You Don't Have to be Gay to Get Laid But it Helps!

It's time for all young men to understand the enormous appeal homosexual men have for today's heterosexual woman. I'm going to teach you how to be gay heterosexuals. Do you know what the word gay means, soldier? It means "full of or disposed to joy and mirth." It means lighthearted. exuberantly cheerful, sportive and merry. It means offhand, for God's sake! In the 16th century it meant brilliant, attractive, excellent, fine.

I'm going to teach you how to feign disinterest. I'm going to teach you to simulate good breeding and exquisite manners. I'm going to teach you how to be gay in the old sense of the word. I'm going to teach you how to comport yourselves on the verge of the effeminate when necessary. Because, men, when the going gets tough, the tough give one another a big hug.

My story begins back in elementary school. I was hanging around with sissies. I hung out with the guys, too. I played sports. I liked girls. But I had friends who were definitely sissies. We had many things in common. We liked to draw. We liked to go shopping with our mothers. When a macho kid called one of my sensitive homeboys a fairy or a fag, I felt embarrassed, not just for the nominee but for everyone.

Ernie Kovacs had a great character on his TV show called Percy Dovetonsils, a mincing dandified critic of just about everything. I loved him. I dug Clifton Webb, especially as the evil poison-pen artist Waldo Lydecker in Laura. I didn't know what it was, but I loved dandyism and foppishness. Percy and Waldo began my journey toward getting in touch with my outlandishly sensitive side.

I think my mother suspected. I had talent. I spent hours drawing. But something was up. By the time I was a senior in high school I had guilt feelings. I liked Oscar Wilde. Allen Ginsberg was gay. William Burroughs was gay. Jack Kerouac dabbled. What about Rimbaud? What was wrong with me? I wasn't gay. And I was head of the art club!

Things were better in college. My gay friends accepted me for what I was. I was still able to edit the literary magazine and write poetry. Then I moved to New York to go to grad school. I did what any self-respecting heterosexual bohemian would do. I got a job painting needlepoint canvases. I was married. My best friend, gay and out, said the problems in my marriage could be solved by my getting a boyfriend and my wife's getting a girlfriend, but that didn't work. Somehow we got it wrong and she got boyfriends and I got girlfriends. And then my gay friend, my wife and I moved up out of the needlepoint world. We got jobs working at Andy Warhol's Factory--a move we considered roughly equivalent to ascent into heaven.

This is where I discovered the terrible truth. The best place to land the most beautiful women in the world is in the company of homosexual men. Every night we went to the best parties, proud members of the world's greatest and most notorious entourage. Everywhere Andy went, we all went. Usually we would wind up dancing at a club. The clubs we went to were basically gay discos, but they were integrated in a way that no longer exists (as far as I know). We were a weird posse of gay and straight guys and straight girls with wandering tendencies. All the most beautiful girls loved going to the boy bars because they had the best music and they didn't have to worry about overeager and uncivilized hetero idiots hitting on them constantly. They only had to worry about us, the handsome infiltrators, the lavender pimpernels. But we didn't worry them that much. They could handle us. And occasionally they liked to.

The clubs were truly great. It was mostly guys and guys, but if you were fabulous you were welcome. We used to go to a club near the United Nations called Stage 45, which was mostly young black boys and the men who liked them. I remember how amazed I felt walking in there one night with Andy, Halston, the great Italian director Luchino Visconti, four or five girl superstars, two guys wearing a lot of makeup and Candy Darling, the world's greatest drag queen. Warhol, Visconti and Halston eyed the black boys dancing to I'll Always Love My Mama, and I eyed Donna Jordan, Patti D'Arbanville and Jane Forth, the models who hung out with Andy. Donna was a great beauty and always rude, which I found unbelievably sexy. I was always plotting to get Patti, but her interests were elsewhere. Those were wild times.

Of course, being a good-looking young guy in a club filled with gay men, you're going to get attention, and we did and we liked it. I have always liked attracting everyone, within reason. (Probably because I have never spent much quality time in jail.) Anyway, I never minded getting hit on or asked if I was a model or with the Australian ballet. It was cool. Everybody danced with everybody. I didn't feel threatened by dancing with Helmut Berger. I didn't mind it when the appalled natives of Barbados thought I was holding hands with a boy. It was Grace Jones.

One night I was sitting at a very wild and fun dance club called Tamerlaine. My friend, the Factory video guy, who was a handsome man with long hair and another practicing hetero, started holding my hand. I thought he was drunk. Later I realized he was just trying to pick up Tuesday Weld, who was sitting next to us. It was a period of mixed-up messages. Another night we went with our wives to a swinging couples club called Captain Kidd's Treasure Room. A couple of guys asked our wives to dance. The girls denied knowing us and their dancing partners said, "Yeah, they come in here all the time. They're fags. Why don't you dump them and come to a party with us on Staten Island."

I think the real beginning of disco happened in those gay men's dance clubs in New York, places like Tamerlaine, Stage 45, Nepenthe, Sanctuary (an old church painted purple), Le Jardin. They played an incredible mix of Motown, Philadelphia International and protofunk: Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, the Spinners, the O'Jays, James Brown, Aretha Franklin. The best dancers--gay or straight, male or female--wanted to be there. Everybody was friendly and if you were cool and looked good you could come in. A few years later the scene would change and clubs would keep straights out. I remember showing up at the front door of the Anvil one night with John Waters. We were both wearing suits and ties. John had his little pencil moustache. The doorman looked at us and said, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, this is a gay bar." John chuckled for hours.

The greatest womanizer I ever knew was a good pal of mine. He was a hairdresser, which you might consider being a heterosexual in a homosexual profession. He was, at his peak, the most successful hairdresser in New York, financially and heterosexually. Actually, hairdressing is more integrated than most people think. But my friend was the Shampoo character come to real life. He loved women and never tired of trying to make a new "friend." I was awed by this guy (to know what it is you really like and then do what it takes to get it). He was surrounded by beautiful models, beautiful rich ladies, beautiful receptionists.

I would go visit him and I'd say, "Hey, that new makeup artist is really gorgeous." His eyes would twinkle. "You like her? She is 18," he'd say in his amused French accent, picking up the phone. "Could you please send Wendy into my office?" And there she was. He let her stand there for a moment to put her on the spot, then introduced me. It was like shopping for girls. And, like in Shampoo, he had the perfect cover. What man would ever suspect his wife of sleeping with her hairdresser? He was a genius. He took his fantasy all the way. Then he gave up hair and womanizing and became an artist. Today he lives alone in a sparsely furnished small apartment and takes beautiful zen photos for his own pleasure. Just because Fitzgerald didn't have a second act doesn't mean other Americans don't have them. I saw my friend go from a cad to a Buddha.

Gore Vidal, who once spent a night with Jack Kerouac, the aggro hetero heartthrob of every bohemian chick of (continued on page 164)Get Laid(continued from page 116) his time, says there's no such thing as a heterosexual or a homosexual. I think that just this once Gore Vidal is wrong. I think there are homosexuals and heterosexuals and just plain sexuals. Sexuality is a broad spectrum, but it has some major wavelengths on it. To have ultramodern sexuality is to have stealth sexuality. You have those girls sleeping with you before they see it coming.

For me one of the great events in modern American history was when the elegant and droll Vidal called William Buckley a cryptonazi on live TV at the 1968 Democratic Convention. The arch, aristocratic facade trembled; Buckley's lunar complexion turned deep mauve and he started sputtering "You . . . you . . . you," he stuttered, "you queer!" Later, at a press conference, he expanded on his characterization and called him a fag.

It was, apparently, the worst thing Buckley could think of. Fag, faggot--such terms of contempt. "It takes one to know one" would have been Peewee Herman's reply. Fag doesn't just mean homosexual--it's a constellation of louche, outré qualities. (Pardon my French, boys.)

I called the famous fashion designer Halston a faggot once. He yelled at me for wrinkling a fashion sketch by hubris-packed illustrator Joe Eula. He acted like I had wrinkled a Michelangelo. Wrinkling was too good for it. And he yelled at me like I was a messenger when in fact I was the brilliant young editor of Interview. I lost my composure and called him an old faggot. When I got back to the Factory I told Andy Warhol what I'd said. For a microsecond I thought he looked angry. I'm sure faggot was a word that had been directed his way quite a few times. I felt really guilty. I should have called Halston an asshole. He was an asshole. Or an old queen. Ditto.

But there's no other way to say it. I have always liked fags. I would much rather hang out with a bunch of fags than with a bunch of hockey fans by a long shot. I don't know why exactly. It might have something to do with culture, or it might be genetic. My grandmother adored Liberace and my mother was crushed when she found out about Merv. But the thing is, I like fags, not just plain homos. That is perhaps because there was something acquired in the closet that may be threatened by liberation. A lot of gay people aren't very gay anymore. Gay was always a bad choice of words, but now it's becoming positively ironic around lesbian storm-troopers and double-husband marrieds. I like the culture of the closet--the subtlety, the refinement, the innuendo.

So many shades of mauve, so many great words for queer and the many varieties of the epicene; swish, pansy, nellie, dirt farmer, shirt lifter, fudge packer, fruitcake, dinge queen, chickenhawk, manhole inspector, nancy boy, rent boy, rimadonna, butch, closet queen, leather boy, midnight cowboy, Mary. . . .

I like the way Andy would put it: "I think he's got a problem."

But one man's problem is another man's opportunity. Straight women love gay men. They're always trying to convert them. To study this phenomenon, observe the Seinfeld episode in which Elaine tries to recruit one over to our team, despite Jerry's warnings that it's virtually impossible because they like their team's equipment.

What was it that women loved about Cary Grant (who by most accounts came around to women in his declining years)? He was charming. He was not threatening. He radiated honor and loyalty. And, of course, he knew how to dress.

When you've lived in New York as long as I have (which makes you fairly old), there's one thing that you're used to hearing from women: "Why are all the great single men gay?" Well, this never was true. And it's even less true today, now that a lot of the great single men have become life partners with one another. But the fact is that there are a lot of things that women like about gay men. They have a lot of subject matter in common. Although more and more of my gay friends can name at least three New York Knicks (Patrick Ewing and two good-looking ones), gay men are not in general obsessed with sports. (Gay women are obsessed with sports.) Gay men, in general, think your breasts are fine just the way God made them. Gay men have no particular reason to lie to women, unless it's to spare their feelings about what they're wearing.

Maybe I'm a straight fag because I have certain qualities, in addition to a raging hormonal attraction to vixens. There's no way to hide it. I am incredibly well dressed. My wardrobe is enormous. When I emerge, it's a spectacle of subtlety. I have a lot of close personal women friends. We have a lot of things to talk about. I think the new Prada looks like Miu Miu and I think it's a disaster what they've done to Glamour magazine. I don't have any secret agendas in their regard. (Either that, or I can wait for them to make the first move.) They can trust me just like one of the girls. I won't steal their boyfriend (although I might dis him now and then, hint, hint). I know a lot about fashion. ("Wear the mules, baby, you've got sexy heels.") And in real life I sell billions of dollars' worth of fashion, perfume and beauty products in my spare time. I can speak their language because I wrote it, girlfriend. I can style the bitch. I can even do her hair and makeup in a pinch. And this is why I have slept with the greatest female minds (not to mention bods) of my generation (and probably yours too, son), whom I met, at dawn, stalking the angry negro streets looking for a nice hetero boyfriend. I may have slept with your mother and your girlfriend, Jim.

Luckily, I'm not a womanizer anymore. I'm married, and brilliantly so. (And, I must say, marriage seems almost as attractive an obstacle to females on the lookout as apparent inversion!) My wife is a beautiful heterosexual female fag hag and together we can do the dance routine from Saturday Night Fever or redesign your fall collection. But I can't help my cloaked hormones; I still like to watch the girls, the beauties, the miracles of nature and grooming, and so I'm very happy to live in fashionland, near the border of the art world. I'm comfy at the fashion shows (if I'm no farther back than the third row). I still love my sissy friends, kiss kiss, but the world is changing. My wife's maid of honor was her hairdresser (male). And at my house everybody wears the pants and brings home bacon.

Hey, I'm just a modern guy. I've had it in the ear before. I've got a lust for life. So what can I say. I can box out on the basketball court, but I can gift-wrap, too. I golf from the back tees, but I make the risotto in my house. The divisions of labor, they are a-changing. I am not what my ancestors had in mind, but on the reproductive front I am getting the job done. I am evolution. I am the new man. Hear me roar: We're here, we're sometimes mistaken for queer, get used to it.

It was like shopping for girls. And, like in "Shampoo," He had the perfect cover.

What man would ever suspect his wife of sleeping with her hairdresser?