The Allure of the Closet

by Ernie McLeod

I confess: I bought the Star. Normally, when those titillating headlines scream out for my attention, I sneak a quick peek in the check-out. That’s how I learned about Don Johnson buying gay porn and dildoes. (Joke gifts, Don insisted – uh-huh.) But this particular headline was irresistible: “Kevin Spacey Romps with Male Model! Oh, Boy! Amazing photos of Oscar winner’s secret double life.” Ditch intellectual pride, my enquiring mind had to know!

As usual with this brand of, uh, journalism, the actual article and accompanying photos were disappointingly ambiguous compared to the titillating title. Besides, why should I care about Mr. Spacey’s private life? Though I am male, I’m not a model, and with us living on different coasts and all, the odds of the Oscar winner romping with me are, alas, remote. In other words, I have no personal stake in with whom Kevin romps.

Likewise, Ricky Martin. When I heard that Ricky was going to be on the Barbara Walters pre-Oscar special and that she was going to pop The Big Question, you can bet I wasn’t in the library reading Sartre when the appointed hour rolled around.

When Baba asked, did Wicky tell? Not exactly: “Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to express, the rumors. But, Barbara, for some reason, I just don’t feel like it. You know, it’s, it’s something so mine. I give it all when I’m on stage. I give it all in interviews, but you’ve got to keep something for yourself sometimes, and that’s for me.”

Having spent the first two decades of my life entirely in the closet, and a third with the door barely ajar, I have no desire – as a fourth crawls toward its conclusion – to go back in time. The door is wide open now, baby, rip it off the hinges! Which ties in neatly with June being Pride Month. Out! Loud! Proud! Wave those rainbow flags and let freedom ring.

Important as I believe it is to be out in one’s personal life, when it comes to the arts, I’ve recently discovered I’m a closet advocate. Or rather, an advocate for the closet.

What does this mean exactly? It means that when Ricky didn’t come out (as either het or homo), I unexpectedly found myself thinking: good for you. Keep it for yourself and for the one you love. Why should I know? The odds of us shaking our bon-bons together are about as favorable as those of a romp with Kevin.

Some will argue “but he could be a role model! Remember when you were young those many decades ago and there were no openly gay people in magazines, on the radio, on TV, in the movies?” I do, and I remember how any hints of gayness filled me with terror and excitement. (Not that I was quick to catch on – “YMCA” and “In the Navy” never struck me as gay songs, for example.) But those days are gone. More and more, gay people exist in our real lives. We shouldn’t need gay celebrity role models. We should need gay celebrities who do interesting work.

Last fall, when Ellen and Anne were invited to UVM as part of Coming Out Week, Kevin (not Spacey) and I were there. Stars in our midst, how could we not go?! I’m sure they had only good intentions in coming, but, honestly, I found the evening – to put it indelicately – excruciating. What did Ellen or Anne tell us that we didn’t already know? Not that it isn’t important to talk about discrimination, homophobia, hate crimes, marriage, and babies, but are Ellen and Anne really the best ones to do it? Midway through the Q & A period, sweating with discomfort, we fled in search of quiet and alcohol.

It’s not that Ellen shouldn’t be out. It’s just that at UVM, her talent – being funny – the reason she became a star, was irrelevant. Might Ellen actually have been a better role model if she’d been less out and more funny? If she’d inspired us through her art rather than preaching Gay Rights 101 to the converted?

I don’t want Ellen to validate my homosexuality or solve my personal problems; I want her to make me laugh. I want Ricky to make me shake my bon-bon. I want Kevin to make me contemplate human emotions in a new way. What the Star says about him is just trashy gossip – not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Speaking of which, before he was officially outed in his bathroom bust, George Michael released a CD called “Older.” Nowhere in its ambiguously pronouned lyrics does he say “I’m gay!” Consequently, it could be considered a product of the closet. Yet any careful (i.e. gay) listener will hear same-sex love and loss between the lines. For me (a former Michael loather), this made the music more special and meaningful. I – unlike the average straight listener – understood without being told.

In bygone days, understanding without being told was the norm. Gayness existed mostly between the lines – an exclusive secret. In the closet, the secret brought me more pain than pleasure. Now, the farther out of the closet I roam, the more intrigued I am by the human complexities wedged inside that cramped little space.

My favorite movie last year, American Beauty, was a closet flick. In the gay press many reviewers noted that the only “normal” characters in American Beauty were Jim & Jim, the openly-gay-couple-next-door. To me, they were the movie’s only boring characters. As a parody of the dangers of assimilation and “Martha Stewart Living,” maybe. As illuminators of the human condition, no way. Leave that to the homophobe closet-case, or any of the other characters, each of whom was living inside one kind of closet or another.

The day after American Beauty swept the Oscars, mainstream America discovered that most of the guys clutching the gold boy were fags. You mean those homo moments weren’t just aberrations? How shocking! That the movie was made by queers and is dripping with queer sensibility eluded them. A gay film had been shoved down their throats and they’d barely gagged (except during that icky garage kiss). The closet has the power to seduce and disturb the masses in a way that openly gay does not.

Last fall, to research a potential fiction project, I lurked on an on-line support group for Catholics conflicted by SSA (same-sex attraction, I finally figured out, not ASS backwards). Reading their closeted stories was sad and fascinating. One posting was from a man who had seen American Beauty and was so agitated by its “lust and homoerotic imagery,” he found himself wandering the streets at 1am, hoping to run into an acquaintance who he knew had a porn “problem.” Reaffirming what my own life has told me: the closet is more pleasurable from a safe distance.

For people struggling with their sexuality, I’m glad Ellen did her creatively funny “puppy” episode. I’m glad “Will and Grace” exists and packs an increasingly sharp satirical bite. But I’m also glad that the closet – much maligned in these proudly out times – is back in vogue: witness Matt Damon’s exquisitely furtive lust for Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Some day the closet may be a meaningless cultural artifact. Until then, it’s an alluring place to revisit even if you don’t plan to live there again, ever.