Ask the Flying Monkey: Are Gay Men Obsessed with Straight Male Sexual Fantasies?

This week: Does country music have any gay anthems? Why the brouhaha over Elton John’s child? Plus, Mark Indelicato, Kyle Bornheimer, and more!

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Contact me here (and be sure and include your city and state and/or country!

Q: I've always wondered what's with the gay guy obsession with straight guys doing gay adult films? Is it like a forbidden fruit kind of obsession, or are straight guys just that much hotter, because I really don't get it? A hot guy is a hot guy and gay adult films are gay adult films, but looking at the internet, sites with straight guys getting it on with other guys are all the rage now. I personally find the whole "gay for pay" thing a bit weird. It might be me thinking a bit too much, but there's a slight turn off in knowing that the guy doesn't actually want to be doing that but has just been bought out, and it's even worse when the guy in question struggles to get aroused and tries throughout the movie to keep his hands off the other guy and looks like a kid that has been told "eat your broccoli or no TV for you" and so he just wants to get it over with and get his check. So what are your thoughts on this?- Jon, Boston, Massachusetts

A: Oh, there are plenty of theories on why this is suddenly so popular: that it’s a subconscious form of humiliation, a gay pay-back for years of torment at the hands of straight men, or that it’s some kind of internalized homophobia or cultural conditioning (straight men are “hotter” because they’re not gay, and any stereotypically “gay” mannerisms or grooming cues are a turn-off because they are gay),

My opinion?

It’s best not to think too deeply about sexual fantasies, or to read too much into them. They are what they are, and by their very definition, they’re not about reality. Since they’re not about reality, they can’t be judged as such.

(It’s also worth noting that everyone in an adult film is acting. From what I hear, what with awkward camera angles and hour-long redos, no one is having any real fun.)

Should we all be upset and appalled by exploitation in the porn industry, and the growing insistence from producers and viewers that performers bareback? Absolutely! Because that is reality.

And Jon, you may have a point about the small sub-genre of adult films where it seems like the actors are being forced to do something against their will – when the performers are either better actors than Meryl Streep or it’s not an act at all. That’s reality too, and it’s not cool.

But assuming everyone is of age, giving their full consent, and being socially responsible to the world we live in and using condoms, I think we should all try to give wide berth to sexual fantasies: after all, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

(And Jon, I’m sure you think about it long enough, you realize you have some passion or hobby, even apart from being gay, that a large group of people disapproves of. How does that make you feel?)

Q: Oh Great and Wise Simian of the Skies: I was raised on country music. I still enjoy a great deal of it, although I am aware that several artists could routinely qualify for asshat status. I know that often the songs tout "traditional" values (although a lot is also about adultery, violence, breaking the law and excessive drinking). However, while listening to Taylor Swift's song "You Belong With Me," I realized that it was, word-for-word, a song that could easily represent a gay teen's hidden desire for a classmate. In fact, many country songs ("She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" by Kenny Chesney and "What Was I Thinking" by Dierks Bentley, for example), could easily become gay themed with a simple pronoun change. So my question is: has the gay community ever embraced a country music song as a "Gay Anthem"? If so which one? If not, do you think they ever could?

-- Glen, Albuquerque, NM

A: While it’s true that that country does skew toward the “traditional values,” especially these days, it’s long been my opinion that, counter-intuitively, the genre has been far more “feminist” than pop music – and it was feminist far earlier. From the 50s through the 70s, pop music was mostly all about women pining for men, or sacrificing all their dignity to win them, and pop music is still frequently about figuring out new ways to sexualize female singers.

Country music has plenty of sexism, but it’s been less about overt sex, and the music has long had very progressive-feminist messages (even if they didn’t call it “feminist”), mostly because of the influence of brilliant early female singer-songwriters like Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, and later ones like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Roseanne Cash.

What of attitudes toward gays?

Obviously, it hasn’t always been great, especially as country music has begun to represent the “red states” in the red state/blue state political divide that’s pretty much torn America apart. Those country artists who clearly identified as pro-gay early on, like the Dixie Chicks, Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kathy Mattea, and even Dolly, often saw push-back from conservative listeners. (I’m still expecting a more major backlash against the liberal politics of Faith Hill and Tim McGraw at some point, although maybe the Tea Party balloon has temporarily been popped with the shoot-out a couple of weeks ago.)

Still, any musical genre is always far more than its top-40 hits, and I think there are plenty of songs that either are rising gay anthems, or they easily could be, including Willie Nelson’s “Cowboys Are Secretly Fond of Each Other” (which I’m not a fan of, thanks to its jokey use of stereotypes); Garth Brooks’ “We Shall Be Free” (a song that has a pro-same-sex-marriage lyric, which was extremely brave of the artist, and very controversial back in 1992); the Cowboy Junkies’ “Miles From Home” (which employed a bold gay teen storyline in its video back in 1997); the Dixie Chicks’ brilliant “Not Ready to Make Nice” or “Wide Open Spaces”; the Chicks’ Martie Maguire and Emily Robison’s gay-themed “Ain’t No Son”; Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s “Teach Your Children”; Emmylou Harris’ “A Love That Will Never Grow Old” from the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack; and Lucinda Williams “A World Without Tears.” And if you ignore the video, “The Heart Won’t Lie” conceivably could be read as a song from a gay male (Vince Gill) and lesbian (Reba McEntire) perspective.

Next Page! The Monkey weighs in on the Elton John surrogacy controversy!