NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

When I was in high school in the 1970s, a series of paperbacks appeared at Readmore Book World with weird, evocative titles: The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath; The Doom that Came to Sarnath; At the Mountains of Madness.

They weren't actually heroic fantasy, they were "weird tales," dark fantasies by H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) originally published in the 1920s and 1930s, mostly about slithering, tentacled things that lurk just beneath the surface of idyllic small towns.

Such as Azazoth, "who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes."

That's the way he wrote.

And "unspeakable knowledge" uncovered in long-forgotten grimoires: De Vermis Mysteriis, the Book of Eibon, Unaussprechlichen Kulten.... and, of course, the Necronomicon, written by the "mad Arab Abdul Alhazred."

I loved that sort of thing. Especially because there was:

No heterosexual romance anywhere.
Lots of descriptions of masculine beauty.
Lots of male bonding.
Lots of muscular men discovering the horror behind the heteronormative job-wife-house trajectory.

In "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" (1919), the narrator hears a disembodied voice speaking from a sleeping man: "I am your brother of light, and have floated with you in the effulgent valleys. You have been my friend in the cosmos We shall meet again -- perhaps in the shining mists of Orion's Sword, perhaps in some other form an aeon hence, when the solar system shall have been swept away."

Talk about soul mates!

In “The Quest of Iranon”(1921), a man wanders a stern, unfriendly world in search of the city of Aira, where there are “men to whom songs and dreams. . .bring pleasure.” He meets “a young boy with sad eyes” who also dreams of escape. They travel together, happy in a way yet always longing. They grow old together and finally die, never finding their true home.

Might I suggest West Hollywood?

Randolph Carter, Lovecraft's most famous hero, has been played on screen by Mark Kinsey Stephenson, Art Kitching, Toren Atkinson, Adam Fozard, and Conor Timmis.

In real life, Lovecraft was rather a jerk. He was even more racist than most in his era, loudly criticizing the "decadent, half-ape" immigrants who were "overrunning" New England. He particularly disliked Jews, although he married a Jewish woman (his frequent anti-Semitic ranting was the cause of their breakup).

And he was even more homophobic than most, loudly criticizing gay people as "effeminate" and a danger to civilization. Yet he had many gay friends, such as Hart Crane (author of The Bridge), Samuel Loveman (author of Hermaphrodite and Other Poems), and Robert Hayward Barlow (who became executor of his estate).

In fact, one might say that he found his strongest emotional bonds among gay men.

For good or bad, I'm a child of the disco era. The songs of the Bee Gees bring back a rush of memories, especially those from their annus mirabilis, 1977-78:

When I brought Tyrone to the harvest dance, we were listening to "If I Can't Have You" on the car radio:

Don't know why I'm surviving every lonely day, when there's got to be no chance for me.
My life would end, and it doesn't matter how I cry.
My tears of love are a waste of time if I turn away

I kissed Brian under the mistletoe at my brother's Christmas party, then went upstairs and turned on KSTT radio to "How Deep is Your Love":

Cause we're living in a world of fools, breaking us down, when they all should let us be.
We belong to you and me.

When I figured It out,"Stayin' Alive" was playing in the background of everybody's life.

Well now, I get low and I get high, and if I can't get either, I really try.
Got the wings of heaven on my shoes -- I'm a dancin' man, and I just can't lose.

Objectively analyzed, the lyrics are simplistic and contradictory -- and heterosexist, loaded down with "girl! girl! girl!"

Yet no songs have ever been so meaningful.

The BeeGees consisted of three Australian brothers, Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. They had been recording for two decades before they hit it big with the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, which launched the disco craze. They were apparently all heterosexual, but their music drew heavily from the gay-and-black underground scene.

Their younger brother Andy had an annus mirabilis of his own in 1977-78, with "Love Is Thicker than Water,""Shadow Dancing,""An Everlasting Love," and "Don't Throw It Away."

He became a teen idol, his bare hairy chest and bulge featured prominently in Tiger Beat, as well as the "nearly" gay interview magazine After Dark.

See also: The Harvest Dance; Kissing a Boy Under the Mistletoe; Figuring It Out

There's a secret that all college professors know, but students don't.

We can see what they are doing in class.

We're standing, and they're sitting, so we always have an excellent view of the first row. In small classes, or classrooms arranged in tiers, we have an excellent view of everyone.

So we know when they're trying to type a text message, or sneak a peek at their notes during an exam.

And other things.

College students don't check their erotic desires at the lecture hall door, and 21-year olds don't even need an erotic stimulus -- things just happen.

Bulging and tenting. And hands moving down there, trying to cover it. Sometimes even helping it along.

Ordinarily I enjoy such spectacles, but not when I'm on the job, trying to work.

I had a colleague who used to walk up to tenting students and ask "Do you need to be excused to take care of that?"

But I won't reprimand the student -- to acknowledge that I have noticed would be terribly embarrassing for both of us.

So I just ignore it.

I have only mentioned it to the student once, when I was teaching in Dayton. The student -- I'll call him Raheem -- sat in a tier where his lap was exactly at my eye level.

And he wasn't just trying to cover an occasional tent. Two or three times per class, he slid his his hand all the way down into his pants, felt around for a few moments to make sure everything was arranged properly, and slid his hand out again.

It was very distracting, to me and no doubt to the students around him.

I asked my faculty mentor what to do. He said "Raheem is obviously a homophobe, trying to get a rise out of you so he can claim sexual harassment, You should confront him and tell him that his behavior is inappropriate."

But Raheem wasn't looking at me during his beneath-the-belt explorations. He was staring into space, bored by the lecture and letting his mind wander. No doubt to erotic thoughts.

So I sent him an email:

"I'm sure you don't realize it, but from my position in the front of the class, I'm looking directly at your lap. So be careful not to sneak a text message or do anything else that you don't want me to know about."

How would Raheem respond? Would he not understand what I meant? Would he angrily deny doing anything? Would he say "I was hoping to get your attention!"

He didn't respond to my email, but the next day after class, he came up to my desk and wordlessly handed me an envelope. It contained a beautiful "Thank You" card with the inscription "Thanks for the heads-up! I'll be more careful!"

The beneath-the-belt explorations stopped. But soon I discovered the reason for them -- when Raheem didn't rearrange himself, he spent most of the class sessions tenting.

That was even more distracting.

See also: My Student Gets Naked in Class.

The Australians love their nudity.

1. There are nude beaches near Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, with several that cater mostly to gay men.

2. The Meredith Music Festival, held every December in the town of Meredith, Victoria, features "the world's nude footrace," a sprint around the main amphitheater in front of 12,000 spectators. There are men's and women's races, with the winners of both competing in a final race.

3. In January, the Nude Olympics are held on Maslin Beach in Victoria. There are balloon races (couples carry balloons between them), sack races, frisbee contests, and doughnut eating contests. Contestants must all be nude, but spectators have a choice.

Contestants are mostly middle-aged heterosexual nudists. There's a Ms. Maslin contest, but not a Mr.

4. At the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, performance artist Stuart Ringholt leads nude tours.
He's nude, and you're nude.

He believes that you can get a new perspective on art by breaking down the barrier between you and the physical world.

But won't people be checking out each other more than the art?

5. Artist, Stuart Tunick, photographs people naked in front of iconic structures to depict the struggle between art and the natural world. He began in New York, but got arrested and fined five times, so he moved abroad. He has had exhibitions in Mexico, Switzerland, Belgium, and Australia.

In 2010, he got 5,000 to pose in front of the Sydney Opera House. The logistics of getting so many volunteers to undress and stand still for hours must have been staggering.

Here's the results. A solid wall of human bodies.

As an undergrad, I studied Spanish, French, German, and Greek. In grad school, I studied Italian, Russian, and Turkish. Since then, I've studied several others. Of course, I didn't get far in most; today, about all I can get by in are Spanish and French.

But I'm still interested in languages, particularly isolates, the remnants of ancient language families that have somehow managed to avoid the encroachment of economically-superior English, Spanish, Urdu, Chinese, or Arabic.

Actually, after my execrable date with Ari the Linguist, I don't really want to learn the languages; I just want to meet men who speak a language unlike any other in the world, and maybe learn a few new words for penis or My hotel is nearby.

1. Burushaski: 87,000 speakers in mountains of far northern Pakistan, near the borders of China and Tajikstan.

Their valley, Hunza, was the source of the Shangri-La legend. Travelers said that they had no wars or disputes, and eternal youth. So this Burushaski gym rat could be over 100. He's had a shipen since he was about 20; before that, it was a sushun.

Tash chom means pull, sex appeal, and to find someone to spend the night with.

2. Tarascan (Purepecha), the remnants of an empire that threatened the Aztecs in precolonial Mexico, now has 240,000 speakers in Michioacan.

Kuini in Purepecha means penis, bird, and prison term. I'm wondering about the prison term.

3. Mapuche: 250,000 speakers in southern Ecuador. Their leader Capulican is memoralized in a Beefcake statue.

The slogan of the Mapuche civil rights movement is Newen penis, "Power to Mapuche Brothers."

The Mapuche word for penis is punun, which, by the way, is the same as the Quechua word for bed.

They specialize in a novelty carving called an Indio Picaro, a smiling Mapuche Indian who, when you raise him up, displays an erect penis.

4. Basque, with 720,000 speakers in the Pyrenees of northern Spain. Yuri and I visited Basque country in 1999 in search of the world's largest penis.

Which, in Basque, is zakil.

5. But the biggest of the language isolates is Korean, with 78 million speakers.

The average Korean penis length is 3.8", the smallest in the world (the U.S.is 5.0").

There's a blog that attempts to answer this unjust accusation, offering proof that the Korean eumgyeong is just as big as anybody else's.

See also: 10 Ethnic Groups on my Bucket List.

People who hear about the various languages I've studied always ask "Why didn't you become a linguist?"

Because linguistics is not about world languages. It's about phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax, how ui changes to eu in some dialects of Farsi, but only before glottal consonants.

But that doesn't stop people from trying to fix me up with translators and polyglots of various ilks.

The latest, when I was in Dayton, was Ari, a professor of linguistics at Ohio State, about an hour away.

"He's got four of the five traits you find attractive," my friend enthused. "He's a gym rat, religious, a swarthy Mediterranean, and gifted where it counts!"

So we exchanged a few emails and photographs. Ari was muscular, in his mid-30s, dark-skinned, with curly black hair. He said he was born in Israel, and moved to the U.S. when he was five years old. He was a lapsed Orthodox Jew. And a linguist!

Sounds perfect.

One Saturday afternoon, I drove into Columbus and met Ari at, of all places, an upscale hot dog place -- Dirty Frank's Hot Dog Palace.

"So Hebrew must be your first language," I began. "It's fascinating that an extinct language was revived..."

"I don't remember much Hebrew," Ari said. "I did my dissertation on Tlingit, a Na-Dene language of British Columbia and Alaska. It has fifteen pronomials, which vary depending on the locative. For instance, if you're going out to sea, it's dak-dei for a n-dei locative, but daki-naa for an n-naa locative."

"Many of the Native American tribes had third genders..." I began, hopefully.

"No, Tlingit doesn't have gender categories. But it does have telic punctuals..."

"It's very important for your telics to be punctual."

He stared. "Um...I just finished a paper on Jingulu, an Australian aboriginal language with six cases."

"I'm interested in Australian aboriginals, too" I said. "They have a culture dating back thousands of years...."

But Ari wasn't interested in culture. "Jingulu has four genders: masculine, feminine, neutral, and vegetable, but everything rounded is masculine, like kiyinarra, which means vagina."

This was probably the first time that I ever heard the term vagina on a date. It didn't increase my amorous expectations.

"The Basque word for man is gizon, which is similar to the phrase big penis in ancient Sumerian," I tried.

He frowned. "You're not trying to suggest a Basque-Sumerian link, are you?"

"No...um, I was just...."

"The interesting thing about Basque is its compound benefactive case. Have you ever heard of a compound benefactive before?"

And it went on like that, through dinner, through browsing upscale clothing at Torso, through "a beer" at the Exile, and back to Ari's apartment.

"Not a problem," I thought. "Being gifted beneath the belt can more than make up for a few hours of boredom."

He wasn't. My friend who set us up had exaggerated.

"Not a problem," I thought. "Being proficient in the bedroom can more than make up for physiological inadequacies."

He wasn't. He spent every moment of our time together with his mouth open. Talking! Directing, exhorting, commenting, murmuring.

I tried a variety of ways to shut him up, but to no avail. He kept talking.

I'm going to resist the temptation to make a dirty joke about linguists using their mouths.

We dated a few more times, but I could never get Ari to shut up.

See also: 6000 Words for Penis.

When I was living in Florida, newcomers from the small towns (or big cities) of the vast homophobic Straight World often went crazy with joy: "You can be open here! You can be free!" They found a job in a gay venue, read only gay books, went only to gay movies, and never ventured beyond the magic square bounded by Oakland Park Blvd., Powerline Road, NW 13th Street, and the Atlantic Ocean.

"Oh, you live on NW 12th Street? Isn't that a little...iffy?"

Most residents of Wilton Manors weren't quite so insular. But all of our friends were gay. So were our neighbors. And, as far as we know, so was the guy on the next treadmill at Barney's Gym, the guy sorting coupons in the check out line at the Publix Supermarket, and the woman browsing among the humorous cards at To the Moon. We avoided heterosexuals as much as possible. They were the enemy, screaming "God hates you!" from behind security fences at Gay Pride, or asking simpering, insulting questions, like "What do they think causes it now?"

So my house mates were surprised, and not entirely sympathetic when I befriended a heterosexual.

In the fall of 2003, when I was working at Florida Atlantic University, I saw Josh (not his real name) in the locker room of the campus gym, stripping out of a plaid shirt, suspenders, and a ridiculous red bowtie. I concluded that he was heterosexual almost immediately, through the gleaming, new-looking ring on his finger and his casual references to his wife. Surely Josh concluded that I was gay almost immediately, from my answer to the question " What are you working on now?” (media images of gay teenagers), or from the shelves of gay books, rainbow flag mouse pad, and gay pride poster in my office.

But no, when an attractive girl passed, Josh nudged me so I could look. "I only look at guys," I said.

That didn't do it.

"He will never figure it out," my housemate Yuri told me. "Stupid straight guys can never see anything but straights."

"Anyway, why would you want to tell a breeder?" my other housemate, Barney, said with an accusatory glare, as if I was planning some act of treason. "When he finds out, he'll start screaming that you're trying to molest him."

"He's not a friend, really. He just comes to my office to chat. Besides, it's a challenge. Somehow or other I'm going to get him to figure it out!"

"Impossible!" Barney exclaimed. "But why don't we make it interesting? I'll bet you $20 that you can't get him to figure it out during the next week. You can say anything you want except 'I'm gay.'"

"I want in on this thing too," Yuri said. "But you can't cruise him. Or talk about your old boyfriends."

I spent the next week dropping all of the hints I could think of.

"I can't get married in this state. It's illegal."
"Oh...still married to the wife back home, huh?"
No, you nitwit, gay people can't get married!

"I can't donate blood. It's illegal."
"I hear you. Get a venereal disease just once, it haunts you for the rest of your life."
No, you idiot, gay men can't donate blood!

"My childhood church was totally homophobic. It blamed gays for everything from child molestation to 9/11."
"That's ridiculous! Gays are just people, like you and me."
Are you in on the bet? Did my housemates pay you to pretend ignorance?

Finally in desperation I invited Josh over for dinner with Barney and Yuri.

"Oh, a guys' night! Leave the girlfriends at home! Sounds great!"

During dinner, I brought up Wilton Manors' reputation as a gay mecca.
"Yeah, gentrifying neighborhoods often have gay guys fixing things up."

Barney's job managing a gym with a mostly gay clientele.
"It's great that you're so secure in your masculinity that you aren't worried about them seeing you naked in the locker room."

Yuri's quest for the World's Biggest Penisin the Basque country of Spain four years ago.
"Wow, are they really that big? They must really impress the ladies!"

My housemates grinned at me.

After dinner I invited Josh to select a movie to watch from our collection of 200-odd DVDS. Other than a few classics, they all had gay characters, gay subtexts, or covers displaying muscular guys with their shirts off. Without a word or even an odd look, he selected Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, which has none.

Josh sat on the couch, directly behind a coffee table containing a pile of gay magazines. On top was an issue of The Advocate, selected deliberately because the word “Gay” was written on the cover three times, along with photos of the gay icons Harvey Milk and Chad Allen. Surely that would be enough.

It wasn't.

After the movie, we were channel surfing, when an attractive man appeared on the screen. “Wait – go back,” I exclaimed. “That guy was totally hot!”

"What for?" Josh asked. "It was a guy."

Finally in desperation, I pulled out my wallet, handed $20 bills to Yuri and Barney, and said, in a loud, clear voice, "I am gay."

"Yeah, right. Don't be funny." He turned to Yuri. "Does Jeff always joke around like this?"

"Yes, all the time," he said, barely restraining his laughter. "Except when he wants to impress a girl."

I hit him on the head with a pillow.

When they finally assured Josh that I wasn't joking, he was shocked. "I had no idea. You hide it so well!"

Hide it?

Then: "I think it's great that you guys are so secure in your masculinity that you don't mind having a gay roommate."

See also: My Relatives Never Figure It Out; Was It a Screen?; and Gay People Do Not Exist

Heterosexual Soldier

In the spring of 2005, after twenty years in the gay neighborhoods of California, New York, and Florida, the only academic job I could find was in Dayton, Ohio, an hour's drive from the nearest gay neighborhood. Too far to come home to every night.

So, for the first time in twenty years, the first time in my adult life, I would be living and working, buying groceries and going to the gym, finding friends and lovers, falling asleep every night and waking up every morning in the Straight World.

My friends advised me to stay home, find another temporary position at a college in Florida, or give up academe altogether. I had forgotten what the Straight World was like, they said. The heterosexuals who lived among us had learned to be civil, so they merely asked “Are you the boy or the girl?” instead of screaming “Got AIDS yet?” But in the factory towns and farming villages of the Straight World, they were all screamers.

I would be spat on, called names, harassed by the police, refused medical care, kicked out of my apartment. My car’s tires would be slashed. Rocks would be hurled through my kitchen window. One day I would be murdered, no doubt about it, and my assassin would get the lightest possible sentence, as the judge declared, “It’s a pity that ridding the world of an abomination must be punished at all.” Why did we all flee from our birth towns in the first place? To stay alive.

Heterosexual Bear

I thought my friends were exaggerating. An entire generation had grown up since Stonewall. Surely some heterosexuals were gay-friendly, even in the Straight World, and most of the rest were simply polite bigots, keeping their hatred well concealed. Surely screamers were rare, even in the Straight World, and actual murders rarer still, occurring only when a preacher incited bloodlust with a cry of “God wills it!”

Besides, the Straight World could not possibly be empty of gay people. Not everyone moved to a gay neighborhood. 10% of the population would never fit. Not even 5%. For every gay person who fled to gay neighborhoods, there must be a dozen who stayed home, and now flew rainbow flags from their porches, strolled down the street hand-in-hand with their partners, created spaces of freedom in spite of the screams.

So I loaded my car with suitcases and books and left the Gay World for the first time in my adult life, to go into exile in western Ohio.

After checking into my hotel, I made my way up the hill to the campus, to a flat brick building with a cornerstone stating that it was constructed in 1969, the year of Stonewall. A good sign, I thought. Maybe the Straight World wasn’t so dark and savage after all.

When I arrived at my new office, its former occupant, a fat, sweating political scientist named Dr. Dean, was busily clearing out so I could move in. We chatted while he knelt on the floor, taping up the last of his boxes. He asked how I liked Ohio. I liked it fine so far, I said. Then, preoccupied with masking tape, not looking up, he asked:“Did your wife come with you?”

Heterosexual Captain Crunch

My wife? Gay men had partners, spouses, lovers, never wives. Why would Dr. Dean think that I was heterosexual? I hadn’t mentioned a woman. I hadn’t kissed a woman in his presence. I wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. But Dr. Dean showed no sign of looking for evidence. He asked by rote, with utter nonchalance, as if “Did your wife come with you?” was small talk, the precise equivalent of “How do you like Ohio?"

I had quick, witty, withering responses prepared for the polite bigot who asked “Why are gay men so obsessed with fashion?” and for the screamer who ranted “Why do you molest little boys?”, but I had no response prepared for this nonchalance, this blithe confidence that every man has a wife, and presumably every woman a husband, that heterosexual experience is undoubtedly universal human experience.

“Uh. . .I’m not. . .I don’t. . . .” I stammered.

Dr. Dean looked up, frowning, surprised at my hesitation. “Or haven’t you met the right woman yet?” he offered in a kindly tone.

Finally collecting my wits, I said, “There is no right woman. I am not interested in women. I haven’t been on a date with a girl since high school.”

He stared, mouth gaping, utterly taken aback. Was he so surprised to discover that gay people existed? "Don’t give up,” he said after a long moment. He returned in embarrassment to the box that he was taping. “Everyone has a soulmate somewhere. I didn’t get married until I was thirty-six.”

Now it was my turn to stare. Dr. Dean was not shocked about meeting a gay person – he still thought I was heterosexual. Saying I was not interested in women did not tell him that I was interested in men, but that I had given up on finding the “right” woman! Saying that I hadn’t dated a girl since high school did not tell him that I dated boys, but that I never dated at all!

I stood upright and turned back toward the bright wood-framed hall where the doorways of heterosexual professors were marked with office hours from semesters past and yellowing Dilbert comics. I wanted to scream “I exist!” I wanted to drag Dr. Dean up by his shirt collar and force him to wake up from his smug heterosexual fantasy. But instead I asked: “Is there a soda machine nearby?” My first encounter with a resident of the Straight World ended in ignominious defeat.

Heterosexual Supermarket

Dr. Dean was not unique. During my first weeks in Ohio, I heard about “my wife” and “my girlfriend” constantly. The assistant manager who signed me up for a membership at the Better Bodies Fitness Center said that she could work out with me for free.

A parishioner at Unitarian Church mentioned the Women’s Breakfast she might be interested in.

The clerk who gave me a Super Value Discount Card at Kroger's Supermarket offered me a second card to take home for her.

The DMV employee who issued my new driver’s license asked how she liked Ohio.

One professor who asked about my wife ironically had a “LGBT Safe Space” sticker affixed to her office door.

Colleagues, student assistants, new neighbors, church parishioners, and random strangers always asked about my wife within a sentence or two of “Hello.” It was simply how one made conversation in the Straight World,

18 Heterosexuals

No one in the Straight World ever asked, “How does your partner like it here?” No assistant manager who signed me up for a gym membership told me that “my girlfriend or boyfriend” could work out for free, no church parishioner mentioned the clubs “my significant other” might be interested in, and no grocery store clerk gave me a second Super Value Discount Card for my “spouse.”

Regardless of whether they were young or old, uneducated or educated, screamer or polite bigot or gay-friendly, they were absolutely certain, without the slightest doubt, that gay people did not exist.

See also: Straight Guys Never Figure It Out

My parents married on the spur of the moment,while my father was on leave from the navy. They immediately drove cross-country from Indiana to Long Beach, where Dad got back on his ship, leaving Mom alone in a small apartment in the big city for six months.

In those days, fast-talking salesmen often knocked on your door, and the naive 20-year old with her first checking account was an easy target. Mom ended up buying several things that she regretted later: a vacuum cleaner, a set of ceramic dogs, a record-of-the-month service.

And a 20-volume black-and-red bound set of Collier's Encyclopedia.

The salesman told her that it would be essential for her future children's success in school.

When I was growing up, the set of Collier's Encyclopedias, the ceramic dogs, and the late 1950s records were stored in the basement, exiled as reminders of the loneliest, most miserable period in Mom's life.

(No, I don't know why my parents didn't get just rid of them before leaving Long Beach.)

The salesman was lying: not once did I, or my brother or sister, have a homework assignment that required the Collier's Encyclopedia.

But I loved it. When I was in grade school at Denkmann, I used to bring volumes upstairs and leaf through them while the family was watching tv.

My brother derided me as a "braniac" for reading the encyclopedia. But I didn't actually read much, although occasionally an interesting fact sprang out at me, like the Yaghan of Pantagonia wore no clothes, even in bitter winter weather.

I was looking for beefcake photos, or pictures of men who "liked" each other.

I found dozens of them, in articles on Indonesia, Indian Tribes of South America, African Tribes, China, Bolivia, and the Artic.

South American Indians wrestling, but I thought they were hugging.

Pygmies of the Belgian Congo (now Zaire).

Barrel-chested Aymara tribesmen of the Andes.

Muscular African natives wearing only loincloths.

Javanese athletes wearing only suggestive pouches, holding hands.

My first glimpses of a "good place," where same-sex desire was free and open, came from the My Village Books and the Collier's Encyclopedia.

By the way, years later, I looked up "homosexuality" in the index, and found only one reference, under Abnormal Psychology.

It's amazing that I found glimmers of hope in the silence.

See also: The Gay Village of Sonia and Tim Gidal.

In 1993, Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer), the stuffy, elitist psychiatrist who hung out at Cheers (1982-93), moved back to his hometown of Seattle, Washington, where he hosted his own radio program, offering psychiatric help to callers.

Very few episodes of Frasier (1993-2004) involved the wacky mental problems of callers -- the producers thought that concentrating on the radio station would make it too much like WKRP in Cincinnati -- although producer Roz (Peri Gilpin) became a regular, and there were occasional appearances by leering, hetero-horny sports show host Bulldog (Dan Butler) and swishy food show host Gil (Edward Hibbert).

Most episodes were about Frasier's home life, conflicts with his macho, working class father, Martin (John Mahoney) and his even more elitist younger brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce).

It had a huge gay fanbase. Many gay men could relate to conflicts with their macho, working-class fathers over their interest in fine art, show tunes, wine-tasting, and chick flicks.

Plus Frasier featured the most intense, passionate, and open gay romance on tv during the period.

Frasier and Niles were boyfriends. Ok, they were scripted as heterosexual brothers, but come on...brothers simply do not act like that.

Their relationship was deliberately written as quasi-romantic. Even other characters commented on it.

But, to keep it from crossing over the boundary into over romance, the writers gave Frasier any number of hetero-romantic conquests, and Niles a wife plus an ongoing crush on Daphne (Jane Leeves), Martin's live-in physical therapist, who remained oblivious (or pretended to be).

And they drew pitiably few gay plotlines, and all of the most simplistic, 1970s type.

In the fifth season, Niles and Daphne are mistaken for gay, and Frasier is embarrassed when his friends discover him in bed with a man, and conclude that he is...you know (shades of Three's Company!).

In the seventh season, Martin pretends to be gay to get out of dating a woman he dislikes, only to have her set him up with a gay man (he ends up going through with the date).

The most substantial gay plotline involved Gil the Food Critic, who was assumed gay throughout, and often ridiculed for his effeminacy,

In the ninth season, he reveals that he is actually heterosexual, married to a butch woman named Bev, and is rather offended by the gay rumors: "honestly, just because a man dresses well and knows how to use a pastry bag, people jump to wild conclusions!"

The retro, borderline homophobic storylines are particularly surprising when one realizes that David Hyde Pierce and Dan Butler (left) are both gay in real life, and John Mahoney and Edward Hibbert are probably gay but not out. That's the entire male cast, except for Kelsey Grammer.

To recap: an entire cast full of gay men playing heterosexuals, the focus character involved in a same-sex romance barely hidden under the "brothers" label, and no gay references except for a few retro "mistaken for gay" excursions.

Was it the gayest show on tv, or the most homophobic?

See also: Cheers, Where Nobody Knows Your Name; and WKRP in Cincinnati

Dating is not cruising, and a date is not a hook-up.

Both activities are interesting and pleasurable, but cruising has one goal: to find a physically-attractive partner for immediate erotic intimacy.

Dating has several goals -- to engage in entertaining activities, to have interesting conversations, to be seen with someone attractive, and ultimately to find a long-term romantic partner.

But it's not as simple as sending a text to an attractive guy asking him to dinner next Friday night. Gay dating has its own rules, procedures, and protocols that differ considerably from cruising.

And, for that matter, from heterosexual dating.

Here are 15 simple rules of gay dating.

(I am assuming that you are the one who suggested the date, and that it has the traditional five segments: Meeting, Entertainment, Dinner, Dancing, and Return.)

The Meeting
How and where do you meet for the events?

1. If you suggested the date, you must call for him at his home. It is uncommon and in rather bad taste to meet at the Entertainment Venue, so only suggest it if there is an excellent reason, like you live right next door and he lives 50 miles away.

2. You must also pay for the activities, although it is polite for him to offer to pay his share. If the activities are very expensive, you can ask in advance if he would mind chipping in, but, again, that is in bad taste.

3. Sometimes gay men aren't clear on whether you expect friendship or romance, so a kiss before leaving his home will alleviate his concerns.

The Entertainment Venue
Traditionally a movie, but live theater or a sporting event work as well, anything which allows you to be together for a couple of hours without having to make conversation.

4. Heterosexual couples have no qualms about holding hands, hugging, or kissing in the midst of any entertainment venue, but gay couples must be careful. If he rejects your physical gestures, it doesn't mean that he is not interested -- he may just be being cautious.

5. Even without physical contact, you will get stared at, as most heterosexual buddies who attend entertainment venues together try to sit with a seat between them, lest they accidentally brush knees.

The Dinner
Dinner occurs after the entertainment, to give you something to talk about.

6. If the restaurant is not in a gay neighborhood, you will be asked "How many in your party?" and "are you together or separate?" repeatedly. The host and servers are unaware of the existence of gay people, and assume that you are two buddies hanging out together.

7. If the restaurant contains a bar, half-drunk ladies will also assume that you are two buddies hanging out together, and thus up for grabs. They will send you drinks or ask to join you. Reject them tactfully.

8. Dinner conversation should not include coming out stories, analyses of the faults of ex-boyfriends, or discussions of favored sexual positions.

Dancing
The fourth segment of the date is dancing or some other physical activity, such as ice skating, to work off the stupor of dinner and prepare you for an energetic good-night kiss.

9. Only dance in a gay club. If you try it in an establishment that is for heterosexuals, you will get stared at and joked about, and you may be assaulted in the parking lot.

10. When you are not on the dance floor, both you and your date will be hit on. You can lessen the number of interlopers by physically touching him at all times, signaling "This one is off limits." But that won't deter the most oblivious.

The Return
The date is not over until you escort him back to his home and say "Goodnight."

11. For heterosexuals, the invitation to come inside is optional, but for gay couples, it is mandatory. If he does not invite you into his home, or if you do not accept, there will be no second date.

12. Once you are inside, bedroom activities are expected, but not mandatory. If you are not in the mood, just say "I want to take things slow," and you can postpone the bedroom to the second or third date, no questions asked.

13. If you decide not to "take things slow," you must spend the night. If you get dressed and go home when the erotic activities are over, the evening has become a hook-up, not a date.

14. And bring condoms, in case he doesn't have any of his own.

15. Serial dating is frowned upon in gay communities: if the first date was satisfactory, then you date only that person until the relationship ends or becomes a friendship. Therefore, you should call or email him within 24 hours, either to plan your next date or to explain that you are no longer interested.

See also: 15 Rules of Gay Cruising.

I've never understood how you can be friends with someone for years, and then there's an incident, and it's over.

They just stop answering the phone when you call, or responding to your emails. They unfriend you on Facebook.

Or in the case of Larry, he orders you out of the house.

You remember Larry, the "lost soul" in Nashville with the crazy, obsessive lifestyle, who finally got involved in the gay leather community?

After I left Nashville, we called and emailed each other regularly.

He moved to Denver and then Santa Fe, New Mexico. I moved to New York and then Florida.

In the summer of 2004, we hadn't seen each other face-to-face for years, so I decided to fly out to Santa Fe for a 10-day visit.

Big mistake.

As Ben Franklin said, house guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.

Day 1: I arrived at 8:00 pm. Larry picked me up at the airport, gave me a brief tour of the city, and then took me back to his house.

A three-room trailer in a desolate commercial strip on the outskirts of town. Cluttered with terrible, mismatched thrift-store furniture.

I guess passions for leather and opera don't come cheap, so you have to economize in other areas.

We tried to squeeze into his small single bed, but the night was very hot, and we were both big, so I ended up sleeping on the floor.

Day 2: I assumed that Larry would take off work so we could go sightseeing, like I always did when a friend visited me in Florida. But no, at 7:00 he drove off, leaving me alone on Jemez Road with no car.

All of the art galleries, shops, missions, and museums were downtown, about six miles away.

I started walking, and eventually hit Airport Road, with a lot of fast food places and cars rushing by in the hot desert sun. There was a mall about a mile away, where I bought a t-shirt. I found a gym, but they didn't have day memberships.

Larry returned at 6:00 pm. "What's on for tonight?" I asked. "Dinner, art walk, the clubs?"

"Oh, no, I'm too tired to go out. I'll cook dinner here."

"Well...can we at least go to the gym first?"

So Larry drove me to his gym and bought me a day pass. Then he baked a chicken for dinner. It wasn't ready until 10:00 pm.

"Four hours past dinnertime," I muttered. "We should have just ordered a pizza."

"Too much saturated fat, and way too expensive!"

Day 3: I asked Larry if I could drive him to work and borrow his car for sightseeing, but he refused: "Nobody drives my car but me."

So I rented a car and visited The Plaza, The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, and The New Mexico Museum of Art, and returned to Larry's gym for another day pass.

When Larry got home at 6:00 pm, I said, "Tomasita's tonight -- best Mexican restaurant in town, according to the internet!"

"Oh, no, that's much too expensive."

"My treat."

"Oh, no, you're my guest, I'll cook. I can do Mexican, if that's what you want."

So he made low-fat enchiladas. Afterwards he wanted to go to the gym. I had already been, so I asked "Do you mind if I go to the clubs?"

He glared at me. "No, the clubs will be dead on a Thursday night. But when I get back from the gym, we can do a S&M scene, if you want. I'm a top, you know."

So I bottomed for an S&M scene. I didn't like it.

Day 4: While Larry was at work, I went to the Canyon Road Art Galleries, the San Miguel Mission, and the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi, and had lunch at Tomasita's. Then I bought groceries. When he got home at 6:00, dinner was on the table.

Surprisingly, he was annoyed. "I'm the host, I should cook dinner. Or don't you like my cooking?"

I ended up apologizing and waiting while he wrapped my dinner in cellophane for later and cooked a meal of his own.

Afterwards, I said "It's Friday night. The gin joints should be hoppin'. Where shall we go?"

"Oh, no, there aren't any decent gay bars in Santa Fe. We'll go into Albuquerque tomorrow. Let's just hang out and watch tv tonight."

"Well -- do you mind if I go to the clubs on my own?"

I didn't notice him glaring at me. "No, of course not. Just -- if you bring a leatherboy home, I get to share."

Turns out that Larry was right -- there was only one gay bar in town, the Rouge Cat. Unfortunately, it catered to the Cute Young Thing crowd, and CYTs in New Mexico didn't have the Daddy fixation that they did in Florida. After about an hour of getting Attitude, I was finally cruised by a cute University of New Mexico undergrad named Tom.

By the time we got back to the trailer, Larry was asleep in his single bed, so Tom and I slept on blankets on the living room floor. He got up and left early; I didn't think Larry had even noticed.

He had.

Larry got up and made coffee as if nothing was wrong. But when we sat down, he started in: "What did I tell you? You bring a cute guy into my house, and I don't even get a peek!"

"Sorry, you were asleep, and...well, I didn't think Tom was your type. You like them more mature."

"Why were you going out without me, anyway? You're visiting me!," Larry continued, starting to rant. "We're supposed to go out together!"

"You said it was ok. You were too tired to go out."

"Well, excuse me for working for a living! I don't have a rich sugar daddy who gives me free rent!"

Did he mean Barney? "No, I pay rent..."

"Or a cute boy toy just waiting at home for me!"

Did he mean Yuri? "No, we're just..."

"You know what? If my house isn't good enough for you, why don't you just get out? Take some of your sugar daddy's money and stay in a hotel!"

I stared. "I didn't say your house wasn't good enough..."

I don't remember what else was said that morning, but it ended with my duffel bag deposited into my rental car. I spent Days 6-10 in hotels, touring Alburquerque, Taos, and the Navajo Nation. I called Larry a couple of times, but when he heard my voice, he hung up.

Had I been bragging about my "sugar daddy" and "boy toy" back home in Florida? Had I been complaining a little too much about the dreary accommodations and lack of sight-seeing? I don't remember.

The trip wasn't a total loss. I saw some interesting museums and art galleries, met a cute guy, and discovered my grandmother's long-lost gay friend.

But I lost a friend of 13 years in the process.

See also: Finding Larry's Fetish; and My Grandmother's Surprising Gay Connection

When I was a kid, our church forbade movies, theater, carnivals, circuses -- basically anything that had a plot. And my working-class parents disapproved of anything "long hair." So ballet and opera were completely alien.

Except at Christmastime, when we would go to see "The Nutcracker" at Centennial Hall on the Augustana College campus, or at Rock Island High School, or both. One year the Youth Symphony participated, so I got to be in the orchestra pit for eight full performances.

The plot is heterosexist -- Elsa receives a nutcracker shaped like a toy soldier for Christmas. He comes to life, fights an army of mice, and reveals that he is actually a prince. They return to his kingdom, the Land of Sweets, where he makes Elsa his queen.

But who pays attention to the plot? No matter what people tell you, they go to ballets for one reason, and one reason only: to celebrate male or female beauty. Dances in form-fitting tights, swaying and twisting, making every curve and muscle visible.

No other art, not even bodybuilding, displays the male physique so openly and extensively. You don't just get a glimpse or a hint -- everything is out there, through the entire performance.

No wonder every gay kid in town, even those who were otherwise obsessed with sports, couldn't wait for Christmas.

The only ballet dancer I knew by name was Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993), who danced in a tv version of The Nutcracker in 1968. I also saw him on The Muppet Show in 1977, and in Romeo and Juliet in 1982 (which also has a heterosexist plot, but who cares?)

I didn't know at the time that he was gay in real life, and dated a number of celebrities, including Raymundo de Larrain and Tab Hunter (left), plus his long-time lover Erik Bruhn. I responded to his passion, his obvious joy at being an object of desire, and his superlative physique.

He was even able to invest The Nutcracker with gay symbolism, transforming the Prince into an outcast, a wooden soldier who longs to be a "real boy."

I discovered Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948-) in a 1977 tv version of The Nutcracker, and later in Carmen (1980) and Don Quixote (1984). He was more muscular than Nureyev, and an accomplished actor, but his aggressively heterosexual stance bothered me, as if he wanted to "redeem" ballet from its gay reputation.

Good luck. Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950), the first ballet superstar, was gay, and caused a scandal with his erotic movements (the audience rioted at the premiere of The Rites of Spring).

So was Tchaikovsky, who scored The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.

See also: Erik Bruhn, Closeted Ballet Great.

When I was living in New York, my favorite tv program was The Drew Carey Show (1995-2004). I'm still not sure why.

Not because of the beefcake: Diedrich Bader (left) rarely disrobed on screen, and the other male characters were not particularly attractive.

It starred dumpy, nerd-eyeglassed comedian Drew Carey as a human resources drone at the Winfred-Louder Department Store in Cleveland.

His work life is bedeviled by a series of horrible bosses and his worst enemy, the over-made up, abrasive Mimi (Kathy Kinney).

At home, he has three friends: Kate (Christa Miller), with whom he has the obligatory "will they or won't they?" quasi-romance; and slackers Oswald and Lewis (Ryan Styles, Diedrich Bader).

Heterosexism was everywhere:

1. One of the theme songs, "Five O'Clock World," was about how all of the little miseries of the workday get better when the man goes home to his wife.

2. Drew was supremely attractive to women. His show, his rules.

3. Oswald and Lewis had been living together for 20 years, yet no one ever treated them as a couple. In one episode Mom showed up and tried to fix them up with women, explaining, "I don't want you to be alone," Um...they weren't alone.

4. Drew's brother Steve (John Carroll Lynch) was probably the only heterosexual crossdresser on tv at the time. But when he arrives for a date with Mimi in drag, she is upset: a date is a boy-girl activity, and she's the girl, so he should dress as a boy, right?

Hey, Mimi, gay people go on dates, too!

When the romance with Mimi blossoms, the drag is summarily abandoned, and never mentioned again.

5. Gay characters appeared only in the standard 1990s sitcom plotlines:

Oswald dates a guy for two weeks without realizing it (come on, two weeks without any physical attention?)

Drew is mistaken for gay.

The guys pretend to be gay to get some of the wonderful "privileges" that gay people enjoy.

So why did I like The Drew Carey Show so much?

Maybe because I was homesick for West Hollywood, and Drew Carey was all about finding a home.

Or because it was set in Cleveland, one of my favorite cities.

Maybe it was Mimi and Drew's pleasantly weird sparring enemy-ship.

Or the cool musical numbers. Here a duel between the "old drag" of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the "new drag" of Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

Or maybe it because of the beefcake after all.

See also: Frasier. A Beefcake Tour of Cleveland.

Back before dating apps like grindr, guys met by hanging out in internet chatrooms. And before internet chatrooms, they met by posting or answering personal ads in gay magazines.

Every gay magazine had a "personal ad" section. The Montrose Voice in Texas, Frontiers in West Hollywood, The Edge in New York, even The Advocate.

My friends and I had lots of fun reading and discussing the new ads every week. We didn't respond often -- who needed to respond to a personal ad when you lived in a gay neighborhood?-- but occasionally one stood out as particularly promising, and we made the call.

We quickly learned to decipher what the code words really meant.

Many of the code words are still used today, in profiles on gay dating sites and the personal ads on Craigslist.

Age:
20s: 30s.
30s: 40s.
40s: I have fond memories of listening to The Shadow and Fibber McGee on the radio.
Mature: I fought in World War I. At least, I think it was World War I. My memory isn't what it used to be.

Physique:
Swimmer's build: Twiggy was my idol.
Football player's build: What the heck is football?
Muscular: I went to a gym once, 10 years ago. Who knows, I might go again someday.
Athletic: Fat.

Race:
GWM: Gay white man.
GBM: Gay black man.
GM: It's racist to reveal your race. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Size of Endowment:
Huge: Average.
Above-average: Small.
Average: I won an award for "The Smallest Endowment in West Hollywood."

Erotic Interests:
A (Active): Bottom.
A/P (Versatile): Bottom.
P (Passive): Bottom

Social Interests:
The Outdoors: It's fun to walk from the car to the club.
Music: Madonna, not Mozart.
Dancing: I was on a dance floor once.
Activism: I support gay rights, as long as I don't have to do anything.

Personality Traits:
Friendly: I will be cruising other guys on our date.
Generous: I will pay you.
Honest: I will criticize your clothing, your choice of music, your apartment, and your mother.
Successful: I will pay you.

Who He's Looking For:
A man who takes care of himself: I want a bodybuilder.
A man who knows what he wants: I want a top.
Young looking: You should be in junior high.
Athletic: No sports, please.
Mature: I want a Sugar Daddy to buy me things.
Healthy: I haven't educated myself on how HIV is transmitted.
No femmes: I'm afraid people will know I'm gay if I hang out with someone feminine.
No fats: I have issues with my body.

What He's Looking For:
Friend: Hookup.
LTR (Long-Term Relationship): Hookup.
Hookup: Hookup

See also: 15 Rules of Gay Cruising; and 15 Rules of Gay Dating.

When I first started out in grad school at Stony Brook University, I couldn't live in Manhattan right away: everything there was frightfully expensive, $900 to sleep on someone's couch, $1000 for a walk-in closet in someone's bedroom. So I moved into a graduate student apartment near the campus: four bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living room-kitchen area.

You were assigned roommates. Mine were all heterosexual: a slim Taiwanese guy who talked on the telephone loudly at 4:00 am; a beefy Turkish guy who mostly stayed in his room, and Max from Brooklyn. Cute, rather muscular, and THE MOST OBNOXIOUS PERSON ON EARTH.

1. He played rap music VERY LOUD all day and all night. He would leave the apartment with the music still blaring from his room.

3. He smoked -- in a nonsmoking apartment -- got drunk every night, and had the annoying habit of calling everyone "Negro," when they weren't black.

For that matter, it was annoying to hear Black English coming from a white guy: a'ight, I axed her, word, I'm a bust a cap, chill out, peace out.

4. He brought girls into the apartment almost every night, who then walked around in bras and panties.

5. When there were no girls, he invited eight male friends over, to smoke, drink, call each other "Negro," have LOUD discussions of the "tits" on various "honeys," and eat all of the food in the refrigerator, including my food.

6. He never cleaned anything. Imagine this place with a dozen plastic bags full of decaying leftovers, piles of dirty dishes, 23 magazines, 16 beer cans, three pizza boxes, and miscellaneous shirts, pants, and underwear.

7. Once he went home for the weekend, and forgot that there was an open can of tuna fish in his room. We thought somebody died in there.

8. He put a pot of water on the stove to boil and forgot about it. Three hours later, the water had boiled away, and the pot was on fire.

9. He walked around wearing only a towel.

Well, that part was ok.

But I wanted this guy out! I called management, but they said that being loud and messy was not grounds for re-assigning him. Now, if he asked for a re-assignment himself....

Why would he do that?

"Well, maybe if he was uncomfortable with you. You know, if you were a homosexual or something."

Gay panic! The perfect roommate repellent!

I staked out the living room until Max walk past wearing only his towel, talking on his cell phone to someone: "Naw, her tits ain't nearly as big as her sister's...."

I ripped his towel off, revealing his penis -- very impressive.

He slammed his cell phone shut. "Yo, Negro, what up?" he asked in surprise.

"What up is, you're really hot," I said.

Any second now he'd run shrieking to his room, slam the door, and call management to request a new apartment.

Any second now...

He grinned. "Thanks, man."

"Um...I like them big. The bigger the better. There's not a guy alive I can't handle."

"Glad you like the view." He swung his hips a bit, then retrieved his towel. "Any more than that, and I'd have to charge."

Time to bring out the big guns. I lay my hand flat against his chest. "You want to...you know, get together sometime, like on a date?"

Asking a naked straight man for a date! Any moment now, he'd run away screaming...

"Naw, naw, sorry, man, I ain't play like that. It's all good, though. I got a homie that be into dudes. Whyn'cha give him a holla, yo?"

"Um...sure, that would be great."

He wrote the number on my notebook, then turned and sauntered to his room, leaving me in a stunned silence.

Obnoxious but not homophobic.

I saw an episode or so of The Walking Dead on Netflix a couple of years ago. I wasn't impressed.

It begins, like 28 Days Later, with Georgia cop Rick (Andrew Lincoln) awakening from a coma to discover that most of the population has turned into zombies, leaving only scattered bands of survivors. He goes off in search of his wife and son. The first survivor he meets is heartbroken because his wife has become a zombie.

That was more than enough heterosexism at the end of the world, thank you.

Recently I've begun watching with Jeremy. We're in the middle of Season 3. So far there have been innumerable other men who have lost their wives, plus a few women who have lost their husbands. Apparently the zombies target only one half of each heterosexual couple.

And there's been exactly one reference to the existence of LGBT people: when former prison inmate Axel (Lew Temple) joins the group, he complains that it doesn't have any eligible women: they're either too young, or already involved, and Carol (Melissa McBride) is a lesbian. She protests that she's not a lesbian -- she lost her husband to the zombies --she just happens to have short hair.

That's it.

The comic book series apparently introduces a gay couple in Issue 67: Andrew and Eric, "the only two gay guys left in the world," who live in the Alexandria, Virginia Safe Zone. Eric is eventually killed, but Andrew survives and becomes a regular character.

The tv series hasn't gotten out of Atlanta yet, so there has been no opportunity to introduce Andrew and Eric. You could invent gay characters of your own, of course, but every time a fan board suggests that this or that character might be gay, the producers summarily deny it.

Norman Reedus (left), who plays Daryl Dixon, the redneck hunter (and the only one in the group who hasn't found a way to stay perfectly coiffed) states that his character is "prison gay," open to same-sex relationships if there aren't any women available. But this apparently was his own decision in fleshing out the character, unknown to the producers.

There are no gay people in their series to date.

Are they making a homophobic statement about the survival chances of limp-wristed, fashion-obsessed swishes in a zombie attack?

Or are they proclaiming, like Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that with so many important survival issues, there is no room at the end of the world for discussions of "orientations"? Except heterosexual orientations, of course.

Or are they just following tradition: except for a few low-budget indie pictures and Stephen King's Cell, gay people are always unwelcome at the end of the world.

But not to worry: there's plenty of beefcake, such as Shane (Jon Bernthal (top photo, Rick's cop buddy who slept with his wife while he was in a coma), and Glenn (Steven Yeun, left), a former pizza delivery boy who becomes the group's most skillful scout.

And there's plenty of same-sex buddy-bonding going on, sometimes between men who don't express any heterosexual interest (presumably they are still grieving over wives lost to the zombies).

So we can go back to what we did in the dark ages before Stonewall: find glimmers of meaning even when we are being told over and over again that we do not exist.

Or we can stop watching.

See also: Two Zombie Movies with Gay Characters; and The Postapocalyptic Fade-Out Kiss.

My doctoral program in New York (1997-2001) was not only about studying sexuality. I spent a lot of time seeking out ethnic groups with legendary penises:

The Basque, reputedly the largest in the world.

The Bushman, reputedly always in a tumescent state.

And the Formosan of Taiwan.

When I first moved to New York in 1997, I had to live in a grad student apartment, where I was assigned 3 roommates: Max, the most obnoxious guy on the planet; a beefy Turkish guy who mostly kept to himself; and a Taiwanese guy named Huang, who also happened to be a fellow grad student in the Sociology Department.

Huang was not nearly as muscular as Max, but also not as obnoxious. His only faults: he occasionally had a girl over to giggle in his bedroom, and he called his family back home every Saturday at 4:00 am.

In each case I could hear him quite clearly through the wall.

My Mandarin was limited to Wǒ xǐhuān zhōngguó rén, "I like Chinese men," but at least I could recognize the language. And when Huang spoke to his family, he wasn't speaking Mandarin.

Turns out that he was fluent in Mandarin (and Hokkien, French, and English), but his native language was Paiwan, from the Formosan family, related the Tagalog of the Philippines and the Javanese of Indonesia.

There are about 400,000 Formosan aboriginals in Taiwan, about 2% of the population, mostly living in the mountainous south.

"We get discrimination," Huang told me. "The Chinese think yuánzhùmín are uncivilized, barbarians. Like the Indians in America."

There are statues of muscular, half naked Formosans all over Taiwan, like the statues of Native Americans in the U.S.

The Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Park in Yuchi, about 150 miles south of Taipei, invites Chinese tourists to see aboriginals performing traditional arts and native dances, like the pow wows in the U.S.

"But the Chinese woman like us," Huang added with a grin.

"Oh, why is that?"

"Yuánzhùmín men are bigger than Chinese men." He pointed to his crotch. "Dá jībā!" Apparently that meant big penis.

I reddened, shocked that a straight guy would be comfortable enough to discuss his penis size with me. Or maybe he was bisexual, and expressing interest. "Well -- I'm sure some of the Chinese men like Formosan dá jībā, too."

"No, they are jealous."

Not bisexual!

"When you tell a woman you are yuánzhùmín," Huang continued, "She always ask if the stories are true, and she want to see it."

"Well - are the stories true?" I asked. "Can I see it?"

"No, no, not for gays." He giggled. "Just for women."

I'm not usually deterred so easily, but after Huang's startling display of confidence, I felt guilty about plotting any complex schemes to get a glimpse of his jībā.

Maybe I could see it by accident?

No -- he didn't go to the gym, and he didn't strut around the apartment in a towel.

In January 1998 I moved out of graduate student housing to a place in Manhattan, and lost hope of ever finding out if the stories about Formosan men are true.

But my hope was restored in July, shortly after I returned from my trip to Estonia with Yuri and Jaan. Some of the sociology students drove up to Montreal for the International Sociological Association World Congress, and Huang and I shared a hotel room.

Surely he would change clothes in front of me, or sleep in revealing briefs.

No -- he changed clothes in the bathroom, and slept in pajama bottoms. Not even a bulge was visible!

One night I was planning to go to the Keynote Speech, then "out" (actually to the Oasis, where I met the Muscle God and his Wingman). I told Huang I would not be back until after midnight.

But after the Keynote Speech, I realized that I had left my jacket in the hotel room -- it was rather chilly in Montreal -- and rushed back upstairs.

I slid the key card through the slot and pulled the door open.

The first thing I noticed was cheesy 1970s music.

The second was the heterosexual porn playing on the tv.

The third was Huang lying on his bed, naked, doing what heterosexual men do when they watch porn.

He yelled and pulled the covers over himself. But he was still tenting.

"I forgot my jacket," I said, stepping forward to grab it from the coat rack.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry....I thought you are not coming back until very late."

"Don't worry about it. By the way, you're right -- it really is a dá jībā."

I'm certainly not going to make a joke about Huang and hung, but he was.

See also: Wing Man for a Muscle God; and Yuri Searches for the World's Biggest Penis

When I was in junior high in the 1970s, the anthology series The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie grabbed kids and teens (and sometimes adults) from live-action sitcoms and put them into badly-animated adventures:

The kids from The Brady Bunch are trapped on a desert island.

The Nanny and the Professor kids tackle spies.

Gidget (who actually hadn't been on tv for a decade) tackles smugglers.

Ann Marie from That Girl goes to Wonderland.

I watched sometimes -- it was pleasant to see some of my mega-crushes, like Greg Brady and David Doremus (from Nanny and the Professor), even in animated form.

And there was plenty of animated beefcake, like this hunk, a cousin of Tabitha and Adam from Bewitched who plays in a pop group in a circus, or something.

Besides, the only other option was Scooby-Doo.

But the stories varied in the quality of their animation, and their level of ridiculousness.

Yogi Bear flies around with Hanna-Barbera characters in a giant ark.

Warner Brothers stars Porky and Daffy clash with The Groovy Ghoulies from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

The absolute worst was Popeye and the Man Who Hated Laughter, which aired on October 7th, 1972.

I would love to hear the conversation in the board room at ABC:

"Let's do a cartoon special about newspaper comics! Kids love reading the newspaper, right?"

Um...no, we didn't.

"Great idea! We can include all of their favorite comic strip characters -- Jiggs and Maggie, Tim Tyler, Mandrake the Magician, The Little King, the Katzenjammer Kids, the Phantom..."

Right, comic strips that were last popular 40 years before we were born!

They added Popeye, another character from ancient days who was having something of a renaissance on Saturday morning cartoons.

And a plot was created about a mad scientist who hates laughter, so he kidnaps the source of most of the world's laughter -- characters from doddering, long-forgotten comic strips. The only way they can escape is to convince him that laughter is not so bad after all. So they put on an idiotic talent show.

The only song I remember is: "Hi, my name is Iodine, and I'm feeling so fine, doing the comic strip rag."

Well, at least you could see The Phantom and Bluto together.

See also: 1970s Saturday Morning Beefcake

It's not often that I agree to watch a movie about heterosexual romance, but Jeremy wanted to see The Secretary (2002), so I watched.

I wasn't happy: first, it's set in a weird faux-retro world with cell phones and the internet, but everyone looks and acts and thinks like the 1950s No one has ever heard of the women's rights movement, or sexual harassment (turns out that it was actually based on a short story published in 1988).

Second: this is an utterly gay-free world, with not even a subtext to alleviate the heteronormativity. I don't think two male characters are ever in the same room with each other.

Third: there's no beefcake. There are full-body shots of naked women (I mean breasts, vagina, the works) in bed with fully-clothed men (I mean even the shoes stay on).

Still, I found something that accidentally resonated with my coming out experience.

The plot: repressed, emotionally unstable Lee (Maggie Gylenhall), who cuts herself, goes to work for repressed, emotionally unstable lawyer Mr. Grey (James Spader). He is a very bad boss criticizing her hair and clothing, asking personal questions, and berating her for making typing errors. After a particularly egregious error, he bends Lee over his desk and spanks her.

She loves it.

She begins making errors on purpose, so Mr. Grey will spank her again.

Soon he is dictating how she should get to work, what she should have for dinner, what she can do with her boyfriend (Jeremy Davies of Lost, playing yet another emotionally unstable person).

She loves that, too. In fact, by allowing herself to be controlled, she blossoms, becoming more assertive, standing up to her weird parents, walking through the park alone for the first time in her life. She stops cutting herself.

Neither Lee nor Mr. Grey have any idea what is happening. Why do they have the desire to control and be controlled? Is Mr. Grey evil? Is Lee sick? They have no vocabulary, no models, no explanations. As far as they know, they are the only people in the history of the world who have felt this way.

They stumble about, searching for meaning.

I kept wanting to yell, "You nitwits, there's no big mystery -- you're into S&M! There are clubs, newsletters, guidebooks, retail outlets! Go online, and look it up!"

But then I thought about growing up in a world where same-sex desire absolutely did not and could not exist, where gay people were never mentioned or written about in books. I was stumbling about in the dark, without even a name.

And, as far as I knew, no other person in the history of the world had ever felt this way.

In case you're wondering, Lee does do some research, figures out what S&M is, and then demands that they start a full-time dominant/submissive romance. Mr. Grey reluctantly gives in.

The bottom always calls the shots.

See also: Finding Larry's Fetish.

The Gay Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

Kissing Boys to the Bee Gees

Fall 2007: What Happens when College Students Daydream

5 Places to See Naked Men in Australia

6000 Ways to Say "Penis"

Fall 2007: The Linguist Who Wouldn't Shut Up

Fall 2003: Straight Guys Never Figure It Out

Fall 2005: Gay People Absolutely Do Not Exist

Looking for Love in the Encyclopedia

Frasier: The Gayest Show on TV, or the Most Homophobic?

15 Simple Rules of Gay Dating

Summer 2004: Finding Larry's New Fetish

The Nutcracker: Men in Tights

The Drew Carey Show: All About the Beefcake?

Guide to the Code Words in Gay Personal Ads

Fall 1997: Gay Panic and the Obnoxious Roommate

The Walking Dead: Gay People Unwelcome at the End of the World

Summer 1998: The Truth About the Formosan Penis

The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie

The Secretary: The Bottom Always Calls the Shots