Boys Will Be Boys

No serious person would ever deny this, being gay can be difficult. Be it dealing with homophobia or trying to live at 100% fabulous, it is a complicated life.

Despite what the name belies, ‘gaydar,’ that innate ability of gays to ferret each other out from the crowd is no science. It essentially is what all people do, look for those signals that maybe, just maybe, that other person could be interested; and as with any signals, they can be crossed. For the single gay guy out on the town, searching for a beau, or beaux, those signals have just become intricately more convoluted.

Last month, a UK study found, amongst high school and university students, the prevalence of heterosexual males kissing each other had skyrocketed with 95% of respondents saying they had done so. A mixed signal to be sure. At first thought, that lone gay may want to believe those kinds of European shenanigans are not on in Africa, not even in that African slice of Europa, Cape Town.

However, as has been proved by the number of women who are famous for no other reason other than being able to don bikinis, or ‘glamour models,’ as they’re known in the land of our former colonial master, what begins there, sooner, rather than later makes its way down here.

To the disquiet of the gay on the prowl, this trend continues. The study also found that it is not only the chaste fraternal kiss being exchanged between straight males. The full on snog, probably best demonstrated by a furtive Jacob Zuma meeting up with Sonono Khoza in a dark corner of the Nkandla homestead, or “sustained” kiss as the study termed it, is also on the rise, with 37% of respondents indicating they had engaged in this activity.

This may seem to be something of a surprise, with our homosexual friend jumping to the default position of, “Well that is a load of rubbish! They must be gay as the day is long!” Yet, he should consider the following. Whilst for the gay man, this is a new and worrying development, for lesbians this is old news. Ever since Britney ever so (in)famously locked lips with Madonna, the straight girl kiss has been a thing of norm. As the great vocal digital manipulation artist, Katy Perry, in her magnum opus, I Kissed A Girl, croons, “I got so brave, drink in hand, lost my discretion,” and, “I kissed a girl just to try it, I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it.”

Unlike the cougar, this is not one of those fads, which seems to inhabit Hollywood alone. On any night of the week, in the favoured haunts of our future-leaders, the student nightclubs of Claremont in Cape Town or Melville in Johannesburg, to give just two examples, this can be witnessed. As such, that girl and her girl-friend standing on a table, locking lips will soon have to vie for attention with that boy and his boet, doing the very same thing.

Though those concerned about the moral compass of our society may worry that this is a sure sign that the gay agenda to indoctrinate the gay lifestyle within our children is succeeding, take heed of this fact. Those in their never-ending quest to be cool, are just partaking in what is nothing more than a fad. Safely ensconced in the South African strongholds of moral rectitude, where men are men and women know their place, where good traditional family values still reign, you will never have to witness this. Just as in the UK, such examples of moral depravity will be found in those dens on liberal iniquity, universities, or anywhere the wayward youth are to found injecting their new-fangled drugs into their eyeballs and partaking in sins of the flesh.

However, for those, with a slightly more sensible mindset, would be interested to note that, though a fad, study researcher, Eric Anderson, stated that this development, be it the chaste kiss or the sustained kiss, indicates that, “these men have lost their homophobia (and that) they're no longer afraid to be thought gay by their behaviours.”

In as much that no serious person would deny that being gay is difficult, no serious person would complain about the changes in attitudes this study indicates. Even then, one cannot help but think about that lone gay. Faced with those team-mates from the rugby team in a ‘sustained kiss,’ his mind fills with that warm rush of excitement, only to be tempered with the cold reality of confusion as he thinks, ‘maybe they are just two friends, just having fun and nothing more.’

With boys being boys, his life just became a whole lot more difficult.