I do think that with so many out gay men around, some heterosexual males are getting a little less paranoid about the “submissive” power imbalance in being on bottom because they know more gay people. I mean, there are lots of people who don’t have a family member or a close friend who is gay. But nowadays chances are they have a casual friend, a co-worker, a neighbour, etc, etc. And of course, those people have always been queer, but I think being out to the whole world is something that wasn’t all that common for a long time. There’s been a lot of activism the past few decades and being out has become significantly less dangerous.

Yeah, in small towns and in very macho environments queer people are still liable to be deep in the closet, and thus their straight male friends nad acquaintances won’t know about their sexuality, but a lot of middle-class white heterosexual males live in big cities which have cosmopolitan populations. If you’re mildly homophobic but not totally paranoid about it, then regular exposure to gay male acquaintances and co-workers, plus TV shows like Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (and yeah, I know, both of those shows are very flawed, but at any rate the viewer sees gay men interacting with straight men in a non-predatory manner) and being draqged to “Brokeback Mountain” by their girlfriends may make these guys less freaked out by homosexuality because it’s not that scary anymore.

Most homophobic straight guys seem to be convinced deep down that they are irresistibly attractive and that unless they are actively hostile towards gay men, said men will inevitably attempt to convert them. Oddly enough, there is sometimes an inverse correlation between the physical ugliness or slovenliness of the guy in question and the intensity of that belief. Enough Monday morning water cooler chat with Mike in Accounting and any reasonably perceptive straight guy is going to realize that no, Mike actually has no designs on his ass.

the same sexual category as women (i.e, the fucked, not the fucker)

I wonder if the fucker/fuckee dichotomy as user/used is getting eroded as more het men engage in receptive anal sex. Sure, it’s not the one magic bullet that brings the whole patriarchy crumbling down. But the obsessive focus of anti-gay conservatives on anal sex and the use of “fucked” as a general negative, that whole constellation of ideas around the idea that to be penetrated sexually is to be debased and powerless .. as more privileged het white men find themselves in that position, are they going to keep uncritically accepting that association? They can’t all be self-identified submissives, right?

Just a thought.