I finally figured it out. The gays do have an agenda. No, my good friends at Focus on the Family are wrong again, it has nothing to do with flamboyant sponges. On Tuesday I went into my favorite local gay video rental store, the really huge one in the Castro. I always have an interesting experience when I go in there, in the huge porn room. It has acres of gay porn, and a tiny, tiny straight/bi/trans section (and it’s really good), though I usually wander around all the sections. I am always the only woman there, and the typical reaction is that my presence clears out any nearby men; they noticeably move away from whatever section I’m looking at. It’s amusing more than anything; I wonder what kind of cruising scenario I interrupted, or if someone’s offended or embarrassed that I’m there — all very silly, in my eyes.

Anyway, I was on a mission looking to watch a copy of Chi Chi LaRue’s Str8 Shots. It’s a hot compilation of straight male porn stars jacking off for the camera, made and marketed especially for the gay market, making it unique and sexy as hell. It’s delicious, and highly recommended. But I couldn’t find it, so I asked. The cute Asian man behind the counter walked me over to it, and it was in stock. I said a little too loud, "Yay!" I was getting stared at by patrons. He said, in the middle of the porn room, "You know it’s just masturbation." I told him I knew and was very happy about it. He said quietly, conspiratorily, "It has Julian in it. We have a lot of Julian here; we want to carry everything of his." I recalled all the Julian videos I’d seen in their straight section. The clerk asked if I’d seen Jill and Julian, "it’s with his wife or something. It’s hot." I said, you know, they divorced and I think he’s single now. The clerk said "Oh! You know *we* want him. We want him," (gesturing to the store) "to come over to our side."

So then I realized that the gays do have an agenda.

Then I found out I may be on that agenda, or at least someone’s rainbow-stationary to-do list. I did my regular porn reviews on the Derek and Romaine show, and while Romaine and I exchanged our usual flirty banter, to my surprise, Derek jumped in and saucily asked if I’d like a switching, and that he’d be happy to "take me out back." Goodness, just when I think it’s safe; it’s like people are watching me onscreen in the movie of my life and shouting, "don’t look in the closet!" So then yesterday I decided to end a particularly melancholy week (all of my work gigs are more hateful than usual) by doing yoga and then going to Macy’s where a friend works at a makeup counter, and getting a makeover, just to try something different. Things aren’t bad — I accepted an exciting book deal this week; big SRL show soon; new podcast; Extra Action playing with David Byrne next month — but day job politics are making me feel like I want to quit everything and go back to working in a cafe.

I got assigned a very sexy makeup artist. Tall, nice voice, Latin accent, brown skin, black hair all sexy-messy, warm brown eyes — Mario (not his real name). He said, "Today we’re doing red carpet makeup, would you like to choose a celebrity you’d like to look like?" I said, that sounds boring. He smiled. He leaned in and said, "Yeah, they really look terrible anyway. So last year." I told him I was going out that night and wanted something fucked up and glamorous, that for nights like this I usually use a lot of smudgy black and glimmer. He grinned and told me to "pick a color, any color." I picked violet. He was clearly excited to have some fun.

While he worked, he told me about being in the closet all through high school. We talked the whole time. At one point he asked if was "a self-tanner girl," and I laughed, you mean like beach-ball orange Paris Hilton? No! I told him my new joke about her vagina detaching itself and running away and he said, "I’d never fuck her. She’s not hot at all, she’s not my type." He saw the glimmer in my eye and continued to tell me the female celebrities he’d never have sex with. I told him I was new to the concept of gay men doing girls, and he said, "you know I first tried it out of curiosity. And I was so surprised that I liked it, that it wasn’t gross like everyone said. My boyfriend doesn’t get it, thinks it’s funny that I steal men’s girlfriends sometimes, but I like to fuck their boyfriends too — it’s really best when it’s a couple." I asked how long he’d been with his man, and he told me nine years. He said, "I used to manage a Pizza Hut and fool around with this cook at night when things were slow — he moved away to Texas and got married, and once him and his new wife came out to visit." They stayed with Mario, and Mario never mentioned the past, until the wife brought it up — apparently the hubby had told her about it. Hubby walked in while they were talking, and the next thing Mario knew, he was making out with the hubby while the wife watched. Now, they get together once or twice a year for a week or a weekend. He told me, "she likes to watch us for a while before she joins in." I said, grinning, there’s a good reason that straight girls like gay porn. He told me that he prefers couples because "then you know everyone’s just a fuck buddy, and plus someone else can finish off the girl." I scolded him — but laughed while I told him he was bad. The whole exchange was while he was putting makeup on me, straddling my thigh occasionally, sometimes just a few inches from my face. Mario said that he and his boyfriend have an "open thing," and that sex was just playful for him. I told him I thought it seemed perfectly natural. He told me about his nephew who was a straight 20 year old that called him recently freaking out that he’d given another guy a blowjob, and did that make him gay? "I told him, you are what you feel you are, what you know you are." I said, yeah, often people just need to be told that; that experimentation and sex play doesn’t make you anything except curious, and alive.

It was quite a makeover.