Now that Clay Aiken has officially come out of the closet, calling the move “the first decision I made as a father,” his most outspoken fans, the oft-mocked Claymates, are slowly inching from bargaining to acceptance. I’ve been observing their reactions from afar since lastnight, when the ban on the People cover story discussion was lifted at The Clayboard and members commenced consoling each other and weighing in on the announcement.
From “The Clayboard,” a fan forum dedicated to Clay Aiken of American Idol:
“Clay fans are brave and loyal and loving, and sometimes they are truly tested. Hugs to everyone who has weathered the storm.”
Honestly, I’m surprised. I was expecting all kinds of crying and carrying on, but apparently the subject of Aiken’s appearance on the cover of People magazine — he is shown cradling his newborn son alongside the headline “Yes, I’m Gay” and the words “The Idol star opens up about his emotional decision to come out: ‘I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things'”—is verboten until the authenticity of the story has been established.
For the record, a USA Today entertainment blogger has already posted that while People doesn’t have the cover on their website yet, “they confirm it’s real.” And there is currently a red breaking news style banner running across the top of the magazine’s website that advises readers to “Come back Wednesday for the full scoop on Clay Aiken at 7 A.M. EDT.”
The 18-year-old daughter of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick came out in Bay Windows, a New England-based GLBT newspaper, today. Katherine Patrick, who will attend Smith College in the fall, was interviewed with her father, a longtime champion of gay rights, and her mother, Diane. Rather adorably, the governor got teary-eyed when his daughter praised his successful effort to defeat a proposed anti-gay marriage amendment to theMassachusetts Constitutionin 2007. Katherine also noted, of her initial coming out to her parents, that “the first thing my dad did was, [he] wrapped me in a bear hug and said, ‘Well, we love you no matter what.'” Which reminds me of my own coming out, if I might digress.
It was a muggy night in August, just weeks before my senior year of high school was about to start,and I was alone with my parents. (That isn’t something that happens very often when you have three siblings.) I’m not sure how the conversation came about, just that I was very nervous. I’m afraid it might have gone something like this:
Mom: So, how ’bout that heat?
Dad: Yeah, it’s really something.
Me: I’m gay! I’m a homosexual! I like girls!
Because sometimes, when I’m anxious about something, I have trouble following conversations. (I also have trouble following conversations even when I’m not anxious about anything, but that’s not your problem now, is it?) If memory serves, it was quiet for a while. I remember my face feeling red, which tends to happen anytime I talk in front of anybody, and my parents exchanging one of those very parental glances, the kind that lets you know they’ve secretly been discussing this very subject behind your back for weeks or months or possibly years. Then my dad slowly extended his hand, not to pull me into an emotional embrace but to demand the $50 he bet my mom that I was a big ‘mo.
Anyway, read the interview with the Patrick family. They all sound very cool.
Bass originally approached People about coming out as Anne Murray.
In a vlog entry posted on his website yesterday, gossip guru Perez Hilton made some observations about the way the media treats the practice of outing queer celebrities that I thought bore repeating. If you want to watch the video yourself, the topic comes up around the 1:52 mark. If you’d rather read his remarks, I’ve transcribed them below:
The last thing I wanted to talk about today was something that I’ve really been thinking about recently. You know, a couple years ago I got so much crap, and I still get so much crap from people and the media for quote-unquote ‘outing’ celebrities.
Two years ago, I reported about Lance Bass’s secret relationship with his then-boyfriend, douchebag Reichen. I reported on the trips they would take together, I reported on the dates they would go on, I reported on the fights they would get into. All of this before Lance Bass officially came out of the closet — and helped his career by coming out, because he had no career before he came out.
Anywho, I got criticized so much for that, for reporting what I knew to be true. Well, I find it really interesting that the same thing is happening now, only it’s the mainstream media doing the outing. The mainstream media nowadays is reporting about Samantha Ronson’s alleged, reported lesbian relationship with Lindsay Lohan. And no one is calling them out on the outing. They’re not even using the word outing, they’re using the word reporting.
I don’t know if that makes me upset or it makes me happy, because I think actually it makes me happy that they’re treating them the same, and it’s to me a sign of equality. But also maybe it’s not.
Maybe it’s a sign of inequality. Maybe gay men and lesbians or bisexual women or Lindsay Lohan is held to different standards. Maybe it’s okay for Lindsay to be experimenting but for a guy, it could potentially be damaging to his career.
Like everybody still freaks out when I say Wentworth Miller is gay. Well, Wentworth Miller, star of Prison Break, is a homosexual. Yes, Wentworth Miller likes to suck cock. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Lindsay Lohan reportedly loves to eat pussy, and there’s nothing wrong with that, either.
What’s so interesting is even a ‘safe’ media outlet like People magazine who loves to play it safe reported in their most recent issue that Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan are, quote, ‘definitely together.’ People magazine is saying that Lindsay and Samantha are ‘definitely together.’
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that ‘definitely together’ means they’re in a relationship, they’re dating. People magazine outed Lindsay Lohan. How come nobody is calling them out on it? I don’t know. Or should they, should they not? Is the fact that no one is calling them out on it a good thing? I don’t know.
I’m not going to write a treatise on the ethics of outing, or what constitutes an outing, or anything like that. For one thing, I need to conserve my energy since I have a long day of tennis-viewing ahead of me. (It really wears you out watching other people run around like that.) For another, I’m lazy even when not in energy conservation mode. But I will suggest that celebrities like Bass and Lohan effectively out themselves when they don’t attempt to hide their same-sex relationships, which is why I take exception to the argument favored by Hilton’s critics that his so-called outing campaigns are tantamount to some kind of a gay witch hunt.
And to briefly touch on Hilton’s question of whether there’s a gender-driven double standard at work in how the media goes about outing celebrities, I think he’s right to a certain (possibly large) extent. However, it’s reductive to simply call it a discomfort-with-male-sexuality issue. In reality, there are all kinds of gender politics at work, from the way society has a tendency to be utterly dismissive of lesbianism and female bisexuality to the way celebrity-obsessed magazines and tabloid TV shows so aggressively exploit women in general and young women like Lohan in particular.
“Touch my Melissa CD and I’ll break your neck, twerp.”
When former American Gladiator “Zap” told Maxim magazine earlier this month that “half the team was lesbians at one time,” the world replied with a resounding “Duh.” Okay, the world didn’t seem to react at all, but had it done so, you can safely assume the response would have been split between “Duh” and a puzzled “Only half?”
Last week, one of those lesbians announced herself on Access Hollywood, and it was none other than Lori “Ice” Fetrick, who once appeared on an episode of Ellen. Fetrick told the program that she has been gay since she was 18 years old, by which she probably meant she realized she was gay at 18.
To be fair, you never know with a gladiator: she might’ve graduated high school and decided to become a lesbian the way some people decide to become a mechanic. Gladiators are, after all, a special breed, and can become anything they want simply by setting their minds to it. (I once read that Hawk actually turned himself into a hawk.)
About her sexuality, Fetrick said, “It was something that when I was on the Gladiators I never talked about because I was in the height of my fame. You can’t talk about it, just like everybody says right now — you can’t talk about being gay when you are in the height of your glory.”
By which she probably meant — well, I have no clue what she meant. I’ve read that quote several times and am still lost. Words like “gladiators” and “height of your glory” simply don’t compute, although she’s obviously right that it was uncommon for public figures of that era to come out.
Despite that, the notion that Ice’s sexuality was unknown to her adoring public isn’t entirely true. I was a kid at the height of her fame (my brother and I spent our summers watching Gladiator reruns), oblivious to the concept of homosexuality, oblivious even to my own glaring homosexuality, and yet somehow I knew Ice was a lesbian of Gertrude Steinian proportions. She was my favorite gladiator because of it, and the reason I chose this photo to accompany a previous post.
Fetrick acknowledges as much in her Access Hollywood interview, coyly suggesting that some of her fans knew she was gay. Remembering the fun she had with fellow Gladiators, she said, “Nitro and myself used to have contests on the road.” Which means you weren’t imagining things when you thought they were both flirting with Ellen Morgan.
Surely I’m not the only misanthropic homo who makes a beeline for the Internet Movie Database message boards the second an actor comes out of the closet. IMDb users aren’t just a notoriously homophobic and semi-illiterate bunch, they also have the world’s worst-calibrated gaydar this side of Senator Larry Craig’s wife. If you don’t believe me, try reading up on Michelle Rodriguez or Wentworth Miller. (And might I point out that before T.R. Knight came out of the closet, his delusional IMDb fans had him secretly involved with Katherine Heigl? Plus, Neil Patrick Harris can’t be gay. He likes Kate Winslet!)
To celebrate Adamo Ruggiero, who plays Marco on TV’s Degrassi, coming out of the closet, I was going to compile a list of IMDb quotes debating his sexuality. You can imagine my surprise when I found these comments, taken from years-old threads called “He’s Not Gay in Real Life” and “Why Everyone Thinks He’s Gay,” instead:
“I don’t know him personally, but he goes to my highschool and my friends who know him tell me he’s not really gay.”
“reed his profile its sounds a little gay but i dont care if he is gay –i still think hes hott!!!”
“ok he so is not gay in real life, and his profile doesnt sound gay either! How can a pf sound gay??????? hello have some sence.!”
“hey is gay i saw him kiss another guy in my school”
“I doubt that he’s gay. After all, it is ACTING. I could act like a lesbian if I tried, and it wouldn’t mean anything. But that whole shaggy hair look is SOOOO sexy. (From season 2) I’d wanna make him turn straight if he was really gay!!!”
“Adamo’s not really gay?! OH THANK GOD! Even though I still doubt that I have a chance because he’s too much older than me for us to date, I’m soo happy. I had a few doubts because on DeGrassi unscripted he kindof came off as gay with the shoes and the hats. And he does too good a job of acting gay. But again THANK GOD HE’S NOT GAY!”
“he is gay…my friend lives two houses away from him and we hear him listening to Britny Spears and like other girl songs…plus his boyfrind is there almost everyday…he might be bi…but he definately likes men and acts gay when we see him…but im not saying thats a bad thing or anything”
“I listen to Britney Spears and I’m not a lesbian.”
“ok wow…that was the least smart comment ive seen here on these posts. First of all just cause someone listens to Britney and is male doesnt mean hes gay…it means he has poor choice in music..lol..second of all my brother..is gay and listens to Britney. Yes there are many gay males who adore her…But not all do. THIRD OF ALL…for you…girly who made a comment about you listening to Britney Spears and not being a lesbian..I think they made the previous comment based on the fact that he is MALE listening to Britney..Lots of girly girls listen or have listened to Britney..Me? Personally? Hell no..Now…if you are a female and listening to…K.D. Lang or Melissa Etheridge that would make more sense of why someone would think you were a lesbian. NOT that straight people cant listen to them or that ALL lesbians DO listen to them. I AM a lesbian actually and I listen to SOME of Melissas songs but none of K.D. Lang. So..think before you type lol.”
“screw britney and destiny’s child, the real proof lies in his listening to the goddess of queer music: JUDY GARLAND!!”
“i saw him at a gay club called ‘buddies’ last night. he was dancing right beside me and i knew it was him. and then i saw him having a smoke outside with a friend. my guess is that he is gay.”
“If anyone has seen his Degrassi Unscripted you can see that there is something defintely not straight about him. His flamboyant hand movements the fact that he kept saying “And All that Jazz” and his room was done in some kind of pink tone.. And when it showed his cd collection he had the spice girls… Come on… I pretty sure Degrassi Unscripted is supposed to show what actors are like beyond their characters so unless Canadian men like to dance around saying And All that Jazz and listen to the Spice Girls…”
“He’s probably bi because he’s been playing a gay character for 3 years.”
“ok. have you seen his unscripted? his room looks like a twelve year old girls room. he talks gay. i seriously did not think he was gay in real life but geez, he is gayy”
“Adamo’s straight just like Lance Bass is.”
“He is completely gay. I mean come on. Look at his 100% feminine-lookin ass.”
“You are a moron. He is NOT gay!”
“He is gay. My friend’s friend actually dated him for about 5 months last year, and he is a guy.”
It’s official, if a little hard on the eyes (and brain) to scroll through: 15-year-olds have better gaydar than Jodie Foster fans. It indicates social progress, sure, but it was also bittersweet to find so few replies pompously pointing out that not everyone is gay. Maybe that’s the kind of bitchiness that is only learned with age.
