Too gay to get laid?

Am I masculine enough to be gay? At first glance, it seemed like a ridiculous question to ask. To be more direct, am I masculine enough to have gay sex, get laid; get the boy I see in the magazines. Am I masculine enough for him? I don’t carry a purse. I’ve never worn lip-gloss or eyeliner.

I ask myself what is the real fear and I know as a child I never liked to get into fist fights. It wasn’t that I was scared of getting hit. I just thought it was beneath me like wearing white after Labor Day. I couldn’t understand why little boys always needed to punch on each other. As a male it felt as if I was constantly being tested by other males. The stronger men always sniffed out the weakest link. I guess I was afraid of being the weakest link which meant a lifetime of protecting myself from random harassment. It was the life of men. I thought that would change when I came out the closet. I wasn’t wearing a dress. I had on normal clothes.

I remember when I was a child, it was as if they could smell on me that I was different, wasn’t like the other boys, and they tried to beat it out of me. My father was the first person to call me a faggot. He said I walked like one. I didn’t understand what he meant. I walked like me. He used to say no son of his was going to grow up be a sissy as long he lived. Lucky for me he died when I was five years old. The comments wouldn’t stop. I tried to change. I straightened my walk. I deepened my voice. In high school I looked the part but I still wasn’t like other boys. I didn’t swoon at every girl that walked by. The hardest part was trying to convince my best friend. He liked going to the mall on weekends and find girls. I followed but wasn’t as interested. But I learned to fake it. I got more girls than him. It was because girls weren’t threatened by me. It was my sensitivity. In my yearbook, he wrote, in the beginning I thought you were gay, but you proved to be a straight up pimp. I never told him I was gay. Even when I overcompensated my masculinity there was something effeminate about me. It was how I held my hands. It was how I broke out in spontaneous song and dance. It was in my eyes. I could never hide it in my eyes. I thought when I came out that would be the end of pretending that I liked sports or drank beer. I thought it would be the end of being afraid that it smelled on me, that I was clockable, and I could finally be accepted. It wasn’t until I tried to get laid that I realized I wasn’t so free to be me.

Sometimes I forget I have a choice.

After chatting back and forth on the sex sites, we decided to exchange numbers. I waited anxiously by the phone. I fixed myself another cocktail. The phone rung. His voice was deep when he asked for me. I felt intimidated. The bass tingled against my ear like he was kissing my neck. I lowered and deepened my voice like coming out of my underwear. It felt a little awkward trying to be something I wasn’t like talking dirty. I was a choir boy. I knew neither one of us spoke that way. But it was late morning, and I was horny, and I didn’t want to scare him away. I remember back in my college days of the phone line. I remember how I would sit in my dorm room and record my message to seduce other men to think I was some street thug. I record the message over and over again until I felt satisfied-- that I conveyed some social stereotype of a young black male: dangerous, delinquent, uneducated and hung. I was none of those things.

When I was thirteen years old, my older cousin busted my lip because he said I sounded like a girl. I questioned if he hated women? Why else would he attack me? What was so wrong about sounding like a girl because my voice hadn’t yet changed? I knew he treated all his women like trash. He wanted to be the pimp. I asked myself were black men overcompensating their masculinity because too many of us grew up without fathers. The gangsta rappers boast about slapping bitches and pimping hos, but they’re down for their niggas. Wasn’t that gay?

Under normal circumstances I stay away from those men who with too many rules. If they say they want uber-mascilinity in their profile, I usually assume they weren’t speaking to me. On the scale of black male masculinity from Rupaul to Busta Rhymes, I considered myself more Al Roker or Wayne Brady.

“You let that queen on top of you” a friend shouted at me one afternoon as we cruised the popular black gay sex sites. I didn’t understand the question. I remembered the guy being a nice guy. I had a good time with him. He was assertive and sensitive at the same time. I guess my friend didn’t know him as the masculine idea. He said that he was more effeminate than some drag queens. I just remember he had a really hard dick and what did his masculinity have to do with his true sexuality. He was a great lover in bed. I felt bullied by my friend’s comment. It made me insecure if I was masculine enough. Gay men have said they wanted a "boy" in the streets and a "bitch" in bed. They never understood how much it took to be a bitch in the bed and a boy in the streets. A person could get confused trying to play so many roles. I sometimes forgot and was a bitch in the streets and a boy with a clenched up booty hole in the bedroom.

And I’ve had those so called “homothugs” or DL bruthas. They slap you on your ass like taming a street hooker. They fuck like they’re raping you. When I was young, I used to think that was sexy “getting my back banged out.” But it was how I felt afterwards, that he didn’t respect me. That he thought of me as weak. He’d make me feel conflicted about my masculinity. It was as if he was proving those who tried to beat it out of me, right. He was proving that I wasn’t a man, that I deserved the harassment, the name calling, the gay bashing because some men hated women and I reminded them of that hate. I was the worse type of black man, a man who didn’t hate women. I felt that hate in the “homothugs” geting my back pushed down and banged like fists. It felt violent.

I never considered myself masculine. I played golf, soccer and tennis in high school. I was on the chess club and decathlon team. I was president of Student Council, Toastmasters and Honor Society. I always considered myself nerdish. I liked show tunes and science fiction. I preferred board games to dominoes or spades. I never liked beer. I couldn’t play basketball or football.

I never considered myself masculine because I didn’t hate women. I didn’t disrespect them. I was sensitive to their feelings. I understood women. I was always closer to the girls. I didn’t have that caveman syndrome of knocking my female prize over the head and dragging her back to my cave. I guess because I didn’t see women as the hunt. It wasn’t sexual with women which meant there was no power play.


Sometimes I forget I have a choice. When asked how masculine I am, I usually tell the guy I’ve had it beaten out of me.

I have to remember the rage I felt when someone called me a faggot in high school. I have to remember all that agony living in fear afraid someone was going to fight me. I have to remember how many times I cried because I failed at playing the role. I hated being so damn conscience of my every move. I hated living in fear.

I’m not masculine. But I will fight you.