The B Word
by Ron Suresha
as appearing in Options RI November 2004
Recently, it seems as if there’s some sort of heated competition for the category of Outstanding Performance of Misidentified Sexuality.
Our first nominee, predictably, is New Jersey governor James McGreevey. Accompanied by his gorgeous, adoring wife, he stands at a podium and announces his resignation, due to a doomed affair with an Israeli man who he says is blackmailing him. While holding his wife’s hand and affirming their love for each other, he declares, “As a child I always felt ambivalent … My truth is that I am a gay American.” Weird, but the story and misnomers get more ridiculous: the accused blackmailer’s lawyer describes his client as “heterosexual.” The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart called him a “flaming extortionist.”
Our next nominee, George “Father Figure” Michael, says in an interview for the U.K. magazine, GQ, “When I walk into a restaurant I check out the women before the men, they’re more glamorous. If it wasn’t for [my boyfriend] Kenny [Goss], I’d have sex with a woman, no problem.” Not that having a boyfriend kept him out of public rest-rooms soliciting sex with men. Anyway, so he still digs women. No big deal. But why does he call himself, and why does everybody else call him gay?
Finally, on The Graham Norton Effect, Sandra Bernhard . . .
Read the complete article here.
