Just how gay is America?

Leaving lesbians and bisexual women out of the discussion (and that's leaving a whole lot of people out, I know), just how gay is America? I am leaving gay and bisexual women out of this discussion because most attacks on the existence of gays are attacks on the existence of gay men. (The operative word here is "most.") Though gay-haters hate all gays, the most active anti-gay spokespeople are men--quite obviously, they would be the most active spokespeople about anything in that crowd--and their homophobia appears to be greater than that of women.

Given the projected fears men have of becoming what they consider to be the worst possible thing--women (and yes, I meant exactly what I said)--they hide everything from a homosexual thought to a crush to their own homosexuality and bisexuality. But there are cracks in the wall, and, as I have pointed out before, none is as gaping as Chris Matthews' worship of George W. Bush's body in the famous flight suit. Matthews talked about how he liked to see Bush strut, and how the flight suit looked so good on him. This is about as homoerotic as you can get, though it doesn't make Matthews gay, of course.

When men feel superior to women, they may enjoy sexually dominating women or attaining sexual satisfaction via women, but they cannot feel genuinely "romantic" about women. Their romantic thoughts become attached to male heroes, whose supposed bravery and strength they admire. This makes the George W. Bush worship phenomenon, by both males and females, ludicrous, since--though he may have a good body--Bush is as big a coward as we have ever seen. But he is perceived as a warrior, and today, as in ancient Greece, male warriors are considered to be sexually valuable. In ancient Greece, male homosexuality among warriors was considered a way of strengthening the military. In America today, male homoeroticism, though well disguised, reflects that belief in the value of testosterone.

A few months ago, I referred to a wonderful essay by Jeff Sharlett, in which the author discusses--among other things--the Christian men's movement's obsession with Jesus as a homoerotic figure. "White hot brother love" sounds pretty steamy to me, and that's how these men describe their devotion to one another and to Christ.

The more America moves to the right, the more it becomes obsessed with homosexuality. That is a lot of fear, and it doesn't come from thin air. Alfred Kinsey found that 37% of all men experienced orgasm in a sexual activity with another man at some time in their lives, 60% of all men had some type of homosexual relationship before they were age 16, and 30% of all men had some type of homosexual relationship between the ages of 20 and 24. A perfect Kinsey "0" is rare. A "1" or a "2" is nothing to panic over, but when confronted with fake tight crotches and white hot brother love, some men start to sweat.