is a colossal waste of time and energy.  I don't know why in Western society in the 21st century gay men still do this.  In the winter of 81-82 I went through my "I'm gonna make myself straight" phase (I will leave the gory details to your imagination).  If you knew me well you would realize what a hopeless task this was (it would be easier to train a rooster to bark then for me to have sex with a woman).

Being the stubborn so-and-so that I am I forged ahead.  The result was a severe depression that took months for me to crawl out of.  Finally at 25 after yet another depression, I returned the gaze of a guy who was cruising me at the university, we started dating, and I finally "did it".  Eureka I was a born-again gay man.  I felt "normal" (god how I hate that word) for the first time in my life.

So for any gay men out there that are tempted to try and live the "straight" and "normal" life that you think society wants from you, and you think will make you happy, well you can run from your true nature but you cannot hide.  Mother Nature knows best as the old saying goes, so celebrate your uniqueness as a gay person and live life to the best of your ability.

I agree with you Evan that gay couples, and gay people in general should be more represented on TV, simply because the reality is gays & bisexuals (including women) make up to 10% of the population.  They are part of what makes society tick, to ignore them is to ignore reality (probably why religion doesn't want to see them, it thrives on myths and superstitions).

Cheers

JBE

 That was an interesting article you linked to, Evan, but that quote at the end is a bit misleading because it was taken out of context.It said:

Men had more a complicated pattern: There was no direct relationship between finger length and sexual orientation. However, some gay men did appear, based on their finger lengths, to have been exposed to greater than normal levels of fetal androgens before birth.

"This calls into question all of our cultural assumptions that gay men are feminine," said Breedlove. He said his findings are consistent with other, very sketchy indications that some gay men are hypermasculinized, having a greater average number of sexual partners in a lifetime than heterosexual men, higher than normal levels of testosterone circulating in the blood, and larger genitalia than heterosexual men.

Now on to what you had to say.I didn't see Oprah Winfrey, or The pick-up artist, but what makes you so sure these guys are gay?The guy from Confessions of a matchmaker is actually a member of this site now.I'm not sure is that show was a reality show, or if it was just supposed to be a new comedy because it looked like a show......like I was watching The office.I think it might have been real because when I saw that he had joined AfterElton.com I checked his profile, and for sexual orientation he had unsure, or something like that.

I aggree with you about gay kids though.As a kid I used to watch the saturday morning cartoons and teen shows, and even there you find that whole boy likes girl dynamic.Even at that age I remember having feelings about other boys, but was a bit confused because all I ever saw was heterosexuality on TV, and was like "but i'm not a girl".You know that i've said this many times on this site, and in my threads, but it bares repeating.It not only matters how many gay people are on TV, but also where, and how they're portrayed.

 For example, the kind of straight guys who watch Spike TV probably need to educated about us, but won't find any positive gay images on that channel.I know I use the phrase "double standard" a lot, but it applies to so many of these problems including kids' entertainment.We had that big debate in the BEST.GAY.WEEK.EVER. comments section a while back about the High school musical franchise and the Disney channel.People don't seem to mind the tweens on that channel going as far as kissing as long as it's a boy and a girl, but if it were two boys people would freak out the way they do over gay themed children's books like king and king.

Have you ever been to a children's hospital? The walls are bright and cheery. The nurses and doctors don't wear white uniforms or lab coats, they wear bright, colorful cheery clothes. They have tried to take the 'clinic-ness' out of the hospital and make it a not so bad place to be. They serve pizza and hotdogs not dried up green beans and gruel.

The same thing needs to happen to the 'land of gay'. I think the basic reason so many men are in denial and refuse to admit that they are gay and go on for years to try and 'straighten' themselves out is that they are afraid of going through the doors of 'gaydom' without knowing what it's like on the other side. Will they be alone? Will they lose all of their friends and family? Will they go to hell?

But instead of admitting those fears and seeking council, they do what men are raised to do. Suck it up and move on. Don't admit you don't know what's going on, just forget about it and keep screwing up. The woman joke about men not asking for directions wouldn't be a joke if it weren't at least partially true.

Are these excuses. NO! But they are reasons to the valid questions and frustrations voiced by JBE. Look at how long it took for guys to start using skin care products. It had to become vogue and accepted. And that's just skin care for Christ's sake. We're talking about male sexuality. It's going to be a long ride.

Justin

The need to be accepted, to be part of the social norm is incredibly powerful. An attitude I've seen in many people who have found the strength to reject societal norms and forge their own path is a curious contempt for people who endeavor to hide themselves, and stay "closeted" with everything from their sexuality to their choice of music. It's fascinating and ironic because in its own way I think such behavior stems from the same sort of behavior that motivates homophobia. Allow me to elaborate.

The desire to be accepted, to be normal is universal, and frankly that desire coupled with puberty, and sex, makes up our transformative adolescence, that time when everything sucks, you can't stop having erections and you desperately want to be cool. Now, that's also the period when most people, for lack of a better phrase, discover their sexuality, even if they immediately deny it to the point where they refuse to believe it. So you have this overwhelming desire to be normal, to be like everyone else, and it's becoming tied up in your sexuality, to the point where the two can become so twisted and interlinked that removing one from the other to allow healthy growth can be nigh on impossible without the proper external factors and/or a major "event" of some sort to break them apart, which I imagine as being more than a little traumatic.

So that desire is understandable, but why is it ironic that so many people who've triumphed over the same sort of desire to be accepted, at the detriment of their own well-being, lambast those who cannot find the strength to do so? It's because they remember what it felt like to want to be normal, and they're disgusted with that desire, to point where when they see it in others they detest it, recognizing it in themselves. It's just like the stereotypical macho homophobe, whose homophobia  derives from his own homoerotic thoughts or desires. The Other is especially fearsome when you can feel its claws within your very own psyche.

As to the lack of societal role-models available to children with non-heternormative sexualities, that is something that, happily enough, is changing, albeit slowly. For instance, Degrassi, or Nuke on ATWT, or the book Hero. The derth of gay characters that kids and adolescents can relate to, or look up to, is still nearly hope-killingly low. But change, change is coming! I know myself that I'm trying to write that is basically the gay answer to Harry Potter (the tale of a boy, coming of age, who also happens to be a mage, yet I've written only a page... forgive me, I started rhyming and could not stop).

That said, in regards to the biology of gay men being so different than the sociological, it is as the article itself said, not determinable per se. Although homosexuality is more likely to be caused in utero by exposure to hormones, more testosterone does not necessarily mean more masculine, it simply means more testosterone. Masculinity is at its core a social concept, even if machismo seems to be related to the biological imperative of reproduction and the impression of females thereby (man I'm mangling grammar like there's no tomorrow) the sort of masculinity we're discussing is not biological. And that's the problem, society. If we've learned anything about homosexuality through science, it's that homosexuality is natural. It occurs in nature, and it occurs with some frequency that's fairly stable, and great enough to the point that it comprises 10% of our total population. Everything else, from homophobia to the idea of keeping a stereotypical male-female dynamic in a homosexual relationship, and actually to the idea of a stereotypical male-female dynamic (man superior to woman, bread winner, woman has no mind of her own, chained to oven, etc...) are all societally derived functions. They may be based in biology, but they have been transubstantiated to the point of being unrecognizable as biology, and become concepts that are wholly man-made in substance.

I think you nailed it. The only other factor that I think plays a big role is ones heritage as JBE brought out. More than just the desire to be normal, and to be like all of one's other friends, there is the familial and religious pressure to not only be normal but to behave in a certain way. I think this is why we see men with such extreme double lives. Mega church leaders, senators and governors in the last two or three years have all been exposed as having a secret double life as a gay man, in some cases even using an alias so they truly are a different person.

I know that if my parents had not been so open and accepting I probably wouldn't be out yet. I cannot thank them enough for wanting me to be who I really am.

Justin

The thing with me is I'd rather everybody just know.  If I try to separate my private and professional life, I'll always be uncomfortable.  If the topic of homosexuality ever came up, even in passing, I'd be like "do they know?", "what are they thinking", etc..  It's that way right now with me since not everybody knows I'm gay at school, work, etc. so I'm always wondering and always slightly uncomfortable.  I agree it's everybody's individual choice, however.

 The act of coming out impacts people differently depending on their circumstance.  For some, coming out is merely announcing the obvious as in the case of Chris Crocker.  Sure it is all speculation until you hear it from their own lips, but I doubt anyone saw his announcement as a shocking revelation.  In many ways, this segment of our community is more courageous than those of us that can pass for straight as the coming out process is negligible, but dealing with the torrent of human cruelty begins much sooner.  Coupled with the misguided notion that feminine equates with weakness, this makes them convenient targets for those who think that "if you're not exactly like me, then you need to die, or at least suffer greatly".  Many of those bullys that strike out are often attempting to deal with their own issues of sexuality and the old adage is proven true that we often despise negative (from their point of view) traits in others that we recognize within ourselves.

For others, coming out may be fairly easy and uneventful if they have family and friends with open minds and hearts.  They may feel the need to come out simply for honesty's sake in that they will no longer deny their true selves and do not wish to live a lie.  With a solid support group to aid them in this transition process, the coming out process and the self-evaluation that often accompanies is much lessened.  I would also venture that dealing with the slings and arrows of society are slightly easier when you know you have people that care about you as a person, not as an orientation.

For many, coming out can be a major event in their lives and not necessarily a good event.  I know several guys that were kicked out of their homes and onto the streets (one as young as 15) when they came out.  Some were physically beaten and subjected to other forms of abuse.  Some turned to prostitution as a means of survival, while others opted for drug addiction and/or suicide.  For ones raised in a fundamentally religious home, the coming out process can be brutal physically as mentioned above, compounded by a mental transformation that can be even more painful than physical abuse. When you are brainwashed as a child into believing certain groups of people are less than human, an abomination unworthy of any dignity or respect, then the coming out usually involves a serious re-evalutaion and  rewiring of the psyche.  You have been taught all your life to believe one thing, then you realize you are exactly the type of person you were taught to ridicule and dehumanize.  Some are unable to overcome this mindset and succumb to suicide or denial in its various forms.  Those that choose to fight will have to rediscover their self-worth from a totally new perspective and if they don't have a caring support group, this can be a long, arduous process.

When we discuss whether or not someone should come out, these are the things we should take into consideration before passing judgement.  While I totally agree that having positive LGBT role models is necessary and of enormous benefit, I also believe that just because a person is famous doesn't mean that they should automatically become a spokesperson for the GLBT community or that it is our choice as to whether this person should be made a role model.  If they wish to assume the mantle as a role model that is one thing, but it should never be forced upon them.  And we as a community should also recognize this as a valid choice and not condemn someone just because they choose to keep their private life private.  Personally, I find that being gay is one of the least interesting things about me and if someone is fixated on my orientation, then they should probably go find a life somewhere.  I would much rather be remembered for my kindness, compassion and contributions to society than my orientation.  I don't deny it when asked, but neither do I go around making an issue of my private life.  In fact, unless someone asks, I don't really even think about it, much less care if others are wondering or suspecting.  Events will unfold as they will whether you are afraid or not, so why expend the energy when fear provides no profit or benefit?  If someone finds out I'm gay, they can either be accepting and deal with it or they can be jerks.  I am prepared to deal with either.

"It's your will against mine and you will lose."  Clint Eastwood - Heartbreak Ridge