LIFE V. LIFESTYLE

(c) Breeaze Vincinz

 

A lot of the conversations I have been having with friends lately have been revolving around the concept of being "Out" as homosexuals. Part of it, I imagine, is because I am becoming more and more aware of my own internalized homophobia and curiously enough, I'm not particularly trying to cure myself of it more so than I have been feeding it. I would even say that I am addicted to my own homophobia. I'll admit it… I hate being gay, the whole preoccupation of it. I've come terms to with the fact that I'm gay, I just hate having it be my "thing". I don't want a "thing" anymore, I don't want to have a point of contention. Ever since I came out to my brother it's like I lost my identity as "sibling" to him and have somehow turned into "big black gay thing" and it pisses me off and it definitely effects my eagerness to out myself to people with whom I share close quarters with who assume my heterosexuality. 

I just don't have the patience for that initial cliché "hetero-shock" in finding out that homosexuals can have facial hair and watch football too. And I am so over the whole nature v. nurture argument. Have you ever seen a Bobby Blake or Flex-Deon porn video? No one in their right mind could ever be taught to enjoy that shit. 

Maybe I shouldn't speak for all homosexuals but I can tell you with crystal clarity that I didn't choose this. Believe me, the last thing I would have ever chosen in life was to have my G-Spot be 3 inches up my ass. 

In discussions about defining life, lifestyle and existence and the different elements that separate the three, I just find it all to be a matter semantics. On more than one occasion I have heard someone explain how they don't live a homosexual lifestyle or even further how they can't be a homosexual because they don't live a homosexual lifestyle. Which I always equated to a dog saying that they really aren't a dog because they don't bark and they like cats. But then again, what dog doesn't bark and loves cats? What makes a dog a dog? What makes a homosexual a homosexual?

By definition, a dog is a type of canidae or mammal in the order of Carnivora. Now that dog might abhor barking and might like a nibble of meow mix every now and then but that doesn't change who he is. 

For me, I have always carried that theory through all anthropology. You are who you are no matter the circumstance. At the core, in the marrow, Michael Jackson is an African American, Madonna is a singer, I am a homosexual. Despite all the brouhaha that might pad the original intention; vitiligo, giving head to Evian bottles, using the word faggot every given opportunity, at the end of the day what you have is a an African American, a singer and a really gay guy.

What you do might define your lifestyle but I don't think that lifestyle completely defines who you are. A friend of mine told me that he does not live a homosexual lifestyle. He goes to work, he goes to the gym, he gets his groceries then he comes home. He doesn't go to the clubs, he doesn't go to the bars, he doesn't go to any black gay men discussion groups. He might go to a movie every once in awhile but as a whole his existence is pretty pedestrian. Do wit I asked, "Do you like to have sex with men?" He responded that he does. I said, "Well, then you do live a homosexual lifestyle. You're a gay guy who goes to work, goes to the gym, gets groceries then comes home."

 

Media is probably only second to religion in feeding myth to the masses and in accordance, we have been bombarded with images of what a gay guy should be. We should go to the gym and night clubs, tell witty jokes that all somehow refer to dick and/or ass. We should be fabulous and wear fabulous clothes and have fabulous friends with whom we can wave our fabulousness in front of to validate ourselves. We should be overly feminine and wear weird couture outfits and obsess about musical theater. In the very least, we should try and emulate the women in Sex and the City the best we can. It is those souls that pray to the altar of Jesuit Communiqué that get the most airplay and have molded the shape of homosexuality into a severe, thin, fussy silhouette.

Many people think that if they do not fit into said contour that, in turn, they do not fit into homosexuality or the homosexual lifestyle. I by far have fallen into that chasm of thinking on more than one occasion. But at this point, I just refuse to be "Queer Eyed" from my position as a homosexual. I would never be a love interest on "Queer As Folk" but that doesn't mean that I'm not queer as folk. The diaspora of homosexual experiences by far outreach what media deems acceptable for American Red State audiences. So for someone gay to say to me that they do not live a homosexual lifestyle I would have to respond, "You're gay dude, quit watching so much fucking television."

But the question does still stand, what exactly is gay or what makes a homosexual a homosexual? I have always thought that it was a definition solely based on sexual activity. Basic stuff really, you eat pussy: straight, you suck dick: gay. But that's just sex, there is still the question of sexuality, and that's not semantics, that's intrinsic emotion. The same way you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink, you can teach a dude how to suck a dick, but that doesn't mean he's going to like it… and yeah… if you're gay… you're going to like it. 

A dude in jail is going to want to get his rocks off just about as much as guy on the outside. So if he does a little slap and tickle with another guy in his cell, does that make him gay or just a desperate straight dude trying to make due? I vote for the latter. It doesn't make him gay, it just makes him cum. 

To me, sexuality is defined by what you want, not what you do. The goal being for the two to intersect but we don't live in a perfect world, sometimes they just don't. You have men wanting nothing more than as much mangina as they can handle but what they are doing is marrying some poor girl who didn't ask the right questions beforehand. 

To me, that guy is gay. He too worships at the altar of Jesuit Communiqué and figured that he was too manly to wear the velvet purple pants that he feels all homosexuals should wear so he found a woman whom he may or may not have fallen in love with, but just isn't physically cable of fulfilling him sexually the way he needs to be fulfilled… because you know… his G-Spot is three inches up his ass too. 

But it's all gay to me. Or maybe I'm just old fashioned. I don't like sexuality to be fluid or transitional. If you like dudes, then you like dudes. If you like women, then you like women. If you occasionally cross that line that's cool but just don't deny where your umbilical cord came from. I don't like the idea of the pansexual (or the omnisexual) that indiscriminately enters relationships without regard to genitalia. Politically, it does nothing to help the movement for civil rights for full blooded homosexuals. Emotionally, and let's just be real, I dig a guy who is into me spiritually with whom we can share chakras but really… I'm much more comfortable with a dude who sees me as piece of meat and who distinctly and specifically wants to suck my dick. 

I don't the like the grays of sexuality, I prefer it all to be black or white. I'll never be a Berdache but my feet are too flat to wear heels so I guess that's a good thing.

All of which, and a lot more, makes up my lifestyle. I live in a coldwater studio in Hollywood that is way too small to hold all of my books, magazines and CDs which are neatly stored in milk crates all over my apartment. If you open my cabinets you will see Martini glasses, Margarita glasses, Champagne flutes, mayonnaise jars I drink Kool-Aid out of Combat roach baits. My radio never leaves the smooth Jazz station. There are tiny little rubber bands all over my bathroom that I use to secure the ends of my cornrows and there is usually a thin layer of baby powder in there from daily powdering my balls after I take a shower.

This is my lifestyle and I will totally defend its place somewhere in the spectrum of the modern homosexual's lifestyle. Mind you, it might not get on Oprah anytime soon and I doubt any self respecting straight guy would want to take fashion tips from my grungy queer eye and I don't ever remember Will having rubber bands around to secure his hair but that is all just one side of the spectrum. I'm on the other side, with MeShell NdegeOcello, Karamo Brown and Tim'm West. We might be a little bluer, but we're still just as bright.