Homophobia
Monday, 22nd June 1998DENVER, COLORADO [NotS]
Y’know, the American language has become so far removed from English that there are now British-American dictionaries on the market.
What I would call a lorry, you would call a van; what I would call a van, you would call a pickup; what I would call a pickup, you would call a prostitute. And if you want to drag that out full circle, imagine a prostitute named Laurie.
And what I would call a mate, you would call a friend. And what I would call a fag, you would call a cigarette.
This isn’t about cigarettes; this is about fags and their mates, by American definition.
Homosexuals exist. That’s not news. Have a look at the Romans if you think this began recently; then try to watch American Gladiators with a straight face. Hey Billy Wirth: kiss-kiss.
The thing is, I just don’t care. My logic is so simple that a gaybasher could almost grasp it. I’m not gay; I have no intention of becoming gay; so I have no reason to fear homosexuals. QEbloodyD.
Why are people so terrified of homosexuals? How could it possibly matter to you? Seriously, I’ve asked homophobes about this. Wanna see some replies?
Probably the most common response follows ‘I don’t want them looking at me’. Yeah all right. Let’s look at this logic for a moment.
Understand that the sort of loser who ‘don’t want them looking’ could easily become an Elvis impersonator if only sequins weren’t so damned dainty. Really. These people make Meat Loaf look like Sebastian Bach: the bat out of hell was in too much of a hurry to scrape off that resin-like coating of fryolator grease before hitting the BowlARama.
Take a good look at a homosexual. Sure you can tell them from everyone else. How? They’re the ones with enough taste to dress that way. Now, think about this: if Dinah the disheveled waitress back at the Porkrind Cafe and Truckstop looked at you like you were yesterday’s turkeyroll, do you honestly believe that Jay the flaming fashion consultant over there is seriously contemplating your lice-ridden nether regions? To be blunt: what’s the point of being gay if you can’t spot an asshole when you see one?
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been hit on by homosexuals, but so what. It’s harmless enough. They ask; you tell. And it’s so easy. A simple ‘sorry, I’m straight’ pretty well ends the conversation right there. And then, they usually buy you a drink anyway, by way of an apology for presuming.
Compare that little scenario to the epidemic of being hit on by something that’s certainly female, though its exact species is impossible to determine without a hood sequencer. That ‘sorry, I’m straight’ line will serve as no defence against The Creature That Sent Darwin Back to the Drawing Board. Perhaps you’ve met this anomaly. She’s got those three teeth the colour of Vietnamese tigerstripe camouflage, that wild Tina Turner got rained on hair, that ‘Born Free or Die’ Harley Davidson knockoff TShirt with last week’s pizza clinging to the eagle like the cargo of the Exxon Valdez adhered to seagulls, and is so damned obese that she’s got more contemporarily sized fat chicks orbiting her. Meet Deimos and Phobos; back off bitch, he’s mine. And getting Jabba the Slut here to work out that no means get the bloody hell off my planet is almost as likely as Marilyn Manson hosting the 700 Club.
Yet Flintstone here, whose only shared trait with Isaac Azimov is the WeaponX sideburns, would prefer to be ogled by The Beast That Swallowed Nell Carter than a member of the pink collar crowd. Why?
Because he’s homophobic. And I think that’s a pretty accurate term.
Let’s define it, shall we? Phobia: an intense fear or hatred of a particular thing. Acrophobia: an intense fear or hatred of heights. Xenophobia: an intense fear or hatred of strangers. Homophobia: an intense fear or hatred of thyself.
Yup. homo is Latin for ‘thyself’. Look it up. Okay, get someone to look it up and read it to you. Slowly. Euphemising the polysyllabic terms into American.
Homophobia is fear of thyself. Fear of your own reflexion. The dude with the pink triangle over there. You are what you hate; you are what you fear.
You, the chronic homophobe, are terrified of what Brian the well-dressed queer represents. You’ve ingested so much tryptophan in your milk&porkchops that the only thing your lazy little brain can grok is that something about a homosexual is so organised, novel, and exciting that it scares the hell out of you. And so: you beat him up, just to eradicate that nagging self-doubt in your ability to expel testosterone into Birtha’s formerly anaclastic snatch.
And this is a personal issue for me. No no no; we’ve covered that: I’m not homosexual; I have no particular intense fear or hatred of myself. It’s personal because I have a number of friends who are gay. And that number is decreasing.
This friend of mine, Joel Larson, was gay. No secret; he never tried to hide it. He was just a cool guy. He didn’t really dislike anyone; he never started fights, or even arguments. He lived in Des Moines, which is not a homofriendly city. So, he moved to Minneapolis, which, compared to Des Moines, is a pretty cool place.
To make a long story short [though hopefully not to depreciate it] a homophobe began stalking him, and eventually beat him to death as Joel was walking home just after dark. The shocking motive, it turned out, was that the killer was a homosexual. A closet case. He couldn’t admit it to himself, or his family, or his friends. He couldn’t admit it to Joel. Well, not in so many words. Instead, he communicated his self-conflict by beating my friend to death.
To my knowledge, Joel had never hit on the guy, or even glanced him over. Joel, like so many homosexuals, had taste.
But Joel didn’t subscribe to the Michael Jackson philosophy of hiding what he was. He didn’t really flaunt it–certainly not the way these troglodytic labourers flaunt their all-American, cornfed, womanising gaybasher personas. He was just this cool guy who was exterminated in a manoeuvre that Adolf Hitler would admire.
So here’s my suggestion for all you gaybashers out there: next time you get edgy enough to kill a homosexual, identify the real problem and give Kavorkian a call.
Hey, if that catches on, we may eventually put an end to country western singers, too.
That’s just my opinion; get off my ass about it.
–Gremlin