Bon's Mots

A co-worker sent me an ar­ti­cle from a web­site called Christwire​.org (“Conservative Values for an Unsaved World”). “Is My Husband GAY?” is aimed at good Christian women who are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing prob­lems in their mar­riages be­cause their hus­bands may be — oh dear Lord — GAY. It’s a list of “com­monly ac­cepted char­ac­ter­is­tics” of men “strug­gling” with homosexuality. The au­thor warns his read­ers: “Don’t tell your­self that you’re sim­ply be­ing para­noid with­out tak­ing a closer look!” ‘Cos honey, you might be mar­ried to a GAY!

Not gay — he’s in a band!

Reading this dri­vel re­minds me of sim­pler times, when it was easy to tell if a man was gay. If he wore makeup, and wasn’t in a band, he was gay. If he walked with a limp wrist and talked with a lisp, he was gay. If he was walk­ing with them gay boys, yeah, he was prob­a­bly gay. Gay men were also sex-crazed beasts, ready to pounce on a straight man, cute or ugly. Because that is what Hollywood and mass me­dia told us about gay men. (See: Three’s Company, Cruising.)

We’ve come a pretty long way since then. We’re far from per­fect (see: Proposition 8), but cur­rent rep­re­sen­ta­tions of male sex­u­al­ity in film and tele­vi­sion are more re­al­is­tic and less con­strained to rigid stereo­types. In so­ci­ety, sex­u­al­ity and gen­der roles have be­come more fluid over the past 50 years; if met­ro­sex­u­al­ity has given us any­thing, it’s high-end groom­ing prod­ucts for men, male pedi­cures and bro­mances. (Not that there’s noth­ing wrong with it.)

Is he gay or just a straight man who’s re­ally into shoes? Does it mat­ter? Well, to some id­iotspeople, it does. This is where the fine folks at Christwire​.org come in. Their mis­sion is to “com­bat the evil lib­er­als of this world” (that would pre­sum­ably be you and me) and “to en­sure that a bit of free­dom and right­eous­ness once again per­me­ates every coun­try, and let those who don’t abide by our teach­ings know the eter­nal pit of hell­fire shall be await­ing [ital­ics mine].” Christianity: Spreading ha­tred and fear since 300 A.D.!

Below are the sure­fire ways of know­ing if a man is gay, ac­cord­ing to Christwire​.org. (I could have linked to the ar­ti­cle, but I don’t want to con­tribute to an in­crease in their web traffic.) They ob­vi­ously stopped watch­ing film and tele­vi­sion some­time in the late 80s — their stereo­typ­i­cal views of gay men are so 1985. If the di­vorce rates among Christians sky­rock­ets any time soon, you’ll know why. God help any mar­ried straight man who loves the The Golden Girls, sar­casm and big cities. (Oddly enough, if you’re into Judy or Barbra, you’re safe.)

See you in the eter­nal pit of hellfire!

1) Secretive late night use of cell­phones and com­put­ers
Porn ad­dic­tion is closely as­so­ci­ated with ho­mo­sex­u­al­ity and a se­cre­tive na­ture im­plies he’s try­ing to hide some­thing from you. Be on the look­out for a man who doesn’t want to web surf or an­swer phone calls in your pres­ence. Texting is an­other fa­vorite trick used by adul­ter­ers. For the sake of trust, a mar­ried cou­ple should share every­thing, in­clud­ing phone logs, email ac­counts, chat friends and web­site histories.

2) Looks at other men in a flir­ta­tious way
When you’re out in pub­lic, does he spend too much time look­ing at other men? Is he fond of wink­ing at peo­ple? Does he get vis­i­bly up­set when some­one does not re­turn a com­pli­ment about his phys­i­cal appearance?

3) Feigning at­ten­tion in church and prayer groups
Have you no­ticed a lack of in­ter­est in spir­i­tual is­sues? Does it ever seem as if he’s just us­ing church as an ex­cuse to spend time around young men? Does he vol­un­teer to men­tor in all-male groups?

4) Overly fas­tid­i­ous about his ap­pear­ance and the home
Natural men have a cer­tain amount of grit about them. They sweat and they smell. Homosexuals of­ten ab­hor this sort of thing and will also be in­cred­i­bly par­tic­u­lar about the clean­li­ness of the home. Does your man tweeze his eye­brows, trim his pu­bic hairs or use face mois­tur­iz­ers? Is he picky about brand name sham­poos? Does he spend more time get­ting ready for a night out than you do?

5) Gym mem­ber­ship but no in­ter­est in sports
Gay men use the gym as a place to so­cial­ize and to have se­cret li­aisons in the bath­rooms. They like to work out their bod­ies with­out the com­pe­ti­tion of sports play. Afterward, they use the show­ers and steam rooms to en­gage in sex­ual ac­tiv­ity be­yond the pry­ing eyes of women. If your man re­turns from the gym too ex­hausted to talk or have sex, that is a wor­ri­some sign.

6) Clothes that are too tight and too “trendy”
Gay men don’t need words to com­mu­ni­cate their avail­abil­ity for sex “hook ups.” They silently broad­cast the news by show­ing off their lean, hard bod­ies in de­signer cloth­ing la­bels. If your hus­band owns skinny jeans and looks at his but­tocks in the mir­ror or if he wears an in­or­di­nate num­ber of small-sized t-shirts, it is prob­a­bly worth­while to pay more at­ten­tion to his pri­vate activities.

7) Strange sex­ual de­mands
Fetishism is a sign that a man is seek­ing a harder thrill be­yond the nor­mal in­ti­macy of het­ero­sex­ual re­la­tions. The woman may not ap­peal to the deep de­sires that are com­ing to the sur­face as the mar­riage drags on. If there is a sud­den in­ter­est in sodomy, sado­masochism, lu­bri­cants, role-play, sex toys or other non-traditional in­ter­course meth­ods, this is clearly an in­di­ca­tion of deep emo­tional abnormalities.

8 ) More in­ter­ested in the men than the women in porno­graphic films
Pornography is a dan­ger­ous el­e­ment in any mar­riage but there are many Christians who feel watch­ing it does add some­thing to their sex­ual lives. If you have gone down this road and find that your man perks up at the sight of the men in these sorts of videos, you should be con­cerned. If he se­lects films be­cause of spe­cific male ac­tors, this is an ob­vi­ous sign that he is suf­fer­ing from a cri­sis of ego and desire.

9) Travels fre­quently to big cities or Asia
Some hus­bands will spend a great deal of money trav­el­ing far from home to hide their de­plorable same-sex ac­tions. Big cities of­fer in­dul­gence of every kind. From gay bars and clubs to pros­ti­tutes and sex bath­houses, a man seek­ing en­coun­ters can find them eas­ily if he’s so in­clined. Is there ever re­ally a good ex­cuse for a hus­band to visit Thailand or San Francisco with­out his wife?

10) Too many friendly young male friends
Someone who makes an ex­tra ef­fort to sur­round them­selves with younger men should raise con­cerns in any com­mu­nity. If this is the case with your hus­band, ask your­self if he prefers their com­pany to that of women. Do they touch each other or em­brace in long hugs? Do they ex­change ex­pen­sive, per­sonal gifts like scarves or cologne?

11) Sassy, sar­cas­tic and ironic around his friends
A man who is se­cretly en­gaged in ho­mo­sex­ual ac­tiv­ity with oth­ers may ex­hibit fem­i­nine qual­i­ties when they get to­gether in a group. In a sense, he has “let his hair down” and this will be seen in ex­ces­sive back talk and speak­ing with one’s hands.

12) Love of pop cul­ture
It’s quite com­mon for young men to en­joy the sci­ence fic­tion end of pop­u­lar cul­ture, but when your hus­band be­comes overly ob­sessed with ro­man­tic and fem­i­nine shows, that is cause for alarm. Gossip web­sites, Glee and The Golden Girls are three well-documented icons of the gay move­ment that gen­uine het­ero­sex­ual men avoid.

13) Extroverted about his bare chest in pub­lic
Does he go shirt­less in the back yard or at pic­nics when other men are around? Does he wear a speedo at the beach? Does it seem like he’s pur­posely stand­ing right in the mid­dle of a crowd to show off his chest and arm mus­cles, pep­per­ing peo­ple with ques­tions about how strong he looks? He may be crav­ing phys­i­cal af­fir­ma­tion from other men and des­per­ately look­ing for hints of shared de­sires in those around him.

14) Sudden heavy drink­ing
Sometimes peo­ple deal­ing with an un­bear­able emo­tional is­sue like ho­mo­sex­u­al­ity will turn to al­co­hol to hide their dis­tress. Does your man dis­ap­pear on drink­ing binges for long hours with­out an­swer­ing his cell­phone? Is there a strange odor about him when he re­turns, some strange mix of cig­a­rettes and gel? Does he cry frequently?

15) Ladies, have you dated men in the past who turned out to be gay?
This is an im­por­tant ques­tion to ask your­self when your mar­riage starts to have prob­lems. Statistics have shown that women who have en­coun­tered gay men ro­man­ti­cally in the past are the most likely to re­peat this mis­take in fu­ture re­la­tion­ships. If you an­swered yes, you should ask your­self whether you’re hon­estly look­ing for a man or just a shop­ping com­pan­ion. Is shar­ing gos­sip more im­por­tant to you than rais­ing chil­dren? Ultimately, it’s a ques­tion of get­ting your pri­or­i­ties straight!