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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 2000)
17.2Û0Û 42 H U M O R ▼ Locals Only1 Thursday nights on OPB-TV Where have all the sissies gone? y partner and I are having an argu ment. This in and of itself is not unusual. I’m an Italian boy from New Jersey; m Floyd s a Jew from Long Island. We’re both genetically wired to yell across rooms at the people we love, all the time making appropri ately emphatic and vaguely threatening hand not afraid to admit I saw The Bridges of Madison gestures. County and own a bottle of Nair?” Our latest argument, however, involves get Either way, 1 couldn’t help hut notice the ting another dog. We both agree we want one; palpable satisfaction in those who rated the we both agree we want a bulldog. most “straight-acting” and the slight superiority Where we differ is the naming of this still- they exhibited toward poor, swishy me. Now, theoretical canine. Floyd, perhaps because he’s it’s one thing to feel demeaned by butch been saddled with the unfortunate name of straight guys, but it’s another thing entirely to Floyd all his life, favors a sensible bulldog name feel demeaned by butch gay guys. like Bruno or Spike. Naturally, 1 have another idea in mind. I Starting with the mustachioed clones of the want to name our bulldog Precious. 1970s, gay boys seem determined to out-butch I don’t know why. I just love the idea of the straight guys. Gay pom, for instance, is rife standing on our doorstep in a paisley silk robe with construction workers, cops and athletes, but just try finding a hot video about a florist screaming “Precious!” at the top of my lungs and a flight attendant. and having a floppy-faced drooling mass of dog come trotting around the comer. Sure, pretty boys abound in pom, but Yes, th at’s a good boy, Precious. Daddy they’re always being dominated by some loves you. straight-acting top. Just once I’d like to see a pom video in which an interior decorator My straight friends object to the name because it seems to them a rather cruel joke to screws all the frat boys and then redoes their draperies and pillows. T hat’s my fantasy. play on a defenseless animal, which 1 suppose it is. O n the other hand, most of their dogs have Certainly I’m pleased young gay men feel names that make them sound like little old comfortable wearing baseball hats backward Jewish people: Max, Tillie, Sadie...I imagine and talking about fly-fishing, but when 1 hear the dogs talking to one another in the park: them disparage the Hermes scarf-wearing “Sadie, you vant we should chase the ball?” antiques lover, it chills my blood. “Why do “Vat, in this heat? they have to act that Tillie, are you crazyF way?” they say. “It’s The reaction of got nothing to do my gay friends is with sleeping with stranger still. “T hat men.” just reinforces the But to these stereotype of the young men I say the gay man as an screaming nelly effeminate swish,” queen is probably says one. (“Well, braver than they’ll excuse me, Miss ever be. A big fairy T hing,” reply I.) can’t “pass” in the “Marc, why don’t straight world. He you get a real dog defiantly announces like a black Lab? to a hostile society That way you can who he is and what take him with you he does, just by being running or when you his own fabulous go camping.” effeminate self. I ask you, Running? Camp M any of the ing? Black Lab? young gay m en who when aid a ia e queers I ask you, when drive trucks and g e l so butch? did queers get so play pickup games butch? Whatever of basketball seem W hatever happened happened to sissies? to have forgotten, 1 was at a party to sissies? indeed perhaps they recently when I d o n ’t even know, mentioned StraightActing.com, "Your online th at the freedoms they enjoy today were politically incorrect source,” where you can first won by Judy G arland-loving drag take a little quiz to see whether you rank as a queens who threw the first bricks and bot "macho man or a lilly queen.” The notion tles at the Stonewall Inn. To me, these piqued everyone’s interest, so we fired up the young m en in their Dockers and Nikes are computer and turned it into a party game. standing on the shoulders of giants, giants And who do you suppose rated the most who are taller still because they’re wearing effeminate in the room? The guy who wants to heels. name his bulldog Precious, of course. And that, my friends, is T he Gospel 1 wasn’t terribly surprised at my score, but I According to Marc. j n was surprised at just how “straight-acting” my friends rated. I looked around the room at the M arc A cito has not only seen The Bridges wrists flapping like so many birds taking wing, of Madison County, but he also cried through the and I thought: "Am I really the faggiest one last half-hour of it like a little girl. here? O r am I just the most honest because I’m THE GOSPEL ACCORDING I TO MARC ’ b y M a r c A c ito ( Oregon Art Beat The sculptural creations of jewelry artist Sasha Samuels and a visit to the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. 8:00pm 4 m Oregon field Guide A behind-the-scenes look at the Oregon Coast Aquarium s "Passages of the Deep." 8:30pm JP B Believing in fairies It's Where You Belong • www.opborg P ortland ' s ONLY I ndependent • N oncommercial L istener -S ponsored C ommohitt R adio S tation 0 » ' 90.7 rw P ortland » 92.7 column 6o»tf • 100.7 wnumnt vau » J E W E L A. R O B I N S O N M ultim illion $ P ro d u cer O FFIC E (503) 281-4040 VO IC E MAIL (503) 301-4283 E-M A IL Jewel2U@teleport.com far 09 1730 N.E. 10th Avenue Portland, OR 97212 Prudential See my Exclusive Listings on our webpage pru-nw.com
