Being Gay, and not Being Gay.

(I should say this post is possibly NOT SAFE FOR WORK)

So today I bought my first ever gay mag, no not porno, just gay, a magazine for gay peeps. Like man on man, the 'G' in 'GLBT'. That's what I mean. Contrary to my expectations the hardest part of the process wasn't the actual purchase, but the selecting the mag that was best value for money. I mean there isn't much downside risk, so I went with DNA the cheapest one. All these mags contain the same advertising material and advertising material makes up like 90% of the content, so it wasn't a hard decision. It's just the standing and flicking through and comparing in the section of Mag nation between the hetero hang outs of Sport and Tittie Mags was difficult. Well relatively difficult. All rationality aside, I felt self conscious and I don't know why, because all rationality has been put aside.

Such that I am reminded of Carson Kressley table of things that make you gay vs. things that don't make you gay, the punch line of which was that being attracted to and having sex with men makes you gay. Which I know rationally, still for some reason it's like I don't want peeps to think I am gay. What do I care? This is the question I cannot answer.

I'm not gay. Nor do I currently own a BMX, I also bought a BMX mag, and the cashier I could tell was giving me a look that said either 'this guy doesn't look gay...' or 'this guy isn't a BMX enthusiast...' It strikes me that I often buy odd combos, like Dolly Partons Greatest Hits and Cypress Hill's Los Grandos Exitos in Espaniol, is it a defence mechanism or do I really have eclectic taste?

I bought both for reference, and frankly I will admit few peeps would look at me and assume my purchase decisions are clear indicators that I am some kind of quasi-artist.

To be honest, the most embarrassing (and I mean burning with shame) purchase was when I bought this magazine:

I bought it in Japan, also ostensibly as reference, and also because it was soft-core porno. (I should point out that whenever I am in Japan I have an easy time of buying hard core porno that I give to my friends and relatives as gifts, Janice loved her christmas present.)
When you buy a magazine that has for it's cover the soft wet arse of a girl in bikini bottoms, it is hard to pretend you are not a pervert. This made me more uncomfortable than buying a gay mag because fact is I AM a PERVERT. Furthermore, I had to make the transaction with a Japanese female employee of Maruzen in Nagoya, well I didn't have to I could have dropped the magazine back on the rack and run away, I just knew that this girl was the perfect reference for my Wish graphic novel's protagonist (and yes, there are more than just close up pictures of her arse inside I'm not doing no girls arse comic), and that this magazine due to Japan's large pervert population would probably sell out, because all the other past issues featuring different girls (possibly for different perverts, possibly for the same ones) also sold out.

By contrast I know I'm not gay, I'm old enough to know that buying a gay mag doesn't send a report to NASA that is then sent around the world obliging me to suck a chode if asked. Even if the cashier ended up being a gay sexual predator I am still confident that this is yet another problem I can run away from.

Really my only concern is that I might be perceived as buying DNA magazine as some kind of joke, some jibe, some ironic diss of the gay community. Personally I think that finding out where the models get their underwear is justification enough for a straight guy to buy this mag.

Yeah, I could have just bought GQ, which has pretty much the same advertising material, and pretty much the same demographic and the occassional article on basketball or clint eastwood, but really I wanted unashamed reference material without it actually being gay porno.

In fact looking at DNA magazine's covers, overall if young straight guys were to look at these guys as their ideal it would probably be healthier than whatever they are looking at now. I know somewhere before I have written about how men's ideal body images are generally derived from sporting role models. Whose body image if not realistic is at the very least utilitarian, that is they can put their hard earned physiques to use in more ways than attracting some sexual partner to look after them. They can for example earn $120 million dollars per year playing for the LA Lakers, and look after both themselves, their wife and several mistresses.

By contrast women are made to feel ugly, by fashion models whose only use for their body ideal is to act as some walking coat-hanger and can aspire to one day having some wealthy old man come look after them, or their cocaine addiction, whichever comes first.

Now, guys are adopting the heroin-chic look and to my old fashioned fashion values, I find the whole thing emasculating.

Of course, this post could easily be self defeating, I bought the magazine for reference, because I want to do a companion pin-up calendar to offset the chauvinistic 'Balifornia Girls' calendar I did, plus artists always strive to be original right? and it seems every comic book artist does girly pin-ups which are bought for some reason by girls as well as guys. So I thought I would do a set of guyly pin-ups. BUT, I'm aware I have revealed that I find toughness as some hetero-masculine ideal. Let me clarify that I don't lose too much sleep thinking about gender roles, or even how I feel about sexual orientation.

So if I wasn't an athiest I would hold that 'God would not create a love that wasn't beautiful' and possibly qualify that love with *consensual* which bestiality despite the 'Doctor Doolittle' defense cannot be. I honestly wished I lived in a world where sexual preference was a total non-issue, and that's how I act and feel about it most of the time. The only time I fret about sexual orientation is when I'm attracted to a girl and worry that she may be a lesbian, realising that if I were gay I would probably fret much more often that guys I liked were straight, for sheer statistical reasons, this is probably the only argument I have for enjoying being heterosexual. Being Bi would be least stressful of all, but I'm not and will just have to live with that.

As for gender roles, this I treat as even more of a non-issue in my day to day life. This is probably due to the largely negative reason that I get to enjoy all the privilege of being a straight-white-male in a world ruled by straight-white-males. Thus I don't get the booty end of the inequality stick. But vicariously, I do have to taste that shit stick occassionally. Like Misaki felt she was ugly despite being one of the most beautiful women in the world. Yet I lost two whole weeks in the time we were together just to the time she spent applying and removing make up every day. In that sad irony of it all, I actually preferred her spots which showed up when she wasn't wearing make-up, but I've come to learn that if a girl doesn't think she is beautiful, you can't tell her she is. This is largely I suspect due to the billions of dollars of advertising spent telling her she isn't you just can't compete with. If I had a billion dollars I would buy a golden pyramid and live in it on the moon, not put up 'my girlfriend is beautiful' billboards.

So what I mean to say is not that men should be tough and virile women rapers, just self-assured. I am opposed to the large amount of dollars made from companies that profit by making women, and increasingly men feel ugly and stimulate a need to bridge the ever growing gap between their reality and their ideal with products. I would like to see women advance, but I see men degenerating, that's all I see.

If the myth of masculinity is derived from some historical 'conquerer rapist' ideal, then that needs improvement too, but I'm not sure if the answer is to 'get in touch with your feminine side' but rather 'drop the rapist antics, drop the thug antics, just be some person who can stand up for themselves.'

Anyway sorry for the mixed messages, but being gay makes you gay not buying a gay magazine confusing as that is. If buying a magazine made you something, then I would be a rad BMX cyclist too as of yesterday.