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Gaydar. I hate the word itself as well as the concept behind it. I think it reduces gay men to precious, magical creatures who use our magical powers to discover other precious, magical creatures to suck our dicks. Speaking as a dick sucker, I can attest we use the same indictors everyone else does to find potential sodomites: body posture, attention, eye contact (oh definitely,) and the always popular micro reactions. Did you know your pupils dilate when you look at someone you’re attracted to? We all see these things, but only notice them on a subconscious level because they’re so subtle.

For the history of the gay world (which is also the history of the world, coincidentally) queers have had to rely on these subtle hints exclusively until very recently, unlike straight boys who have always had the entire society rooting for them to go root. Not to mention a mother trying to set you up so you can finally pop out a couple of grandchildren. So yes, we have had to develop the ability to recognize each other without the benefit of all the signals having an opposite sex provides. But that does not mean we possess some mystical beam that tells us infallibly who is and isn’t a fellow traveller.

Gaydar pretty much only comes up when some woman demands that I use mine to see if some guy is bent in the homo manner. “Is he gay?” they whisper about some new co-worker, or celebrity, or (worst of all) some dude they’re sexually interested in. “I don’t know, why don’t you ask him,” I would reply irritatedly. “Gaydar doesn’t exist,” I would usually expand, even though I had already determined whether he was or not. I know, hypocrite. But there is a difference between being tolerated as a gay man and being accepted and refusing this whole “gaydar” bit seems to me like a part of being accepted, which is what I demand.

When I first started at SBA, I was introduced around our office of about 30 people. Over the following years I worked there, of the 6 or so men I initially pegged as queer, all but one eventually confirmed my initial diagnosis. And even that one turned out to be an old hippie who played acoustic guitar at our Chrsitmas parties, so I think my confusion was understandable. So, okay, I can pick ’em and I understand claiming gaydar doesn’t exist when I’ve always used something very much like it to get laid is a contradiction, but a) I contain multitudes and that is not nearly my biggest hypocrisy and b) shut up.

In conclusion, yes, we probably can guess successfully who is and isn’t but that doesn’t mean we want to be your homo geiger counter.

A subset of all this is gay movie stars. I think we all can figure out the poofters on the silver screen (hello Kevin Spacey and Sean Hayes, who did you think you were fooling?) but some, especially historical ones, continue to linger in the questionable end of the spectrum. Here we have the beautiful Guy Madison. He was married twice, had four kids, girlfriends, all of which point, of course, towards straight boy. But…. But, he was a client of Henry WIlson, the Hollywood talent agent who groomed gormless but hunky young men into stars. His client list included Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Nick Adams, and many other really pretty, mildly talented guys who were frequently queers and pretty much always pieces of ass for Henry. So maybe, Guy was bisexual, maybe he just understood how to get ahead in show biz. But in many images of him, the love that dare not speak its name seems pretty damn loud, much like the one below. To me this picture speaks volumes and what it says is “I will suck your dick until sperm shoots out my ears.”

Other guys on my radar:

It’s been really warm lately in San Francisco, turning our thoughts towards the beach.

I don’t understand gay men who announce, arrogantly, that they don’t like “pretty men.” It’s just their loss.

Even better are pretty cowboys.

He seems confused. Maybe he needs my help, my personal attention.

Sometimes, I realize I am just pandering to my Chaturbate readers.

But everybody likes a big, fat, Hispanic dick.

Perhaps you were wondering what the word “gormless” means. Here we present Exhibit A.