> Well, the "are some gays masculine?" is somewhat irrelevant.
> Fighting over what proportion of the 2% gays "pass" for
> masculine is pointless since it's most men who should be
> attracted to other men.
Whatever Lt. Col. Fehrenbach called himself during
his 20 years in the Air Force, he certainly wasn't
publicly "gay" (whether he thought of himself as such
I have no way of knowing. I suspect he did, if only because
that's the most convenient contemporary label for men who seek out
sex with men.). During those years, his sexual
partnering was probably similar to that of the
(heterosexually) married men who are on
the down-low. In the era of DADT, service members who
wanted (or needed) to have sexual contact with members
of their own sex were likewise on the "down-low",
frequently with other down-low service members.
But as discreet as Fehrenbach was during those two decades,
after he was questioned by the police after a hookup
that went very wrong
(
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/air_force_may_boot_pilot_who_revealed_he_is_gay_to.php )
he certainly **became** "gay" not only to the Air Force, but to the media,
and he took on a **political** role as a gay activist
(being invited to a Gay Pride reception at the White House,
and so on).
I guess I bristle at bit at the notion that the word "gay"
(which labels a political identity as much as
a sexual or social one) must be restricted to the
guys who like to do drag and lipsync to Lady Gaga,
but must **exclude** the "real men" who just happen
to like dick (who are not "g0y" or "cockrub warriors"
or "androphiles" either, but are simply indistinguishable
from the 90% of men in general who **would** like dick
if their wives or their churches or their upbringing
didn't rule it out for them. And that anybody who self-identifies
(or is labelled by the world as) "gay" is only, at best,
"passing" for masculine rather than actually being masculine.
That forced exclusion has the air of gerrymandering
categories simply to create a zone of safety for
a guy who likes dick but isn't comfortable
with **faggots** (like -- maybe -- "Alan" in
_The Boys in the Band_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_in_the_Bandwhich, if you haven't seen it, is on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVD39bDowQoand also contains a full spectrum of gay types.
And don't forget that **some** of that classic
gay "camping" is a "fuck you" reaction to straight
society's rejection and disgust -- a good deal
of it unfortunately internalized as well
(as also illustrated in the movie).
That's not to say I believe it's a **requirement** of being
gay to like glitter or dressing up like RuPaul, or listening
to Lady Gaga (or Barbra Streisand or Judy Garland),
or that butt sex is a requirement, either. I've never
been a "proper faggot" (as it was put to me many
years ago) in any of those departments.
And it's not to deny, either, that **some** human beings
with an X and a Y chromosome seem both to come naturally
by the mannerisms (or some exaggerated caricature thereof)
typical of the humans with two X chromosomes, and to be sexually
attracted to other XYs. Another movie you should
see if you haven't: _The Naked Civil Servant_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Civil_Servant_%28film%29also on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ymbgf0MDE8The author of "Reclaiming Natural Manhood" seems to want
to draw a similar line around the word "homosexual"
as you draw around the word "gay" -- he insists
on identifying "homosexuals" with India's "hijras" -- men who dress
up as and take on the mannerisms of women, who
solicit men as female prostitutes would, and who serve
their customers sexually as passive recipients of anal penetration.
And he **defines** the (discreet) sexual contacts (to
orgasm, presumably) between two masculine men such as
took place (he claims) before India was "heterosexualized"
by western influences, as **not homosexual**.
