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What motivates this kind of back-and-forth behavior, expressing or hinting at something, and then taking it back? Short of any of these men actually coming out, we may never know. Are they trying to shock? Drum up publicity for their new album or tour or movie? Court the pink dollar? Test the waters for declaring their true sexuality? Express their own sexual ambivalence or uncertainty from moment to moment? Or are they simply joking?

In the case of Leto, was he perhaps simply trying to divert the interviewer's attention from an aspect of his private life he didn't want to talk about (his alleged relationship with Lohan)?

When celebrities flirt with the idea of homosexuality without actually coming out, the prevailing wisdom tends to be that they are doing it for their career, or for attention. And for certain celebrities, such as faux-lesbian girl duo t.A.T.u, you can see how their flirtation allowed them to achieve a level of publicity that they would not have gained otherwise. But even for t.A.t.u, it still seems like a risky strategy. There is still a sufficient amount of homophobia in the world that you risk alienating as many potential fans as you attract.

The strategy is even riskier for men. In part because Western society doesn't accept the idea of male bisexuality or sexual fluidity the way it does for females. t.A.T.u can kiss each other on stage without anyone taking them too seriously. But for a lot of Americans, a man who even hints at or flirts with the idea of homosexuality is gay all the way, and mainstream society responds considerably less well to that than it does to cutely "bi" or faux-lesbian women.

If a celebrity wants to try and advance his career, there are surely less high-risk ways for him to do it than by hinting that he might be queer. After all, as evidenced by Brangelina, you don't have to allege a same sex love affair in order to create huge media interest. If all Leto really cared about was his career, then he could have just talked up his relationship to tabloid-favorite Lohan in the AOL interview.

Perhaps the most relevant question is this: what effect does such ambivalence, teasing, and game-playing have on the people who are gay or bisexual?

Some queer journalists have attempted to answer this question. Richard Smith, of the UK magazine Gay Time, has repeatedly admonished Morrissey that he has a responsibility to his gay fans to come out if he is gay.

But to longtime Morrissey fan Mark Simpson, such appeals are pointless. Simpson attributes to Morrissey a desire to stand outside the entire modern structure of sexuality, the structure described by words such as "gay" and "straight" and "coming out". As Simpson stated in a 2003 interview with Attitude magazine, “‘Bisexual' might describe [Morrissey], if it didn't suggest twice the opportunity instead of twice the frustration and rejection.” In his recent book Saint Morrissey, Simpson wrote that "Morrissey's ambition, his perversity, his sensibility was far too large, too talented, too vicious to be fitted into this harmless, silly, precious, sequinned little word 'gay'."

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