Kiss an Old Fag Today!!!

[September 5th, 2001]

"You don't look 39."

Could four words be more discouraging for a gay man than that? I don't think so.

Last week, during the once-a-year event that is my birthday, I was greeted with this killjoy cliché close to a kajillion times. I don't want to sound like some namby-pamby pussy boy, but it was all I could do not to burst into tears.

Why?

Simple. It's not OK to be gay and old. It's just not done. If it were, we wouldn't have older gents reduced to hanging their shrively dicks out to dry at bathhouses, glory holes or penis-enlargement clinics.

In the midlife-crisis area, straight men have it made. Straight men get Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Gay men get boldly patterned sweaters. Straight men become distinguished Rotarians. Gay men become neon-thong wearing, hairy-backed fatties. Straight men dump the wifey-poo, surrounding themselves with fake breasts and wads of conspicuous cash. Gay men stock up on hand cream, enema bags and Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs. Ultimately, gay men are plagued with the same unreasonable standards as straight women: Beauty is everything.

And the weird thing is we do it to each other. It doesn't need to be that way. The only way one truly becomes old is when one starts to feel old. Besides our youth-obsessed media, what really makes you start to feel like an old gay fart is the sense that there's no room at the bar to be yourself.

Hello! Didn't our Quentin Crisp-ish forefathers work in the trenches just so all of us could be out, proud and true to ourselves for our entire lives? Are they not among the biggest reasons that young, beautiful, tight-assed queers can wake up in the morning, strap on a pair of short-shorts and not regret being gay?

We sure have a shitty way of thanking them for their unselfish act in the name of man-love. We ignore them. Or worse yet, make fun of them for being so "old." The closest many of these decrepit dudes get to a semi-hard penis comes courtesy of a strip club and a dollar bill. It's shameful and incredibly screwed-up.

I'm only 39, for God's sake. My "good gay years" should last a little bit longer than Greg Louganis' acting career. If all I have to look forward to in my old age is figuring out which ascot looks good with my blue blazer, you might as well measure me for my casket right now.

You know, straight men may be inferior in many ways to queer boys (looks, style, dance moves, etc.), but in the aging department they definitely have us beat. Straight guys may hate getting old as much as we do, but their whole culture doesn't seem to depend it. It really sucks.

Besides, next year I have to turn the big four-oh, and I would sure like to be able to leave the house without feeling like I should be carrying a designer colostomy bag.