Once Again, My Gay Membership Is In Danger Of Being Revoked - Don't Get Me Started!

Let me say that although I live in Las Vegas, I consider myself a country gay compared to my LA gay friends. They all seem so more "with it", "about it" and certainly more knowing of what is new in the gay world. I've been with the same man for almost eighteen years in a monogamous relationship so how would I know? Well, one weekend with my two gay pals from high school and I soon found out that once again my gay membership is in danger of being revoked - Don't Get Me Started!

We all traveled back to our stomping grounds of Arizona for a weekend because our old high school was about to implode the auditorium we acted, sang and danced such classics as "There Is Nothing Like A Dame" and "Lucky Be A Lady" - remember that we started out as actors! Now I adore Greg and Dave and when the three of us are together I think of us as "The Three Muskequeers!" Except our names are Aramis, Vetiver and Paco Rabanne!

So we went to a lovely five star resort where we layed by the pool, refused to use our "spa" voices as we laughed and howled over how witty we were and are and even the other people at the spa pool seemed to be generally amused by us. I've often held the feeling that when other people see us they want to be us because we really do have so much fun together. We talked about life, old times, recent times and future times when we would be laughing as hard as we are now.

One of our topics of conversation was that recently I had discovered craigslist. Now I know many of you reading this right now are saying he just "discovered" this site. Well, as I said, I'm a country gay who doesn't get out much. Now for those of you not of the knowing, craigslist is a site where you can find someone to take your old couch off your hands, find a roommate, find someone to take your old roommate off of your hands or just find someone's hands to touch you all over. You go to the site and then click your city to see what opportunities and goodies are available in your area.

Now let me say this is not a gay site at all but they do have the "personals" section where "men seeking men" can click. And so I clicked, I couldn't help myself. Of course I'm still gay enough to know to only click on the posts that have a "pic" listed but then I was even more shocked by what I saw. Now I know I live in Vegas so maybe ours are a little raunchier than most cities as we are Sin City but imagine my surprise to see not only people looking for sex but some within minutes of when they posted on the site - I mean these people are like, "It's 10pm and I need to get off by 10:20pm don't expect a reply if you don't send a pic." I have this image of some lonely guy trying to figure out how to use the timer on his camera and trying to take the perfect picture of himself only to find out he's missed the 10:20 deadline by five minutes. Explain to me how someone posts a photo of their ass with their hands spreading the cheeks can then list themselves as "discreet". I think if you post your colon on a web site you don't have the right to consider yourself discreet. Now the LA gays tell me that some guys make up stories to add to the mystique of the whole experience but there were several that stated, "My wife is asleep, if you're at my hotel (name withheld to protect the hotel) tell me what room you're in and I'll come to your room for some hot times now." I have these horrible images of Betty from Dubuque laying in bed dreaming after seeing a Barry Manilow concert while her husband Mike is down the hall doing Peter from Peoria! Some of the people on the site aren't even in Vegas yet but list themselves as wanting to come to Vegas if a "generous" man will help them with all expenses while they show a photo of themselves holding a quarter in their ass! It was all pretty shocking to me and the LA gays loved my shock at it all. And so it occured to me, could the "men seeking women" part of the site be as, for lack of a better term, graphic? I clicked again and was not all that surprised that no one really was asking for sex in 20 minutes and the most shocking photo was of a guy in a bathing suit on his boat. Yet another gay stereotype confirmed to anyone who can click - the gays are all about sex and sex is all about the gays - not true of course, but to the untrained eye it would appear this is the case. Oh how Aramis and Vetiver laughed as I told them of the different posts and how shocked I was that people really use this as a means to find Mr. Right In The Next Twenty Minutes.

Later we went to a gay dance club. In almost eight years of living in Vegas I've only been to one gay club, twice and both times was with the Muskequeers. This should tell you about my gay club experience. I swear it had to be Teen Steam night at this club. Now we all look good for our age, I mean really good - I'm Peter Pan and the other two look like my lost boys (another blog for another day) but these kids looked as though all fifty of them had piled into Jimmy's car because he was the only one among them that had a real license and not just a learner's permit. Not only did I used to dance in shows (yes, after high school) I even taught dance. I love dancing and was excited to "shake my groove thing" - imagine my surprise when some of the boys started looking at me as though I was Elaine from Seinfeld. Vetiver looked at me and politely said, "No one claps anymore, you snap now." Well, you can imagine my fucking surprise - so no one claps, eh? The gays have just become too cool for a little clapping, eh? How can they show they're a part of the show when the Village People shout, "We want you, we want you, we want you as a new recruit?" Have I really been away this long or is it that I never did and never will belong to this part of gay life?

Oh I'm gay alright (I've got the man, Broadway albums and cats to prove it) and even though I don't have a membership card, once again I fear my gay membership is in danger of being revoked because I clapped when I should have snapped - Don't Get Me Started!!