Might basically wear this to the bar.

Not his head, but the rest.

pic via here

#16: Beating their girlfriends?

I dunno. Closetcases are known mysogonists, as they perceive gayness as feminine, and since they are gay, and hate themselves, they also hate girls, at least while they're still in the closet. So, like, it's conceivable, y'all. Just saying.

Pending, you guys.

#11: Not being alone

Because there are so many voices in our heads, all the time, sometimes all at once, screaming--meaning, like, nobody wants to be alone, let alone a closetcasey. Even if it's just being at the bar, our favorite, unattractive but funny in a 'you should do stand-up' way buddy's hand around our shoulder.

The truth about our sexual nature's can be dibilitatingly frightening sometimes, especially if we are an ethnic minority. Our largely marginilized culture has to have a lot of pride here in the State's, and has fostered a practice of cultural homophobia to align itself with the thoughts of Jezuz Christ, the American war god. What this means is we can never 'come out' of our shells 100%, and so must spend 89% of our lives alone, crying--having a family member, like your cool older sister, is clutch in this case, as she prevents us from being alone.

Or maybe you've already come out as 'a hipster' (which makes you gay), but there are no other gays in your small Texas town, but sometimes bands like Digitalism or Clues comes to town, and we bring our two best girlfriends along, because they've been getting into electro too. We might not find a man to hold us and tell us we'll be okay for another 10, 15 years. Maybe he'll be at this YYYs show, maybe he won't. Either way, you've got your two best gfs, so you'll never really be able to say no one was there for you you're whole life, even though it felt that way.

Maybe the other guys at the Auto Body Shoppe are jerks and always calling people and things faggots, like, 'this faggy coffee machine don't work, braa,' and so you want to come out to them, but you're afraid of losing the only friends you have, even if the friendship isn't based on trust or honesty, just based on an isolating work schedule and beer. There might be a 'vampire bar' nearby, where you can be yourself, not feel like the walls are closing in on you, like life isn't worth living. Maybe you listen to "Someday is Tonight" from Rhythm Nation on the drive over.

Or maybe you just take druqz to survive the daily horrorscape of a waking life restricted by Social Mores established when the Pope got to make all the rules, and scared people into not sucking each others' penises, or rubbing their vaginas together. Maybe you've found 'the one' who will do psychodelics with you, and laff, and talk about politics and Hunter Thompson, and think that Music was a good Madonna album, for the kind of music it is. 

Sometimes we're forced to be alone because being gay is a sin from the Bill of Sins, which was written by the Founding Fathers of America, and, even tho we were raised to think it's cool, everyone else wasn't. Or maybe we were raised to want to drag fags from trucks, and so our Corbin Fisher membership is 'our business'. Whatever the sitch, closetcases effect everyone, probably even the economy. Choose wisely. Fin

Photos by Cobrasnake

Concept by HRO

#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.

#7: Becoming Hipsters

Because in artistic communities, the lines are blurred, as they probably should be. Blurred, as in, dudes are straight but not ignorant when it comes to sexuality, because there is nothing to gain from feigning dumb on this subject--quite the opposite: being socially conservative makes you not allowed to be a hipster but a POSER. The distinction makes all the difference. There are plenty of places to get your hipster analysis, so we'll keep this breif, and just note that being a hipster is the next best thing to coming out of the closet, because it's basically the same thing. You get to wear tight clothes, listen to artistic music, pre-order tickets to Gus Van Sant movies, and make out with boys. Yeah, technically you're living a lie, but so is everybody else--we don't mean everybody else in your neighborhood, we mean everybody in the world.