Do Gay Boys Idolize Anyone With A Weiner?
-by Jeremy Gloff
-appeared on TheNewGay.net
-April 19th 2010

I was enamored by Madonna at eight years old. And Lucy Ricardo. And Nancy Drew. I could easily list over twenty role models that somehow inspired the person I’ve become. Very few of these role models were male. Not one of them is a homosexual male.

As a general rule many of the straight men I knew growing up were inspired by male athletes and male rock stars. My cousin Josh emulated Eddie Van Halen while my brother aspired to be Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly. Most of the hetero females I knew were inspired by other hetero females. My childhood friend Anna Clare was a Barbie fanatic and Valerie was determined to be the next Lita Ford. As I advanced into my twenties most of the lesbians I was friends with directed their idol worship toward other lesbians. My manager at Arby’s was never far from her Indigo Girls and Melissa Etheridge albums.

So if straight men look up to straight men, straight girls look up to straight girls, and lesbians look up to lesbians, where do the gay boys figure in to this? Throughout my life a great deal of fellow homo boys I’ve known have idolized not other male homos, but straight women. The gay boys always wanted to be Karen, not Will. Why?

Society is a bit more open to homosexuality than when I was a teenager. Still, more of the young gay boys I know are more interested in emulating Gaga and Beyonce than Adam Lambert or Clay Aitken. It is interesting to contemplate what it is about the gay male mind that is more inspired by heterosexual female public personas as opposed to fellow homosexual public personas.

The entertainment industry is still lacking the definitive homosexual figurehead. Is the media still only narrow enough to allow people to pass through that are characatures? Where are the strong, interesting, intelligent, and creative gay males to capture the imagination of their generation?

It’s a shame Lady Gaga turned out not to be a hermaphrodite. That would’ve been the closest the homo boys ever came to worshiping an artist with a penis.