The Gaydar
We were doing annual maintenance checks on our gaydars, the built-in sensors that tell us whether a guy is straight or gay. These are sophisticated apps that automatically react to the presence of males: dead silence for heterosexuals (which occasionally triggers the Hot Guy in the Building alarm), blips of varying loudness for disorientating orientations (“Did someone order the baklava?”), and air raid sirens that mean, “Sweetie, let’s go shopping in the girls’ lingerie department!!” (Heartbreaking when their cup size is bigger than yours.)
This app is not downloadable. It can only be developed after years of hanging out with gay men, discussing Madonna’s career trajectory with them, denouncing all Academy Awardees for Best Actress who are not Meryl Streep (except Marion Cotillard, long story), and analyzing their relationship histories (exponentially more exciting than mine). Recently I realized that I can name the stars of UFC even if I know nothing about the sport. This is because my friend and I sometimes have dinner at the bar near his house, where the TV is always tuned to UFC matches. As we cannot critique the production design, cinematography or musical score of the fights our discussion is limited to “Okay, which one is yours?”
During the annual maintenance check we re-calibrate our gaydars to factor in changes in social attitudes. One must always keep an ear to the zeitgeist. Ten years ago a man who went for cosmetic treatments and used beauty products would’ve caused a bleep on the gaydar; today it’s hardly worth remarking on. Twenty years ago a man who went to the gym thrice a week to work on his pecs and abs would be called macho; today we would wonder. If he goes around in shirts tight enough to display said pecs and abs, he is a “Buff-la.” The gayness is not the issue; it’s the denial and concealment of it that has the potential to bring unhappiness to dense, clueless women everywhere.
The main challenge to gaydars everywhere is the sheer complexity of the human animal. We have a friend who is in all respects a straight man, except that he and I have similar tastes in guys. He throws off gaydars everywhere; we call him a Closet Heterosexual.
We must note that in the Philippines a sexual relationship with a gay man is not considered final proof of gayness. The relationship may be economic in nature. Raise your hands all those who know a gay man whose boyfriend has a wife and kids. No doubt his friends have lectured him on the exploitative aspect of his affair; his riposte could be a simple “Eh I love him, eh.” Who is to say it is not reciprocated? The gay benefactor may even be friends with his boyfriend’s wife — they have much in common. Such arrangements are no longer cause for shock — unless one is in the business of judging other people’s virtue, or been brainwashed by too many old movies in which the gay man is “straightened out” by the love of a good woman. “He’s not gay, just effeminate; he’s not gay, just hasn’t met the right girl.”
Which is what my friend Michel Humehouellebecq says whenever we point out that given his interest in film, art, photography, literature, and more recently the culinary arts (The words “reductions” and “gherkins” pop up in our conversations as often as “exsanguination” and “defenestration”), he could set off a few gaydars. In our society those who are creative, cultured, and knowledgeable about table settings raise questions — it is a sad reflection on the aesthetic sense of heterosexual males. Michel replies, deadpan, “Baka hindi ko pa lamang natatagpuan ang lalaking magpapatibok sa aking puso.” (Perhaps I have not yet met the man who will make my pulse quicken.) As we’ve said, people are complicated creatures; we have the capacity to surprise ourselves.
Gaydar is a source of amusement — you are already making a mental list of characteristics you consider “gay.” Before you verbalize your thoughts remember that Anderson Cooper took a movie trailer to task for using the expression, “That’s so gay.” We must be sensitive to the sensitivities of others; even the very concept of gaydar may be offensive to some. There is certainly no killer app that can accurately predict human behavior.
Take another friend (who else would we write about?), straight guy, living abroad, married to a wonderful woman. He thought everything was fine — they got along very well, their careers were thriving, they had no major fights. One day she announced that she wanted a divorce. “I’ve been living a lie,” she declared. The next part has to have its own paragraph.
“I am,” she said, “I am... a gay man trapped in a woman’s body.”
It took my usually quick-thinking friend a full minute to process the divorce announcement, and another minute to work out the implications of the “gay man” statement.“I am a gay man in a woman’s body,” she repeated.
“And the problem is...?”
In the end it was established that she was unhappy, so they got the divorce. She had her name changed to a man’s name like “Charles” or “Humphrey,” but otherwise nothing has changed.
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http://www.jessicarulesthe-universe.com.Twisted by Jessica Zafra.Pumping irony since 1994.
