The Most Caustic Questions I’m Asked as a Gay Man

by Lucas Witherspoon

“Why do gay people have to act so gay?”

First of all, you’re using the word ‘gay’ to stereotype gay men as all being Cher-loving, hip-swishing, limp-wristed, lisp-having queens and gay women as being Home Depot-obsessed, flannel-wearing, Lillith Fair-attending dykes. Being gay doesn’t determine our personalities, it’s simply establishes what sex we’re attracted to. Secondly, it isn’t gay people who have made our sexual orientation a public matter, it’s been straight people.

“I don’t mind gay people, I just don’t wanna see it.”

I don’t particularly care to see you and your 300-pound wife publicly displaying your affection for each other either, but I deal with it because, hey, you’re in love, so who am I to inveigh that? I don’t know many people whose humanity would tell them that love is wrong, so when you’re perturbed by two people of the same sex harmlessly expressing their love, it’s not necessarily because you’re bothered by the adulation itself, it’s because you’ve been instilled with the belief that homosexuality is wrong or unnatural in some way, which is a scientifically unfounded notion.

“Do you know…?”

Yes, there are an estimated four million citizens in the U.S. who self-identify as LGBT and we all know each other.

“Are you the female or male in the relationship?”

Last I checked, males have penises and females have vaginas, meaning male-on-male relationships would be comprised of two men and female-on-female relationships two women. By asking this question, you’re not only ignoring the obvious biology of the situation, but assuming that in all relationships each partner should be expected to adhere to an inane gender role that’s been set forth by society, so you’re being doubly ignorant.

“Can you hook me up with _________________?”

Do I look like a walking eHarmony billboard? No, I cannot hook you up. How about instead of going through the gay guy, you grow the balls to ask a woman out on your own?

“Why do you have to be gay?!”

While I appreciate the fact you find me to be the perfect man, I am not interested in your vagina whatsoever. I may motorboat you on occasion, but rest assured it’s completely platonic.

When did you first realize you were gay?

Though the concept of sexual orientation is a bit too complex to comprehend at birth, I can securely say I was born gay, and came to realize I was once the concept of sexuality hit at about age five.

“I have nothing against gay people, but…”

If you have to include the conjunction “but,” then you obviously do have a stigma that’s prominent enough to make you feel as though you have to issue the public statement, “I have nothing against gay people, but…”