I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you!

On the Television Without Pity recap of The Apprentice, (Trump(r) Edition), Jacob described a scene in which gay contestant Clay talking about "Sex in the Office" in front of an audience of Learning Annex attendees:

Adam interviews that things were going well, "until Clay started with his comments." ...Cut to Clay saying, "Maybe I saw this amazing guy that came into work one day, and I was like, 'Oh my God, look at his ass.'" One woman blinks, one starts to chew her lip nervously, and I collapse. Clay, come on. Here's the thing on that: it's one thing to be judged and receive prejudicial treatment for being gay. It's a horrible thing. But what I cannot stand is this "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you" approach to sexual equality: he's daring you to have a bias and freak out on him. And since he doesn't know anything about you, that's a guerrilla attack and has more to do with gearing up for future outrage than it does about the mistreatment itself. It's the "do I look fat in this?" approach to cultural change, and what it does is piss people off.

I like his coinage of the "do I look fat in this?" approach to cultural change. He's kind of put his finger on something here, Jacob has. My own approach has always been more of the "oh, didn't I mention it?" variety. I feel that if I act as if it's perfectly normal thing that I am gay -- which, of course, it is -- then people will follow my lead. But the whole confrontational, I'm-gay-and-I-dare-you-to-have-a-problem-with-it approach really bugs me. Why go into it with the assumption that people are biased? Why not give them the benefit of the doubt, even if they don't deserve it? Because if you act like there's nothing to be biased about, you're communicating that there is nothing to be biased about,which puts a person in the position of actually having to go out of their way to express a bias. And people are embarrassed to do that. People don't usually want to be perceived as biased, even if they are. And if you are generous enough to give people the opportunity to do the right thing, many of them actually do. And it's even possible, if you can bear my optimism here, that you might help change their attitude. Whereas, if you put a person on the defensive right from the start, even a nice person, you're asking them to defend their attitude. And then you get confrontation, and defensiveness, and have you really accomplished anything?

But I also think that the point really is: Clay is just being a pig. (Jacob does, in fact, go on to say that.) Suppose he'd said the same thing about a woman? No difference. So what this demonstrates is that gay men can be pigs just as easily as straight men. Not a point of pride for the gay community, but further evidence that the gays are really just like you and me.