’re attracted to these leather-clad performers’ machismo.

Or maybe as with all generalizations about gay men, there are exceptions to the rule.