|
When I was young, I was what one of my dates called "a pretty man." Slender, fine features, somewhat sensitive and soft-spoken. So I got hit on by gay men a fair amount --maybe a couple of times a year -- especially after I moved to San Francisco. It never bothered me. Generally it was all very courteous and above-aboard. They proposed, I demurred, that was it. I had had gay acquaintances since I was 16, and was pretty familiar with the scene while not being part of it.
What bothered me was the reaction of straight people to my appearance, even in San Francisco. Once I got a spectacular deal on a black bomber jacket and started wearing it regularly. After a while, I referred to it as my "faggot jacket," because when I wore it, teenage boys would scream "faggot" at me as they sped past in Dad's car. In those days, and maybe still, groups of teeny boys would drive up from San Francisco's more working class 'burbs with a couple of six packs and drive around the city harassing gays.
It happened elsewhere as well. Once I was walking on the "Miracle Mile" of a military base town with another young man -- rare enough, everybody else was in cars -- and we both had ties on because we'd come from a function and were both fairly slender and well-groomed. It was Friday night, and I think we were challenged by young males in cars three times in two blocks.
The car thing is important -- they get to yell "faggot," and run. Because they're still kids, and kids never want to face the music. One time, I guess I caught a group of them at the beginning of their run, because they were parked at the curb as I walked by, opening their twist tops. It was a side street in the Polk Street district, a big gay neighborhood, and I was wearing the faggot jacket. The kid riding shotgun looked out the window at me and tentatively said, "Fag." I just let them have it. And they scrunched down in their seats and took it.
|