It is 9am on the day that this needs to get published, and I just got done watching an episode of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson instead of getting right to work because “I needed to wake up first,” I’m a procrastinator!

A family that clicks together, gets a bigger comic.

If you haven’t noticed, our head illustrator and co-owner; Chuck, started using a new technique with this comic that gives it this crumpled up paper look. I quite like it, it is a bit more distinctive than the flat white. Oh, and this comic touched on incest, which is hilarious! (I’m not normal) Also, if you didn’t get one of the points here, Jessica’s brother is gay, and perhaps in time we might actually get to introducing him in the comics. He is a pretty cool guy, but sadly here in the real world, he will be moving to Canada soon. He will be a Canadian, which unlike being gay, is something worth making fun of.

He is far from the first homosexual man I have known in my life, I’ve had quite a few friends throughout, and for a period I spent some time with them. Inserting myself into various parts of their culture, trying to understand the lifestyle of the various individuals. I honestly don’t know what I learned really, but lets see if we can find a lesson shall we?

A Breeder’s Tale

I grew up in a rather confusing childhood environment. On the one hand there was this free-spirited swinger-like lifestyle of sexual expression in my much younger days when my Dad was around (I wasn’t the swinger, let’s just note that now. I was really little, I just grew up around these views), and while I mostly don’t remember it, I feel it played quite heavily on a few of my more liberal social views. Then there was the sudden turn to the conservative Roman Catholic life that came after my Dad was gone for a particular period, for a particular reason I will not discuss.

Needless to say, the values I was being taught became confusing. It was like being given a cookie and told it was good, before someone else would come in and smack that cookie out of my hand and tell me how wrong and evil it was to have taken a bite from that cookie. A habit that has continued well into my adult life, except now both voices are my own, and the battle over the cookies good and evil properties has to do with its taste and what it does to my waistline.

In High School I was introduced to a new group of friends, within this group of friends there was a particular individual that I was introduced to that ended up causing these two sides of my upbringing to take an awkward pause. He was an openly gay fellow (he was often introduced as such, since he had been surprised before by the close mindedness of others. People he had considered friends, who suddenly changed their tones when they found out), and he seemed perfectly nice, laughing and talking about normal things with his other average High School friends. We shook hands and I couldn’t help my curiosity.

“You’re gay? What’s that like?” I asked without consideration on its directness.

“I’m gay, I’m black; if I was Jewish. I’d be the most hated man in America,” was his reply. I learned to quite like him after that, and my dumb questions stopped, you know, awhile later. His reply to my stupid question has stuck with me, I always thought it wonderfully clever and also depressingly poignant.

In my humble opinion, I do not think homosexuality is a choice, there may be people who choose to experiment; as just about every woman in college can attest to, but those who are seemingly unable to be attracted to the opposite sex are not choosing a thing. This same friend of mine would say that he just couldn’t see anyone choosing this life style, and even though he grew up in a time where acceptance was beginning to become more widely promoted, his life was still made a bit more difficult because of it. If this was 40, 30, or even 20 years ago, being an open homosexual was akin to having a death wish. Why would any sane individual choose it? Well, that’s enough on that point.

By the time I became of drinking age (not really, my ID said I was though), I can distinctly remember being asked by another friend of mine, “Hey, want to go to the gay bar with me?”

Which I promptly replied to with, “Uh, no…”

“Why? It’ll be fun and you’ll get laid.”

“I think that’s the problem.”

“By a woman fool.”

My confusion led me to agreeing to go with him, and he was absolutely right. I did have fun, and I did meet women, I also got to learn what a “fag hag” was. By the way, why fag hag? Something about that always stuck me as harsh, yet it appears these women like the name, it is a title to most of them; a badge of honor from her homosexual male friends. Plus, the use of the word “hag” is incredibly misleading, most of these women are incredibly attractive and the complete opposite of what you picture a hag to look like.

This is what I picture when someone is talking about a "fag hag"

NOT THIS! can we find another term please?

A bit more later in life I moved to Las Vegas, and one of my roommates in the very first place I lived in that wasn’t with someone in my family was the first homosexual gentlemen I talked about in this entry. Vegas’ culture was quite a bit different, it had gay sectors, with gay clubs, and gay bars, and gay stores, and a gay bathhouse. The bathhouse caught me with a particular amount of surprise? I didn’t even know those existed in the states, I thought they were some European thing. You know, one of those European countries where nudity doesn’t throw society into a Janet Jackson inspired hissy-fit. One of those countries where topless women sell orange juice and car insurance.

By the time I moved in with Chuck and Jessica, meeting Jessica’s brother and his boyfriend was nothing more than meeting any other couple. All I hold against them is the fact that they are dirty hippie liberals who are about to become Canadians. Damn dirty hippie liberal Canadians…

I’d like to end this article with something that Chuck said the other day, something I had never really thought about; even with all my experiences, “The word (faggot), regardless of its use, is used in a negative way. Doesn’t matter if it is being directed towards a gay man or a straight man, it is used to tear down whoever it is directed at. Its main purpose is to tear away the humanity from those who are gay. I just don’t use it, and I never will.” I paraphrased, but you get the hint. Since then, I have decided to follow his lead, and not use the word again.

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being gay, breeder, canadian, dirty hippy, eon, fag hag, family ties, gay friends, homosexuality, isn't a choice, we have a webcomic, webcomic We Have A Webcomic!