Gay_Vespa's Blog

We just had one of those GLEE system maintenance downtimes, and now I notice some changes with the way Blog posts are done. Additionally, when I just edited and re-dated some of my older posts, formatting & font glitches appeared.

So my apologies if the appearance of my Blog posts has changed. Please let me know if they are less readable, lacking paragraph breaks, tiny fonts and such. I use a Mac, and apparently how Windows users see my stuff sometimes differs from what I see and intend.

I'm a late bloomer, and what kept me in self-denial for many years may apply to some of you who are confused about yourself, or to some other people you might know and advise.

Common obstacles to coming out can be family, community, friends, employment, religion and other things most of us already know about. But in my case, the greatest obstacle was myself.

My problem was that I believed in erroneous male stereotypes regarding the outward behavior of gay and straight men. Since I mostly behaved like the straight male stereotype, and not the gay one, I concluded I couldn't be gay, despite my sexual attraction to men, and my lack of any similar feelings towards women.

Growing up in the 1950s and '60s, I was exposed to the myth that all "queers" are effeminate, swishy cross-dressers who speak with a lisp. Since that wasn't me, I failed the gay "test."

And based on the very low esteem in which queers were held by society, I knew it wasn't something I'd ever want to be. I was highly motivated to believe I was straight, and also to conform to the example of my male peers, and not make myself an outsider who didn't "fit in" with the guys.

So that when I'd have to fight against getting aroused in the high school locker room gang shower, for instance, I'd try to rationalize it as being nothing more than a self-induced reaction to the very fear that I'd have a reaction. It was merely a case of worrying about it too much, and thereby inadvertently making it actually happen, that had nothing to do with seeing the other guys naked. Nice theory, but not in my case.

And I also had lame theories about why I wasn't attracted to girls. Mostly it was their fault, because it was they who weren't interested in me. I might show some interest if they'd show it first. In the meantime, I was just too busy with other things, and I interpreted the obsession young men my age had for females as immature passion overriding underdeveloped intellect.

What finally brought an end to this absurdly delusional thinking was seeing the reality of masculine gay men. And being told that sexual orientation is more about gender attraction than about behavior. Once my stereotypical image of gay men was invalidated, my entire denial mechanism collapsed.

The existence of butch gays allowed for the possibility that I might be gay myself. And as I thought back on my life objectively, without the biased insistence that I must be straight, every indication was gay.

Because although I may act straight on the outside, I think gay on the inside. And that, I've found, is how the majority of the gay men I know behave. I actually know very few "flamers" despite how TV & movies often portray us.

Leading me to believe that one way to remove the kind of obstacle to gay self-awareness and acceptance such as I experienced is the promotion of the image of gays as ordinary men, rather than as maladjusted pseudo-women. We need more public role models of gays who defy the swishy stereotypes.

And this has several benefits. One is to the closeted or denying gay, to help him overcome his fears, confusion and doubts about himself.

Another benefit is that the straight public sees a more realistic image of us, that refutes some of the slanderous propaganda our enemies spread about gays. They use the old stereotypes as weapons against us, but the reality of the more typical gay man disarms them.

Fortunately this is already happening today to a greater extent than ever before. But TV is still full of "Jacks" and the likes of that femmy assistant on "Ugly Betty."

I find them funny, but I think we're better off with role models that are gay more in sentiment than in superficial attire and mannerisms. And when the spotlight moves away from the more flamboyant end of the gay behavioral scale, then all parts of the scale will be better accepted by the general public, and more men will be willing and able to identify themselves as being gay.

[The following post is reprinted from a comment I made to a GLEE friend's blog. We were talking about gay euphemisms, and living gay decades ago.]

I wrote a blog entry called "Is gay a recent term?" which I've just re-dated to make it sort to the top of my GLEE posts. I cite evidence that "gay" was being used to mean homosexuality at least as far back as 1938.

There's also a semi-autobiographical book dealing with gay American soldiers stationed in WWII London, who were using the phrase "friend of Dorothy" to discreetly identify themselves to each other. I thought that was a bit anachronistic for 1944, until I met the author, an elderly gay man who claimed it was really true from his own personal experience in wartime London. I still have my doubts, but he was quite insistent on the point.

In my own case, as a boy I remember overhearing my mother telling people I was "artistic" and "sensitive," which I now know are other euphemisms for being gay. And I'm pretty sure that's how she meant it, since I wasn't then, nor have I ever demonstrated, the slightest inclination for being artistic in its original sense. Plus I later learned she did in fact know I was gay, even before I accepted it myself.

My partner tells me stories similar to yours, about gay dances with token women present to ward off police raids. And if the cops did arrive the men would have to quickly swap their male dance partners for a woman to avoid arrest. Sounds like a kind of gay musical chairs, where I guess you lost the game if the supply of available women ran out before you'd grabbed one for yourself.

Those ruses weren't required anymore by the time I came out, at least not where I was living. My partner also confirms stories I'd read that drag queens had to convince police that they were dressed to perform as legitimate entertainers, not simply for their own amusement. And that they could be made to show to the cops that they were wearing male underwear beneath their "costumes" or face arrest.

Gives a new meaning to the question "Boxers or briefs?" LOL! I wonder if going commando under the dress was OK? hehehe...

How long has the English word gay been used as a euphemism for homosexuals and for homosexual behavior & traits? Some books I've read cite the 1920s or a little earlier, while most people today seem to assume it was coined after World War II. But definitive evidence is scarce.

One example that everyone can see for themselves is the 1938 comedy movie "Bringing Up Baby" with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. Ironic that Grant would provide the proof, who during the 1930s had been living in an allegedly gay relationship with fellow actor Randolph Scott.

Movie synopsis: Hepburn has contrived to swipe Grant's clothes while he's taking a shower in her country house, to clean himself up after a car crash with a truck carrying a load of chickens (well, it IS a comedy). The only item he can find in her bathroom to wear as a temporary replacement is Hepburn's frilly satin robe.

Grant sets out to find the gardener to borrow some men's clothing, dressed as he is. He opens the front door and runs right into Hepburn's matronly aunt, who hasn't met Grant before.

The aunt demands to know who he is and why he's dressed that way, causing a frustrated Grant to jump into the air and shout: "Because I just went GAY, all of a sudden!"

To my knowledge that's the earliest motion picture use of the word gay to mean a homosexual man, or at least to describe homosexual behavior as popularly envisioned. It's likely the term was already being applied for a period of time before this movie, possibly the 1920s as some sources have claimed.

Anyone have other examples of early use of the word gay in the sense of sexual orientation?