Darkside Rainbow

Sorry for a late-night update, everyone. Still working on this “What? I have to make my own schedule?” thing. That, and I’m still not quite back into the swing of things here. I’d hate to have to think that so soon after my 1-year anniversary with 451, I’d have to give DR up…but it’s starting to look that way. I’ve just got too many other things to do, I’m not really feeling it anymore, and sometimes remembering to update every day is more trouble than it’s worth, because eventually you run out of things to say. I never want to be one of those people who ends up beating the horse into the ground whining on about the same old crap with a slightly different spin. I don’t know. I need to think about it for a long time, and in the meantime, keep updating every day anyway because who knows when something might light a fire under my arse.

While I think about that, I’ve got something for a particular reader (who wishes to remain anonymous) to think about: an answer to an “Ask Adri” question.

Dear Adri,

Ever since my sister came out as a lesbian we have been drifting apart. I am afraid that because she is gay and I am straight we will not be friends anymore. We were always very close but now we have nothing in common. Talking is hard. She says nothing is wrong but we don’t do things together anymore. I don’t want to lose her but she’s leaving for college soon and I’m afraid it will get worse when she’s gone. How do I fix this?

Thank you
Lonely Sista

Really, this sounds more typical of siblings everywhere regardless of sexuality; as you age and discover who you are and where your interests lie, you’re going to end up drifting apart a little and no longer having as much common ground. You won’t always want to do things together; it’s just a matter of making sure that the path of communication is open in case you both should ever want to, and for whenever you want to talk about the directions that your lives are taking.

Do you think I always hated my sisters? I really didn’t. In fact, I still have the stuffed bear that my eldest sister gave me the day I was brought home from the hospital, and despite my feelings towards them now, that bear still holds quite a bit of sentimental value for me. I used to idolize my sisters, and they thought I was a pretty cute little bugger to have toddling around at their heels, too, as long as they didn’t have to change my diapers (and who in hell would want to?). As I grew older, though, and started developing interests of my own and establishing myself as a separate person with his own opinions, they weren’t quite sure what to do with someone who was an actual entity to be dealt with rather than just a physical representation of “oh my god baby brother and the DIMPLES SO CUTE!!!” We started drifting apart long before I knew my sexuality. Confusion over what to do with each other as people instead of childishly limited extensions of ourselves created distance, uncertainty over the cause of the distance caused fights, and those fights led to a widening rift that we never really healed and that turned into a permanent separation once I left my family behind.

The point of that? It’s a cautionary tale because anyone with an iota of common sense could have seen that coming from a mile away - anyone on the outside of the situation with zero emotional investment in it, anyway. As you and your sister establish yourselves as separate and unique (hello, special snowflake), the differences between you are going to seem more acute, and it’s going to seem easy to blame them for a sudden breakdown in communications. Don’t. The only thing stopping the two of you from talking is you and her, a little misunderstanding, and a lot of misguided and idiotic oversensitivity.

So talk to her, and make sure she knows that no matter how either of you changes, she’s always welcome to talk back to you - about anything, including anything that may be on her mind, troubles that might have nothing to do with you or her lesbianism and may be the real root behind her distance. It may be that she’d welcome your input, or a shoulder. It could even be that she’s uncertain of her welcome now that she’s out, and being tentative about exposing too many parts of her life that might make you too uncomfortable. Make sure she knows that you’re fine with it, but don’t start trumpeting a big parade, either. Normalcy is the key.

So forget on focusing on her lesbianism. There’s really no reason to see that when you look at her, other than just accepting it as a part of her as innocuous as the length of her nose. Focus on her, instead, and on being happy for her that her life is branching out, just as yours. When you’re old women with many fat nieces and nephews between you, it’ll just give you more stories to share over hot cocoa (rum spiking optional). As long as her problem isn’t that she wants to make hot incestuous monkey love with you (and I doubt she does, no matter how hard various straight men wish), you should be okay.

With or without marshmallows,
-Adri

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

…does anyone really put rum in hot cocoa?, ask adri, gay advice column

Shut it. It’s a slow news day and I’m feeling too tired and pissy to troll Google News.

Dear Adrien,

Help! I caught my husband cheating! He doesn’t know I know. My best friend saw him at a gay bar kissing a guy. I didn’t know he liked men! I was crushed! I went there the next night and he was kissing the same guy! I thought he was just tired. He’s been so distant for a while. I thought I was doing something wrong but he wouldn’t talk to me. I didn’t think he’d cheat! Not with a man!

Please don’t get mad, I’m not homophobic. I’m upset! I don’t know what to do! I love him so much. It hurts that he’d do this. I found out months ago, he’s still doing it. People have seen them in public together. I’ve seen them in public together! He didn’t know I was there. We live in a big city and he goes places he thinks he won’t see people we know! So sneaky, it’s like he’s been practicing! I wonder if there have been others.

Help! What do I do?!

Lydia in MI

Well, first, darlin’, let me say what an honor it is to get a letter written with proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling, even if you do like your exclamation points. It seems the linguistic skills of those who write me tend to be inversely proportional to their age, with a few startling exceptions (…like that last creepazoid…).

Now to address the main issue. Sweetie, you do the same thing you’d do if he was cheating on you with a woman: you gather all the evidence you can, get a good lawyer, then take the adulterous bastard to court for all he’s worth and walk away from the divorce with a smile, a new lease on life, and hopefully the house and half his pension fund. You deserve better than that.

Don’t “stick with it for the kids”, either, not if he’s going to continue his liaisons on the side. It’ll just make for a tense, unhappy home situation for the children, and a father who may come to resent them or even dismiss them. (Hey, if he’d cheat on you consistently, I don’t have much hope for his character where his kids and long-term commitment are involved, either.) Forget the love, too; love don’t live here no more. You’ll be better off with a nice martini to drown your woes in and a nice poolboy to kiss it better - or in absence of a poolboy, several battery-operated accessories that I can promise you do it better than any man.

This reminds me of the jerk who wanted my help finding a way to discreetly cheat on his wife with another man. That just made me livid; gay or straight, if you’re unhappy in a relationship, bloody well own up to it rather than trying to have your damned cake and screw it, too. You can’t keep the husband/wife for the marital perks and comforts, but still have your bimbo/f*ckpet/one twoo wuv on the side for your own strings-free pleasure. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s not fair to your spouse; hell, it’s not even fair to your little weekend sex buddy, because as long as you want to keep burning both ends of the candle they’ll never get the commitment or whatever they want out of you. All they get is a few stolen moments here and there and whatever privileges you buy them off with. It’s selfish, shallow, and even cruel. If you want to pursue relationships with someone else, just heft your effin’ balls in hand (whether you have any or not) and say so.

That includes the “honey, I’m gay” confession, too. I know that’s not easy. In fact, it’s damned scarier than the “honey, I’ve been sleeping with someone else” discussion. There’s a lot more confusion, more feelings of betrayal, more “But if you’re gay, why did you marry me?” Your spouse is going to be bitter as hell, but not nearly as bitter as long as you tell him/her up front without finding yourself a replacement first. Contingency plans of that sort aren’t a good idea. Honesty is painful, but in the end leads to better results. Readers like Jen prove that, even if her struggle - while admirable - hasn’t been easy.

So in case you can’t tell, Lydia, I’m on your side here and not particularly fond of genus Dishonestus Testicularae. (Me? Cheated on in a serious relationship before? Never!) The kind of callousness displayed by anyone who would cheat on their wife is beneath you, and I’m sorry you had to endure not only his treatment, but that discovery. Walk away, before the hurt digs any deeper. Walk away rather than giving him that kind of power over you.

I sincerely hope you have a strong network of family and friends to help you through this difficult time, and give you the love and support you need. And if not, well…my shoulder’s only an e-mail away.

Head-shakingly yours,
~Adri

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

ask adri, gay advice column, adultery, gay husband, divorce, oh look I’m actually tagging this thing, yup tagging, tagging, tagging and teaba–okay I’m not finishing that, Put your name on the line, along with place and time; want to stay, not to go, want to ditch the logical, why yes I am listening to Eve 6, how did you know?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these, hasn’t it? I’ve been getting quite a few letters lately…but most of them are serious, almost intimately personal things that I don’t feel comfortable answering publicly out of respect for the people who sent them, even if they didn’t specifically ask me not to. This one, though, I felt needed to be seen - and not just for the snark value.

ok so i hope this doesnt make me werid or anything but i have acrush on my friend she knwos im a lesbian n shes ok with it but she dosnt like me back

i really really like her i think i love her

i want her to love me i get really jeloss when she flirst with guys i want her to be mine only mine i have to have her

i dream abouther

i havet o make her love me i tried kissing herto make her lesbian but it ididnt work she just laffed how can i make her lsebian dowe have to have sex can i mkae her have sex with me give her a love pill or somethin

howcan i make her loveme forever canyou make her love me

help ill do anything

rosie

Why do people ask me these questions? No, seriously, why? Do I have a sign attached to my back that says “I have an advice column, so hey, forget asking me normal stuff about coming out, self-identifying, relationships, etc; instead ask me the creepiest, freakiest sh*t you can think of”? And who the hell stuck the sign there, huh? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Wait. This is Rosie O’Donnell, isn’t it? Did Barbara turn you down again?

Seriously, what do you expect me to do? Wave my magic Southern-boy voodoo wand and make her love you? Offer you possets and potions and “love pills” and tell you that old trick about powdering your pubic hair and putting it in their coffee so that when they drink it, they begin to crave you insatiably? (…yes, that’s actually an old voodoo trick that my grandmother taught me. Difference is? I don’t actually think it works and have never been tempted to try it. Please don’t think about trying it yourself; that’s just nasty.) I can’t make anyone love you; neither can you. It’s like Aladdin’s genie. No love. No raising the dead. I don’t like either. (In fact, in my book, raising the dead is sometimes preferable to dealing with love.)

Sarcasm momentarily pushed aside, I do feel for you a little bit. I’ve had a crush on a straight guy before. It’s painful and it can make you a little desperate, though I can’t say I ever hit these sort of Misery-esque levels. I’m going to assume you’re in high school or younger, to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re just a normal, overemotional teenager who doesn’t quite recognize how obsessively creepy her behavior sounds and not an adult Annie Wilkes in the making. And to address the issue, the best thing you can do both for yourself and for your friend is to step back, slow your roll, and find someone else to focus your crush on. Melissa Etheridge is pretty hot, or so I hear.

You can’t make anyone gay, Rosie. How would you feel if someone tried to turn you straight? I’m sure you’ve heard this one from arrogant guys before: “All she needs is the right guy to make her feel like a real woman”, followed by thick-headed, snorting, bullish laughter. Almost every lesbian’s heard something along those lines and I wouldn’t blame any of them for being enraged by it, as well as more than a little hurt. There are many gays and lesbians who’ve dealt with their friends and family trying to turn them straight, as well, whether by throwing members of the opposite sex at them or even going so far as to send them to psychiatrists and ex-gay “therapy” in the hopes of curing their sexuality.

Now think about the fact that you’re applying that same logic to your friend - wanting to change her against her will just to please yourself, rather than thinking about what makes her happy and what’s best for her. It’s not fair, and the fact that we as homosexuals are a minority who’ve suffered such indignities doesn’t make it any more fair. In fact, it’s even more wrong, because we’ve experienced enough conversion attempts to know better and to extend at least some empathy to people regardless of where they stand. Don’t forget, too, that if you managed to change her…she wouldn’t even be the same person that you fell in love with, would she?

You also need to keep in mind that regardless of her reasons, no means no. A little courting in an attempt to win someone over is harmless, if at times annoying; persistent aggressive pursuit that crosses the line into trying to forcibly change their mind is harassment, bordering on assault - and your insistence on making her have sex with you sounds a little too much like attempted rape. The more you push her, the more uncomfortable you’re going to make her; you may even frighten her. In your attempts to gain a girlfriend, you may end up not only doing things you aren’t proud of, but also end up losing the friendship of someone who matters deeply to you.

I know this isn’t the answer you wanted to hear; most of my answers aren’t. I’m not here to blow smoke and starlight-farting kittens in your face; I’m here to broadside you upside the head with a little bluntly honest perspective. Leave it alone. Walk away. It may take months or it may take years, but you’ll find someone else - someone who returns your interest in a healthy fashion. When that time comes, you’ll look back on your crush and be embarrassed that you were ever so obsessed with her, and embarrassed over the way you acted.

Here’s hoping you listen before you do anything you shouldn’t.

Brandishing a clue-by-four,
~Adri

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

ask adri, gay advice column, straight crush, omfg!creepy

I feel as if I should write something profound this morning, and yet I’ve got nothing - and I’m out of Seagram’s. Anyone can be profound after a few shots of Seagram’s. It’s a pretty slow gay news day, there’s no point in spending more time hashing through the same recycled political points (just have the bloody election already; we’re damned either way) and the most interesting thing I’ve stumbled across lately has been some wanker in a local Iowa newspaper claiming that a barely-gay film on ABC ruined family TV on Christmas. The comments are priceless (and a little disjointed, but it’s Iowa, after all).

Yeah. Merry Christmas, we dragged your head out of the sand for you; no need to thank us. Gay people exist. We’re a part of the population, which means there’s going to be a percentage of representation on television - especially when television struggles to reflect real life. No one’s trying to force anything on anyone. You can’t close your eyes and wish your gay next-door-neighbor away. At least on TV you can change the channel, so stop your griping and use your thumb for more than a navel cork. Jerk.

Anyway. It’s been a little while since I’ve done an “Ask Adri” question, and I’d saved this one for a slow day when one might need some amusement. I certainly hope the person who wrote it isn’t serious, but either way, I’m going to take a stab at it.

hi Adri I really like your comic

I like to read yaoi slashfic

But its weird

No one uzes lube

Is that true

Do gays use lube

Sweet Pea

Kind of reads like a weird kind of haiku or tanka, doesn’t it?

Sweetie, here’s your first problem: you’re reading gay porn written by girls. Specifically by girls in their late teens and mid-twenties who’ve probably never taken it up the back door (or the front door, most likely) and thus have no idea how the mechanics of that work. I know there’s a huge craze in the female-dominated yaoi fandom; I used to help fuel it with a yaoi webcomic. (If you don’t know what yaoi is, have a gander here.) I know that porn written by girls is more appealing. It has plot, characterization, and descriptions of sex that don’t involve words like “sloppy”, “squishing”, “gaping”, “gushing”, and…well, I’ll spare you the rest.

But to dispel a few illusions created by yaoi fanfiction and slashfiction: the bum does not self-lubricate. It is not a magical transformative thing that instantly takes on properties of the vagina at convenient moments when the bumsexing is about to occur.

Water is not lube. Saliva is not lube. Blood is not lube. Cooking oil is not lube. And for all that’s holy, unholy, and somewhere in between, soap of any kind is not lube. Stuff a bar of soap up your nose until your mucosae rip, then give your nostrils a good swabbing with Palmolive before jamming a finger in and out of there a few dozen times at rapid speed. Tell me how good it feels, eh?

With that said, yes, real gay sex does involve lube (unless you’re dealing with an idiot or a masochist). There’s KY Jelly, Platinum Wet Glide, various body oils that do dual duty, pre-lubricated condoms, the list goes on. It’s not an option. It’s a necessity. He may say “oh, I like it rough” now, but he won’t be liking it so rough when his doctor is giving him a prostate exam and lecturing him about the damage done to his rectal tissue. Not to mention that penetration isn’t particularly easy without lubricant and preparation, and it’s not just uncomfortable for the recipient. Friction is a scabies-ridden b*tch.

Real gay sex is not as pretty as the fiction makes it seem. No sex is as pretty as fiction makes it seem. Sex is messy, crude, awkward, and funny as hell no matter the gender of those involved; human beings are some oddly-put-together things, and when you’re trying to cram two or more naked bodies together in certain ways the limbs start going everywhere like you’re doing the wild pony with a Gumby doll. Funny thing is if you keep a sense of humor about it and just relax…sometimes you find something even better than the fiction. It may still be messy, it may not be perfect, but there’ll be something there in that wild meeting of bodies and the hiss of skin on skin that makes it not matter anymore, because every touch is just right and it’s hard to care about how silly you both look when you can’t even manage to think for the distraction of each sensation.

I’d like to see any virgin-written fanfiction capture that.

Your 2.5mL of silicone-based lifesaver,
~Adri

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

ask adri, gay advice column, gay sex, lubricant, yaoi fanfiction, slashfiction

Mr. Sanders: [note from Adri: I already know this is a straight guy, and the poor bugger’s so uncomfortable approaching me]

My wife has proposed recently that we explore more in the bedroom and bring in a third.She wants it to be a woman. She wants to have sex with a woman while I watch then wants all three of us together. She says she has had fantasies about this. I don’t know what to tell her. Its hot. Really hot But what if she doesn’t like men after sex with a woman? I don’t know what to think. Help [me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope].

Me

I’ve really got to stop MST3King reader letters.

Waaaaaaaaait.

Your wife is basically offering to fulfill every straight man’s wildest dream…and you’re complaining?

I am still on Earth, right?

Teasing aside, though, I understand your concern. You’re worried that if a little kinky play turns into serious interest in the particular shade of grass on the other side, you’ll lose your wife for good. Although this probably sounds like my answer to every question, you really need to talk to her about this instead of asking people outside your relationship to assess the situation. Communication is the key to every relationship, as Hallmark-cutesy as that sounds. The gagworthiness of the sentiment doesn’t dilute the truth of it in the slightest.

Ask her about her desires. Ask her if she feels as if she’s seriously attracted to women, or if she’s just looking to be a little naughty between the sheets and happened to pick same-sex play from a list of possibly appealing kinks. Let her know about your concerns without accusing her; remember, she’s not trying to cheat on you with another woman. She’s proposing activities to make your sex life more exciting, and actively working to include you. Even if you don’t like the possible outcome, her intentions were with your well-being and titillation in mind. These are her fantasies, yes, but her fantasies involve you. You should be a little proud. Most wives’ fantasies (and mine) involve Antonio Banderas.

If it’s just a kink and you’re that uncomfortable with it, she probably won’t mind passing on it and looking for other ways to spice up your bedroom activities without involving other people. As long as you talk things over without fighting and come to a mutual agreement, it shouldn’t be an issue.

If she tells you that she’s always harbored attractions to other women but that she loves you and is still attracted to you, then you’re going to have to trust her. Ask her not to experiment with other women because it makes you worry about losing her, but accept that this is a part of her and it may one day mean that she’s going to swerve down that other road and leave you. If she does, it won’t have anything to do with whether or not she fooled around in a two-on-one girl-on-guy with you. She’d have done it eventually anyway; it just would have taken longer. It does happen now and then; comfortably married women will finally decide that they can’t ignore their sexuality any longer and will move away from their husbands to seek out relationships with other women. If that happens, it won’t be your fault. It won’t be a negative reflection on you. It would just be the way things happened.

Unless she actually tells you that’s what’s going on, though, don’t assume that’s what’s happening. Don’t take “Yes, I’m sometimes attracted to women” to definitively mean “Yes, I will leave you some day.” Until the day it happens, trust her to love you and remain faithful. Don’t be suspicious of her, and don’t try to look for signs in everything she says or does. You’ll only end up undermining your relationship, when she’d likely have been happy with you for the rest of her life.

The point is, I can’t tell you from whence her desires stem. You have to ask her, and trust her to be honest with you - as long as you make it possible for her to speak to you openly without fear of condemnation. Don’t puff up behind that male ego and assault her because your wife’s interest in a little girl-on-girl makes you feel like your mini-me is more “mini” than “me”. Don’t shut down and refuse to discuss the topic. I know, men are bad at listening. No, let me rephrase that: we’re bloody awful at it.

Try anyway.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what she has to say.

Listening like Frasier Crane,
~Adri

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

ask adri, gay advice column, lesbian fantasies

Dear Adri,

I have a friend (let’s call her Kate) who I am pretty sure is gay. Being ridiculously curious (and also harboring a slight crush on her) I would love to know if I’m correct or not. However, she’s remained very tight-lipped about topics of a sexual nature - she’s never mentioned any crushes she’s ever had and I’m know she’s never dated or even kissed anyone before (we’re college students, by the way, which makes that a little more unusual). Kate has recently been telling me about someone else we know (Molly) who is pursuing her pretty aggressively, and while Kate has made it clear she’s not interested in this other person, she hasn’t said “because I’m straight” or “because I’m asexual” or anything, just that Molly is “kind of freaking her out” because she keeps showing up in Kate’s suite uninvited.

Recently one of her suitemates, someone who I think is even closer to Kate than I am, mentioned to me that none of the suitemates know whether Kate is gay, either. (She said this to me in the context of telling me about how Molly showed up in their suite one day and asked Kate’s entire suite whether Kate was gay when Kate got up to go to the bathroom!) Is Kate’s clear avoidance of the subject a sign that I should let sleeping dogs lie? Is it possible that she just doesn’t know whether she’s gay or not? I’ve had people tell me to “just ask her!” but I get the feeling she might not respond well to a direct “You sure like the Indigo Girls a lot! So, are you gay?” type question since she’s so private, but it seems like the only way to get a straight (ooh, ignore that horrendous pun) answer out of her. I’ve tried to sneak it out of her with leading questions such as (I think this was my most recent attempt): “Wow, Kate! Your Halloween costume is so hot, who are you trying to seduce? It would totally work.” but she just laughs and says “No one!” or something else equally vague. I also haven’t told her that I’m bisexual - could that be a good lead-up to some sort of let’s-all-confess-our-attraction-to-girls talk of some kind? Whether or not I figure this out, I like her enough so that I don’t want to make things awkward.

Wondering in Worcester

Oh, honey, I know it’s probably driving you nuts to sit on your feelings and your curiosity this way, but asking Kate directly is definitely not the way to go. You’ll end up making her as uncomfortable as that creepy stalker-child Molly (who sounds like she needs a few lessons in common courtesy, tact, and social graces - preferably from my grandmother, who’d happily enforce them with a wooden spoon across the knuckles).

I can’t really hazard a guess as to which way Kate might lean just based on the described behavior, as actually she sounds a lot like one of my sisters - who’s 100% hetero, but for the longest time was extremely reserved and uncomfortable around men to the point of being defensive and wouldn’t talk about anything related to sex or sexuality in any capacity. She didn’t date in high school or in college because she didn’t know how to act with boys, and remained staunchly single until her late twenties, when a close male friend made the first move and approached her carefully enough not to make her skittish. (She’s a very intimidating munchkin. Very intimidating. And yet she’ll bolt at the first sign of aggressive male attention.) People wondered if she was a lesbian, too, and she deflected the question because it embarrassed her. So the fact that Kate hasn’t had a boyfriend by now, or those other behavioral signs, may not really mean much.

At the same time, as you said, she may not be sure of her own sexuality. She may have just started to question; college is an environment that lets you explore these ideas that may not even have occurred earlier on in life. If she’s at that stage she’s probably doing a lot of thinking, and wrestling with herself internally. She won’t be willing to openly admit anything until she’s really sure that she wants to take that step.

But yet again, she may know quite well that she bats for the girls’ team and just doesn’t want to expose herself. She may have many reasons for being discreet; they could involve family, her potential career, even fear of losing her friends. Sometimes people want to stay in the closet for a while, so even if your suspicions are correct, she’ll deny them until she’s good and ready to come out.

There are so many possible interpretations for her behavior, and I don’t want you to get your hopes up because you’re seeing what you want to see and hoping that maybe, just maybe, she might be open to your advances. Don’t press her; you may end up losing a friend and getting slotted into a category with a crazy woman. You’ve already given yourself the best advice anyone could give; let slip about your own sexuality in a relaxed, non-aggressive way so she knows you’re supportive if she wants to come out to you, but don’t beat her about the head with the issue. Let her take her time.

If you really have to, if it’s just eating you up inside…you can even tell her about your crush, but don’t tell her about any assumptions you’ve made about her. Don’t pry at her to return the sentiment, or even tell you definitively if she’s remotely interested in girls. I wouldn’t even ask her to tell you yes or no on whether she’d date you just as a hypothetical; just tell her you wanted her to know how you felt, that you’re not expecting her to do or say anything about it, and that you’re not expecting anything to change because of it. If you really feel brave enough to put yourself out there and risk potential rejection, then it’s all right to reveal information about yourself as long as you don’t make her feel cornered or try to drag information out of her. That way you aren’t pushing at her personal boundaries too much.

I know “just leave it alone” isn’t the advice you wanted to hear, but that’s honestly the best thing to do. Find subtle ways to let her know you’re open to the idea if she wants to talk about it, but beyond that just let it rest. If she wants you to know, she’ll work up to telling you. Otherwise, just respect her privacy. I’m sure it wouldn’t make her feel very good to know that her sexuality is a common subject of gossip.

Best of luck to you,
~Adri

P.S. Sorry this is late, everyone. I wrote this last night and set it to drip today, and apparently WordPress didn’t publish it. I, being a stupid sod, didn’t notice until this afternoon.

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

ask adri, gay advice column, coming out

I probably shouldn’t be doing an “Ask Adri” column in my current mood. You can’t see me right now, but I’m making my pain face. Why? Because I’m in pain. I don’t know what I did to my right arm yesterday, but I woke up this morning feeling as if a few members of the WWE had been using it as an illegal blunt object in the ring. With it still attached to my body. So I’m kind of cranky. But the news is alternately boring me or pissing me off with arseheaded reports that now the LGBT community is pushing for a non-trans-inclusive ENDA (what the hell happened to solidarity, people? I bet we wouldn’t be so willing to ditch them if it was the G or L getting left out), and this letter’s been sitting in my inbox for a couple of weeks now, so I really shouldn’t neglect it any longer. (Also, to two people who e-mailed me asking for private responses: I’m not ignoring you. You’ll hear from me some time tomorrow.)

Hello Adrien.

I am 37/gwm/FL. [Note from Adri for those who don’t do netspeak: He’s a 37-year-old gay white male who lives in Florida.] My wife and I have three lovely children. I am gay. I knew I was gay when I married her but I thought I could live a normal married straight life. I have been happy with my children and I love my wife, but I am very unhappy with myself. I can no longer pretend attraction to my wife and would like to explore my homosexual side. I do not want her to find out. I would like to have a relationship on the side with another man. How can I meet men without coming out publicly? We live in a small town and if I go to the gay bars nearby I will be recognized. Someone will tell my wife. I need to meet a man who can be discreet. Can you tell me how I can do this?

Sincerely,
Frustrated Florida Fag

Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute. Hold up and slow your roll, Holmes. Are you asking me to help you figure out the best way to cheat on your wife with other men?

Oh, I don’t think so.

Let me tell you something, son. You are going to do this right, rather than in the way that’s the most comfortable for you. You are going to inform your wife, properly and politely, of this particular turn of events in your life. You are going to take responsibility for the years of your marriage, and you are going to make this as easy for her as possible, because none of this is her fault and she’s going to feel hurt and betrayed, almost as much as she would if she caught you cheating. I know this isn’t easy for you, either, and I feel for you, I really do - as while some of this situation is your fault, not all of it is. But you are not going to make it worse by being a reprehensible human being and sneaking around behind your wife’s back like a dog, do you hear me?

You and your wife are going to talk about this. She may leave you, but for the sake of your children, she may not. If she stays with your sorry behind, she may even be willing to come to an agreement. You stay married as parents, but not as sexual partners, and then with her permission you can slip around on the sly all you want as long as you don’t bring your sexual partners home and trip the kids off as to what’s going on. It’s not an ideal situation, and later when the children are older and not as likely to be affected emotionally by their parents breaking up (for whatever reason, sexuality has little to do with how kids are affected by divorce), they will need to be told the truth. Frankly I don’t like the idea of hiding your sexuality from your kids, but it would just be too confusing for them to understand, in their formative years, why Mommy and Daddy have separate bedrooms and Daddy brings men home to spend the night.

And you know what? Your wife may take the kids and leave you. There’ll be a custody hearing; it may be ugly, it may not, but as long as you’re not declared unfit then you’ll get to spend plenty of equal time with your kids. You can even come out publicly and explain a few things to your kids, about how Daddy is gay but Daddy’s still Daddy and still loves them, supports them, etc. - and yes Daddy still loves Mommy, just not in certain ways.

Or you can stomp down your urges, stay miserably in the closet, and keep your family exactly the way it is. It’s an unfortunate situation, and there is no easy answer, no right answer, and no answer that’s going to make everyone happy.

Except you screwing around behind your wife’s back, and that you will not do. Not with my help, anyway. When you get caught, I want no part of this.

And you will get caught. Men always do; I know this from experience, not from cheating myself, but from dealing with cheating men from ex-boyfriends to my own father. You always get caught.

And when you get caught, those hot messes that I described above will be ten times worse.

So just don’t do it.

I know I was a little stern there. You needed it. You need a hard look at the reality of what your decision entails, from an outside perspective. This entire time you’ve probably been focusing on your own misery, and your own potential happiness. When you create a family, you can’t just think of yourself alone anymore. Your decisions deeply affect other people, and you have to consider that before every choice you make. I know you feel trapped by a decision you made years ago, and wish you could go back and undo it. You can’t. Unfortunately, part of adult life is living with the consequences of your past actions, and sometimes there just isn’t a way to wipe the slate clean and start over blameless.

Unless you’re Catholic, but don’t even get me started on that.

Despite my harsh words, I do wish you the best, and I hope that the difficulties along the road ahead are eased by mutual understanding between you and your family. You have a lot of tough choices to make. Good luck with them all.

See this? This is my problem with the whole “sanctity of marriage” crap. Heterosexual marriages break up all the time, for just about any reason; it’s not uncommon for someone to go through two or three spouses on average in their lifetime. How sacred were those marriage vows again?

But this situation in particular, oh, this one gets under my skin. If homosexual marriages were acceptable and legal, this man might not have felt the need to get into a heterosexual relationship and later marriage, in order to conform to the pressures to live the picture of the societal norm. He might have married a man and lived happily ever after, while the woman who - in this alternate future - is not his wife would have married a different man and moved on to have several fat, shiny babies. Instead we’ve got a tangled mess in which the husband is miserable, the wife is oblivious and just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the children could very possibly have a previously happy home torn apart.

Oh, but that marriage is between a man and a woman, so hey, it’s just fine.

George W. Bush, you can suck my middle finger.

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

ask adri, gay advice column, coming out, sanctity of marriage, gay marriage, heterosexual marriage, ENDA

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[facepalm] Yeah, after reading that, I’m feeling pretty scarred, too. Sweet bloody Jesus doing the twist on a hot poker. Someone’s been watching too much of that Sarah Silverman show.

No, Kyle, you’re not gay (and you’re not the only one who doesn’t want you to be gay, trust me). You either have a very bad sense of humor or a serious mental malfunction. …and possibly a couple of necrophilia and bestiality problems. Spellcheck is a boon to many people, by the way.

Please gods, don’t let him be gay. I don’t want that as even a tiny jot on the graph in our demographic.

People, this is the side of the Ask Adri column that you never see. I get a few e-mails a week; about 25% of them are legitimate questions, and then only half of those are questions that I can answer on the column, as the people who wrote in requested a private response.

The other 75%?

The other 75% are things like this crap.

Some of them are obviously pranks; some are seriously people who don’t understand that bestiality, taxidermy-related necrophilia, and homosexuality are entirely unrelated. [groan] Seriously. Did Ann Landers ever get letters like this?

Sorry about having to reuse the art from comic #10; I had an exhausting weekend and by the time I could settle down to draw the comic, I was so tired I could barely even focus on the light table. At least I upgraded the art a little, by replacing that cruddy tablet-drawn laptop with something involving straight lines. And I did a few color shifts and ooh, lighting effects. Suddenly it’s night time in my living room. Ooh. Ahhh. Magic.

Yyyyeah, it’s coffee time. See you kids tomorrow.

no style, gay comics, webcomics, humor, gay comic strip, ask adri, gay advice column, ann landers

Thanks to everyone who participated in yesterday’s survey. The results were about as (welcomely) diverse as I expected, even though a largely female sample demographic may have slanted things a little.

I’m really not in the mood to trawl the headlines looking for something to get pissed off about today; I’ve been in a good mood all week and I’d like to keep it that way, so in the tradition of Dear Abby, I’m going to pull a letter out of the Ask Adri bag today.

Dear Adri,

My name is Chelsea, and I’m 18. I am fairly sure I’m bisexual. My I’ve talked to my father, with whom I’ve always been very open and who has always been very open with me. I am lucky to have someone so accepting to support me, however, I’m afraid it’s made our already strange relationship stranger. The dynamic of our relationship has always been different from most father/daugther relationships because my mom passed away before I was two years old. Gradually I’ve taken over, in some sense, the role of the woman of the house. I’ve also always reminded my father of his late wife, my late mother. He supports me and doesn’t seem to be upset about my sexuality, but he seems, at times, to feel betrayed. I only wonder if it is normal for a parent to feel betrayed or if it has to do with my rather odd role in his life. Was I wrong to say anything? Any opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Yours truly,
Chelsea

In my opinion, it’s never wrong to be honest about your sexuality. Now as to whether or not it’s actually wise? That’s another matter.

In this case, though, I don’t think it was particularly unwise. Parents are funny things (and on that note, I’ve got a story to tell you kids about mine, but that can wait until tomorrow), but they’re also the people we turn to first for acceptance and understanding, and often those upon whom the most hinges. Regardless of what kind of relationship you have with your parents, reactions can and will vary vastly.

Your father may be less betrayed than confused. Nine times out of ten, a parent’s first question on discovering that their child is gay, bisexual, or anything other than straight is “where did I go wrong?” Hell, my parents are still asking each other that, and I’ve been out for years. It takes a while for them to get past that hurdle, and there are many more hurdles still to follow.

You need to understand that what’s been obvious to you all this time as you worked it out for yourself may not have been obvious to him, and he’s probably puzzled and thinking back over the years looking for signs that he missed - and probably kicking himself and thinking that he should have known. He’ll be studying you with a touch of bemusement, rethinking his perceptions of your mannerisms and habits. He might even be wondering why you didn’t tell him sooner, if you have such a close relationship and he’s openly supportive; and that may be contributing to that sense of betrayal that you’re picking up.

Even more, he’s having to reevaluate your relationship, and this is where your current role in the house may have some influence on how he responded to your coming out. Discussing your sexuality with him places him in the firm role of a parent, rather than a platonic companion. You’re suddenly his little girl again, turning to her father for acceptance. That’s going to upset the comfortable daily routine for a little bit until he gets settled with bisexuality as a part of your identity, realizes that nothing’s really changed, and things drift back to normal. He may also have questions, but not be sure how to ask them or if it’s even appropriate to ask them.

The best thing to do is just ask him about it. Since I don’t know what kind of person your father is, I don’t know if he’d take the direct approach best or if you should build up to it subtly, but I’m sure you can work out the best path. Just find a way to ask him, “Hey, Dad? Is there anything about my sexuality that makes you uncomfortable? Were there any questions you wanted to ask me? I’d be happy to talk about it and clear up anything that’s bothering you.”

Hope that was at least a tiny bit helpful.

Taking a stab in the dark,
~Adri

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

ask adri, gay advice column, bisexuality, coming out, coming out to your parents

Finally get my computer up and running, get into my e-mail, and what do I find? A brand-new Ask Adri question waiting to be answered. (…well, that was a little self-evident. I’m Captain stinkin’ Obvious today.)

Dear Adri:

I am m2f (or i will be soon).. I want to start crossing. I have nice clothes but I don’t know how to shave my legs. I’m afraid to ask my girlfriends because I don’t want them to know yet. Can you help?

Sassy

Oh, honey, first thing I’m going to tell you is to put the razor down. You may have been shaving your face since you were sixteen, but trust me, shaving your legs and shaving your face are far different things - and have no doubt, the first time you’ll end up cutting yourself, giving yourself razor burn, and twisting in a dozen of the most uncomfortable positions trying to get into some obscure places you didn’t even know you had until you tried to shave them.

(Why yes, I do know this from experience, and no, I have no intentions of telling you just how I know this. Suffice to say that the negatives were burned, and we shall never speak of this again. Ever.)

Rather than shaving, you’d be much better off with a depilatory cream. (Avoid waxing unless you’re really that into pain. I don’t know how girls do that to themselves - I really don’t.) Most would recommend Nair or Neet, though I find that Nair stinks to high hell and both can leave a bit of a chemical-burn feeling behind even when leaving them on for the minimum amount of time, and they don’t remove all the hair - so you end up shaving anyway. Plus the consistency of male leg hair tends to be a bit different from female leg hair, so female shave products don’t always work for us - just as the mess we use to shave our faces doesn’t always work for them.

Stop looking at me like that. Yes, I know too much about this. Hush.

My personal recommendation is No Shave Liquid Depilatory, which you can buy from UnderGear. It’s designed to remove hair smoothly from the male body, although I recently bought it for use on my face and absolutely love it. As with any depilatory, though, you need to remember that you are dealing with chemicals here and you should definitely test it on a small area of your body first before slathering it all over your legs. Don’t want you coming out looking like an overcooked bucket of the Colonel’s Extra Crispy.

Good luck and sexy legs to ya, Miss Sassy.

Everyone else, seriously. Stop looking at me like that. It was one time. In college. Shaddup.

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

Gay Republicans air anti-Romney Ad

Remember when I transcribed Mitt Romney’s creepy radio spot and spent a little time nitpicking it? Well, Romney’s own party has struck back from the rainbow quadrant with a lovely little TV spot:

Well…I wouldn’t really call that lovely, honestly. Actually, depending on how you’re listening, it sounds almost like it’s trying to sell Romney; according to the article, it’s highlighting Romney’s evolving stance on abortion. I don’t know. It’s just not very clear to me, and seems to have limited effectiveness. Don’t have much to say about it, really; guess it’s just too subtle for a blockhead like me. If you guys want to have a go at it, knock yourselves out.

Well, that’s it from me; I want to thank everyone who came out (no pun intended) in the delurking post and gave us all a chance to get to know you. The response (over 25 comments) was really a pleasant surprise.

Be back Monday with another No Style.

mitt romney, log cabin republicans, presidential debate, ask adri, gay advice column, mtf, m2f, male-to-female, transgender, transvestite, transsexual, cross-dressing, depilating, depilatory, shaving your legs

Sorry to be updating so late today, but I’m technically on a working vacation - meaning I’m keeping a pretty loose schedule here. In keeping with my five days of stress-free life, today we’re going to lay off the heavy, politically debatable news topics and instead relax with a submission to the “Ask Adri” column.

Hey

May seem a bit of an odd thing to be asking, but…

I’ve found that in addition to being bisexual in terms of who I’d like relationships with, I’ve got an odd kind of bi-sexual body image as well. I’m naturally female, but don’t want to be just that. Not that I want to be male. I don’t like having to be either, I do a lot of androgyny with suits and ties and formal footwear to create a sexless effect. I want to be both, or neither. When I have attempted to explain why I do my androgyne look, people either don’t seem to get it or assume I mean I’d rather be male.

I don’t really have much experience with the gay community, finding it to be too brash and busy being ‘fabulous’ to be useful to my sombrely suited self. So I don’t know if it’s a common thing with Queens or the equivalent Kings or whatever they may go by. Is my wish for sexlessness particuarly odd? Are there many others who’d far rather be hermaphroditic or asexual then have to be male or female?

Love the comic, by the way. Long time habit of politics watching, so the links are often useful.

- El

El, really, what you’re feeling isn’t so abnormal; androgyny’s been around for a long time, and wasn’t just a popular fad that produced such 80s icons (and nightmares) as David Bowie, Annie Lennox, and Boy George before fading away. It really has nothing to do with your sexuality, or even with your gender identity; you’re not a Queen or a King, and thus really shouldn’t worry about defining yourself by any terms outlined by an overly-flamboyant (and I’m a bit on your side there) gay community.

Modern-day gender roles themselves are really quite outdated, and it’s quite surprising that they’ve held out for as long as they have. Rigid gender-based behaviors began eons ago out of a need for organization and safety to preserve and further a species of primitive hunter-gatherers divided by those who bore and raised children, and those who provided for and protected the child-rearers and their offspring.

We’ve evolved far from those needs, and since men and women now fulfill pretty much the same roles in society - women protecting and providing for their families, men staying home with the children, and vice-versa - it’s time to abandon the ideas of what men should wear and what women should wear as entirely separate things, and abandon these ideas that who one is is strictly defined by one’s gender. Hormonal influences from gender may affect some personality traits, but in the end you are who you are, and your attachments (or lack thereof) shouldn’t change that.

Just because you have a penis or a vagina doesn’t mean you have to fulfill this preset concept of what a boy or a girl should be. I know, you probably wish you could get rid of your sex-defining anatomy altogether, or else double-up to be both - all or nothing, as it were - but when you can’t do that, the least you can do is ignore societal norms and focus on your own comfort with how you present your genderless (or dual-gendered) identity to the rest of the world.

In a way, you’re just ahead of the times. Yes, many people are socialized into accepting that because they’re male or female, they should act certain ways, desire certain things, wear just these clothes - and they’re comfortable with that, because they don’t even stop to think that it could be any other way. But there are plenty of people who will completely ignore their assigned gender role, recognize that just because society is binary doesn’t mean that they have to be, and will quite contentedly choose their lifestyle based on what they like and how they feel, rather than whether or not their choices fit their gender. They both disdain gender and fluidly embrace it, ignoring its rules while enjoying its every aspect, at once being sexless and yet dual-sexed.

I’m one such person.

No, seriously. Keeping to the topic of clothing alone (so I won’t be here all day boring you), my wardrobe is a mixture of men’s and women’s clothing; when it’s time for me to get new clothes, I wander both sections of the department store looking not for just this type of men’s clothing, but looking for anything that appeals to me regardless of where it happens to be hanging. If I can find women’s jeans that don’t squeeze uncomfortably in the wrong places, I’ll buy them because I love the low-slung hip-huggers, boot-cut to the point of almost being bellbottoms…and yet at the same time I’ll pair those with men’s muscle shirts and some rugged men’s boots. I wear them together because I like the overall androgynous look, not because I’m trying to be masculine or feminine or even balance in between - and I can promise you that I don’t want to be female, even if I’m not so deeply attached to my masculine identity, either. It isn’t about any of that for me; it’s about my own personal style and comfort.

I wear my hair long and like to comb it across my face to accent my eyes prettily (vain, I know), but at the same time think I look silly if I don’t have at least a little rough stubble dotting my jaw; quite often people have to do a double-take with me and check my flat chest to figure out if I’m male or female, which is pretty much how I like it. My behavior patterns range between strict definitions of masculine and feminine, and I don’t care. I can’t even really identify which traits fall where, because to me, I’m just acting like Adri, and Adri would be Adri regardless of anatomy. It has nothing to do with me being gay, either; as the wide range of gay male behavior - from butch to femme and all along the road in between - will tell you, sexuality really has nothing to do with masculine or feminine behavior. But then you already know that quite well, being you.

Basically what this whole mess boils down to is that you aren’t alone in feeling this way, and there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, in my eyes you’re more normal than any promotion of strict behavioral separation by gender. If you don’t want to be a boy or a girl, don’t be either. You can’t change your anatomy, but you don’t have to let it guide how you act, how you dress, or how you feel; make the best of what you have. Just be El, enjoy being El, and to hell with everything else.

Hope this helped at least in some way, even if half of it was just a little commiseration from a similarly-minded person.

Androgynously yours,
~Adri

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

ask adri, gay advice column, genderqueer, androgyny

Every once in a while I get those complicated questions that don’t really have a right or wrong answer, and where I can’t really offer any concrete advice from experience or even from common sense. All I can do is say what I think, let the other person take what they can from that, and hope it helps.

Today’s letter is something like that. I’ve rewritten it to paraphrase, both for the sake of conciseness and for the privacy of the young man who wrote in, whose name has been changed. At first it seemed fairly simple, but over the course of several e-mail exchanges, it turned out not to be so simple after all.

Adri,

I’ve never thought I might be gay. I’ve been attracted to women my entire life, but a while ago was in a relationship with a girl who just wasn’t doing it for me. Over the course of the relationship I started doubting myself, and looking at men in a completely different way. I find some men really attractive, but I’m not aroused by them. I’ve tried fantasizing and it doesn’t work. Sometimes I have dreams, though, and the dreams can leave me aroused at times.

Now I’m in a relationship with another girl that I’m very attracted to, but sometimes I’m really anxious about my sexuality, to the point where it affects my performance with her. I’m wondering if I should experiment with another guy to find out, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to perform because I’m so confused and don’t know if I’m really sexually attracted. Do you think I’m gay and I’ve just been repressing it a lot?

Thanks,
Jim

I’m going to start off by stating that honestly, I don’t think anyone is 100% gay or 100% straight - not even me.

Now, the most important thing: regardless of what you think your sexuality might be, Jim…if you’re really happy with this girl, then please, please do not run around experimenting with other guys. If you take nothing else away from this, please keep that in mind. That kind of infidelity could ruin your relationship, and if you really care about her that much and you’re attracted to her, then don’t try testing out the greenness of the other side’s grass unless you suddenly find yourself single again.

Honestly, I don’t think you’re gay or even really all that bisexual, or repressing anything. You may be a 95/5 like me, only on the other end of the spectrum - roughly 95% into women and 5% into men, while I’m 95% men and 5% women. Check out the Kinsey Scale for a more in-depth analysis of the varying ranges of sexuality; if I had to peg you concretely, I’d say you’re definitely a 1 on the scale.

It’s quite possible to appreciate members of the same sex without being sexually attracted to them; there’s nothing wrong with recognizing that someone is attractive and even enjoying their attractiveness. Hell, it could even be chalked up to artistic appreciation, with nothing sexual involved. If the conscious fantasies aren’t working to do anything for you, then I doubt engaging in sexual acts with other men will do much for you, either, unless you close your eyes and try not to pay much attention to it.

I think that may be why your dreams are having an effect on you; you know as well as I do that sometimes when our other brain rears its ugly head, it doesn’t care who or what is stimulating it as long as there is stimulation, and your dreams are providing some kind of stimulation. Your subconscious is most likely dredging those dreams up from your anxiety and projecting them; the mind has a nasty habit of doing that. Even when we won’t consciously dwell on something, as long as it’s causing us stress our subconscious will find a way to thrust it to the forefront…like when we’re asleep and defenseless.

When you start getting anxious enough for it to affect your current relationship, think about this: would you really be happy dating a man? From the impression you’ve given me, I don’t think you would. It would be a distinctly unsatisfying relationship, and you probably wouldn’t get what you need, or be able to commit yourself wholly to it due to your discomfort with the idea of intimacy despite your curiosity about it. If you’re just looking to fool around, ask yourself: is it worth losing someone who means as much to you as your current girlfriend does? Do you really think you’re going to get so much satisfaction out of experimenting that it’ll be worth the possibility of losing her?

I’m already 99% sure that you won’t and you’d probably end up regretting it, but you don’t have to believe me. I just hope you don’t end up learning from a rather bad experience. If you absolutely have to try something, and just can’t get it out of your head…just try kissing a guy. A willing one, of course. Your girlfriend may be able to forgive a kiss.

Anything else? That’s just digging your own grave.

Don’t screw a good thing for the sake of a nebulous “what if”.

On a closing note: just how many skeletons do the Republicans have in their big pink closet? Seriously, lately Republican politicians and proponents have been outed left and right. As Hooper X would say, “…deny, deny, deny.”

I’m sure Jim Naugle would find this amusing. After all, it did happen in a bathroom.

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

republican idaho senator larry craig, jim naugle, gay bathroom sex, ask adri, gay advice column, sexuality confusion

…I’m out of coffee and battling a fever that’s been jerking me around like a yo-yo for the past week, so you’re getting a very short post today. The less I say, the less chance there is of me spouting something wholly nonsensical and not realizing it until days later. First, a brief “Ask Adri” letter that I received earlier this week, and an even more brief response:

hey

r u single??? do u like sportz????? mayb we can hook up

hit me up

-horny in houston

To answer your questions in order, dear HiH: no, no, and oh heeeeeeeeeell no. I’m sorry, but you’ve been disqualified. Thanks for playing, but those aren’t exactly the kinds of questions people submit around here.

Second: Stephen Cable is a smug, self-satisfied ass. Some of the things he says about Vermont’s discussions of gay marriage are just unbelievably condescending, not to mention self-delusional. I hope, if Vermont ever succeeds in its succession movement, that immigration laws prevent Cable from ever crossing borders back into the U.S. The rest of us sure as hell don’t want his mouthy little arse.

Third: I really enjoyed reading this interview with Mike Jones, former gay companion of evangelist (and prominent detractor of gay rights) Ted Haggard. In it he explains why he felt the need to write his book, even if it cost him his job and threatened his personal safety, as well as his view on Haggard’s stances and current behavior. It’s really quite insightful, even if the interviewer looked to be trying to bait him with a few of those questions.

I’m going to go crawl my sick butt back into bed now. Have a good weekend, and I’ll see you Monday with a new comic.

~Adri

ask adri, gay marriage, vermont, stephen cable, ted haggard, mike jones, christianity, homosexuality

Oh, man, I haven’t done one of these in a while, have I? I’ve had a bunch of letters sitting on the back burner and they kept getting pushed aside for various current events. Well, it’s a bit of a slow news day (or it’s the Friday of a long week and I’m feeling too lazy and burnt-out to trawl the headlines or create my own), so let’s root around in the mailbag and see who today’s victim topic is.

Adrien,

I’m not sure, but I think I might be gay or bi. I’ve dated girls all my life, but keep looking at men. It’s not that girls turn me off, but men turn me on more sometimes. But sometimes they don’t. I get confused there. The men I’m attracted to are feminine and very pretty. Maybe I’m straight and attracted to feminine things. But I like dick too. I’ve experimented a little and girly guys get me off but I like butch girls. I don’t like butch guys. I’m really confused and don’t know if I’m gay. How did you know you were gay?

-Mix in NY

Weeeeeell, that’s kind of a funny story that I’ll try to keep brief so we can focus on you instead, mmkay, Mixy m’boy?

My best friend told me.

I sh*t you not.

I was thirteen years old and my best friend was this girl named Trish. Pretty, popular, annoyingly perky as all hell with a tongue that could cut like razors. Me? I was working my way towards being a teenygoth, bad poetry and all, although I never went for the makeup and the spikes (that phase came later). Just the dark clothing, long hair, sullen looks, and the floridly awful “my soul is dark” writing. She belonged out in the light. I belonged pressed up against the wall glaring at everyone who tried to talk to me because I was utterly socially maladjusted and far too shy for social interaction, so I hid it behind defensive anger. We’d never have been friends if she hadn’t decided, one day in P.E. class, that we would be. Just like that, she sat down next to me and said that she liked my attitude, and we were going to be friends.

Trish…was not someone that you said no to. And I tried. Oh, gods, did I try. The girl practically stalked me until I gave in, and you know, we turned out to get along really damned well once I stopped being a surly arse and she stopped nattering at me all the time. And that was when she told me “hey, you. I think you’re cute, so we’re going on a date.”

Again, Trish was not someone that you said no to. And so despite my absolute flabbergasted confusion and reluctance, we went on a date. We went to a movie, we held hands, she dropped a million hints at me to kiss her in the movie theatre and I missed every last one of them until she smacked me upside the head with a cluebat and kissed me.

And I felt nothing. Except a little panic, maybe, but my toes didn’t curl, my little budding teenage hormones didn’t bubble and froth, my little…well, you get the idea. I tried to kiss her back, but she might as well have been kissed by a cardboard cutout. I just wasn’t into it. It had been something I’d run up against rather often when other boys were talking about girls as they started growing out of their “girls are icky” phase. I didn’t think girls were icky, but I wasn’t that interested in the blossoming contents of their training bras, either. I wasn’t quite sure what I was into, and although I’d glanced at a few boys before, I was too sheltered to know that it was even possible to be attracted to other boys. I thought I was just looking at them because they might be nice to draw, sometimes. I had sketchbooks full of profiles.

Well, Trish shattered that illusion. She kissed me once, she kissed me twice, then she gave up in frustration and said, “I knew it. You’re gay. Damn it, I had to try anyway.”

“I’m…what?”

That’s right, kids, I had no idea what homosexuality was. At thirteen years old, in the early nineties. I told you I was sheltered. Trish had to explain it to me, while I squirmed and blushed and tried to deny it even as I thought back to the number of other boys I’d quietly studied and conceded that she was probably right.

I didn’t accept her verdict blindly; I spent a long time thinking it over, and for years after tried to remain flexible about the idea until my hormones stabilized and I knew what it was that I was really attracted to. It took a little experimentation on the side, too. Kiss a few more girls, kiss a few boys, see which one set off the butterflies in the stomach. But Trish was the one who opened me up to the idea, and made me stop and take a good look at myself to realize.

So there you go. There’s your answer as to how I knew; now let’s talk about you.

Yours sounds like a very iffy situation in which I don’t want to concretely tell you that I think you swing one way or the other. Most solid and safe thing to go with is bisexual - in other words, stop worrying about if you’re gay or straight and just do what you want with the people you’re attracted to regardless of gender. We place too much importance on sticking ourselves in one box or the other. Forget the bloody effin’ label, man, seriously. You like what you like. Stop worrying.

I mean, c’mon. I say I’m gay, because mostly I’m into men. But every once in a while a girl can turn my head, and it doesn’t rock my world because the adhesive on my label may be peeling just a little bit. If you need the label of bisexual to help stabilize your world so you can come to grips with the fact that you’re not 100% hetero, that’s fine. It helps some people to have a specific way to identify themselves until they get comfortable with their own identity and can stop focusing on it as a world-turning issue. But don’t cling to that label so hard that any tiny shift of it causes your world to go completely off-kilter.

Date your girly boys. Date your butch girls. Enjoy whatever it is that draws you to either of them. If you’re worried about one day settling down with one gender but being worried that you’ll still have a desire for the other, thus making your long-term relationship inadequate…9/10, you won’t face that problem. If you’re comfortable enough with someone that you settle with them for the long term, then they’re most likely fulfilling your needs adequately enough that unless something in your relationship dynamic changes drastically, you won’t need to seek fulfillment elsewhere.

And you know, maybe you are gay and you’re just starting to find your way towards that, leaning away from women and taking slow, progressive steps towards men, and the fact that you’re attracted to more feminine men is confusing you there. If that’s the case, that’s fine, too. Just keep in mind that you don’t have to jump in with both feet and you can keep playing both fields until you’re 100% sure exactly what it is you want. No one’s judging you but you, so it’s okay to be a bit lenient on yourself, be a bit confused, experiment a bit, and change your mind if you feel like it…but do have a bit of consideration for those that you experiment with as you try to find yourself. Don’t break too many hearts on your way to learning your sexual orientation.

The basic gist of all of those is to just let things happen naturally. Destress, Mix. Don’t worry about issues of attraction until you’re faced with someone you’re attracted to, and then take it on a case-by-case basis. Deciding something arbitrarily is just going to confuse you even more, anyway, because no matter what your head says your body’s going to make up its mind without consulting your primary thought processes - and then you’ll be stuck in a war between the two, trying to force your cock to adhere to what your brain has decided when it really doesn’t want to.

Most women will probably kill me for telling you this, but y’know…sometimes it’s okay to let the little head lead. It knows what it wants even when you can’t consciously figure it out.

Still confused? Yeah. So am I. It’s a brain-burning issue, trying to sort out what goes where and with whom, and it’s different for everyone. The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter at what moment you know that you are or aren’t gay, because you and your life are changing every second and something might just come along to rock that later.

So don’t worry about that defining moment. Worry about this moment, right here, right now…and just live in it.

Have a good weekend, because I am out.

~Adri

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

The following was submitted as an “Ask Adri” question, but while I’m honestly not sure what constructive opinion I could offer on this, I wanted to share it with everyone anyway. (Warning: graphic imagery ahead.)

Dear Adrien,

I wanted your take on the anti-discrimination campaign that started here last week to make people aware of the new laws Europe instated.

There’s posters, post cards, spots on tv and banners on the internet. The slogan is ‘Discriminating is illegal. And inhuman.’
In these pictures, people’s bodies are shown, and they have labels sewed on.

Amongst others, there’s a woman in a wheelchair with the label ‘dead weight’. There’s a coloured boy labeled ’scum’. There’s a young mother who’s pregnant with her second child labeled ‘takes advantage’. And there’s two guys kissing. One is labeled ‘abnormal’, the other ‘contagious’. (I added the picture, the only one I could find was of the gay couple, it’s the French version though.)

In the TV spot The label he get’s sewed on says ‘different’, and the voices in the back are saying:
‘They just don’t want to work, those parasites…’
‘If I get to choose, I’d rather hire a man for this job…’
‘You can never be too carefull, with all that AIDS and stuff…’
‘Those people don’t care about getting a job, they’re all scum.’

You can imagine the reactions. Half the people don’t care, one quarter is shocked and appalled, and the rest of us think it’s brilliant, daring, will open many eyes.

Me, I cringe when I see the spot on tv. You actually see them sew the label on. I’m not sure what to think. It could be good, really good. But it might be too much. Harsh images and shock effects can certainly work, but… It’s a double edged blade.

What do you think?

The TV spot in question:

Give me a second to stop squirming. Oh, jeebus. The video itself isn’t that bad; I just have issues with needles going into anything other that cloth. (Adri + syringes = NO.)

Truthfully I don’t even think there’s that much shock value involved, but then I’ve seen worse in American adverts, so I may be the wrong person to ask; cultural differences have probably desensitized me to this sort of thing. Still, I can see where some would be incensed or disturbed by this sort of advertising.

The question to ask is this: is it shocking enough to get them to take notice, and then stop and consider the message - or is it so shocking that the message is lost in the horrified reaction to the imagery? I think in this case it’s the former; yes, it’s a little graphic, but no more graphic than watching House or Grey’s Anatomy, and the graphic imagery isn’t played up to grotesque extremes. There’s just enough to be effective and to make sure that you’re paying attention while the point is driven home. At the same time it gives you something to think about on a more subtle level: those labels are painful. In the advert they become physically painful rather than emotionally painful, but the implication of pain is there and registers on a subconscious level to lead people closer to understanding that discrimination hurts in many ways.

When shock advertising is used with immaturity, where the blatant goal is only to disgust while the message itself is secondary, it fails and becomes a cause for public outcry. I don’t think this is one of those situations. I think it was handled with tact and maturity and even if I’m squirming looking at those needles, I admire how cleverly it was done.

I told you I have nothing of value to offer here, but that’s my opinion. Maybe others reading this will have a different take on things. Either way, thank you for sharing this with everyone.

Needle-phobically yours,
~Adri

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

ask adri, anti-discrimination campaigns, shock advertising, labels