QI have a cousin with whom I am very close. He recently proposed to his girlfriend. I have several issues with this, but the most important one is the fact that everyone who meets this young man thinks he’s gay. (I don’t know how the girlfriend hasn’t seen it.) When I told my friends he was engaged, their jaws dropped. Everyone said, “But he’s gay!” He’s admitted to me that he did “play for the other team” in college and every once in a while he mentions that he has a “man crush” on so-and-so. I’ve been out with him, and gay men will comment on how handsome he is, how they’re sure he’s gay, etc. I love him to death and I don’t care one bit that he may be gay.
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As for “playing for the other team” at college, ACK, that can indeed be just a phase—but for women, not men, if scientific research is to be believed. Heterosexual and homosexual women “tend to become sexually aroused by both male and female erotica, and, thus, have a bisexual arousal pattern,” according to the results of 2003 study conducted at LUG-infested Northwestern University. Men, on the other hand, prefer erotica that plays exclusively to their professed sexual orientation. Which means, of course, that female sexuality is a fluid and male sexuality is a solid. Or something.
And ladies? Pointing out your fluid sexuality isn’t an insult. It’s a compliment—hell, it’s a freakin’ superpower.
We’ve been down this road before—HIV’s Achilles’ heel is located and targeted, hopes are raised, and then… it’s back to the ol’ drawing board. So let’s not run out and stick our asses in the air just yet, boys. And remember: even if we do one day have a vaccine or a cure for HIV, re-creating the gay communal-sewer sex culture of the 1970s is a Very Bad Idea. One important take-away lesson—one of the top lessons—of the AIDS epidemic should be this: given the right conditions, new sexually transmitted infections can emerge and kill you and all your friends.
So long as you were polite and direct—and I’m taking your word for that, FATSO—you’re not a bad person even if her feelings were hurt. There are men out there who are open to big women or are into big women—the bigger the better—and she can avoid hurt feelings in the future by e-mailing accurate photos and attracting the attention of men who actually find her attractive.
Sometimes I do feel the urge to offer advice to fuckups with messy personal lives outside of the context of the column or the podcast—that’s what family reunions are for. But what the hell…
