Cool straight guy of the week

Earlier in the week I blogged about Tom Smith, a singer songwriter who penned "Two Men Kissin' (ruined my life)", a rather funny song about a straight guy falling apart because the site of two guys snoggin' got him curious about doing the same. Curious ourselves to learn more about Tom, we emailed him a few questions to which he kindly responded.

AfterElton: From info on your website, I'm assuming you're straight?

Tom Smith: Yes, indeed, although a) in my younger and much hotter days I was propositioned a few times (by nice guys, good circumstances, no problems [with it] b) I have in fact kissed a few guys full on the mouth, mostly for comedy, and c) I've got some close friends who are DEEP into Harry Potter fanfic and fanart...and, yeah, some of the slashy stuff hits a few buttons. Further, deponent sayeth not.

AE: What inspired you to write the song?

TS: The freakishly stupid attitude of Phelps, Wildmon, Robertson, Falwell, et al. I can't possibly imagine getting so wrapped up in the hatred of something that doesn't affect you in any way, not even peripherally. I wrote a song in November, "For Us All", with the line, "A gay man doesn't want to wreck your marriage/He only wants to have a family".

For that matter, I'm still trying to figure out how exactly how seeing two guy kissing WOULD actually do any damage to the institution of marriage in general or anybody's marriage in particular. It certainly seem that two GIRLS kissing inflicts less damage.

AE: What's the reaction to the song been?

TS: Pretty good so far. Nobody's sent me hate mail, if that's what you mean. One commenter said he had doubted I could ever write an anti-gay song and he was glad to see that was still the case.

AE: As a straight man can you shed any light on why some other straight men are so threatened by gays?

TS: The same reason they're threatened by so many other things today: ignorant fear. "Ignorant" in the sense of "not knowing the truth about this". Back in the early 80s, one of my gaming buddies was gay, and when I and my lady friend at the time found out, we were curious as all get out, just because he was our friend, and this was a facet of him and his life we had no clue about. We asked him if we could ask about it. He said yes, we spent a long evening talking about it... and that was that. Didn't change a single thing about our friendship at all, wasn't brought up every ten minutes. It was just our buddy who happened to be gay. And it's been like that for me ever since.

The stereotypes that have been built up, especially the incorrect ones, don't help either. I think a lot of folks really believe gay guys hang out in the bushes wearing only raincoats, waiting to molest the first truck driver who doesn't pat attention at the rest stop.

I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but I (and thankfully most, if not all, of my friends) know that a GLBT person is just a person who happens to have different sexual triggers than [straight folks]. Most straight people are so messed up about sex to begin with that they can't even begin to discuss it without feeling all weird, and that's the stuff the know and even enjoy. Get 'em into a New Frontier and they freak. So I think the barriers must be broken down one person at a time (while making sure legislation protects GLBT folks from generalized harassment.

Visit Tom at his website to learn more or to download "Two Men Kissin'" visit here.