Looking back, I'm not sure why, except to say that I guess that's the way society taught us to be. My parents certainly didn't raise me to have any kind of problem with homosexuality. I suppose there might be something to be said for the fact that we were all striving so desperately to try to get some kind of recognition from chicks, while also not getting any recognition at all, that it reduced us to accusing each other of being gay in an attempt to assert our own heterosexuality in the absence of any actual proof, barring athletic prowess (of which I had none).
But all of that is over thinking it and possibly making excuses where there isn't necessarily room for them. Sure, boys will be boys, but every boy eventually becomes a man, and every man eventually learns that gay bashing is wrong -- that's when he decides to either keep doing it, or knock it off. Or, continue to do it in an ironic way with friends who are equally liberal and would never actually prevent any gay people from having rights. Whatever.
Point is, when I was 13 or 14, my friends and I deemed a lot of people and things to be gay.
Two examples, one real life, the other pretend:
Pretend Example:
In the popular video games "Mortal Kombat" and "Mortal Kombat II" there was a character called Johnny Cage. This character was a Hollywood star who was known for his vanity -- sporting sun glasses, combing his hair, giving out 8x10 glossies. His special move consisted of suddenly dropping into the splits formation and punching his nemesis in the balls. This both suggested that he had no balls of his own and that he didn't mind touching other characters' balls. He was also among the weakest characters in "Mortal Kombat II" and became somewhat of a joke to my friend, David, and I, so we decided he was gay.
Real Life Example:
My 8th grade Algebra teacher. I hated math and wasn't any good at it, so that was one strike against him from the get go. But, he was a character in his own right. My same buddy, David, and I made the following observations about him:
1.) He had a strange voice that would wobble high and low seemingly uncontrollably.
2.) He mispronounced complicated mathematical terms like "polynomial."
3.) He always called us "Mr." and our last initial. Because of his voice wobble, this always made the "Mr." extremely high, and the last initial extremely low.
4.) He wore turquoise pants with a tucked in turquoise polo shirt, 2 sizes too small, belt tight enough so the pants bunch up above the waist line. The pants were always faded, as if left in the sun too long.
5.) His wife also taught at our school and had a name that was traditionally identified as male.
All of these things might seem innocent enough, but to me and David they were all sure signs that this guy was gay. He had a complicated last name starting with a "Z" and like many teachers with complicated last names, simply had us call him "Mr." last initial, or, "Mr. Z."
Johnny Cage and Mr. Z melded in our minds and Johnny Z was born. We'd insult Cage by calling him Johnny Z, and insult Mr. Z by calling him Johnny Z as well.
So, one day I was innocently writing a note in class when I should have been learning. I was not in Mr. Z's class, which was at the end of the day, but in an earlier class in which the teacher was cool and liked me and didn't care what we did. So, as I was writing the note I saw fit to make an observation along the lines of:
"Dude, Mr. Z. is so gay."
I can't remember exactly what I wrote, but it was something like that. At the end of the period, I folded the note up, went into the hall to head to my next class, and passed it off to the girl who it was intended for. She took it to her next class while I headed for mine.
This is where things go wrong. I don't know all the details, but somehow the girl was caught reading the note by her teacher, and her teacher confiscated it. The teacher read the note, saw the part about Mr. Z being totally gay, and decided to show it to Mr. Z.
Now, I don't know what the deal is. I don't know if the teacher had a good sense of humor and just wanted to bust Mr. Z's balls, or if the teacher was a complete child and wanted to get me in trouble even though I was 13 and she was a grown woman. Either way, she showed it to Mr. Z and Mr. Z flipped.
This was all unbeknownst to me, however, until I got to Algebra and was immediately called up to Mr. Z's desk.
"MISTER A," he said, waving me up, the "mister" distrubingly high and the "A" disturbingly low. I went up to his desk, not knowing what was going on, while the rest of the class descended into chaos during what would end up being a 15 or 20 minute interrogation.
"Go get the dictionary," Mr. Z requested of me, voice as wobbly as ever. I did as I was told. For some reason there were dictionaries in the Algebra room.
"Now, look up HECterosexual," Mr. Z said.
In case you're wondering if you read that correctly, you did. He said hecterosexual, with a "c" which is not a word. But, I was nervous. I was beginning to think something was up here. I was not a stranger to being in minor trouble with Mr. Z, since I was a poor math student and goofed around all the time, but I was starting to get the feeling he might know something I didn't know, which was cause for concern. I normally didn't get into serious trouble, so my heart had dropped into my stomach, and was now beating quickly, which made me a little nauseous.
So, I pretended to look up hecterosexual, with a "c," even though I knew the mission was doomed to failure.
When I came up with nothing, Mr. Z let out a profound, "Hmmm."
I waited a moment and then summoned up the courage to suggest, "Maybe heterosexual?"
"YES," Mr. Z said, "Yes, that's it, try HETerosexual."
So, I looked that one up, and sure enough, it was there, with the expected definition: dudes who like to bone chicks. Okay, it was a little more clinical than that, but I think everyone knows what it means.
"Now," Mr. Z said, satisfied after having forced me to read the definition. "Look up -- HOMOsexual."
So, I did. And sure enough, there it was in the dictionary. And sure enough, the definition said something like, "Dudes who like to bang other dudes." Only, more classy.
After making me read that one aloud, Mr. Z posed the burning question that he had been leading up to all this time:
"Now. I'm male. I'm married. My wife works here. You've seen her around. Which one of those definitions would you say I am?"
"Heterosexual?" I guessed.
"Yes," Mr. Z said. "So, why would you write -- THIS!"
With that he slammed my note down in front of me and I finally realized what was going on. My own words screamed back at me: "Dude, Mr. Z is totally gay." I was caught red-handed. So, I tried to explain.
"Well," I said, trying to keep my cool, "it's not like I literally think you're gay -- I'm just -- you know -- sometimes -- people. . . SAY people are gay. . ."
Mr. Z, showing some uncharacteristic mercy, interrupted to ask what I thought my parents would say if he showed them the note. I told him my parents probably would not be very happy, and it was a pretty good threat since they were in fairly regular communication with Mr. Z due to my terrible Algebra grades.
I can't remember exactly what happened after that except to say the interrogation ended and class went back to normal. Mr. Z never told my parents, to his credit, which makes him cooler than the teacher who ratted me out to him in the first place. In fact, over the last few months of school, if I didn't know any better, I would have though Mr. Z was growing a little fond of me and even said one time during a field trip, "You know, you're charming. Has anyone ever told you that?" Which they hadn't.
But, even after all of those trips through the dictionary and the semi-public humiliation with Mr. Z, I wasn't totally cured. It took a guy I actually respected to cure me.
At the end of 8th grade, I made the mistake of writing the following message in a friend of mine's yearbook:
"I'd say I love you, but I'm not gay."
What I really meant to say was, "I love you." But hey, I was 13.
In any case, this guy's dad, who I had always thought was a cool guy, mentioned in passing:
"Hey, I saw your message in the year book. I was disappointed. I thought you were smarter than that. You know, it is possible for two guys to love each other in a platonic way without being gay."
They key there? He was disappointed in me. He thought I was smarter than that. And he explained where I was coming from. He wasn't personally threatened by it. He didn't respond like a child. He talked to a child, me, as if I was an adult. And it made sense.
So, I laid off all the gay stuff for a while. And, I didn't miss it. Everyone else seemed to lay off it, as well. Maybe because by the time we got to high school we were finally able to seal the deal with chicks and we didn't care any more. Or, maybe just because we were growing up. Either way, I wanted to be smart and I didn't want to disappoint people I respected.
Incidentally, the dad who told me that turned out to be gay in the end. The jury is still out on Johnny Z, as far as I know.
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