From Twinkies to Gerbils: The History of the Gay Urban Legend

Mainly it's just a retelling of a bunch of tired old homopobic stories, and by putting them out there again, you are certainly doing nothing to help them be forgotten.  It's not like you debunked myths that any of your readers actually thought were true -- is there anyone here who really believes that these stories are anything but urban legend?  By the very act of writing about this stuff, you imply that this BS is deserving of intelligent discourse.  It is not.

 

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Every week, a friend and I produce our video blog, SKEWiR -- Stuart and Keith's Entertainment Week in Review.  Check us out at www.skewir.com!

afhickman

"It takes a village (to make Village People)"

I'm afraid I have to agree with Keith.  Why perpetuate these myths?  I had forgotten all about the gerbil, and now it's back to haunt me.  I'm surprised you didn't dredge up Rock and Gomer.  It reminds me of the time I woke up packed in ice in a hotel in El Paso missing a kidney.  It was a sunny day; the dogwoods were barking, when I...

How funny that Keith would eschew this whole story as "BS" that is not "deserving of intellectual discourse" and then give a shout out to his own blog where he discusses, among other things, Mariah Carey and New Kids on the Block. (Oh, let's have one more giggle: tee hee) Every single minute of every single day, we "perpetuate" this or "reaffirm" that and just take the whole thing so seriously. In the case of this story, c'mon, you really think that a story on a site visited mostly by gay men is now going to add to the ethos of any visitor to this site? If you assume that the readers are too smart to have believed this in the first place, it should stand to reason then, that if they read an article that says, "THIS IS NOT TRUE," they will not go out into the world and tell people, "It's true because they said it wasn't."  I realize you are hoping that people forget these things, and I'll admit, I forgot about the hook/boyfriend thing. I promise not to spread this vicious rumor amongst teens who really want to get pregnant.

And an aside: I love that the WWN felt the need to even put "gay" in the headling for Saddam and Osama's wedding...in case middle America was okay with the nuptials until it realized that the marriage of two men...was gay! ha ha

Hmm, I kind of have to agree with the above posters that this article seems rather unnecessary.

However, it was worth it to see that magazine cover - Saddam/Osama!  OMG.

Discussing an issue does not cause it to endure any more than ignoring it causes it to go away; my family has proved this theory in that despite their best attempts at avoiding the subject for the last twenty years, I am still very much gay.

If anything, discussing the issue helps to bring about understanding and truth. If Dennis had espoused these legends as truth, then yes, Keith and afhickman would have had something legitimite to be concerned about.

Personally, I always thought that Bert and Ernie were gay. Why can't they be? I know the people at Sesame Street say otherwise, but I found it refreshing that a children's show could show that gay people are normal. As for the argument that they are puppets and have no sexuality is concerned, I think that this is crap. There are plenty of straight married pupppets with children. So if positive heterosexual relationships can be depicted, then it shouldn't be a surprise that positive homosexual relationships can be shown as well. I mean there are children being raised in same sex households. Shouldn't they be able to see themselves represented, and know that they are normal.

Spongebob is a sponge. His girlfriend is going to be pissed when she finds out he's a closeted asexual.

Tinky-winky...no comment.

Milo darling, Don't pay the least bit attention to those naysayers it's an enchanting "think piece", you have a gift with the written word and I'll be awaiting your next endeavor.

Ive heard some of this stories and ask myself where do this ridiculous stories com from?, but I know there are people, gay and straight, that believe them. Just yesterday there was a mention of "the Twinky Defense" in Law & Order; someone will pick up on it, google it and believe it.

Ill tell you what I will take from it: If I ever encounter one of this stories again, Ill have enuff information to debunk it right then and there, instead of just keep wondering.

So thanks.

 

Here's an urban legend that used to be told - and this was before AIDS, young 'uns - by guys who were appalled by the going-ons of the leather community.  Supposedly a man was engaged in fist insertive sex with another man in a bar (I don't know which one, it depended on the city), and while the man was pulling his hand out his signet ring (it was always a signet ring) got caught on the other's man's intestine and pulled part of it out. 

For those who say that the Twinkies to Gerbils post is not necessary I say: That you must know where you have been in order to know where you are going...

Unfortunately, most of this country's perception of gays and homosexuality is based on myth. You would not believe the number of Americans that believe homosexuality and child molestation go hand in hand. I believe that the percentages have decreased over the years but we have a long way to go....

 

http://thegaygrouch.blogspot.com/

I don't agree with Keith and a few others. There are still huge chunks of the country where people believe these myths and use them against us. I think it's always good to revisit this crap and be reminded of where the myths come from and how to debunk them when confronted by the bigots who use them. Anyhoo...great job, snicks!

afhickman

"It takes a village (to make Village People)"

Next time you are tempted to repeat one of these stories, you should be aware that the joke is probably on you.  Their existence says nothing of importance about "middle America" or anyone else's attitudes toward 'mos.  Indeed, they usually have a more "sinister" agenda.

A case in point: the Rock and Gomer story is based on a bad pun.  If Rock Hudson married Gomer Pyle, he'd be Rock Pyle.  Yuk, yuk.  The story never had any basis in fact.  Nor was it meant to denigrate anyone.  The joke is really on whoever repeats it.  The gerbil story is a bit more insidious.  Any actor's name would normally do for a slur like this, but the actor in question had the bad sense to be named similarly to the first syllable in this particular rodent's name and thus became the obvious choice.  (By the way, while we're "discussing" the story, why may we not mention the actor's name?  Does anyone seriously believe this story is true?)  It's just another case of a pun gone bad.  Somebody probably didn't find her pair of cha-cha heels under the tree one Christmas and decided to start a vicious rumor.  Every time it's repeated, the jerk who made it up gets a laugh.  Don't give him/her the satisfaction!  As John Waters might say, "Spare me your anatomy!"

I have to agree with those questioning the value of re-visiting these stale urban legends (except the Twinkie Defense, of couse: Twinkies never go stale!).

And now I'll contradict myself by sharing a very stale petit fors:

I worked at the (US) National AIDS Hotline circa 1990, so I'm very familiar with Kimberly Bergalis. The plain facts of how HIV is transmitted were well established at that point, but certain elements of the public were somewhat resistant to those facts, namely the aggresively ignorant and those suffering from OCD.

Every time Kimberly popped up on the news to talk about how she got HIV from her dentist, we got a flood of calls from irate ignoramuses and panicked obsessives. Kimberly was not popular among my fellow HIV Information Specialists. To make it slightly more bearable, we all referred (only amongst ourselves, of course) to the innocent, pure, and virginal Kimberly as the "Immaculate Infection."

Yes, it was a little tasteless to make light of anyone's seroconversion (especially then), but she started it with her distinction of innocent victims vs. those who must have been asking for it.

hmm, guess I can still get really pissed off about it all after all these years.

Anyway, I second the vote for snopes.com - your one-stop-shop for debunking urban legends (and a damn good time-suck, too)

Thanks for your thoughtful reportage. These stories don't go away, until we dispel them. And dispel them and dispel them we must. I had heard the jury selection explanation before, but the twinkie defense still stayed with me, thanks for the brush up.

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Interesting. I've heard the gerbil story a million times in the >35 years since I started grade school, yet I've never once heard mention of any celebrity in association with it, nor have I ever heard it referred to as a 'gay story,' just a gross, weird, or funny one, usually in association with stories of other weird things like lightbulbs, hairbrushes, various produce, etc. that ER docs supposedly have had to remove from people's rectums.