Guide to Knowing You’re Not Gay.

There’s only one way to know for sure that you’re not gay, and that’s to do something kind of gay and then hate it. Have I done something kind of gay? Yes. I have. And I’m not gay. I’m certain that I’m not gay.

My upbringing was a little weird in terms of gay things. I didn’t have two moms or two dads or anything. I had one of each. And they’re still together. I guess that qualifies as weird these days. Even weirder, I was brought up to not think it’s at all a bad or strange thing to be gay. To the contrary, I was in an environment at the height of the political correctness movement that actively encouraged gayness through the condescension of “universal tolerance and acceptance.”

For a while there it was somewhat chic to accept the hell out of anybody. Actually, it still is in some circles. This is mostly in “liberal America,” where Teva-footed middle-aged white academic types add a competitive air to their sense of liberated openmindedness by embracing ever more obscure pet causes. Save the pigmy hippo. End animal husbandry. Fight against third world tooth decay. These people traipse around passionately discussing the dangers of 19th century imperial colonialism while at the same time enrolling in African dance lessons and leading a class on “Eastern sexual spirituality” at the local Baha’i temple. It is a world largely free of self-awareness and irony. And of course I’m generalizing.

But to me it seemed, during my pre-and-during adolescence, that it was “cool” to a certain population to befriend and more importantly advertise one’s friendship (and hence kinship and total I-can-totally-identify-with-this-entire-subdivision-of-human-population level understanding) with the most marginalized, oppressed, and underrepresented minority groups possible. And like a Tony Hawk skateboarding video game, you got bonus points for combinations. If you were able to convince your other white liberal American buddies that you were actually friends with a transgendered albino Eskimo with sickle cell anemia, you won. You just won the whole thing. That was the general atmosphere.

For me at least. I’m talking about the early to mid 90’s, here. It was a very, very idiotically naïve time for American liberalism. Or maybe that’s just how it seemed to me. I was in middle school at the time. In middle school one’s greatest sociological impulse is to stick out as little as possible so as to not expose oneself to ridicule. So it’s kind of a healthy but nonetheless cringeworthy anathema to go around bragging about how different you and your friends are. It helped me at the same time as it made me want to run for dear life to the safety of a regionally-approved Starter jacket and a pair of baggy “Used Jeans.” But I wasn’t rich or mean enough to ever be a cool kid. So I just had to sit around in the margins quietly noticing ironic inconsistencies in my general environment’s philosophies. But maybe I was also helped by the “we love everybody, even especially the weirdest people, Kum Ba Yah,” mantra to not feel so bad that I had neither the money nor the requisite meanness to ever be a “cool kid.”

Helpfulness aside, you can’t treat the whole world like it’s got the battered, queasy ego of a 13 year old kid. The world is more complicated than that, and unlike with a 13 year old kid, you don’t actually know any better than he does what’s best for him. I’m not sure if “American liberalism” is past this yet, or whatever, and I don’t really care. I pretty much quit that scene around the time I finally got a driver’s license. I’m an Epicurean now, which is shorthand for "don't involve me, I'm trying to get laid."

Anyway, I was raised to not bat an eye at gay stuff. Not a single eye bat. In fact, I marched in a huge gay rights rally in Washington DC with my Mom, my Dad, and my two little brothers. I was 15 at the time. As far as I know, none of us are gay. It was just something we did because it was 1995 and I have a gay uncle and it seemed important enough for some reason that we all did it. Didn’t bat an eye. I even got a good amount of 15-year-old wood at the sight of several exposed butch lesbian boobs. Butch lesbians often exposed their boobs at gay right rallies in 1995. I don’t know why. Probably because it seemed like a good enough excuse. I’m sure other stuff happened there too, but that’s mainly what I remember from my time as a 15 year old gay right activist in 1995. The boobs. And the inappropriateness of enjoying the boobs so much.

I was more ashamed of my 15-year-old exposed butch lesbian boob-based boners than those lesbians were of the fact that their exposed breasts were basically encouraging them. Had I confronted one of them with my dilemma, those kindly lesbians probably would have said, “that’s ok, little guy, as long as you don’t ever rape anybody, it’s ok to want to ogle my exposed butch lesbo boobs. That’s kind of what they’re for at this point, it’s a deliberate piece of spectacle that you ogle until it seems like not a big deal and then you’re supposed to adjust to a more equal footing where exposed boobs don’t matter so much. Get it?” Because they were probably liberals, too. All I knew at the time is I’d have a lot to answer for at a gigantic gay rights rally if I got busted for staring at boobs. I kept firm eye contact with the ground, and inwardly chanted, “Boner go away, boner go away!” Even while my outer voice was chanting, “Out of the closet and into the streets!” Or something like that.

This was not even the extent of my political background. Years earlier at the age of 11 I attended an abortion right rally with my mother, and in a huge throng of women milling around the national mall, I proudly chanted, “U.S. out of my uterus!”

It was a confusing way to grow up at times.

But the important thing to get out of it for the purposes of “knowing I’m not gay,” was the idea that being gay was not such a daunting thing. I have a higher threshold for gay things than most straight people, and it’s based on an unshakable belief that gay stuff actually increases one’s chances of seeing a boob. Experience has borne this out a thousand times.

It seems counterintuitive at first, but it’s really not. For instance, the next time this theory came about was in college.

I went to a small liberal arts school in a major metropolitan area with a BFA program in musical theater. Estimates of the gay population of my college while I attended there have ranged as high as 65%. And I saw a lot of boobs in college. Real life boobs. I found that if one allows other people to think you might be gay, then you end up being invited to a lot of crazy gay parties. And you get handed a lot of free drinks and free drugs. And gay dudes who have crushes on you will keep you around by convincing their fag hag friends to show you their boobs. This is something I learned at the tender age of 17. Man, what a great lesson.

You know what else is great when you’re 17? Playing spin the bottle in a room full of people who seem by accounts likely to have some kind of sex later. Sometimes to jumpstart this scenario, you have to makeout with a dude, just to show a degree of comfortable equanimity, even if it’s totally fake. But if you’ve got memories of shouting “U.S. out of my uterus” and imaginary lesbians cooing nurturing words of confidence in your ear, you don’t mind that too much. It’s just like acting. Nevermind that you don’t actually like it. There are boobs in play.

Of course you soon learn that while gay stuff is a great tool for seeing boobs, it doesn’t do a ton for your prospects of meaningful tactile interaction with those boobs. Once the women attached to those boobs learn the extent of your interest in their boobs, they become inversely interested in allowing you further boob access. It’s a pretty hard switch. And it’s understandable. The whole “wait, you’re just here for my boobs?” thing is a fairly severe breach of trust, after all. You were kind of looking at boobs under false pretenses, there.

Still, I will always have fond memories of my pretending-I-might-be-gay-in-order-to-see-boobs period. I’m still fully capable of flirting with a dude. I interviewed for a job at a high end custom-design carpet and interior design dealer recently, and I all but dropped my pencil and bent over at the waist to pick it up. I wanted that job. It was all gay dudes in that office. Occasionally I’ll backslide into bouts of “gay chicken,” where as a gag I’ll display my comfort level with all things gay in order to freak people out.

Does this make me gay? No. It does not. I know that for a fact. Why? Because of the one time something crossed a line. (By the way, this is overdramatic. Nothing serious happened.)

Later in my college career, after having been through the whole “pretend you’re gay or at least hint that you may be gay, and then reap the boob-looking rewards” to “wait, if you ever want to have sex with a girl without also having sex with a dude at the same time, you should try another more honesty-based tactic” transition, I started hanging with a somewhat older crowd. I lived off campus, and I was tired of the typical stupid underclassmen stuff. I wanted more of a typical stupid recent college graduates who are 23 or 24 type of thing.

So there was this one dude who I thought was a cool guy. Then later we were at a party. And there was dancing. And he started dancing with me. And I thought “oh, this cool guy that I think is funny is dancing with me, good one, cool guy.” Do I started dancing with him. Just your typical Beyonce-style joke dancing. Or so I thought. And then…

Boner on my leg.

Now I don’t know if everybody reading this has experienced it, but there is pretty much no sensation in the world more uncomfortable than an unwanted, unasked-for boner rubbing against you. I honestly had no clue that this dude was even into dudes. Something happens between college and real life for gays, and it’s their own transition between “holy shit I’m allowed to be gay and my parents aren’t around, I’m going to be the gayest dude ever!” and “I’m just a dude who happens to be gay, no need to go overboard with it. I get it: I’m gay.” So my gaydar wasn’t even budging with this guy. I was used to aggressive underclassmen gays who’d signal their sexual preferences by grabbing your crotch and propositioning you. This dude was a little more subtle.

Anyhow, that’s how I found out this one guy was gay. His boner on the back of my thigh.

That’s also how I found out for sure that I’m not gay. Because almost 8 years later, I can still feel a hot pain in the exact spot on my thigh where that unwanted boner was rubbed. It’s like shrapnel.

I’m not sure what happened next on that dance floor. I think I awkwardly finished dancing to the song, further away from the guy and oddly limping from palpable bonersting like my right hamstring had been cut in half by an arrow, then I went and sat down and apologized to the dude for not being gay. It really wasn’t all his fault. I’m a charming young man with a near-painfully accepting background. I’ve chanted political slogans relating to my uterus. In public. And I genuinely believe the U.S. has no business in my uterus. I’m kind of gay. I get it. Just please don’t rub your boners on my thigh, world. Because I’m not actually gay. I promise in return not to lead you on anymore. Even if you all of your friends have perfect amazing college girl boobs.

I’m kind of over boobs now too, though. Trust me. I’m over boobs. (Here’s where I furtively glance at your boobs).

Boner go away.

Boner go away!