#13: Being religious

Because religion is nothing if not a set of inarguable justifications. For behavior, for intentions--they are rules, and if you are following rules, then you are not suspicious, are not a suspect. You are noble. At first, religion can just be an excuse, internally, for why the closetcase can never come to terms with who he truly is--being gay is a sin (ask anybody) and if he is spending his life avoiding sin, then what does it mean if there is a sin LIVING INSIDE OF HIM?? How does one come to terms with that over which he has no control? There are two ways to go here.

One: You can tell yourself that 'everybody has these types of feelings' and that makes it a CHOICE and you are CHOOSING not to be gay. I have met people like this. "Being gay is a choice." "Did you choose to be straight then?" "YES I DID." "Oh..." If it is a choice, then you are straight, and there is a cure, and you will be okay. Being gay becomes like alcoholism--maybe something you are predisposed to, but can overcome with enough conviction. It is TEMPTATION, and the godbible says that temptation is the devilbot and must be overcome, y'all. This is good for the closetcase because he is scared as shit of his true feelings and of losing everyone he loves, and of going to HELL. Remedy? Stop believing in fairytales, stop fearing death, and live while you still can. The other scenario?

Scenario Two: Realize that being gay is not a choice, but living a lie is a choice, and choose to do that. This doesn't even come with the awesome mania of religious zealotry. This is just openly choosing to hate yourself and everyone around you, but allowing some chick, who doesn't know any better because she's as dumb as you are, to marry your stupid ass and be miserable with you forever and shit. What will happen, invariably, is this gay side of you will begin to seep out, slowly at first, then more rapidly, with more intensity, until you are blowing people you shouldn't. Maybe it's a cop in a bathroom. Maybe it's a weak-minded young person whom you are taking advantage of. Whatever, the point is, it will be unhealthy, and you will be middle-aged by this point, and it will be over for you. You would have left a trail of unhappiness in your wake, and how do you justify that enough to go to heaven, brah? We love you, we're just saying. The remedy? Get a boyfriend.

Of course some people need some kind of faith in something, especially if having faith in themselves is not enough, or if they really like their parents and so have to pretend to believe what their parents told them or else they will feel as if they are betraying them. We can tell from experience, y'all: it's hard to put your future in your own hands entirely, instead of partially in a god's. It takes a lot of work. So we start small. Just choose not to use people out of fear. Everybody has feelings, and just because you don't care about your own doesn't mean it's okay to not care about other people's. If you don't want to come out, just shut up about anything gay. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT IT. Good, bad, you cannot be an authority, bro. The next step would be liking yourself, and realizing that maybe if believing in something is ruining your life, maybe it's not for you. We wish the world was different, too. So bad, y'all.

Party pix via the cobra snake

#8: Promiscuity

The good ol' fashioned hetero kind. Because homophobia is basically mysogony. That's not totally my own theorum--I think Dan Savage talked about this in an interview, but it's probably the truest thing out of anything we will ever talk about here. You see, guys, as a whole (we're not talking about dudes who are cool as hell, cuz those guys're cool), but, uh...oh right, guys tend to see women as inferior, but not necessarily because they have a philosophy against women, per se. For example, they think chicks are h0t and stuff. It's just a matter of how they view existence, it's how the language is constructed, how our society is skewed, even subliminally. Guys "throw like girls", or "run like girls," or wear tight jeans, like "girls' jeans." (You've heard this before, just bear with us). When a girl tells another girl to "man up," it means be strong, to fight, stand up for yourself, for what you want or what you believe. When a guy tells another guy (or a girl tells another girl) to not be such a girl about shit, they don't mean "don't be thoughtful" or "don't consider how this will make you feel in the long run." They essentially mean, don't be annoying--don't think with your heart (hearts like little fags that live in your chest). Man up forever, yo.

So, like we said, being a girl sucks. Guys brag about when a girl inserts their penine into their mouth-holes because haha she totally ate that shit, bro! Do you get it? THE THINGS THAT GIRLS DO, THOSE THINGS ARE DEMEANING AND FOR GIRLS; ONLY DO THINGS THE GUYS WAY ONLY. That's why gey guys suck--because they do things that girls do. No, I don't mean in the stereotypical, gheys like Project Runway kind of way. I mean in the geys go down on other guys way (that shit is awesome, I know, but that's not the popular perception YET). All kinds of guys are into sports, or into acheiving, or into making someone proud, whoever that person may be. That's not the point of this paragraph. The point is this: a young, closeted male has been fed this skewed view of masculinity, and, since he has discovered this gey stuff inside of him, he now hates himself, and he hates the outward representation, or symbol, of this femininity he in no way wants to be associated--females.

But he can't go around bashing chicks all day, because he'll look like a total homo. Girls are onto this. So, what he's got to do is pig chicks out, bro. He's got to get with chicks (which he can, because gay guys are hot, it's science) and refuse to commit. He's got to move from one chick to the next, because straight guys respect guys who get a lot of tail and WE ALL JUST WANT RESPECT FROM OUR TARGET DEMO! Yeah, young straight guys is, like, the worst target demo ever, partly because youth is fleeting, but a closet-case isn't thinking this far ahead. He just needs to get through high school, through college, through his first marriage... Sure, if he's not entirely masculine, guys will call him a fag, but it'll be cool, just joshin you homey, because he's gonna go tear up the dance floor at the party later (or just play the laidback dickhead that girls seem to love so much), then he's gonna home with a hot chick and bang her. She will think he's kinda cool and set up another date. On this date, he will be a dick to her, maybe make her feel bad about stuff that really just represents his inner turmoil, not problems she should really be concerned with. His friends will ask, whatever happened to Hot Chick. Our Closet-Case will call her a cunt and say that all sluts are the same, and his boys will laugh and think how fucking true that shit is, dog; girls CANNOT be trusted, y'know?

This cycle will be perpetuated endlessly. Maybe his friends will mature a bit, ask him why he doesn't just settle down with a nice girl, since he's hooked up with a couple cool chicks who ended up with cool dudes. He'll say how he's not wifey material and this shit will be so true! He'll chug the last sip of his redbull and vodka and, since he did work today, he'll go home early because he's tired. Or maybe because that guy was at the party tonight--that guy that makes him uncomfortable because of the way he looks at him when they talk (always briefly, only ever at parties), and how he is just SO DAMN SMART for absolutely no reason, you know? He's cool, but he doesn't really like to go out, only gets dragged to these things because of his roommates, who he came out to a couple semesters ago (you're friends make fun of him, and you laugh when they do). No, our hero, will go home with only his buzz tonight. He will sit on the edge of his bed and not even realize his face scrunching up, his face turning red. He'll notice the crying, though, as always. He'll notice the emptiness inside, because it never goes away. He knows what he has to do, but why does it have to be him? Why does the world have to be against this, and he does he have to be it? The only answer is that shit happens, and we promise it's not as bad as you think it is. We know people say otherwise, but this is your life we're talking about. There's no 'people' in u, man.

#6: Having a Girlfriend

Because, socially, it's the logical progression of things. Most people don't know they are gay right away. Some do, but, for some, it is unfathomable--all thought, even gay ones, just seem like random electricity flowing through the brain, and many guys are not the type to start analyzing their feelings and thoughts. Even if a guy meets another guy who he hits it off with (let's say they are 16 years old) their first thought isn't going to be they are in love with that guy; if they think he's kind of cute, this thought will seem weird and will likely be buried. Homophobia might begin to grow in it's place--but though those feelings may not technically be forgotten, it is unlikely they will ever really be acknowledged, at least not while their still in high school, unless they are lucky enough to find someone open and honest enough to allow them to be open and honest. But nobody has time to wait to be saved by TRUE love. So this guy's gonna have to get a girlfriend.

The common misconception is that gay guys can't tell when a girl is hot, which is absolutely ridiculous. Knowing that girls are hot is how gays know that straight guys know when other dudes are hot: 'cuz it don't work that way, Pepe. If you can tell when a male dog is cute, you can tell when a male human is cute (this differs upon taste, as some people have none, obv). But we're here to talk about chicks. People in high school (an beyond, as life doesn't get too much less shallow) What a girlfriend does, on the outside, is tell people, "Hello I hook up with chicks, ok, later not gay !!!1!" Many call this girl a "beard" and, in many cases we've seen, she is the one who pursued the relationship. She liked this cute, maybe funny, maybe kinda charming, guy, and made a boyfriend out of him. She will often find herself disappointed by his seeming lack of interest in anything but brooding or pawing her listlessly OR, on the other end, be enamored by how much like One of The Girls he is.

Not all gay people are the same, so, therefore, not all guys in the closet are the same. There are the ones who want to come out, and will, one day--then there are the, often more macho, guys, who are fundamentally terrified of acknowledging this thing inside of them. Societal instituitions, such as church, and, in many cases, sports and fraternities, also help to keep guys in the closet by nuturing a) environments that praise you for being with women and b) environments that take the piss out of you if you stray from their conception of the heterosexual norm. This is why the term closet-case isn't quite used as a joke around here: I seriously think it's fucked up, and some people have no way out. What the girlfriend does, on the inside, is help this guy convince himself that he's not gonna be charmed by another guy IN THAT WAY, that he's not gonna admire his best friend, Charlie, next time his shirt accidentally pulls up too high, revealing smooth skin and ripples and the like. All this amounts to is a lot of people wasting each others' time, but, for many, what it feels like is their life being saved from teh geighs and how lame it is, and people like Prince tapping their bible with a look of reproach everytime Billy drunkenly finds his way to Dudetube and let's one go, followed by crying and hating himself and calling people fag whenever he gets the chance, because he doesn't know how he's supposed to feel, just knows he doesn't want to feel like this.