The White Peril 白禍

Ghost of a Flea reports that Alice Cooper knows a good diva when he hears one. That's so sweet.

Jon Henke has a post up at Q and O with a roundup of links to liberal blogger innuendo about David Dreier's sexuality. Now that Dreier hasn't been made acting Majority Leader, I suppose it doesn't matter all that much, except as a reminder that wacko leftists have a remarkably unprincipled approach to the right to privacy.

However, one of the commenters mentioned a parallel with James McGreevey that I don't think holds up under scrutiny:

Like McGreevey, it’s not a matter of who he is sleeping with, but rather that he expects the taypapers to pay that person’s salary.

Whoa. McGreevey didn't just have a boyfriend on the payroll. McGreevey hired a counterterrorism chief who had no relevant experience and (being a foreign national) couldn't get security clearance for high-level meetings. McGreevey tried to pressure an unwilling employee into a sexual relationship. McGreevey staged his coming out to deflect attention from brewing corruption scandals--thus becoming perhaps the only gay person in history to come out so he could live less honestly. McGreevey's actions screwed over his constituents and slapped other out gay men and women in the face. (Of course, you wouldn't know that from the loathsome flattery he's gotten from gay groups. Even Jonathan Rauch was strangely muted in his response.)

I haven't seen anything to indicate that Dreier's chief of staff is being paid for a job he's not doing, or that the congressman himself has used his power to strongarm guys into sleeping with him. Unless he's committing some kind of crime, he gets to be gay as he sees fit, just like the rest of us. No comparison with McGreevey.

Happy anniversary, Pryhills! Many more to you.

Eric and I had an e-mail exchange that I'd like to quote but can't precisely because it was on the subject that ended up in this recent post of his:

I think that one of the reasons so many bloggers are drawn to this medium is that in too many ways, America has become a country in which people are afraid to say what they think. Blogging gives a voice (if not a loudspeaker) to those who'd normally be silent, but the downside is that it gives them an opportunity to be heard by the very people who'd normally intimidate them into silence. I think there are people who've taken up blogging precisely because thoughts like "I could never say this at work!" or "You just can't discuss issues like this in public!" ran through their minds.

Every so often, I'll get an e-mail to the effect of "Thanks for being so outspoken about [gay/Japan] stuff," and my reaction is to the effect of "Oh, honey, if you only knew!" Since I write under my own name, I have to use content and tone that are compatible with my job, but that doesn't bother me. It's not as if people who try to make their points forcefully but civilly were overrepresented in the public discourse or anything. I also have a few teenaged readers and try to keep my occasional bawdiness mild and good-humored, the better to serve as a thrilling contrast with the latest Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson video.

*******

Of course, not every e-mail is an overblown compliment. I won't post things from people who obviously want to remain anonymous, but I don't see why I shouldn't address the topic raised:

The idea that, because I'm happy and in a settled, sustaining relationship at 33, coming out must have been a breeze for me is an extraordinarily naive one. Coming out reorders your whole view of the world and where you belong in it; anyone going through such an experience is bound to have trouble navigating it. I needed people to cut me some slack without giving up on me altogether, and fortunately, I had friends who were willing to do exactly that. Basically honorable people sometimes do pained, impulsive, nasty things in moments of weakness. That's not to excuse them, only to say that they shouldn't be summarily written off.

But for some people, explaining away their bad behavior as the fault of social prejudice gets to be habit-forming, and if they're going to make self-justifying statements in public, I think those statements deserve to be challenged.

I haven't had many interesting search strings lately, but two have cropped up in the last 24 hours. I tell you--the things people expect Google to help them out with! Someone wanted to know "How do you break it off with a married man?"

Uh, let's see. How about "We really shouldn't be doing this. I'm sorry, but I can't see you anymore"? Is that too obvious, or something? It's wise not to add the part when you burst into tears and go, "Dammit, you PROMISED me you were going to LEAVE her! How could you keep stringing me along like this when you KNOW I can make you happier than she does?" That has a way of interfering with closure. (No, I don't know this from having dated a married man myself; but this being Japan, I have a few friends who have.)

The other odd search was "dating: lose the coin purse." I can only assume this was intended as advice? But then, why enter it as part of a search? One doesn't go to Yahoo to tell it things, after all. Besides, in my experience, having one is taken as a conversation-starter, prompting opening lines that range from "Beautiful coin purse!" to "I should get one of those myself--Japanese money is so heavy," which apparently seem less bald than "Come here often?" (though one gets that one a lot, too). Of course, I suppose it depends on the item itself; a lot of coin purses probably look faggy to a fair number of straight women.

Oh, and for the love of Poseidon, I still don't know whether Röb M@rciano is a freakin' homosexual.

Chris Crain has posted on the Washington Blade blog about the problems with gay PR, though he doesn't exactly put it that way:

Then remember this: We gay Americans do not have the luxury of intolerance. When it comes to minorities, we are remarkably minor. Kinsey was nice enough to propagate the 10 percent myth, but subsequent surveys place us at even smaller numbers, well under half that amount. And about one-quarter of us — of us! — voted for the election and the re-election of George W. Bush.

If we cannot tolerate the viewpoint of someone who tries to explain why one-quarter of us like and support the president, then how can we expect the 96 percent of Americans who are heterosexual to listen seriously to our demands for equality?

The growing polarization of American politics has taken root within gay America as well. The explosion of liberal gay bloggers, many of whom spend about as much time on the "gray" of most issues as Rush Limbaugh and his "dittoheads," has only exacerbated the proud queer tradition of disdain for gay Republicans ("Nazi Jews") and the caricature of conservative Christians ("religious right," "religious political extremists").

Whatever the public opinion surveys may say about the growing acceptance of gays, we have lost, and lost badly, every ballot measure to date on marriage, and the numbers haven't improved since Alaska and Hawaii voted on the issue almost a decade ago.

Our activists groups have grown quite fond of talking about the "conversations" we need to have with straight America. Well half of that conversation involves listening, not talking. And if we won't even listen to the heretical views of our own kind, then how can we be open to one of "them"?

He's right. I do think that while the subject is open, though, we might make a request of the conservatives, too: some of you have a real chip on your shoulder about what a brave, exclusive little club of dissenters you are. If you don't knock it off, you're going to have a hard time winning over rank-and-file gays who despise the shrill left but are wary of Republicans.

Yes, yes, yes, I know--there are gay enclaves in which you risk vandalization of your property if you're openly conservative. More commonly you just risk being demonized. (That overused word strikes me as being appropriate here for once.) I'm more than happy to acknowledge that the outrages committed by extreme gay leftists are way worse than the smugness of some of the gay right. But smugness is a turnoff, and as long as the center-right range of gays stays so firmly a minority, it's going to remain easy for lefty activists to claim to represent gays en masse.

A friend at the office sent me this WaPo article, the latest installment in the seemingly interminable series in which the Western media treat the funkiest aspects of Japanese culture as if they were poised to become the mainstream by next April. I'm not so sure about the general conclusions that are implied, and I also have to wonder about some of the specifics. It's possible that the reporter, Anthony Faiola, has a lot of experience in Japan, but he doesn't sound that way. I was especially puzzled by this sequence:

On busy Tokyo subways these days, it is not unusual to see men fishing for packs of Virginia Slims cigarettes in European-style male purses. They have many models to choose from at Isetan Men's — the successful 10-story department store in chic west Tokyo that opened two years ago and is now the cathedral of masculine vanity.

The store sells more than 100 types of male purses, including jade-colored alligator clutches and rhinestone-encrusted knapsacks, along with hats with peacock feathers, pink leather card holders and thousands of pieces of exotic designer clothes. Sales have outpaced Isetan's other major Tokyo stores, where the emphasis is on women's apparel, according to company officials.

"On busy Tokyo subways these days"? When I first arrived a decade ago, one of my first questions was, "What is up with all the guys' carrying tote bags and little clutches?" The answer, according to every Japanese person I know, is that those shapes simply don't read as any more femmy than briefcases or backpacks. Plenty of regular, un-fashion-conscious guys with wedding rings carry such bags. The rich ones get them at Vuitton or Coach (or their wives pick them out on their behalf), but they're usually in un-showy neutral colors. With respect to clothes rather than accessories, by contrast, men wear pastels and jewel tones more readily here than they do in the US--you frequently see construction workers swaggering around in lavender or seafoam-green rubber trousers. But that's also a long-standing element in the culture and doesn't signify any new development.

Furthermore, Isetan Men's does have a wide variety of outlandishly colored and over-decorated accessories. They're prominently showcased, which makes every department look as if it catered exclusively to fops, but as someone who shops there, I can tell you that most other guys seem to do what I do: wade through to find the more ordinary stuff. What's great about Isetan Men's is that you have almost ten floors devoted to nothing but men's clothing at your disposal. Like many other high-end stores in Japan, Isetan stocks modestly-priced items along with the sticker-shock brands, so people of a relatively wide range of incomes can shop there. If you want a new jacket, you can look at Brooks Brothers and Ermenegildo Zegna and Theory and Burberrys and a few house labels to be sure you're getting what most pleases you, and you don't have to run all over the place. There's no other store like that for men in Tokyo; there are plenty of stores that cater mostly to women. Therefore, it seems to me that the success of Isetan Men's says at least as much about its lack of competition--its acute exploitation of a niche market that had been hiding in plain sight all along--as it does about men's increased dandyism. (Note also that Atsushi and I frequently see a healthy proportion of guys who have clearly been dragged there by their wives or girlfriends, same as in any other men's department the world over.)

Oh, one last thing: Isetan Men's is literally two blocks from Shinjuku 2-chome, the biggest gay district in the city. It's not at all uncommon for guys to do some shopping before the store closes at 8:00, meet friends for dinner, and then go out for a drink afterward. I've done it myself more times than I can count. Do we have a noticeable effect on the store's total revenue? I don't know. Could we help to explain why it makes business sense to keep pink ostrich-print wallets with marabou-feather trim in stock? It seems to me we could. "Some gay guys like outlandishly attention-getting clothes" is hardly the stuff of news stories, though.

The reason I'm going on about this is that it all makes me wonder whether Faiola can be trusted to read cultural signals competently. The underlying issue he's talking about is certainly real and important: post-War Japan barricaded women in their apartments with the kids and shoved men into the office for twelve-hour days. Now that the national goal of prosperity and respect on the world stage has been achieved, it's natural for people to want to use the resulting wealth to the end of arranging their lives more to their personal liking. The quotation from Negami Kishi lamenting the feminization of Japanese men is used without putting it in this rather obvious context. Of course, when women get a little breathing room, they're going to covet the jobs that have always been available to men; men, in turn, don't want to have to wall themselves off emotionally from everyone including their own children. Since the Japanese have not been socialized to be resilient and resourceful in applying their individual talents and know-how to new situations, the transition has been rocky.

Still, that doesn't mean that the popularity of men's cosmetic surgery and of flamboyantly gay entertainers such as Shogo Kariyazaki means what Faiola seems to think it means. It's worth bearing in mind that Kariyazaki is safely stereotypable: a gay guy with fussy clothes who arranges flowers. His straight male fans don't appear to be imitating his personal style, after all.

And on the subject of cosmetic procedures: hairiness is considered rough and somewhat vulgar by many Japanese. (Sorry, Kyushu and Okinawa boys--I'm just describing other people's opinions here.) As the cost and inconvenience of cosmetic procedures drops, men are getting more of them, as you'd expect. It's not surprising that as advances are made in depilation, specifically, Japanese men are taking advantage of them the way Americans have taken to, say, tooth whitening.

About that whole Koizumi-dancing-with-Richard-Gere thing, I have no comment. I will say that I was shocked that Faiola mentioned Gere and then discussed Dandy House several paragraphs later without mentioning the obvious connection: Gere is featured in the company's latest ad campaign, the billboards for which are INESCAPABLE in Tokyo lately.

Added at 20:55: Okay, I changed the first paragraph to make it a bit less mean-spirited. I don't think most reporters are going around with the intention of making Japan sound like a freakshow. They just don't seem to be able to avoid doing so.

Added on 26 September: I changed a few sentences for clarity. Sheesh, my style is turgid when I'm irritated and writing off the cuff.

Added on 28 September: Thanks to Virginia Postrel for the link. Just to emphasize this again: Faiola is absolutely right to be saying that sex roles are in flux at this historical moment in Japan. In fact, there's very little he wrote that I would actually say is inaccurate. My complaint is with the (mostly implicit) connections he's making and the way he characterizes the larger issue. That Isetan Men's carries shocking pink tote bags doesn't necessarily say anything about Japanese manhood outside an extremely small circle of Tokyo-dwellers.

Just saw Atsushi to the train; he'll be on the plane back to Kyushu at 4:00. Flights were disrupted yesterday, but the weather's cleared here now.

On Thursday, I ended up looking in the refrigerator and seeing that I had corned beef left over that really needed to be used up. That kind of ruled out the French toast plan for Friday--corned beef with French toast? No. So it was buttery scrambled eggs, which themselves were rather nice.

Speaking of eating--it was the cutest thing--we did Vietnamese for dinner that night. I was dilly-dallying about finishing my pho, trying to get the last few noodle fragments into the same spoonful of broth. Atsushi reached over absentmindedly with his chopsticks and started piling noodles into my spoon--an uncharacteristically intimate public gesture for him. He looked up and saw my bemused look and jerked his hand back a little. Then he recovered himself and gave his conspiratorial smirk. (You communicate in conspiratorial smirks a lot in Tokyo gay life.) Then he pointedly picked up the last noodle and deposited it in my spoon. Best mouthful of pho I've ever had.

It was a good food weekend overall, come to think of it. Last night, we went out with a good buddy of mine. (BTW, C., darling? I love you lots, but I swear--you will find a way to be an hour late for your own bleedin' funeral.) Italian. Gay Italian: sea bass carpaccio and gnocchi and veal with cracked pepper and green salad and...ooh, can we get something else with pine nuts? We're into pine nuts today.

My buddy C., BTW, is an example of the kind of guy who knows how to deal with a failed relationship like a gentleman. In the spring, his boyfriend of two and a half years betrayed him and then broke up with him. He still loves the guy and thinks about him all the time, and--well, I'm his friend, so I listen when he needs to talk. I, being loyal to C., hope his ex gets himself run over by a nice truck sometime soon, but I try to keep my own counsel on the subject.

Anyway, the good thing about C. is, unlike some people, he knows when he needs not to talk, too. As in, "It's been 45 minutes of non-stop pining for my ex, so let's change the subject." And then he actually changes the subject. Or lets me change the subject. Of course, his frequent reward is to hear me grouse about how much I miss Atsushi; even so, he's never once played the obvious "How can you complain about your long-distance relationship when I don't even have a boyfriend?" card. What would you not do for such a friend?

So from tonight on, back to cooking for one and making my own tea and not encountering a warm, cuddly man when I roll over at 3 a.m. For another few weeks.

Why do people insist on asking questions they don't want to know the answers to? Or, more importantly, why can't people find someone else to ask questions they don't want to know the answers to? I don't give unsolicited advice. I know how to be tactful, and I don't hold with the tough-love approach to friendship except in cases of extreme self-destructive behavior.

But there are only so many euphemisms for "The reason your relationship doesn't seem to be working is that your boyfriend is scum." I have enough to last for a few months. Once I've exhausted them and lost my cool, though, my mewling friend may suddenly find himself on the receiving end of the super-deeuphemized version: "The reason your relationship doesn't seem to be working is that your boyfriend is scum and YOU are a SUCKER. A sucker, a sucker, A SUCKER. All he has to do when you read him the riot act is adopt that soulful look and tell you he'll try to do better. Then he's extra-attentive in the sack for the rest of the week, and you're all like, 'Wow! He really loves me after all! I'm so lucky!' Use your head. Three days of molten, ecstatic reconciliatory screwing are not the kind of thing you can expect a gay man to register as a PUNISHMENT, my pet, even if they're preceded by a tiresome four-hour argument about feelings. Where's the incentive to change his behavior?"

I realize this problem is as old as the hills, but I really don't get it. Most of the time before Atsushi, I was a Good Learning Experience for the guys I dated. (Didn't I tell you I was proficient with the euphemisms?) I hope I don't seem to be giving a ringing defense of bad boyfriends when I say that if your behavior signals that you're willing to tolerate being undervalued, it's not illogical for your partner to conclude that he's actually doing just fine overall and that your complaints just mean you're in one of your touchy moods.

That's especially true in a bicultural relationship, in which one of you will always be communicating in a non-native language and set of cultural signals. People do grow up (hi!), but indulging them doesn't help them on the way. It also makes the indulger miserable, and have I mentioned that it drives his friends bananas?

Michael (to whom I'm going to have to start paying finder's fees--wasn't there a time long ago when I occasionally found a gay-related media story by myself?) links to this fascinating discussion on Towleroad. The debate is over the NYT article here.

I'm not sure the reporter is to be faulted for simply observing what's going on and giving people's own account of themselves. It does seem, though, that he might have seen fit to question, even in passing, statements such as these:

"There's so much loneliness among gay men," one lot user said. "A lot of guys just want someone to talk to."

...

As for sex, the regulars say that they prefer the parking lot to gay bars since there is little in the way of drugs and alcohol and there is more honesty about sexually transmitted diseases.

It's a pity that honesty doesn't extend to telling their spouses they're getting screwed by strange men on top of junior's lacrosse equipment in the back of the Explorer. Or not doing it in the first place.

And is there no end to the procession of dimwits who think it's impossible to get an STD from some guy who lives in a 5-bedroom mock-Tudor over on Winding Ivy Lane? Because, like, he says he's clean, and he's a lawyer and all?

And that whole "gays are lonely" thing? What. Eh. Ver, Bitch. I'm not lonely. My boyfriend isn't lonely. My friends aren't lonely. I kinda think maybe that's in part because we have more to say to one another than a furtive, haunted, sibilant, "Hey, whatever-your-name-is, want a blow job?" in a parking lot. People should be free to stay closeted and not to get involved in the urban gay scene, but these jokers aren't just talking about discretion; they're talking about deception. Their loneliness strikes me as well-earned, and I can only hope it spurs some of them to long-overdue self-criticism.

I somehow missed this when Michael first posted it and have ended up in the odd position of getting my Gay Orbit bulletin through that straight guy over there. The original article is from 365Gay, which isn't always super-reliable, but I'm assuming it's accurate in the main:

During their 19-year relationship, Rene Price and Betty Jordan thought of themselves as married, especially after they registered as domestic partners on the last day of 2004.

But after Price died unexpectedly in July, Jordan learned that she was not entitled to the couple's Perth Amboy home, their cars, or the $9,000 in Price's bank account.

Price's death at age 61 exposed one of the many places where New Jersey's domestic partnership law does not treat partners like married couples: When a domestic partner without a will dies, the surviving partner has no right to his or her possessions.

This kind of thing always pisses me the hell off. I agree with Michael's commenter Don: "This is sad. But after 19 years of being together why didn't they have arrangements already made?" You said it, brother.

You know, Atsushi's life insurance goes to his parents. He owns our apartment outright. We don't have a joint bank account. He's closeted to both his parents and his company, so we can't do anything that would indicate official recognition of some kind of relationship between us. This is not my ideal arrangement, but my life with him is what's most important to me, so I make the necessary compromises. I am, after all, the one who decided to fall in love with a traditionalist Japanese man. And he sacrifices things, too: his company doesn't promote unmarried men up the management escalator. I make more or less as much money as he does and save responsibly, so I wouldn't have major financial worries; but I would have to leave the artifacts of our shared life behind almost in their entirety and start over. This is not a fun topic of conversation, but we've considered it a necessary one. I know where I stand, and I've made my peace with it.

Therefore, I find myself hard-pressed to lavish unalloyed sympathy on people who don't make wills, don't thoroughly acquaint themselves with the terms of their civil unions, and don't do everything they can to make sure their partners are provided for when they have, from where I'm standing, all kinds of tools at their disposal. Jordan and Price were able to be public about their relationship. They took the availability of civil unions so casually that they put theirs off for six months while one of them decided what to wear. I want to see laws changed so we can provide for our partners as much as anyone does. I also hope things are settled in Jordan's favor. But she and Price were irresponsible. It might not be fair that we have worries that straight married couples do not, but it's reality.

I was in kind of a funk last night. I worked yesterday, and it was a satisfying but draining day. And even though it's officially a three-day weekend, Atsushi's bank has his department in today, so he couldn't come up to Tokyo. He's been working late all the time and not getting enough sleep, and I'm powerless to do anything about it except sound devoted during our ten-minute phone conversation each night. So I went out to one of my hangouts, where the guys behind the bar have all known me for years, to mellow out a little.

They started drawing my vodka as soon as I stepped in the door, and I reached into my bag for my coin purse. It wasn't there. So I rummaged around a little. Then I took my Discman and CD case and handkerchief and water purifying straw and space blanket out, and it still wasn't there. My coin purse is frequently a topic of conversation, because the big joke among the bar guys is that I always pay with exact change. (Don't ask me why, but in this math-skill-obsessed country, paying with exact change is uncommon. Given that the smallest paper bill denomination is ¥1000, the equivalent of US $9 or so, you'd think people would do whatever possible to minimize the number of coins they carry, but they don't.) So they were standing there expecting me to give my usual exact ¥600, and then the bar master started chortling, "Sean-chan, that's the coin purse your honey gave you for your birthday two years ago. The one you never let out of your sight. You don't mean to say you forgot it. We're going to have to tell your boyfriend. We're going to have to report you to Hermès for this one--it's accessory abuse!" Objectively speaking, I guess it was kind of funny--when you walk into a gay bar, naturally, everyone glances over at you, and I'm sure I looked pretty weird yanking things out of my little camera bag and getting increasingly frustrated. All I had to do was get out my wallet for a ¥1000 bill and be done with it, after all.

The thing was, the master was right: it's hokey to say, but having my coin purse with me makes me feel as if Atsushi were close by. It was as if I'd been neglectful and forgotten to bring him along; I was even more unsociable than usual the whole night.

I feel better now, though--not just because I've gotten a grip on myself, but because Atsushi and I will have ready-made in-joke material for tonight's phone call: Instapundit was not only kind enough to give me another link but also kind enough to use it to the end of giving CNN's Aaron Brown a good cuffing. It makes me so happy.

I don't think it's possible to convey just HOW MUCH Aaron Brown annoys me. It's possible that in private life, he's generous and humble and easy-going; but he has to be the most oozingly self-righteous journo on the planet in his professional life. (Once he and Jane Arraf were on a split screen together, and it was like the irresistible smug force meeting the immovable smirky object. I thought they might merge into some vortex of condescension and suck in the whole universe or something.) CNN is the only English-language news source on our cable subscription--not that I miss BBC World, or anything--so I usually grit my teeth and watch to keep from feeling entirely cut off from televised news. I have my limits, though, and Atsushi knows from long experience that when Brown comes on the air, I can be expected to mutter curses at the TV until I just can't take anymore and have to switch back to NHK. It's part of our domestic routine by this point. Suffice it to say, I am delighted to be of modest assistance in deflating that gasbag.

Since Michael plugged this guy again, it's a good time to link this post of his, in which he recounts how seeing the trailer for Brokeback Mountain brought back to him his own ambivalence when coming out:

Why can't I quit you. Why can't I quit these feelings for my teenage friends. Why are my dreams of this. Why can't I make jokes why can't I talk dirty why can't I feel comfortable when the girls walk by us. Why does this feel forced. Why am I apart. Why am I hiding why am I out here looking for secret encounters why am I a cheating lying fool. Why can't I be more intimate with her. Why can't I change. Why can't I figure my way out of this box.

I think Chris is right when he says that you probably have to have come out in middle age for what he's talking about to resonate in the specific way it did with him. But one of his commenters is also right when he says that most of us went through the same enraged self-flagellation in whatever way was suited to the age and other circumstances in which we found ourselves coming out.

The last woman I ever dated was smart, attractive, funny, sarcastic; she and I had similar spiritual views and arty tastes. I worked so hard at trying to make myself fall in love with her you would have thought I was studying for the bar exam. In fact, I felt as if I were studying for the bar exam--without having gone through law school. Nothing was intuitive, it was all complicated, my friends acted as if it made perfect sense but it was all arbitrary to me, and I tried to work it into my brain but nothing would take hold. Getting a summa cum laude degree in Japanese literature? Ha. Cakewalk, compared to trying to make yourself into another person. I hated myself for it and, to my everlasting discredit, took it out on her.

I treated my first boyfriend like hell, too. No, you're not imagining things if you see a pattern forming here; and yes, I did grow up eventually. He helped quite a bit with that, actually. He told me once, soon after we'd started tentatively dating, that he'd come out to his mother when he was 13.

I think I physically dropped my drink. 13, as in, junior high school 13? At this point, he explained quietly that, considering what the generation of gays before us had given up to make it easier for us to be true to what we were, he thought the least he owed them was to be up-front about being gay once he was sure he was. I can't say I'd recommend that course of action to 13-year-olds, but as a way of thinking, it stuck with me. It's one of the reasons that, when I started reading blogs, I decided to comment about gay issues using my full name.

Another helpful conversation I had early on was with a friend. This was in my "I'm probably not even really bisexual; this is just an experimental-type stage I'm going through on the way to finding the right girl" phase. (Believe it or not, that made sense to me at the time.) At one point, he'd had enough of my self-pity routine and snapped. I then got a version of the speech I now find myself having to give to younger guys when called upon to play big brother (though I use less testy tones):

"The first time you were with a man, did it feel as if the whole world suddenly clicked? As if you were a whole person? As if you could breathe normally for the first time, even though you hadn't realized you weren't before? As if the fact that you were alive made sense? Okay, now, having done that, having figured out who you are, you seriously think you're going to rein it all back in? Go back to being 1000-Repressions Charlie--"

"My grandfather's English and I grew up in Pennsylvania; the straight men in my family are repressed, too."

"Shut up. It's like, you have the talent and the natural inclination to be a great statistician, and you're sitting around bitching because you can't be a concert pianist. Just knock it off."

"Why is everyone so goddamned eager for me to be gay?"

"No one wants you to be anything, man. We just don't want you to be a liar who ruins his life."

I'm glad I was ready to listen--which is not to be taken as a criticism of men or women who take longer to figure things out for themselves. I just was past the stage in which I felt vaguely unlike my friends and figured that I was kind of an introvert, and pretending otherwise was foolish.

All of which is a long way of saying, I second Michael's endorsement. Chris writes beautifully, whether he's talking about joy or pain. Or both at once.

Michael posts about this interesting item:

Scholars studying military personnel policy have found a controversial regulation halting the discharge of gay soldiers in units that are about to be mobilized. The document is significant because of longstanding Pentagon denials that the military requires gays to serve during wartime, only to fire them once peacetime returns. According to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, gays and lesbians must be discharged whether or not the country is at war.

The regulation, contained in a 1999 "Reserve Component Unit Commander's Handbook" and still in effect, states that if a discharge for homosexual conduct is requested "prior to the unit's receipt of alert notification, discharge isn't authorized. Member will enter AD [active duty] with the unit." The 1999 document was obtained by researchers at the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSMM), a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara during research for an ABC Nightline story.

The source certainly looks legit, though I can't judge conclusively. If it's correct, it's very strange. The main argument people use in defending the ban on open gays in the military is unit cohesion. Does that criterion magically become less important when the unit is actually going to go into combat? A friend who's a military guy commented here last year to the effect that DADT is enforced inconsistently and has become a cheap out for some soldiers. I don't have any first-hand experience, but it doesn't seem hard to believe when you see stuff like this.

Here you go:





Yeah, I know—not funny. Cute, though. (It's from here.) My camera batteries were dead, and I didn't get around to recharging them until I was getting ready for my buddy's birthday party yesterday. Here I am cropped from one of the group shots:

Michael appears not to think anything interesting or important is being addressed here. I do. His current position on gay-directed charity work doesn't very obviously flow from what he said here, where that "color-blind" part seems to me to imply that he wanted no distinctions made at all. If he thinks it's okay to have relief efforts that are publicized as gay-friendly as long as they're not exclusionary, that seems sensible to me. That's my position, too. But then, on the basis of Michael's own reasoning about the rights of gays vis-à-vis those of ethnic minorities, I think asking him whether and why it's still wrong to say "we'd be especially happy to help other white folks" is pretty shrewd.

To me the distinction is, as social conservatives never tire of saying in a lot of other contexts, about behavior, not who you are. If someone offered room to refugees and included the line "We welcome Orthodox Jews," I don't think most people would find that inherently discriminatory. Orthodox Jews run their households according to certain constraints and could hardly be faulted for looking for help from (or offering help to) someone with whom they won't have to have lengthy discussions about expectations.

We've gotten to the point at which I can look in the mirror without jerking back and saying aloud, "Dad! When did you fly in to Tokyo?" Seriously, I look like my father, but with facial hair, I look exactly like my father. I still don't like having to trim the stupid thing and am hoping to get the go-ahead from my dermatologist to lop it all off again as soon as is feasible.

My most sarcastic friend--who once, when I showed up in my new flirty little acid-green knit shirt, greeted me with a hand on the shoulder and a drawled, "Thank goodness you've arrived, baby--a five-foot-tall Bloody Mary just came by looking for you"--was as non-judgmental as could be expected: "So, did you always have that on your face and I just didn't notice because of the lighting at GB?" More than one other friend has said, "It looks okay, but I liked you when you were more boyish-looking before." These are not, mark you, lecherous middle-aged friends; these are the guys I know in their early 20s. Not sure what that means.

Atsushi says I feel like a hedgehog. But it's only fair to note that I've been telling him he feels like a hedgehog every weekend for four years. He has the typical Asian whiskers that are sparse but perfectly round in cross-section. Each shaft sticks straight out like a boar bristle. After two days of not shaving his chin, he's like an emery bit. The emery bit of my dreams, but an emery bit nonetheless.

Exactly what are you on about, honey?

The LGBT liaison for New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is sharply critical of the American Red Cross's response to Hurricane Katrina. Larry Bagneris is encouraging the LGBT community to donate money to a newly established fund directed to the needs of LGBT people. "I'm not willing to stick GLBT money where we're not getting any benefits from," said Bagneris, who is also the executive director of the New Orleans Human Relations Commission. "The needs of the community should be recognized."

Bagneris charges that his request for assistance for the LGBT community was met with indifference from Red Cross officials. He said that the Red Cross - which stands to gain $2 million thanks to the Gay and Lesbian Fund of Colorado which announced that because of a $1 million pledge by philanthropist Tim Gill, it will match donations to the Red Cross by Coloradoans up to $250 - was also not helpful in his appeal to raise money within the gay community and seemed to be more concerned about keeping its logo from being used for the effort than it was about helping people within the community. "Specifically, we said we need cash money. But we were shuffled from one room to the next. I said, 'The hell with it, let's take care of our own people,'" he said.

Notice that "let's take care of our own people" is seen as the last resort. [Sigh.]

You know, I've actually kind of been looking for something like this to funnel part of my donation money into. Obviously, general relief for whoever needs it is the highest priority, but let's face it: prejudice exists. Gays may, in fact, have a harder time finding people to take them in. Community centers that were assisting addicts or runaways might have little access to resources at this point. I don't see why I shouldn't earmark some of my donation money for taking care of my own.

But I have to say I'm pretty disinclined to hand it off to a drive led by someone like Bagneris. I know that not everyone who lives paycheck to paycheck does so because of devotion to the party mentality. Sometimes you need major car repairs and a root canal and new shingles over the garage during the same three-month period, and there goes the nest egg. I don't know that that would explain why most gays in New Orleans would be in such straits--assuming Bagneris knows what he's talking about--but we can introduce people to the wonderful concept of the savings account after the emergency has passed.

Be that as it may, I'm still not clear what the Red Cross was supposed to do better. Three incidents of harassment out of the thousands of gays that had to leave the city don't sound like an epidemic of homophobia to me. Could the Red Cross have done anything to prevent them? Did they involve serious physical threats? The other charges are even more nebulous. Was Bagneris trying to get Red Cross money for gays because they were somehow at a disadvantage when seeking relief? I can think of all kinds of reasons that unmarried, able-bodied men might be expected to yield in these circumstances that have nothing to do with homosexuality. And as for the unheeded requests for money, it's not clear whether the Red Cross was giving out funds to any specific population groups at the time he was dunning it.

Maybe it's not nice of me to harp on this. As I say, I've been looking for a good place to send gay-directed aid. I just wish people like Bagneris didn't take every conceivable opportunity to carp that people are being mean to the queers when there are a gajillion other things to manage. It would be nice to hear about gay guys' saying, "Look, I don't have children to worry about. I go to the gym and am in good shape. And I had a job that honed my CONTROL FREA...uh, organizational skills. How can I help?" I'm sure that's happening a lot in reality; it's just that well-connected complainers such as Bagneris are the ones who get quoted as representative of What Gays Are Thinking.

(Via Gay News)

Atsushi's been working a lot of overtime the last four weeks. He always sounds tired, though he's cheerful about it. He takes everything with a good grace--which only goes to prove that opposites do attract.

Speaking of which, it's the sixth anniversary of the opening of the bar where we were introduced. I'm representing our household, as it were, at the party tonight. Like a lot of gay bars here, it isn't a pick-uppy place at all--more like a pub where you can meet your friends and talk and act the way you want. (It's labeled 会員制 (kaiinsei: "members only") outside the door, but that's just to keep reveling straight people from blundering in and getting themselves all weirded out. You don't actually need an introduction from someone who's already a regular customer the way you do at many other Japanese gay places.) Atsushi and I know all the regulars, so I'll be in for a lot of matey gibes about my ongoing work-widow status. Happily, I think there are two bank holiday weekends in October, so he might actually have a chance to recharge a little.

Oh, yeah, did something gay happen in California this week? Hmm. Sample reaction (the comments, not the main post): Bleating about the democratic process? Check. Mewling about equal protection? Check. Hysterically brandishing dodgy civil rights analogies? Check.

Where, oh where, I keep asking myself, do people get the idea that gays are cheap opportunists with self-centered princess complexes? I just don't understand, you know?

Michael's been having some interesting discussions in bars lately. He talked to a couple who were at the Superdome during the hurricane and gave him a thorough accounting of the conditions there. It's a good read, reassuring in some parts and disturbing in others. I hope they have some time to catch their wind before they head back to New Zealand; the 20-hour flight time would probably be enough to finish me off after that ordeal, even if my own bed were waiting at the end.

The kind of bed that was waiting...no, let's not go there. Michael's other conversation was with the manager/bartender of a gay bar who was straight. There are a lot of those here in Tokyo, too; some owners prefer that the bartenders be sort of inaccessible-fantasy material for the patrons. That's easier to do if they're not gay and therefore won't be tempted to date a customer. Tough break if you're hot for one, though.

Heh-heh. One of the search terms I got a referral from over the last few days was "'rob mârciano' hairy chest."

Yeah, I was wondering, too. Before anyone starts with the can't-you-queers-ever-see-a-half-decent-looking-guy-without-imagining-him-with-his-clothes-off? routine...well, the answer is no.

HOWEVER, that's not the point in this case. The point is that your only other option during his live hurricane coverage was to pay attention to what he was saying. One of the problems with 24-hour cable news is that even when the story isn't actually developing, the reporters have to keep talking. I'm sure Rob's a bright guy, but since he couldn't stand there and say, "There sure is a lot of wind and rain here," and then shut up, he was driven to offering patter on the order of, "The National Weather Service has predicted that the rain is going to get even more severe, which our experts say indicates that a great deal of water will fall from the sky." That's not a problem if, like Julie Brown, you like 'em big and stupid. Personally, I felt it was only kind to Rob out there to hope that the weather gods would send a gust of wind strong enough to yank that pancho down away from his throat so we could get a good gander before they cut away to someone who had useful information to impart. (On the other hand, at least we didn't ever get a look at Anderson Cooper south of the collar--you just know sugarcakes either is scarily baby-smooth or just has a half-dozen wires around his nipples.)

You know when you fall hard for someone you can never have? Of course, you do--we've all done it. It's one of life's great equalizers, since no matter how good-looking, built, successful, smart, and fun-loving you are, there are going to be people to whom you are not irresistible. Everyone gets the chance to be laid low (but not, frustratingly, laid) by desire at times.

As with most sticky situations, handling this one honorably and pragmatically requires delicacy. You have a few options:

• Do the very traditional thing and hide your feelings entirely


• Hide your feelings from everyone except a confidant or two

That first has the disadvantage of not allowing you the tiny hope that someday circumstances might change in your favor. However, it has the advantage of...well, not allowing you the tiny hope that someday circumstances might change in your favor, which can be a very effective self-torture instrument. If you refuse to talk to anyone--not just the object of your unrequited affections, but anyone else also--you're forced to think about other things to do and talk about. The distraction thus effected may not be as miraculously healing as Mother always used to say, but it works better than anything else.

The second seems to be the course of action that most people go for, but it has its drawbacks. Let's just say that, ten years ago when I was coming out, I was the confider...and for the last several years, the gods have paid me back GOOD by frequently making me the confidee. In my conservative Christian upbringing, I frequently heard that if you once gave in to your sexual desire, you'd soon find that it had expanded to the point of taking over your life and making you a total sex maniac. I've never found that to be true. What I've found people do become addicted to is pouring out their self-pity to an always-ready listener. Weekly orgies of sorrow that start with "Why does it hurt so much?"--and descend from there--don't do much to get your mind off your troubles.

Um, and then there's a third possible course of action:

• Bottle everything up, except for neurotically flirtatious comments dropped at regular intervals (which your unwilling intended has no choice but to politely turn aside), then one day completely lose control and deliver a savage, tearful tirade in which you essentially accuse him of leading you on by treating you like all his other friends

I have to say that I don't care for that particular approach, efficacious though it be at conveying in no uncertain terms how abject you are. It's not just that it's unfair to hold someone responsible for feelings he made no effort to stir up; it's also that from then on he's going to have little choice but to give you a wide berth. That, or be gingerly and pitying in his dealings with you, which is generally not that good for the ego. It really is helpful to keep in mind that there are good reasons that most civilized behavior has strong elements of repression.

Years ago, a friend of mine announced that there was an International Conspiracy of Raisins. I loathe raisins as much as she does, so I knew what she was talking about immediately. None of our other friends had a clue, so in between guffaws we had to explain. See, you'll be at a diner or somewhere, and you'll order the apple pie. What will come to your table will be a slice of pie in which there are raisins all among the apples, and when you say, "Oh, if I'd known there were raisins in it, I would have gone for the coconut custard," the waitress will start noticeably and say, "Oh, yeah, there are raisins in the apple pie. Never noticed before." The raisins have clearly found a way to hide in plain sight from people. With such advanced capabilities, they'll take over the world within our lifetimes.

The reason I mention this is that I just realized for the first time that every gay man in Tokyo has a goatee. I mean, everyone. People have been commenting on my beard--no one's ever seen me anything but cleanshaven or just slightly scruffy--and I keep starting to say, "Well, you know, I actually don't like goatees much at all..." then looking up into a drily expectant face and having to keep going with "on myself, I mean--but just because I can't carry one off as well as you do, big guy!" This is seriously weird. If you'd asked me before this week, I would have told you that a good 80% of my acquaintances were cleanshaven. I don't think I'm all that unobservant, but I really didn't notice how many guys with little beards there were around me before. Now I'm wondering what else I've never noticed.

Atsushi is coming tomorrow--first time in a month, and not a moment too soon. I spent the night of 9/11 quivering with anger and staring at the television while he came in from time to time to make me more tea and sit with me for a bit; he had to get up at 6:30, but I don't think I was alone for longer than 45 minutes the whole night.

The hurricane coverage isn't the same, because it didn't involve an initial jolt followed by days of looking for answers. If there's one thing you get used to from living in Japan, it's seeing the initial reports of minimal damage after an earthquake or typhoon give way to far grimmer discoveries in succeeding days--but of course Japan hasn't had anything near the broad and deep destruction that was just worked on the Gulf Coast. Poor Atsushi has spent the last few weeks working overtime every business day and going into the office on Saturday and Sunday. I'm going to do my best to provide the two-day respite he deserves, but I'm afraid he's going to come home tomorrow to a boyfriend who can't stop bellowing at CNN but can't stop watching it either.

I'm also scruffier than usual: my dermatologist told me to grow a beard. Well, she didn't put it that way, but she told me that some of the treatments I've gotten lately would heal better without having a razor dragged over the affected area. I grew out the whole thing for a week. Last night, I was told approvingly by friends that I looked "very hard-gay." There was unseemly speculation over what color leather goods would best complete the look. But by today I was ready to claw all the skin off my jawline. I'm not fond of goatees, but I have one now as a compromise; it's my chin I'm not supposed to be abrading, so at least I was able to clean up my itching cheeks. My poor Atsushi may look kind of scuffed up by the time he goes back to Kyushu, though.