Getting Straight (Out of the Closet)

The Tate brothers.  You know that sooner or later we have to talk about them.  Because they seem to be everywhere, frequently trending on social media, featuring in news stories both in print and on TV and seemingly whipping up strong feelings both in those who think them some kind of macho messiahs and those who loathe them as misogynist influencers corrupting the minds of young men.  Personally, I look at them and see one of the most obvious cases of repressed homosexuality I've ever encountered.  It's all there: the exaggerated masculinity, the shaved heads and neatly trimmed facial hair, their continued debasement and hatred of women, their boasting of their sexual domination of women while simultaneously being clearly repulsed by female sexuality.  Obviously, I'm not saying that homosexuals are preening woman haters, but rather that these are the traits of men desperately trying to deny their own true sexual orientation.  Their hatred for themselves is projected onto the opposite sex, who they blame for their failure to be sexually attracted to them.  In their twisted perspective, these damned women have to be punished for not arousing them and therefore rescuing them from their gay thoughts.  The truth is, though, that the Tates would probably find it a lot easier if they simply admitted to themselves that they are gay and are actually attracted to other men.  Dropping the deception would allow them to let go of that hate and see women as fellow human beings.

 Of course, the latter is a big sticking point for the kind of young men who idolise the Tates.  They seem to be permanently angry at the fact that women have the audacity not to know their place as sex objects, overawed by these guys' sexual prowess.  Perhaps they read - or more likely saw the TV adaptations - of too many of those Mills and Boon-type romances where even the strongest women find themselves swooning at the feet of some hunk of masculine machismo.  At least my generation had the excuse of growing up on a diet of seventies TV and films, where women were all 'birds' just 'gagging for it' and even the likes of Robin Askwith could get their ends away on a regular basis.  In defence of seventies British TV and sex comedies, while women were undoubtedly objectified, they were usually also given personalities and more often than not portrayed as strong and savvy individuals capable of knowing their own minds and even saying 'no'.  Ultimately, though, this stuff doubtless contributed to a male culture that assumed women were always available to male sexual advances - if they weren't they were disparagingly dismissed as being 'frigid' or 'lesbians'.  It must have come as something of a shock to many guys brought up on a diet of Sid James, Robin Askwith, James Bond and the like, that if you wanted any chance with a real woman, you might actually have to talk to them, treat them as human beings and establish a friendship with them first.  Damn it, according to seventies British TV, even a man as obviously gay as Peter Wyngarde could pull birds by the dozen every week in Jason King.  Anyway, to get back to the original point, I really think that it is about time that someone staged an intervention for the Tate brothers with the aim of getting them to just admit their true sexuality and come out.  I'm sure they'd feel much better for it and set a good example for misogynists and homophobes everywhere.