Ari, the Linguist on My Sausage List

Columbus, Ohio, September 2007

People who hear about the various languages I've studied always ask "Why didn't you become a linguist?"

Because linguistics is not about world languages.  It's about phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax, how ui changes to eu in some dialects of Farsi, but only before glottal consonants.

But that doesn't stop people from trying to fix me up with translators and polyglots of various ilks.

The latest, when I was in Dayton, was Ari, a professor of linguistics at Ohio State, about an hour away.

"He's got four of the five traits you find attractive," my friend enthused.  "He's a gym rat, religious, a swarthy Mediterranean, and gifted where it counts!"

So we exchanged a few emails and photographs.  Ari was muscular, in his mid-30s, dark-skinned, with curly black hair.  He said he was born in Israel, and moved to the U.S. when he was five years old.  He was a lapsed Orthodox Jew.  And a linguist!

Sounds perfect.

One Saturday afternoon, I drove into Columbus and met Ari at, of all places, an upscale hot dog place -- Dirty Frank's Hot Dog Palace.

"So Hebrew must be your first language," I began.  "It's fascinating that an extinct language was revived..."

"I don't remember much Hebrew," Ari said.  "I did my dissertation on Tlingit, a Na-Dene language of British Columbia and Alaska.  It has fifteen pronomials, which vary depending on the locative.  For instance, if you're going out to sea, it's dak-dei for a n-dei locative, but daki-naa for an n-naa locative."

"Many of the Native American tribes had third genders..." I began, hopefully.

"No, Tlingit doesn't have gender categories.  But it does have telic punctuals..."

"It's very important for your telics to be punctual."

He stared.  "Um...I just finished a paper on Jingulu, an Australian aboriginal language with six cases."

"I'm interested in Australian aboriginals, too" I said.  "They have a culture dating back thousands of years...."

But Ari wasn't interested in culture.  "Jingulu has four genders: masculine, feminine, neutral, and vegetable, but everything rounded is masculine, like kiyinarra, which means vagina."

This was probably the first time that I ever heard the term vagina on a date.  It didn't increase my amorous expectations.

"The Basque word for man is gizon, which is similar to the phrase big penis in ancient Sumerian," I tried.

He frowned.  "You're not trying to suggest a Basque-Sumerian link, are you?"

"No...um, I was just...."

"The interesting thing about Basque is its compound benefactive case.  Have you ever heard of a compound benefactive before?"

And it went on like that, through dinner, through browsing upscale clothing at Torso, through "a beer" at the Exile, and back to Ari's apartment.

"Not a problem," I thought.  "Being gifted beneath the belt can more than make up for a few hours of boredom."

He was.  My friend who set us up hadn't exaggerated.

But:

He wasn't.  He spent every moment of our time together with his mouth open.  Talking!  Directing, exhorting, commenting, murmuring.

I tried a variety of ways to shut him up, but to no avail.  He kept talking.

I'm going to resist the temptation to make a dirty joke about linguists using their mouths.

We dated a few more times -- he was nicely muscular, and very gifted beneath the belt (#6 on my Sausage List).  But I could never get Ari to shut up

See also: Getting the Chinese Food Delivery Boy into my Bed; 8 Harvard Yard Hookups

Body Shaming, Bullying, and Just Being Mean in Gay Communities

You grow up an outsider, constantly excluded, demeaned, and ridiculed for being gay.

You're called names, yelled at, told that you're a sinner, a pervert, a monster striving to destroy the society, as well as a frilly little lacy thing fit only for doing manicures and shopping for shoes.  You long for things to get better.  You long to find a place where you belong, a home.  And one day, you arrive.  You escape from the grim homophobia of the Straight World, find you way to West Hollywood or the East Village or another gay neighborhood.

Open up the closet door, watch out, here I come!

A new guy, nervous, scared, wounded from a lifetime of homophobia, but certain that here you will find friendship and love.

Instead, you are excluded, demeaned, and ridiculed.

Gay men -- your family, the place where you belong -- stare, snicker, and gossip about you.

Everyone travels in tightly-closed cliques, impossible break into unless you're dating one of them.

And dating is impossible.  The competition is rough, and you are constantly being rejected, for the most trivial of reasons,

You're too tall or too short, too fat or too thin,too old or too young.  Your chest is too hairy or too smooth.  Your penis is too small.  Your ears are too big.

I've never been shamed for my weight or size, but when I was a teen I got it for being too swishy, and in West Hollywood I got it for having a red birthmark on the back of my neck (of all the crazy things to notice!).  In the last few months my age has been starting to cause some "instant blocks" on dating apps.

I've never understood why many gay men are so quick to demean their brothers for a physical trait that they have no control over, as if it is a moral failure or evidence of weakness of character.

You don't get a small penis because you are a bad person or have an inadequate personality.  It's purely a matter of genetics.  And there's nothing whatever you can do about it.

You can't help getting older. It is a fact of life, not evidence of a moral shortcoming.

If you are fat or thin, you can theoretically go to the gym, but for many people weight management is very, very difficult, a life-long struggle with their metabolism.

Demeaning and rejecting someone on the basis of his physical appearance is known as body shaming today, but back in West Hollywood, we called it "being mean."

It's a form of violence.  It sends a clear message that the person being shamed does not deserve friendship or love, should not be seen in public, indeed does not deserve to exist at all.

That's a very strong message to be sending with a sneer.

In West Hollywood, my friends and I never refused to interact with people based on their physical traits.  If they said "hello," we said "hello."  And if asked to share a friend's boyfriend, we never refused, even if the sharing meant just fondling or going down on the guy for a few seconds.  It was basic courtesy.

This is a new world, but still, there are ways to be inclusive and welcoming without going home with guys you find unattractive.




1. Remove specific requirements from your online dating profile.  Reading "must be height-weight-proportionate, hung, under 30, masculine" over and over is like getting a dozen rejections without even talking to anyone.  Don't mention your tastes in men at all.  You won't be inundated by gorgons, believe me -- you're not all that. And it won't kill you to chat with someone skinny, swishy, small beneath the belt, or over 30.

2. Save Attitude for the rude guys.  In public cruising spots, people often give Attitude, pretend not to see, guys they are not attracted to.  Again, you can feel rejected a dozen times without ever interacting with anyone.  Save you Attitude for guys who make crass, boorish come-ons, and deserve to be ignored.









3. Talk to guys outside your comfort zone.  If you usually hang around with bodybuilders, talk to a fat guy.  If you like them under 30, talk to a 60 year old.  You'll find that they aren't much different from your usual contacts.  They have the same desires, dreams, hopes, and fears as everyone else.

4. Find something to like in everybody.  The most hideous guy on the planet has something attractive about him.  He tells bad jokes, has an interest in Star Wars memorabilia, or he spent a summer in Brazil.

If nothing else, he has survived a childhood of incessant attempts to force him to comform to the heterosexist mandate or kill himself.  He's still here.  That, in itself, is impressive.










5. Don't reject guys automatically.  Sure, you are especially attracted to guys who are muscular, hairy-chested, big beneath the belt, big-eared, between 40 and 50 years old, and have pierced nipples.  The gay world is small, and there aren't ,many guys who will fit your exact requirements, be into you and available, and have personalities that you can stand.  I would love to date some hairy bears in their 40s, but I'm surrounded by twinks, so I date twinks.

Try someone who does not fit your ideal of the perfect man. It won't kill you, and if after a date or hook-up you still don't like him, no harm done.

And maybe he'll cook breakfast in the morning.

6. Reject guys based on social criteria.  If you must reject someone, before or after a hookup, say "sorry, I don't think our personalities are compatible" or "sorry, I don't think we have enough in common," not "you're too fat" or "your penis is too small."  That is, something that is no one's fault, rather than a physical inadequacy.

See also: Is It Racist to Have a Type?

13 Country Boys, Cowboys, Farmboys, Truckers, and Rednecks

Both of my parents grew up on farms, and everybody who finds out that I'm from Illinois makes a crack about farming, so I've never found country boys particularly exciting. I was always into short, dark-skinned, muscular, not tall, chunky, and Anglo-pale.

Besides, I spent my childhood trying to avoid football, pick up trucks, country western music, hunting, fishing, and beer  Why would I want to hang out with someone interested in those things?

Still, country boys are often attractive, perhaps due to their hard iconic masculinity.

And the gay ones are so unexpected.  What causes someone to resist the siren call of West Hollywood and spend his life amid the vast fields?

Here are my top 12 country boys dates and hookups.












Texas

1. Ole Miss.  On my way south from Rock Island to my horrible year in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, I stopped in Oxford, Mississippi, and in one of my few experiences in street cruising, picked up a University of Mississippi undergrad named Elmer (really)

2. Carl the Cowboy Cop.  Texas had fewer country boys than one would expect, though lots of guys pretended to be.  Carl was 6'8, lanky, blond, and from a ranch near Abilene.  On our first date, he bought me a pair of cowboy boots and took me country-western line dancing.









West Hollywood

3. The Cowboy of Sunset Boulevard was actually a college music major from the San Fernando Valley, but he pretended to be a cowboy, and hit it off on my Montana-born roommate, Derek.

4. Frozen Custard and Gay Bashing.  During my semester in Nashville, I got a date with a country boy who wanted to go through my photo album, insisted that we didn't do it in the bed near the open window.  And smoked.

5. The Country Western Singer, also in Nashville. At least, a singer.  Adter I crammed Country-Western into my brain to impress him, he turned out to be into pop.

6. The Nebraska Cornhusker.  In 1995, Lane and I took a road trip from West Hollywood to Rock Island: The Great Redneck Roundup, 20 hookups in 20 days.  But few actual country boys.  A highlight was the Nebraska Cornhusker, a former football player who now worked as a college recruiter, and had three of the six characteristics of Country Boys.

7. The Honest-to-Goodness Cowboy of Missoula, Montana, another highlight of our   He made his living in rodeos.

New York

8. The Bear Who Wasn't into Sharing.  My boyfriend Joe's ex, a carpenter who lived in rural Rhinebeck, New York.  We thought he wasn't into sharing, and he thought Joe wasn't, until two of his friends convinced us otherwise.

9. The Football Player Who Got Unstuck In Time, Carey the Alabama Farm Boy who was going to the University of Alabama, and got lost on a field trip to New York, either in 1939 or 2000.

Florida

10. The Florida Cowboy.  Did you know that there were ranches in Florida?  The ranchers are called "cowhunters" or "crackers." But the tall, buffed guy that Yuri and I shared actually worked on an alpaca ranch.

11. Tucumcari Two-Step.  When I was visiting Larry in New Mexico, I met a guy from Tucumcari, on old Route 66. He had never heard of the tv series.

Ohio

Not a lot of country boys in Ohio.








Upstate

12.  The French Canadian Farmboy.  When I took Troy to Montreal to go to his first glory hole, he hooked up with Max.  Troy was impressed that he was an actual, honest-to-goodness farmer.

Plains

13, The Dakota Boy.   When I went to a Pow-Wow, I expected to meet a member of the Dakota Indian Nation, but instead I got a farmboy of German ancestry.  Cute, though.