NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

March 9, 1995, a Thursday night. I always watch Seinfeld at 9:00, and then at 9:30 occasionally the Seinfeld knockoff Friends, about a group of younger, less cynical friends negotiating small-town Manhattan. Mostly because the first ads promoting the show displayed them in their underwear; they haven't been shown in their underwear since, but one can hope.

Tonight's episode is called: "The One Where the Monkey Got Away."

The pet capuchin monkey of nerdish paleontologist Ross (David Schwimmer) escapes while his crush Rachel (Jennifer Anniston) is babysitting. The friends all search, but run into a recalcitrant neighbor and the revenge plans of an animal control officer (Megan Cavanaugh) whom Rachel bullied in high school.

At the end of the episode, they all share stories of the horrors of high school life, except for horndog Joey (Matt LeBlanc): for him, high school was "just four years of parties and dating and sex."

Chandler (Matthew Perry) morosely states that he went to a private boys' school: "Any sex I had would have involved a major lifestyle choice."

A major lifestyle choice? Is he kidding?

A MAJOR LIFESTYLE CHOICE?????

This is not the era of the Reagan-Bush conservative retrenchment. We're in the heart of the relatively gay-positive Clinton years. Roseanne had been kissed by a lesbian admirer; there was a gay wedding on Northern Exposure. There are gay partnership laws, anti-discrimination ordinances. The horrendous "Don't ask, don't tell" policy is being challenged in the Supreme Court.

It's not exactly safe in the straight world beyond gay neighborhoods, but it's safer than it has been in over a decade.

Then Chandler said that?

I knew that Friends was heterosexist, extolling male-female romance as the meaning of life. I knew that the guys ridicule each other's slightest gender misstep as evidence that they are gay. But this isn't minor, veiled, "panic-over-touching-a-dude" homophobia. It's open, brutal, disgusting.

Who is responsible for this outrageous slap in the face of every gay person on Earth?

The episode was written by Jeff Astrof and Mike Sikowitz.

Jeff Astrof (left) wrote eight other episodes of Friends. More recently he has written and been executive producer of Grounded for Life, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and S*** My Dad Says (yes, there really was such a program), and Partners (about two best buds, one straight, one gay).

Mike Sikowitz (below) co-wrote the episodes, collaborated with Jeff Astrof on most of his projects, and also wrote/produced episodes of The Class (which had a gay character and a gay-stereotyped straight character who shrieks "Oh, my popovers!"), Rules of Engagement, The McCarthys (which has a gay character), and Welcome to the Family.

He has a film writing credit in 2014: Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant. I'm not kidding.

Neither of them seem the faces of evil, exactly. They're just really, really ignorant, believing that gay men were born straight, but at some point made the decision to turn into flitting, wispy creatures who shriek "Oh, my popovers!" Lesbians, conversely, made the decision to turn into butch, short-haired creatures who grunt a lot.

Another question: why didn't someone speak up? Director Peter Bonerz? Creator David Crane, or guest star Megan Cavanaugh, who are both gay?

Why didn't anyone insist that the line be changed to something less ridiculously homophobic?

30.4 million people watched. The next week's episode had only 29.4 million, perhaps the result of 1,000,000 gay people and allies turning off Friends forever.

I didn't watch Friends again, except for the nine episodes with Giovanni Ribisi as a guest star. He was cute, so I figured I could handle the hatred.

See also: The Homophobic Small Town Manhattan of "Friends."

I thought apartments in the Castro were difficult to come by, but when I moved to New York in 1997, Manhattan turned out to be a hundred times worse.

Not just the gay neighborhoods. Anywhere in Manhattan.

300 square foot studios with cockroaches and no hot water started at $2000 per month.

There was an infinite variety of apartment sharing arrangements: during the week but not on weekends; from 6 am to 6 pm every other day; alternate Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; the couch in the living room; a walk-in closet in the bedroom.

Some guys lived in an ingenious jigsaw of two-day-a-week or three-nights-a-week rentals in horrible apartments with crazy roommates.

I was interviewed by a dozen or so bizzarre and insane guys in horrible apartments before I landed the dream roommate: Edward, an art appraiser who spent most of his time in Europe: in his 60s, tall, husky, white-haired, slightly feminine.

He had a beautiful three-bedroom, two bath apartment on East 13th Street, on the border between the East and West Villages, at the heart of the gay community.

It was rent-controlled, and cheap by New York standards: my share was only $700 per month, less than half of my take-home salary at the time.

Besides, the living room was almost entirely occupied by floor-to-ceiling bookcases, filled with everything from the complete works of Plato to Mommy Dearest.

Of course, Edward had a few crazy rules:

1. All guests must be introduced to the other roommates, even if it was late at night and they had to be woken up.
2. There was to be no nudity in the common areas of the house. Always wear a bathrobe.
3. No food or beverages could be consumed in the living room.

4. No porn movies could be viewed in the living room.
5. It was rude to have one's own food in the refrigerator. Everything anyone brought home, including doggy-bags from restaurants, was up for grabs.
6. The first roommate up in the morning must make a pot of coffee, even if he didn't intend to drink any.
7. The toilet seat must be left up when not in use.

It was worth it. I stayed for three years.

Edward was not very active romantically. Sometimes he flew down to Florida to visit his partner of 30 years: "But by now it's more about our business endeavors. We haven't been physically intimate in forever."

He never brought home a date or a hookup, and he never asked to "share" Blake or Joe. "That custom is for you young, randy hipsters! In my day we were faithful to one person for life!"

You mean the 1970s, the heyday of the St. Mark's Baths?

In the fall of 2000, I started dating Avi, a 25-year old Israeli studying biology at Colombia University. He was newly out -- in fact, I was the first guy he had actually dated.

He lived in a university dorm, so when it was time to spend the night together, we went to my place, and of course I had to wake up Edward for the introduction. He grunted an annoyed "pleased to meet you."

But the next morning Edward was all smiles, making breakfast (a rarity) and peppering Avi with questions: "Where did you and Jeff meet? How do you like America? Are you out to your parents?"

When I returned alone that night, Edward was gushing: "Your new boyfriend is magnificent! Like one of those beautiful boys in a Wilhelm van Gloeden photo, or Caravaggio's Cupid in Amor Vincent Omnia. Wherever did you find him? How long have you been dating?"

"Last night was our third date."

"Then you're officially a couple! We should celebrate! Bring Avi around Friday after dinner, and we'll have champagne and cake!"

When Avi and I arrived, Edward was sitting on the couch in his underwear, a violation of Rule #2.

"Radiator malfunction, I'm afraid," he explained. "I called the superintendent. But until he gets around to fixing it, underwear will be de rigueur. Or commando-style, if you like."

I didn't notice that it was particularly warm in the living room, but I gamely stripped down to my underwear. Avi just took his shirt off.

"Now you lovebirds just get comfy on the couch, and I'll take care of everything." He vanished into the kitchen and reappeared with a bottle of champagne, a soda for me, and three glasses. Then he brought out slices of lemon cake with white frosting, a violation of Rule #3.

"Today I picked up a quaint little video on Bleecker Street," Edward said. "It's a bit on the risque side, but we're all adults here. I'm sure we can handle it."

He slid A Carnival in Venice into the VCR. Porn! A classic, but still, a violation of Rule #4! Then he squeezed into the left side of the couch, so we were all clumped together, with Avi in the middle.

What was going on? It was too early in the relationship for "sharing"! Besides, you always talked about it first -- you didn't just squeeze in!

But that wasn't what Edward had in mind. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he wanted to "make" (seduce) Avi, whether or not I participated!

But even if Ari wasn't spoken for, older never cruised younger; you always waited for the Cute Young Thing to approach you, lest you be labeled a Creepy Old Guy.

In retrospect, I could have deterred Edward. I could have moved between him and Ari on the couch, or I could have suggested that we move to the love seat "to see the movie better."

But I didn't want to offend Edward, and maybe get kicked out of a dream apartment in the heart of the Village.

So I put my arm around Avi's shoulders and kept my eyes glued to the tv screen, ignoring Edward as he touched Ari's knee, rubbed his hand against his chest, squeezed his nipple, and finally kissed him on the neck.

I didn't think of how Avi would feel, newly out, dating for the first time, cuddling with his boyfriend and being "made" by a Creepy Old Guy at the same time.

Until it was too late.

Suddenly Avi bolted to his feet. "I...um...I have to get up early tomorrow," he stammered. He grabbed his shirt and practically ran for the door.

"Wait -- let me take you home!" I called.

"No thanks, I know the way. Thanks for the cake." The door slammed behind him.

When I emailed Avi the next day, he explained that he would be very busy every night for the rest of his life.

See also: The Night I Became a Creepy Old Guy.

Was there any 1970s teen idol more dreamy than Robby Benson? Sure, David Cassidy, Donny Osmond, and Leif Garrett were cute, but Robby's blue eyes, coiffed hair, and soulful pout could cause thousands of straight girls and gay boys to swoon with goofy smiles on their faces, even without a beefcake shot.

Even his single scene in The End (1978) as a baby-faced priest confessing Burt Reynolds, was a show-stopper.

But to top it off, Robby soon developed a physique than would shame Scott Baio and Adrian Zmed, with a tight muscular chest and six-pack abs.

And the producers knew it. All of his earliest movie roles -- Jory (1973), Jeremy (1973), and All the Kind Strangers (1974) -- featured ample shirtless shots. When he moved on to teen angst, dying in Death be Not Proud (1975), Ode to Billy Joe (1976), and The Death of Richie (1977), the beefcake completely overshadowed the gravitas of the plots.

Hs only significant bonding was in The Chosen (1981), about the romance between an Orthodox and a Hasidic Jewish boy -- otherwise his characters are busily falling for girls or dying. But the gay kids in the audience weren't paying attention to the plot anyway. They were waiting for the next shirtless shot.

When Robby moved on to young adult roles, mostly involving bigotry and sports, the beefcake continued. Who could forget his underwear shot in Ice Castles (1978), his nude locker room scene in Running Brave (1983), or his magnificent shirtless scenes in Die Laughing (1980) and Harry and Son (1984)?

After a few years in the post-teen idol sleaze-movie ghetto -- City Limits (1984) and California Girls (1985) were good only for fast-forwarding to the shirtless scenes -- Robby managed to establish himself as a grown-up actor. He continued to appear regularly in movies and tv through the 1980s and 1990s, gradually shifting into voice work (he was the voice of the Beast in the 1991 Disney movie Beauty and the Beast).

Robby was one of the first Hollywood actors to play a gay character, instead of the ubiquitous "best friend to the gay guy" role (in Ode to Billy Joe, 1976, produced by Max Baer Jr. of The Beverly Hillbillies). And though he has never officially acknowledged his debt to gay fans, he has worked on a number of gay-friendly projects, from Ellen to Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Shortly after I was born, my parents bought a set of Colliers Encyclopedia and The Junior Classics, an anthology of mostly Victorian-era stories like Alice in Wonderlandand Jackanapes. During my earliest childhood I often took them from the shelves and leafed through them, marveling at the odd illustrations. I first tried reading them at age 8 or 9, but the antiquated language and obscure references made it well-nigh impossible. Still, their very impenetrability was attractive, suggesting hidden codes and secrets, so over the years I tried again and again, finally encountering some amazing gay subtexts.

The King of the Golden River (1841) begins with a blustery, round person, "The North Wind," visiting an extremely girlish young man named Gluck. From there, things get even more bizarre. Gluck battles his older, bullying brothers, Hans and Schwartz, for a golden mug, which turns out to contain the imprisoned spirit of the dwafish King of the Golden River.

Someone must travel to the source of the river and sprinkle it with "holy water." The evil brothers try, but fail, and are turned into black stones. Gluck tries, but gives the water away in acts of kindness, and is rewarded when the river turns into a river of gold.

There is no same-sex romance, but Gluck (played by Thor Bautz, left, in a gender-transgressive 2009 stage version) is quiet, sensitive, feminine, gay-coded.

And, bucking the tradition of fairy tales ending with "they were married and lived happily ever after,"he never meets a girl. At the end of the story, he is old, wealthy, well-respected by the community, with no wife.

That was, in itself, a revelation.

John Ruskin (played by Tom Hollander, top center, in the 2009 tv series Desperate Romantics) was heterosexual; like Lewis Carroll, he liked young girls. But there is no evidence that he had a physical relationship with anyone.

His marriage to Effie Gray was annulled after six years, not consummated because "there were certain circumstances in her person which completely checked passion." There have been many theories about what those circumstances were, but probably not the nude female form itself. (Effie later married his friend, pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais).

He was a scholar of the Renaissance, who became aware of the practice of "the bestial vice." Although he was quite homophobic, revealing that same-sex practices occurred at all helped to create the image of the "queer Renaissance," where gay people didn't have to hide. Oscar Wilde said that studying under him at Oxford was one of the turning points of his career.

In Victim (1961), 21-year old Peter McEnery played the first explicitly identified gay teenager in film, a working class boy named Boy who commits suicide in prison. His affluent, middle-aged lover, Melville Farr (gay actor Dirk Bogarde), tries to uncover the blackmail ring responsible for his death. Portraying gay men as victims rather than monsters was revolutionary, and paved the way for the decriminalization of same-sex acts in Britain in 1967.

Peter moved directly from an amazingly courageous role to Disney, becoming an Adventure Boy with the two usual attributes: a muscular physique and heterosexual obsession.

In 1964, he starred in The Moon-Spinners as Mark Camford, a young banker who gets involved with spies in Crete, and in the process falls for vacationing British girl Nikki (regular Disney star Hayley Mills). No buddy-bonding, but quite a lot of shirtless scenes, and more suspense than one usually gets from Disney.

In 1966, he played the titular role in The Fighting Prince of Donegal: Red Hugh, the 16th century Irish prince who started a rebellion against the oppressive English. Hugh falls for a girl (Susan Hampshire), but also buddy-bonds with an older man.

Maybe the parallels with Victim were too great, or maybe Disney was being extra-cautious after the accidental outing of Tommy Kirk. For whatever reason, Peter never worked for Disney again. Instead, he continued his career of gay-vague and not-so-gay vague characters.

In I Killed Rasputin (1967), Peter played Prince Felix Yusopov, who was bisexual in real life, the lover of Grand Prince Dmitri Pavlovich (and enjoyed dressing in drag). The movie tries to closet him, and all but eliminates Dmitri, but still Peter manages to imbue his character with a homoerotic passion (and he dances with a man).

Other sexually adventurous movies followed, but the most famous is Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970), based on the play by gay writer Joe Orton. Mr. Sloane (Peter) is a male prostitute who moves in with a closeted gay man (Harry Andrews) and ends up the unwilling boy-toy of both him and his sister.

I haven't seen any of Peter's later works, mostly British television and tv movies, but some of them look interesting, and with ample buddy-bonding potential: The Cat and the Canary (which has a "gay" keyword on the Internet Movie Database); a version of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream; and Clayhanger, from a series of novels by reputedly gay author Arnold Bennett.

I have not been able to discover his real-life sexual identity, only that he was married to Julie Peasgood for a time, and has a daughter. But with all of his gay-vague and gay roles, who cares?

See also: Fighting Prince of Donegal.

Today every gym is crowded with guys with 60-inch chests and 20-inch biceps, but 130 years ago, they were rare. Poor nutrition, poor hygiene, and a lack of understanding of kinesiology limited the average man's ability to build muscle.

Those few who developed muscular physiques found themselves in demand in carnivals and circuses as 'strong men," celebrated for their raw strength rather than for their size and symmetry.

But they certainly provided an erotic thrill. Contemporary accounts often praise their masculine beauty.

The most famous of the strongmen was Apollon (the Greek god Apollo), born as Louis Uni (1862-1928), who joined the circus at the age of 14 and eventually became a headliner, appearing in music halls throughout Europe. His act involved such feats as bending the iron bars of a cage, lifting 300-pound train wheels over his head, and holding two cars back with chains.

Donald Dinnie (1837-1916) appeared in 11,000 sports competitions, including 16 Scottish Highland Games, where he excelled in wrestling, hurdling, cable-throwing, and hammer-throwing. He became the equivalent of a millionaire through his exhibitions in the United States and Europe, where he was advertised as "The Strong Man of the Age." In an early advertising tie-in, his likeness was put on bottles of Iron Brew, a soft drink aimed at athletes.

Interestingly, he was 6'1" with a 48 inch chest and 15 inch biceps.

At my peak condition, I had a 51 inch chest and 17 inch biceps, and I was nowhere near "The Strong Man of the Age." Not even "The Strong Man of the Hollywood Spa.

Edward Aston was a boxer, wrestler, and finally a competitive weight-lifter. In 1910, he won the World Middle-Weight-Lifting Championship, and in 1911 he was named Britain's Strongest Man with such feats as a clean and jerk of 282 pounds

Not bad for someone who weighted 160 pounds. Schwarzenegger, who weighed 235 pounds, just managed a 298 pound clean-and-jerk.

He wrote an early weight-training manual, Modern Weight Lifting; and How to Gain Strength.

Sig Klein (1902-1987) grew up in Cleveland, in the early days of physical culture. He performed feats of strength on stage and in competitions, and in 1927 was named the world's greatest athlete by Le Culture Physique magazine. He was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not 10 times.

Later he moved to New York and Attila Studio, which trained athletes, bodybuilders, stuntmen, and actors, among them Zero Mostel, Montgomery Clift, Ben Gazzara, David Carradine, Joel Grey, and Karl Malden.

I don't know who this guy is, but he has quite a physique, and he has quite substantial beneath-the-belt gifts.

Thomas Inch (1881-1963), "Britain's Strongest Man," is known for lifting the "Thomas Inch Dumbbell." It was specially designed, weighing 172 pounds (the heaviest dumbbells you can get today weigh 50 pounds).

See also: Circus World

This is the Face of Pure Evil. And the House Where Evil Dwells.

When I was a kid, it was painted grey, and that attic window had bars on it.

I lived on the the north side of Denkmann Elementary School, on 41st Street. My boyfriend Bill lived two blocks north.

East past 42nd Street was Darry's house and eventually Country Style Ice Cream.

South, on the other side of 22nd Avenue, was Dewey's Candy Store, Gary's house, and eventually the Nazarene church.

West past 40th Street was Greg's house, and eventually Schneider's Drug Store, where you could buy comic books.

But we never went that way. We walked all the way up to 18th Avenue and around to the back, to avoid The Killer and his house.

There were lots of Mean Boys at Denkmann who would steal your lunch money, call you names, or pound you for infractions of the rules of grade school behavior. But The Killer was by far the worst.

He interpreted the most innocent statement or gesture, even standing too close to him, even looking at him, as an insult that must be redressed: "Now we have to fight!"

If you refused, he attacked on the spot, or if you were in school, ambushed you on the way home.

If you agreed, you met your doom later, on the west side of the school yard, a desolate space of dead trees and yellow grass across the street from his house.

Snarling like a rabid dog, The Killer fought by punching and kicking you everywhere, in the face, the chest, the belly, the balls. When you collapsed, bloody and sobbing, he poured dirt on you, spat in your face, and moved on.

Teachers simply said "No one likes a tattle-tale."

Parents simply said "You have to learn to fight your own battles."

The only escape was to avoid the Killer: don't sit near him in the cafeteria, don't stand near him at recess, and at all costs stay away from the House of Evil.

But one day during the summer after fourth grade, I was stupid. Mom asked me to return a cake-decorating kit that she borrowed from the Old Lady Schoolteachers, who lived two houses south of the House of Evil. I should have walked all the way around Denkmann School, but it was hot, Cartoon Showboat was coming on soon, and besides, the Killer might not even be home. So I cut diagonally across the parking lot and the schoolyard and came to 40th Street exactly parallel to the Old Lady Schoolteachers' house.

I peered at the House of Evil -- it looked deserted -- took a deep breath, and crossed the street. I was in the yard -- almost up to the screen porch. Almost safe.

"Hey, Fairy!"

The Killer! He must have been lurking in the shadows, waiting for a victim to appear! And now he was standing right next to me, fists clenched, a snake ready to strike....

My heart was racing. "I'm not by your house! The Old Lady Schoolteachers..."

"You sissy, making girly cakes!" He knocked the cake decorating kit out of my hand. "Now we have to fight!"

"No, it's my Mom's...." I began, before he punched me hard in the face. Moaning, I dropped to my knees. He kicked me in the stomach.

Then I heard someone yelling from a long distance: "Hey, what are you doing to that kid!"

I looked up to see a husky, muscular guy with shaggy red hair and freckles on his chest, wearing only short pants and tennis shoes with no socks. He was holding the Killer's arm. "You apologize!" he snarled. "Now!"

Glaring, the Killer muttered "Yeah, sorry, fairy...I mean, Jeff."

The Redhead drew me to my feet and put his arm around my shoulders. "Now listen up: if I ever hear about you touching this kid again, or calling him names, or even looking at him the wrong way, I will personally see to it that you spend the rest of your life at Joliet State Penitentiary. I'm in law school -- I know how!"

The Killer paled, but managed one more act of defiance. "You don't even live here!"

"Grandma sees everything you do from that porch. She'll call me. And I can be here in 45 minutes. Got it?"

The Killer nodded and scurried off, and the Redhead helped me pick up the cake decorating kit and walked me to the house.

"I'm Nick -- that spoiled brat is my cousin," he said. "If he bothers you again, just tell my Grandma, and I'll come running. Ok?"

I nodded.

Nick ruffled my hair. "You know what -- I was just about to go down to Country Style for a malted. You get your Mom and Dad's permission, you can come with."

I grinned. It was almost worth getting pummelled to be asked out on a date by a cute guy!

After that I loved hanging out on the West Side. The Killer never came near me, and every few weeks my "boyfriend" Nick came to visit.

For a few years in the mid-1980s, Scott Grimes was as famous as Scott Baio or Matthew Broderick.

His red hair and boyish smile drew the interest of teen magazines, and his muscles and penchant for nudity made him a fave rave for many gay teens.

Not to mention his cool fashion sense and hard-to-miss bulges.

His body of work is comparatively small, but wide-ranging, from the pedestrian to the masterful to the ridiculous.

The pedestrian: guest spots on all of the standard tv programs of the 1980s, including Charles in Charge, Who's the Boss, My Two Dads, Wings, and 21 Jump Street. Starring roles in several series, including Goode Behavior, Party of Five, E.R., and American Dad (his current gig, voicing the teenage son Steve Smith).

The masterful: the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001), about an infantry division during World War II who learn heroism, courage, devotion, and love. Scott played Technical Sergeant Donald Malarkey, who is deeply affected by the bloodshed around him, and is always looking for someone to love.

In Dreamkeeper (2003), the Lakota Sioux elder Peter Chasing Horse tells his sullen, "modern" grandson, Shane (Eddie Spears), stories about their culture as they travel to a pow wow in Albuquerque. A Red-Headed Stranger (Scott) joins them. As the Stranger and Shane grapple with their unstated but strongly articulated homoerotic desire, Grandfather tells them the store of Tehan, a white man who joined the Kiowa. He, too, felt an unstated homoerotic desire.

Even Scott's ridiculous projects have some gay content.

In the Gremlins clone Critters (1986), an an army of small, round, squish monsters, sort of like tribbles with teeth, eat their way through a small town. Brad (Scott) combats them, along with two intergalactic bounty hunters. One morphs into an androgynous glam-rocker named Johnny Steele (Terence Mann), who draws the interest of both Scott and town drunk Charlie (Don Opper). At the end of the movie, Charlie asks for and receives an intergalactic bounty-hunting job, and the three zap off into space together.

In Critters 2 (1988), Brad is still at work stamping out critters, and the three bounty hunters return to Earth. His coworker dies in combat, and Johnny, grief-stricken, "destabilizes" (has an alien nervous breakdown). Charlie keeps his arm around him, comforting him, saying “I can’t go on without you." They embrace. The music swells. They have found true love.

Scott is also a talented singer, with three albums to his credit: Scott Grimes (1989), Livin' on the Run (2005), and Drive (2010). His songs are moody and dark, mostly about lost loves and growing old, but most do not specify the gender of his love, making them resonate with both heterosexual and gay audiences.
He is a gay ally, and often contributes to pro-gay causes.

December 1979, about a month after my 19th birthday.

I'm having a very busy Holiday Season. Back from a semester abroad in Germany, my last date with a girl, the Chinese Restaurant Incident ("Don't call Bruce gay!"), meeting Fred the Ministerial Student. Then, on the 28th of December, Fred asks me to a movie. This will be our second date.

All my life, I've been looking for gay subtexts in movies, tv shows, books, comic books, and cartoons. But after junior high, I had to keep them to myself. My friends would say "don't be stupid" and point out the movie's profusion of female breasts.

I couldn't even point out the cute guys without getting weird looks.

And I didn't even know that they were gay subtexts until a year and a half ago.

Now, finally, I can both recognize gay subtexts and discuss them afterwards! I imagine Fred and I sitting at a dark-wood booth in a restaurant pointing out the two male characters with a special closeness, who rescue each other and stay together at fade-out. Or at least grinning over the beefcake.

I've already seen Star Trek and The Black Hole, so our choices are Kramer vs. Kramer (Dustin Hoffman gets a divorce), Going in Style (old guys rob a bank), The Jerk (Steve Martin as a jerk), and All that Jazz (about a theater director).

Fred tells me that the theater director is based on Bob Fosse. I've never heard of him, but I say "Great, he's one of my favorite actors!"

Besides, it sounds better than those other movies.

It's about a grotesquely ugly old-guy theater director named Joel Gideon (Roy Scheider of Jaws), who chain smokes, uses drugs, and keeps butting heads with his ex-wife, teenage girlfriend, and teenage daughter. His impossible work schedule runs him into the ground. He has a heart attack, goes to the hospital, has open heart surgery, dances with his arteries, and flirts with the Angel of Death. Finally he dies.

Incomprehensible, depressing, and disgusting! And no gay subtexts -- Joel Gideon is utterly obsessed with women. Even the Angel of Death is a woman.

A little bit of beefcake -- some hot guys dance together in the "Airotica" number. But they are drowned out by the proliferation of female breasts.

We leave the Showcase Cinemas in silence and stop in at Happy Joe's Pizza.

We choose a secluded booth so we can talk about gay topics without being overheard. I'm feeling sick and depressed, not only from the depressing movie but from the lost opportunity. I wanted to talk about gay subtexts, openly, without fear.

Fred starts. "Boy, was that movie awful! That Joel Gideon is a horndog!"

"I know! All he can think about is girls, girls, cigarettes, and girls!"

"You'd think with all of the gay people working in the theater, there'd be at least some fruity stereotypes in the background somewhere. Just for the sake of versimilitude!"

"Or a couple of guys who were into each other," I add.

"And what was it with the female body parts?"

"Disgusting!" I exclaim.

And on and on, dissecting each scene for heterosexism and the heterosexual male gaze (though we didn't know either term yet), bemoaning Hollywood brainwashing, how it tells the world over and over that we do not exist, we cannot exist, or if we do, we're monsters and freaks of nature.

I've never been able to discuss our oppression before, either, not openly. It's almost as much fun as finding gay subtexts.

See also: 10 Reasons Why "Kiss Me, Kate" is a Gay Classic

David was 43 years old, but an honorary twink. He grew up in an ultra-conservative household in Arkansas, got married, and became a Baptist preacher -- then, on his 40th birthday, had his first same-sex experience. He came out, quit his job, divorced his wife, and moved to San Francisco -- all in the same week!

He got an apartment and a job, joined a gym, bought a new wardrobe consisting mostly of leather, and went cruising. Every day. At lunchtime, after work, in the evening. Sometimes on the way to work.

David was an equal-opportunity cruiser. Young, old, black, white, rich, poor, he didn't care as long as you had either a nice smile or a big package.

But still, I was shocked when he cruised the panhandler.

In San Francisco, panhandlers were everywhere, lined up outside ATM machines, restaurants, Muni stations, waving their cups, holding their signs that said "hungry!" or "Disabled veteran" or chanting "Any change? Any change? Any change?"

Most people ignored them, figuring if you gave them money, you would be tagged as an "easy mark" and followed by many more. Besides, you couldn't tell who was actually in need and who just wanted money for drugs. There were many charities in town that could provide food and housing more equitably.

But even if you gave them money, inviting them home was quite a different thing. No one did. Ever.

Except David.

One day we went to Orphan Andy's for breakfast before work, and near the Muni station we passed a young panhandler, short, slim, probably in his 20s, wearing a baseball cap and an "Oakland A's" jersey. His sign read: "Kicked out of the house for being gay!"

David dropped fifty cents into his cup, said "God bless you!", and moved on.

"Cute!" he told me when we were out of earshot. "I'll bet he's open for business!"

"You mean as a hustler?" I asked. "Probably. I hear that a lot of panhandlers will drop their pants and give you a show for a dollar. Except they're not usually very attractive. Living on the street, you don't get a lot of opportunities to hit the gym."

"Well, that twink was hot. And I didn't mean as a hustler -- I meant as a date."

My mouth dropped. "Are you crazy? You can't cruise panhandlers!"

"Why not? Worried that he'll stab me and steal all of my stuff?" He patted my shoulder. "Just because they don't have a place to stay, they're automatically criminals, right? Got a few prejudices there, Jeff?"

"It's not that," I said, embarrassed. "But you know...."

"Oh, you're worried that he'spoz (HIV positive). I don't doubt it -- safe sex isn't exactly a priority on the street. But I'm not stupid. I never go downtown without a condom."

"Anyway, he's at least 20 years younger than you. Middle-aged guys can't cruise twinks. It's not done."

"Well, there's a first time for everything."

"Yes, but..." I struggled to articulate. "You're in a position of power over him. Sex with him sounds like exploitation."

"Jesus had dinner with tax collectors and sinners," David said with a shrug.

The next morning we passed the same panhandler, and David gave him a dollar and shook his hand before saying "God bless you."

"I'm gay," the boy pointed out, as if that prohibited us from using the word "God" around him.

"The Metropolitan Community Church has an outreach program for homeless youth..." I said.

"I know. I've been there to take showers and get new clothes. But I don't like churches much. My Dad was a strict Baptist, and when he found out I was gay, he held my head under water to force the 'gay demon' out."

"I heard that!" David exclaimed. "I used to be a Baptist minister -- they didn't get that being gay is a gift from God. So is sex," he added.

The boy grinned.

"My name's David."

"Cole."

"Is this your usual spot? Maybe I'll see you tomorrow."

As we walked away, David nudged me. "Still worried about exploitation?"

"Sort of. Give him some new clothes, buy him dinner, but having sex with him just seems exploitive."

"Would you like to supervise? Or share?"

I admit, I was curious.

On the third day, David gave Cole another dollar and a sausage-and-cheese bagel and invited him to have dinner at his apartment. "Oh, and Jeff is coming, too."

That night, Cole arrived at David's doorstep, wearing a see-through t-shirt, and carrying a bouquet of flowers, of all things.

Over a dinner of chicken tetrazzini and tiramisu, Cole told us about his upper-middle class home in Tucson. His father was a prominent lawyer. He had three older brothers and sisters, one a lawyer, another married to a lawyer.

"And I'm the black sheep of the family. Straight C's, suspended for fighting, arrested for smoking pot, and 'an abomination in the eyes of the Lord' to boot."

"You're not an abomination in anyone's eyes," David said. They were holding hands under the table.

"You think so? You should see how people at the Muni Station look at me. Like I'm lower than dirt. When they look at me at all. They don't get that I'm just a regular, normal guy. I like sports and stuff. I like hot guys."

Soon they were kissing and ignoring their tiramisu. They moved into the bedroom. I cleared the table and joined them.

Two weeks later, Cole was on a bus to Phoenix, where his older brother had agreed to take him in: "gay or not, he's still my brother."

What he needed the most was not money or a place to stay. It was to be treated like a "regular, normal guy," not an abomination because he was homeless or gay.

No relation to Rob Pinkston of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Ryan Pinkston got his start in martial arts: he received his black belt in Wushu Kung Fu at age nine and has won championships in karate, kung fu, and tae kwan do.

An interview on the Jenny Jones talk show landed him an agent, and within a month he had roles in Spy Kids: 3D (2003) with Bobby Edner, and Bad Santa (2003), and he was helping Austin Kutcher play celebrity pranks on Punked.

But there was a problem. Although handsome and muscular, Ryan was somewhat too short to play heartthrobs, and he had already been typecast as an aggressive wise guy, basically a jerk. So that's the sort of role he received:

In 2004, the 16-year old got his own tv series, Quintuplets, about teenage quintuplets with conflicting personalities. His Patton was pushy and aggressive; brother Parker (Jake McDorman, left) was the athlete

Next came the boorish Felch in Revenge of the Nerds (2006), chronic liar Sam Leonard in Full of It (2007), and Fletcher in the execrably homophobic College (2008), withDrake Bell

(which paradoxically offered an extensive homoerotic subtext).

His guest spots on the teencoms Out of Jimmy's Head and Hannah Montana were a little better, jerks with a soft, sensitive side.

But then he hit the bottom of the barrel: teen sex comedies. Foreign Exchange (2008), Extreme Movie (2008) with Frankie Muniz, Adventures in Online Dating (2009).

At least he had no problem with shirtless, shower, swimsuit, and semi-nude shots, including rear nudity. And with rolling around with other guys naked. Teens could sigh over the homoerotic subtexts even if they didn't like his characters.

But then, in 2010, something remarkable happened: a complete turnaround. Ryan's characters changed from jerks to nice guys, and coincidentally some buddy-bonding was added to the girl-crazy schtick.

Boy Band (2010): in 1982, his Greg buddy-bonds with Brad (Michael Copon) to form the first boy band in history.

Tower Prep (2010), about a school for kids with paranormal powers: his Gabe has a crush on Ian Archer (Drew Van Acker).

Cougars, Inc. (2011): his Jimmy and best friend Sam (Kyle Gallner, left, with his foot pressing against Ryan's penis) start an escort service pairing older women with teenagers.

Since Ryan is living with a man, fellow actor Sterling Knight, he's been the subject of gay speculation. But he hasn't made any public pro-gay or anti-gay statements.

You're probably wondering about my "boyfriend" Nick who saved me from The Killer one summer (I'm guessing the summer after 3rd grade, when I was eight years old).

The muscular, redheaded law student with freckles on his chest who took me out for an ice cream soda afterwards.

I don't have many more details, no long-ago smiles or glimpses of his shame. He visited a few more times, that summer and the next -- once he took me and Bill for a ride in his convertible with the top down.

Then he vanished without explanation (or maybe he just happened to visit when I wasn't around. I was busy every summer with Nazarene Bible camp and vacation and summer enrichment classes).

He left me with one connection: his grandmother.

Her name was really Mrs. Lindquist, and her companion was Miss Deverr or Devere, but everyone called them the Old Lady Schoolteachers because they had taught at Denkmann Elementary School for many years, beginning when it first opened in 1934.

I never knew their first names.

When I was growing up, Mom knew them from the PTA or the Safe House Program or something (Safe Houses had brown stars in the window, signifying that you could run there if a stranger tried to abduct you). She used to go over and visit them -- maybe they reminded her of her own mother, who died in 1965. Occasionally they sent banana bread or cookies back with her.

They always made popcorn balls for Halloween.

Sometimes my brother and I went over to shovel their sidewalks or mow their lawns. We were supposed to do it for free, but they always tipped us a quarter each anyway. They invited us inside once, while they fumbled about in their purses. I remember dark, ponderous furniture, Dinah Shore singing on tv, and dozens of framed pictures of relatives. Nick was smiling in a graduation gown.

Miss Devere died when I was in high school, leaving Mrs. Lindquist alone in the house.

I brought my first boyfriend, Fred, over to meet her. She gave us Swedish cookies and asked what we were studying in school.

Mrs. Lindquist died in 1984, during my year in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas. Since I was 1000 miles away, I didn't go to the funeral, but Mom and Dad were there. They talked to Nick briefly: he was a lawyer, living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with a wife and two kids. No doubt he was still buffed, with freckles on his chest.

The obituary they sent filled in the details in the life of Mrs. Lindquist: born in Galesburg in 1896, graduated from Augustana College, married Axel Lindquist, had two children. She taught at several Rock Island schools, and at Denkmann from 1934 to 1961, when she retired. Her husband and her son Jonah preceded her in death. She had four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Miss Devere was not mentioned.

At the time I didn't think that they might be a lesbian couple. After all, they lived on the next block! They made banana bread!

But now I wonder: were they just heterosexual roommates, sharing the bills, laughing over tales of male lovers, on Friday nights gazing lustfully at aging sleuth Barnaby Jones?

Or did they meet back in the 1930s, and wear cravats and smoke cigarettes and read to each other from The Well of Loneliness? Did they teach together, and then stroll across the grassy field to their house, a lesbian couple living freely and openly during the Depression and World War II, and even in the 1950s police-state era?

I might be able to find Nick on the internet, reunite with him, and ask for more details. But I'm not sure I want to. Living in Cedar Rapids, he's probably conservative, and might not amenable to the suggestion that his grandmother may have been a lesbian.

Besides, he's about 70 now. I would rather remember the muscular redheaded teenager with freckles on his chest who rescued me on that hot summer day a thousand years ago.

See also: The Face of Pure Evil

When I was a kid in the 1960s, my favorite comics by far were the Harvey supernatural titles: ghosts, witches, and devils roaming an oddly-Medieval Enchanted Forest where same-sex desire was commonplace.

I preferred Casper, but in a pinch, I would read about Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, a ghost boy with a Brooklyn accent, freckles, and a derby (or, as he pronounced it, “doiby”). (Not to be confused with Charlton's far inferior Timmy the Timid Ghost).

But while Casper was a 1960s nonconformist with a gay-coded softness and sensitivity, the hawkish Spooky had no aversion to booing.

In Spooky’s wild region of the Enchanted Forest, ravenous bears, ogres, monsters, and evil wizards leapt out from behind every boulder, so booing was an essential form of self defense. But for Spooky, it was an all-consuming passion. He specialized in complex, artistic boos, creating statements similar to the happenings and guerilla theater of the 1960’s art scene: he might boo a horse and rider into trading places, so that the rider runs off with the horse on his back, or he might boo a lake out of its bed so precisely that the fish remain, swimming in mid-air.

In “Once upon a Scaresday," Spooky explains how he took up booing in the first place. As a child, he was a coward and a sissy, always running away from danger. One day he was walking in the hills beyond Spooktown with some friends, when cannibalistic monsters called Ghostcatchers attacked. Spooky managed to run away, but his best friend Googy was captured and dragged off to be cooked and eaten. Distraught with guilt and mourning his loss, Spooky asked his grandfather for advice, and the elderly ghost taught him how to defend himself by booing. He proved to have a great gift for this ghostly martial art, and soon he was able to seek out the monsters and rescue his friend just as the cooking-fire was being lit.

A same-sex relationship originally motivated Spooky to boo, and a heterosexual relationship now compels him to stop. Spooky and Poil (his pronunciation of Pearl) are quite an adult couple, dating, dining at each other’s homes, and even kissing on couches. Pearl forbids him from booing. She claims that it is immoral, but her real reason is class-based snobbery: she considers booing boorish and vulgar, a working-class pastime likely to offend her high-society ghost friends (but they usually turn out to be closet booing fans).

Spooky is constantly promising to refrain from booing, to keep Poil from brow-beating or even leaving him. Many stories involved his frantic but quite clever schemes to continue booing after such a pledge, either for self defense or to assuage his addiction: he throws his voice, writes “boo” in the sand, spells it out with smoke signals. But why would Spooky even agree to cease a useful, artistic, socially-praised, and strategically necessary activity, just because Poil disapproves? Obviously she offers something more valuable than any of these things, more valuable than any love, but what? I was mystified; I could imagine giving up a bad habit or even an innocuous hobby at the admonition of a friend, but a career, a passion, a veritable calling?

I knew it had something to do with the girls who jumped their ropes and played their singsong games in the shadow of the school. At recess, we boys were herded far away to fields to play baseball and dodge ball, and if ever once we tried to play jump rope, or merely sit on the steps nearby to avoid the midday sun, a teacher would scream wildly at us to stay put. What danger lurked there, against the cool bricks? What threat did girls pose that could force Tommy Kirk to forsake his buddies at Midvale College, or Alec to forsake the wonders of the Earth’s Core, or Spooky to forsake his booing?

When I was a kid, I kept away from the movie Damn Yankees (1958) and its various live versions.

It was about baseball -- yawn -- there was a lady in her underwear on the poster -- and the word damn hurt my ears -- Nazarenes thought that even saying the watered-down darn was a sin.

Turns out I was mistaken: baseball is discussed, but there's also a lot of beefcake, and a nice gay subtext.

The plot: middle-aged Joe Boyd is obsessed with baseball, and wants his team, the Senators, to beat the New York Yankees. He makes a deal with the devil, aka Mr. Applegate (Ray Walston), to become an expert player for the Senators. He can back out of the deal anytime before they win the pennant.

Transformed into the young, virile "Shoeless Joe" Hardy (gay actor Tab Hunter), Joe takes the team into a winning streak, but he misses his wife back home. Applegate has to find some way to keep him distracted long enough to win the pennant and lose his soul permanently.

So he sends one of his previous clients, Lola (Gwen Verdon), to seduce Joe.

But it doesn't work. Lola confronts Joe in the locker room, gyrating suggestively and singing "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets, and little man, little Lola wants you."

He completely ignores her. Ostensibly because he's being faithful to his wife, but you can also read him as gay.

He ignores every other woman who approaches him during his superstardom. Same reason. Or is it?

Meanwhile,there's lots of shirtless athletes singing and dancing.

On stage, gay-coded Mr. Applegate has been played by a number of actors who specialize in gay-coded roles, such as Tony Randall, Bill Kerr, and Sean Hayes.

Shoeless Joe has been portrayed by Cheyenne Jackson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Christopher Charles Wood, Matt Bogart, and Jarrod Emick.

When I was a kid in the 1960s, I liked science fiction, like The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet and The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree, but I hated fairy tales, and I especially hated nursery rhymes.

Most of them made no sense: who would bake blackbirds into a pie? Who keeps a lamb as a pet? And what the heck is a tuffet?

Those that made sense (sort of) were entirely heterosexist. Jack and Jill go walking up that hill hand-in-hand. Jack Sprat and his wife have the disgusting habit of licking dinner plates. Some kid named Georgie likes to kiss girls.

The only one I could stand was "Who Killed Cock Robin?", which like most nursery rhymes, was intended to teach Medieval children about death. It's not actually a mystery -- a Sparrow confesses to the murder in the first line -- and the rest of the poem involves various birds offering to sew his shroud, dig the grave, build the coffin, and so on.

What I liked about it:

1. I didn't learn the British meaning of the word "cock" (a male bird) until much later, so it was amazing to hear about a bird named after a penis.

2. I could even get away with asking my Dad to "read me the nursery rhyme about the cock."

3. The illustration in my nursery rhyme book showed a muscular male killer, not a sparrow.

4. One of my first "British Invasion" tv programs was the episode "Who Killed Cock Robin?" on Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), about a pair of swinging detective buddies (Mike Pratt, Kenneth Cope), one a ghost.

5. An episode of Matinee at the Bijou in the 1970s featured a murder mystery entitled Who Killed Cock Robin (1938). It starred the handsome Charles Farrell, who would go on to play the dad in My Little Margiein the 1950s. I didn't know it at the time, of course, but Farrell was: a former nude physique model; and rumored to be gay.

6. The nursery rhyme is reputedly about William II, William Rufus, who was gay. He was shot with an arrow by Walter Tyrell, probably his lover, while hunting in the New Forest on August 2, 1100. In The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazier argues that his death was no accident, but a sacrifice to the Old Gods in a remnant of an ancient fertility rite.

One day when I was living in San Francisco, Kevin the Vampire showed me the want ad section of the San Francisco Chronicle with a job circled: a man to teach English and Spanish at a Jewish high school.

"The perfect job for you!" he exclaimed. "You could forget about this back-to-grad-school nonsense and stay in San Francisco,"

"Sounds interesting," I said noncommittally. Teaching high school?

"And it's only a few blocks south of my apartment. Very convenient, once you move in!"

"But I don't have teacher certification."

"That's not necessary for teaching at private schools in California."

"And I'm not Jewish."

"So you pretend. You've been to synagogues. You can read Hebrew. It won't be difficult."

I looked at the ad. "Why do they want men only?"

"Because it's a boy's school, and in Orthodox Judaism, women can't teach men. It's above their station."

"Wait -- they would never hire anyone gay -- Orthodox means homophobic. They think we have no morals or self-control, so we'll be trying to seduce all the students."

Kevin rolled his eyes. "My dear naive Jeff, haven't you figured it out yet? All breeders are homophobic! They want us dead, every one of them! That's why we must pretend to be straight, every time we set foot outside the Castro! Or is it just shyness that keeps us from holding hands as we walk down Geary Street?"

"You're right, of course. You always have to be careful in public."

"Not careful -- a whole new person. Someone who gazes longingly at women and has never heard the word 'gay.' We must always wear the mask. This job will only make it more obvious."

So I tweaked my resume: my semester in Turkey became a semester in Tel Aviv, my volunteering with youth at the gay church became at a straight synagogue, and my reason for abandoning my Ph.D. changed from they were homophobic to they were antisemitic.

Sure enough, a few days later, the principal called me in for an interview. He was Dr. Meyer, a grinning, rotund fellow, balding, with a close-cropped white beard.

He asked the usual questions about my education and experience, and then what it was like growing up "different" in western Illinois. He meant "Jewish," of course, but my experiences with "what girl do you like?" heterosexism transferred easily into "what church do you go to?"

He asked why I moved to California. I changed it's a gay haven to it's got the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.

He asked about my wife. I changed Lee to Leanne, and gave us two kids, Isaac and Miriam.

"Your students will all be seniors," Dr. Meyer said, "18 years old, legal adults, but afraid to move out into the world. Your job will be to encourage them to seek out new experiences, meet new people."

I wanted to ask "Like gay people?" But I didn't.

For my sample teaching, I led a class of seniors in a discussion of The Great Gatsby, carefully omitting any reference to gay subtexts.

Then came the campus tour. A library crowded with studious high school boys poring over the Talmud. A gym class full of muscular 18-year old jocks playing basketball, divided into shirts and skins.

This might not be a bad place to work after all.

As Dr. Meyer escorted me through the locker room, I was ambushed!

Eight or nine high school musclemen in towels and jockstraps. A flurry of hand-shaking and shoulder-patting, and every one of them, in turn, grabbed and squeezed my bicep.

"Are you going to be our new teacher?"
"I need lots of help with AP English!"
"Will you be available for after-school tutoring?"
"How would you feel about starting a Spanish club?"
"No, we need him to be faculty adviser for the paper!"

Finally Dr. Meyer pushed through them, snarled "Don't pester the candidate," and led me away.

"Well, that was fun!" I exclaimed, glowing with exhilaration. "Are they always so,,,um, physical?"

"Touching the tefilim of a teacher is a mitzvah. Of course, you weren't wearing any, so they had to improvise." (Tefilim: prayer boxes attached to the arm and head).

Why was he staring at me so oddly?

"They seemed to like me," I said, feebly.

"Yes...um...well, I think we have everything we need. We'll be calling the successful candidate before Shabbos."

He didn't call.

I think the ambush was a test, to weed out the gay candidates. Straight guys were supposed to find contact with other men repugnant, so they shrank back in disgust from the shoulder-patting and bicep-squeezing.

See also: My Date with the Vampire.

Juvenile tv programs of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Captain Kangaroo, Shari Lewis, and Andy's Gang, were dedicated to socializing kids into the norms of adult society. The rules may seem odd, the hosts seemed to say, but they were established by wise, sensible adults, and if you conform, this will be the best of all possible worlds.

Then came the 1980s and 1990s, and tv juvenile tv programs like You Can't Do That on Television, Animaniacs, and Eerie Indiana, said something quite different. Adults are crazy. Their rules make no sense. Don't even try to conform society: rebel, resist, be yourself.

The benchmark of this new anarchic juvenile tv was Nickelodeon's The Adventures of Pete and Pete (1993-96), about two brothers, teenage Pete (Mike Maronna) and preteen Pete (Danny Tamberelli) living with their parents in the town of Wellsville, New York.

If the two brothers with the same name don't clue in that something is askew in Wellsville, what about the opening song:

Hey, Smilin' Strange, you're looking happily deranged
I could've settled if you shoot me, or have you picked your target yet?

Or the characters:
Mom, who has a steel plate in her head that can pick up radio.
Artie, the Strongest Man in the World, who can move a house a whole inch!
Mr. Slurm, the high school shop teacher with a claw for a hand.
Pit Stain Jones, a super-villain whose powers are obvious

Big Pete is drawing close to adulthood, so he is the most conformist, with part-time jobs and career plans and crushes on girls.

But Little Pete resists the International Adult Conspiracy on bedtimes and dodgeball, and investigates such mysteries as the "Inspector" tag in clothing, the "time warp" of Daylight Savings Time, and a telephone that has been ringing for 27 years.

Heterosexual romance is a constant among the adult and teen characters, but Little Pete resists the International Adult Conspiracy on hetero-romance, too. He is mostly successful, reserving his affection for Big Pete and for his "hero," Artie the Strongest Man in the World.

The bizarre adult world provides some gay symbolism, and Little Pete's resistance to hetero-romance marks him as gay-vague. But there is even more of gay interest. Although Big Pete has an ongoing hetero-romance and occasional side crushes, boys often fall in love with him: not only his friends Bill (Rick Barbarette) and Teddy (Dave Martell), but even his friendly enemy, Endless Mike (Rick Gomez, top photo and left). I always wondered why he was called "Endless."

After Pete and Pete, Michael C. Maronna starred in some young-adult-slacker comedies before moving behind the scenes as a studio electrician. Danny Tamberelli starred in Igby Goes Down (2002), with Kieran Culkin.

Mary Prater was only 16 when her parents announced that they had arranged for her to be married to 33-year old Ell Hicks.

She didn't mind: he was a good catch. He had a nice farm near Pyramid, Kentucky, about 14 miles south of Prestonburg. And he was handsome, athletic, and "well-knit." Girls had been trying unsuccessfully to land him for years.

Ell turned out to be a good provider. He bought Mary the latest fashions, and took her to moving picture shows, and in 1904 they became one of the first families in the hills to own a new horseless carriage.

He was always kind to her and the children. He never raised his hand in anger.

There was only one problem, something that Mary couldn't tell anyone about except her mother. And many years later, her favorite daughter, Gracie.

Ell wasn't...um...keen on his...on doing his duty as a husband.

Mary had to coax and cajole him, and even then it happened only once in a blue moon.

She blamed Ell's friends. That's why he waited so long to marry -- he preferred the company of men. Especially that wastrel Silas. Why, they were joined at the hip, like Frick and Frack!

Sometimes those two stayed out carousing until midnight, leaving Mary rumbling around the house all by herself.

Finally Mary put her foot down. "You can't visit Silas unless I go with you!"

That quieted things down, for awhile.

One day in the summer of 1905, Ell told Mary that Silas's elderly grandmother was sick, very sick, and everyone was gathered at the house to "sit up" with her, like you did in the hills. She gave her consent for him to "sit up," too, as long as he was back by suppertime.

Well, suppertime came, and then sundown, and no Ell. At first Mary was worried. Then she got angry. Maybe he wasn't sitting up with Silas's grandmother at all. Maybe the old woman wasn't even sick! No doubt it was just an excuse to go carousing with that wastrel!

Near midnight, Mary had enough. She woke Dewey, her toddler, wrapped six-month old Gracie in blankets, and set out to catch Ell in the act.

Ell took the carriage, so she had to walk.

It was very dark, but she could see well enough in the moonlight.

She went down the dirt road for about a mile, and then she came to a crossroads. The left fork led to Pyramid, and the right on to Prestonburg.

There was something glowing on the side of the Prestonburg Road!

At first she thought it was someone holding a lantern. But no -- the light was pale and cold, like moonlight.

It was like a human figure with legs spread and arms akimbo. But much bigger -- at least ten feet tall! She couldn't make out a face.

It moaned like a ghost.

Mary was petrified with fear, but she couldn't run away, with Dewey clinging to her legs and Gracie howling.

She thought of going back, but Silas's house was closer, and there were people there. So she persevered, walking slowly, with the boy still clinging to her legs and the baby still howling.

Finally she made it to the house, where she discovered that Ell was telling the truth. It was full of people sitting up with Silas's grandmother, who died at the precise moment that Mary saw the figure in the woods.

But there was a problem: the figure was definitely male. It was naked. She distinctly remembered seeing...um...manly parts. . .dangling between its legs.

If it wasn't Silas's grandmother, who was it? What was it?

Gracie didn't remember the incident, of course. Mary told her about it when she was a teenager, just before she married Tony Howard, my grandfather.

Years later, Gracie told the story to each of her daughters, just before they married.

Aunt Mavis broke with tradition, and told me.

No doubt the details changed over time, but I'm certain that the core of the story is intact: the wastrel, the sick grandmother, and the ghost in the woods that couldn't have been her.

What kind of cautionary tale is this for mothers to pass on to their daughters?

Maybe to be careful -- some of your husband's infidelities might not involve women.

But wait -- did Mary even know that gay men, or men on the downlow, existed? Did Gracie? Or Aunt Mavis?

See also: My Grandpa Howard's Gay Connection; and Cousin Buster: Growing Up a Stranger

I like Seinfeld -- I own DVD sets of the entire series -- but the characters are constantly making heterosexist comments, and often they are downright homophobic. It seems strange, therefore, to find cast members acting in gay roles or supporting gay rights.

Maybe not Tim DeKay. In one of his first tv gigs (1996), the Ithaca, New York boy with a MFA in Theater played Kevin, the "Bizarro Jerry," Jerry's complete opposite -- considerate, caring, literate, and no doubt gay-positive.

In real life, Tim has done a ton of gay-positive work:

1. Five Houses (1998): A gay couple from Oklahoma moves into a big-city cul-de-sac. He played one of the partners.

2. Big Eden (2000), about a gay New York artist (Arye Gross of Ellen) who returns to his home town in rural Montana where everybody is amazingly pro-gay. He tries to hook up with the jock he had a crush on in high school (Tim), but is gently rejected.

3. Randy and the Mob (2007): Randy (Ray McKinnon), a Southern redneck, flees the mob and seeks refuge with his gay identical twin brother Cecil (Ray McKinnon in a double role). Tim plays Cecil's partner, Bill.

4. The gay-subtext buddy-drama White Collar (2009-): a con artist (Matt Bomer) teamed up with an FBI agent (Tim, the one wearing pink).

When Matt Bomer came out in 2012, Tim was all praise: "I love him, and I am so proud of him. He's just a fantastic individual, and I think he did it in a very classy, elegant, and eloquent way."

The Beverly Hillbillies, one of the 1960s line of hayseed comedies (others included Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, Gomer Pyle, and The Andy Griffith Show), slogged on from 1962 to 1971, and your parents watched every week, so you couldn't avoid it. It was amazingly popular with adults: some of the regular episodes -- not even Christmas specials -- became the most watched episodes of all time.

The basic premise: a hillbilly from Bugtussle, Tennessee or Arkansas, Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen), becomes unbelievably rich when oil is discovered on his property, so he moves to a mansion in Beverly Hills, along with his crotchety mother-in-law Granny (Irene Ryan), his daughter Ellie Mae (Donna Douglas), and his dumb-lunk nephew Jethro (Max Baer Jr.).

Though they became marginally assimilated after nine years, they still wore hillbilly clothes, ate possum pie, and referred to their swimming pool as a "cement pond." Plots usually involved big city types trying to dupe and manipulate them, but their backwoods wisdom, orneriness, or dumb luck win out in the end.

The message: big city life is dehumanizing. Only in the country can real be real.

Other plots involved Ellie Mae's dating, Jethro's get-rich quick schemes (odd, since he already was rich), and Granny's dislike of all things big city.

There was never much beefcake in hillbilly comedies. Max Baer Jr., son of the famous boxer Max Baer, had a nice physique, but rarely showed it on camera. We were supposed to laugh at his dopiness, not sigh over his muscles.

Bonding was also rather uncommon. Most of the primary relationships were platonically male-female: Jed and Granny, Ellie Mae and Jethro, bank president Mr. Drysdale and his secretary, Miss Hathaway (Nancy Culp, who incidentally was gay in real life.)

But gay-vague was everywhere.

1. Mr. Drysdale's son, Sonny (Louis Nye) is sophisticated, well-educated, and not interested in girls. His parents keep trying to hook him up with Ellie Mae (so he will eventually inherit the Clampett millions), but he will have none of it. He and Ellie are just friends.

2. Hollywood star Dash Riprock (Larry Pennell), a parody of Rock Hudson, is handsome, suave, and not interested in girls. He vaguely courts Ellie Mae, but his heart isn't in it, regardless of how much his studio pushes them together.

Apparently the producers thought it hilarious to keep having Ellie Mae run into men who were not interested in girls.

3. Jethro had a "twin sister," Jethrine. She stayed back in the hills, and didn't show up often, but when she did, it was obvious that it was Jethro in drag. I got the distinct impression that everyone was just playing along, responding to his drag persona as if she was a different person.

See also: Petticoat Junction; Green Acres

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