How Gay Are You?

Years ago on Saturday Night Live, they had a game show skit called, “Quien Esta Mas Macho?” They would put up a photo of two famous people, and you had to guess. For example, Kathleen Turner and Edie Falco. Ponder that for a minute. I remember Lloyd Bridges was considered more macho than Robert Conrad, but I don’t remember why. Maybe it had something to do with the battery on Robert's shoulder because it takes poise to balance a D-cell.

Personally, I wanted them to play “Quien Esta Mas Homosexual?” My friend Christian told me the word is the same in Spanish and English, just pronounced differently – in Spanish: “homoseksual” with an accent on “al” if I remember correctly. It sounds more like a lifestyle in Spanish and a choice in English even though I was born that way. I would then put up a picture of Tom Cruise and George Clooney. Tough choice.

The thing is as much as I don’t know about designers and flowers and Broadway, I come off as the winner in ninety percent of the pairings. I continue to lose to George Michael and Beiberbelieberassholeteenageslouchypantswearingnotalentlesbianlookingtwink.

What if there were a quiz you could take to find out how gay you are? Of if you are straight curious, whether you might in fact be a friend of Dorothy … or Lucy … or Barbra ….

For example. Who is your favorite Angel? If you said Gabriel. Why are you reading my blog? If you said Sabrina Duncan, you are in fact, very gay. Kate Jackson as Sabrina Duncan provides us with the most basic test for gayness. She is the favorite of both gay men and lesbians!

If you said Jaclyn Smith as Kelly Garrett, you are bisexual.

If you said Farrah Fawcett as Jill Munroe, you are hopelessly heterosexual. However, once she burned that bed, all gay men and lesbians glammed onto her. Who hasn’t wanted to burn an ex’s bed? You haven’t? Oh. Neither have I.

Here is another one, Chevrolet Vega or Ford Pinto? Pinto of course. Sabrina drove a Pinto!

How about Laura Ashley or Martha Stewart? Who gives a shit?

Here are some more questions?

Do you know the difference between a duvet and a sham? A duvet is a cocktail and a sham was when Tyra Sanchez won RuPaul’s Drag Race. Oh wait. That is Dubonnet. I told you I knew nothing about decorating.

If you were offered tickets to see Celine Dion or Barry Manilow, which would you accept? Barry Manilow, of course, so you could watch his face and see if it moves then dish on him with your friends after the concert. For the record, I am a huge Barry Manilow fan, but I still razz on his face. Come to think of it, no one has razzed on my face in years.

What are your pet’s names? I remember going to a gay comedy show years ago, and one of the comics said that gay men's pets run away because of the names we give them. Then he imitated a flaming queen running through the park screaming, “Lorna, Joey, Liza, come back!”

By the way, if you know who Lorna, Joey and Liza are, you are sooooo gay. My dogs were named after characters on Bewitched. Need I say more?

My favorites are the macho gays. I have an old friend into wrestling and boxing and mixed martial arts, and we used to date when dinosaurs roamed the earth and K-cars were all the rage. Needless to say, relations with him were quite active and sweaty with lots of grunting and tests of strength and growling and … excuse me for a second. It was getting warm in here. Anyway, once the session was over, he would start talking about movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, and this hairy, muscular, macho ape would have nothing but purses and pearls flying out of his mouth. Some found it off-putting, but I found it refreshing.

I still talk to him on the phone every once in a while, and he can go from Lloyd Bridges to Tom Cruise in a heartbeat.

I have another acquaintance who talks like a creepy kindergarten teacher, rhyming every other word in a very high-pitched voice. At the insistence of several friends, we once went on an actual date, which in the gay world means you will end up in the bedroom at some point either before or after dinner. Once there, he turned into a dark dungeon master. To this day, I still can’t decide who was creepier, Mrs. Landers by day or Vincent Price by night – who by the way was not gay.

The worst part is when you find out that one of your most fem friends is a scary creature in the bedroom. I have an old acquaintance, who has a reputation for sleeping around, to put it mildly. By day, he is this happy go lucky accountant who makes light hearted jokes and loves to bake fruity desserts with lots of flair. However, I know of a few people who have had relations with him, and what they have told me creeped me out. In the bedroom, he either whispers or says in a very low voice, “Who’s my boy? Yeah. Are you my boy? Yeah. You want Daddy to …” I can’t go on. Just the thought of him acting like that gives me the willies.

I always wanted to see if I could get kindergarten teacher and happy go lucky together and record just the sound then play it in the background of a haunted house.

Somebody in a gym years ago said he could tell gay people by the shoes they wore. According to him, they all wore pointy-toed shoes. So, I guess Robin Hood was gay. Maid Marian must have been a drag queen.

Another theorized that you could tell if a guy was gay if he talked a lot with his hands flailing around. That means all Italian men are gay. If only that were true.

My favorite of course was the theory that all gay men had loud domineering mothers and emotionally distant fathers. That would make every Jewish man in America gay. Come to think of it, whenever they seek out a spokesman from a gay organization for the evening newscast, he is always somebody named Greenberg, Steinberg or Weinstein. He is also always some nebishy queen with a whiny voice. I wonder why I am never called for a sound bite. 

Here is one last one for the road.

You go to buy a car and you can have one of two options but not both – seat warmers or a sunroof.

Think about it.

That is so gay. Follow me, join my email list, buy my books: www.miltonstern.com.