Ask the Flying Monkey! Is There Such a Thing as a “Bad Gay”? Plus, What’s Bradley Cooper’s Gay Appeal?

Who are "bad gays"? What's Bradley Cooper's gay appeal? Is there anything to be done to save a dying TV show? Is NAMBLA a "gay" group? Is Madonna bisexual? Plus, is the Glee Finn/Kurt fan fic "art"?

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

Q: Who do you consider to be bad examples of gay men? I understand your rational for disliking Perez Hilton, so much so that I agree with your reasoning, but who else do you think has harmed the community, or perhaps does disservice to the community, and why? Are there truly any bad gay men? – Maharajah, West Palm Beach (not yet oil drenched), Florida

A: Well, that's a big fat can-o-worms, 'innit?

But intellectually, I reject the whole “bad gay” argument. If some idiot is going to judge a whole community based on one person, the person who deserves criticism is the guy doing the judging, not the object of the idiocy. Plus, I’m always saying “come out!” and it would make me some kind of a hypocrite if there were people who took my advice, and my response was: “But not like that!”

But, of course, this being me, I can’t quite bring myself to just end my answer there. So let's pop the top off that can and see us some worms, shall we?

Just personally, apart from the whole issue of whether someone is a “bad gay,” I’m on record as not liking people who have sex in public places. Gym saunas and public bathrooms have very specific purposes – purposes that often involve children and disabled and older folks who don’t always have the ability to "clean up" after other people (both my parents are/were disabled).

And honestly, why should they have to clean up? If your particular turn-on involves the danger of being “discovered” or seen by someone else, learn to role-play: don’t incorporate the rest of us, unwillingly, into your sex life. Frankly, I find this to be a form of a sexual harassment.

You’ll never find me out waving pom-poms for men who cheat on their spouses or partners (and in my book, cheating means “lying”). I’m also not a big fan of people who have sex with cheating spouses or partners. Yeah, yeah, you’re not the one doing the actual lying, but when you buy stolen goods you may not be the one doing the  the actual stealing, but you're still committing a crime.

If you’ve ever been cheated on, what did you think of the guy who knew your boyfriend was cheating – and aided and abetted him anyway? And consider this: would you cheat with the husband of your best female friend? If there's nothing "wrong" with cheating with a married man, why not?

See? In your heart of hearts, you know it's wrong.

I personally suspect there’s a special place in hell for the zillions of gay fashionistas on TV and the gay gossip mongers who seem to take such glorious delight in ripping other people apart. Despite the irony of the fact that I make part of my living here at AfterElton.com by criticizing other people, I tend to be of the “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” school of thought. I believe that if you absolutely have to dump all over someone (as I’m sometimes required to in my job here), it should always be about the work – it should never be personal. And even then, you should also feel really, really guilty about it.

I suspect this is all making me sound hopelessly square, but is the Golden Rule really such a terrible way to live your life?

(Sidenote: if I dislike catty bitchiness, why do I then like Kathy Griffin? Maybe I’m deluding myself, I find out completely different than Perez Hilton. At her best, I think she takes on the pompous and self-deluded. But I do think she sometimes crosses a line.)

Finally, we come to closeted anti-gay gay Republicans. I used to hate them, but lately, I’ve come to the conclusion we kind of owe them a debt of gratitude. With so many of them being exposed – so much so that it’s become a major “meme” – I think that, ironically, they’ve done more to undercut the legitimacy of the conservative right on gay issues than anything an out gay person ever could’ve done.

They've made the far right look so completely ridiculous that whenever anyone is too anti-gay these days, the average person now shakes his or her head and thinks, "Probably a closet-case."

Good job, closet-cases!