When I was listening to the "Covering" story on NPR today- one thing the author said struck me... He mentioned association, or "how much you choose gay people as your fellow travelers, your lovers, your friends, your colleagues, etc." Okay, if I am gay, and you are my lover, then- by default are you gay too? I don't buy into that "I'm not a lesbian, I just like to sleep with other women" thing. Like in Tony Kushner's "Angels In America"- Al Pacino's character, Roy Cohn, says he is not a homosexual: Roy Cohn: AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who a person sleeps with, but they don't tell you that. Henry: No? Roy Cohn: No. Like all labels they tell you one thing, and one thing only: Where does an individual so identified fit into the food chain, the pecking order? Not ideology or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will come to the phone when I call, who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, a homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men, but really this is wrong. A homosexual is somebody who, in 15 years of trying cannot get a pissant anti-discrimination bill through the city council. A homosexual is somebody who knows nobody and who nobody knows. Who has zero clout. Does this sound like me Henry? Roy Cohn: I have sex with men. But unlike nearly every other man of whom this is true, I bring the guy I'm screwing to the White House and President Reagan smiles at us and shakes his hand. this quote from the movie has nothing to do with this, but it's funny, so I'll share anyhow Louis Ironson: Well, oh boy. A gay Republican. Joe Pitt: Excuse me? Louis Ironson: Nothing. Joe Pitt: Oh, I'm not... No, forget it. Louis Ironson: Not... Republican? Not Republican? Joe Pitt: What? Louis Ironson: What. Joe Pitt: Not gay. I'm not gay. Louis Ironson: Oh. Sorry. It's just that sometimes you can tell by the way a person sounds. I mean, you sound... Joe Pitt: No, I don't. Like what? Louis Ironson: Like a Republican. Joe Pitt: Do I sound like a...? Louis Ironson: What? Like a Republican? Or do I? Joe Pitt: Do you what? Louis Ironson: Sound like a... Joe Pitt: Yeah. Like a... I'm confused. Secondly, I don't pick my friends based on their sexual orientation. Way too discriminatory for me. Oddly enough, more of my friends happen to be straight women. I'm not a good fag-hag, so I don't have a lot of gay male friends. Although, as I've said before, I love the cologne they choose. I'm not friends with straight men, if I wanted to hang out with them I'd just go ahead and date them and get it over with. So they are out... Now being friends with lesbians can be a complicated thing. If you are friends with a lesbian with a girlfriend, you have to be sure that said girlfriend knows that you don't want to date your friend (never a good idea!) and if you are friends with a single lesbian, you have to be sure that she knows that you don't want to date her (unless you do, which is a entirely different thing.) Being friends with straight women has its own set of interesting factors. If said straight woman has a boyfriend/husband, then you have to make sure the s.o. (significant other) knows that: 1. You aren't interested in his woman. 2. You aren't interested in his woman AND him. As in, file away your sick little fantasy, there are not going to be any menage a trois going down. Also, straight women need to understand that lesbians do not find all women attractive. Do you straight women find all men attractive? No, I didn't think so. So stop flattering yourself! It's my personal policy to never be truly interested in a "straight woman"---bad, bad, bad idea! No toaster oven for me, thanks- I'm not recruiting! If you don't know what that means... In 1997, when Ellen DeGeneres' character "Ellen Morgan" on the ABC sitcom "Ellen" discovers that she is a lesbian... "There's a moment in the first half hour of the show in which Laura Dern's character, Susan, dealing with Ellen in full-blown homosexual panic [ after rejecting the advances of a man on a date, and Susan's making a pass at Ellen, who realizes to her dismay that the idea seems much more appealing to her than the man did --] cracks a joke about her failure to "recruit" Ellen for the lesbian cause. "Damn," she says, as the laugh-track explodes, "just one more and I would have gotten that toaster oven!" "Is that gay humor?" Ellen asks, "`cause I don't get it. That's how un-gay I am." Later in the episode, Ellen tells Susan that she "got the joke" just before she comes out, and the end of the episode features a cameo of Melissa Etheridge signing Ellen up as a lesbian and giving Susan the longed-for toaster oven. So that's what the "toaster oven" thing is about. It's a joke about the mistaken idea that every queer person in the world has subscribed to a "homosexual agenda" that includes recruiting as many people to homosexuality as possible, and that this invidious campaign is so organized that there's actually a catalog from which you can select incentive awards. A catalog??? Damn, I'd just go for the new toaster oven! Mine died and I made the horrible mistake of buying a regular Cuisinart toaster. I hate it.... I want my toaster oven back. I loved that damn thing. OK, maybe I need to re-consider my "no-recruiting" stance. Especially if there's this catalog thing I never knew about! The more I recruit, the better stuff I'd get???? Just like those old Betty Crocker catalogs where you had to collect points off of products you'd buy and then turn them in for items you'd pick from their catalog.... Like Green Stamps, if you are old enough to remember that. I'm cracking myself up tonight. Must mean it's time to go to bed, I'm getting goofy.