Monday, Oct. 08, 2007 - 7:20 PM
a.k.a. Is this the best you can do?
This was intended to be posted a couple months ago. Life got in the way. It�s nice to have one. Unfortunately, the assholes are at it again, so my old rant became timely.
Normally I wouldn�t give these people a moment to shine in my spotlight. Normally I�d keep my anger about this to myself. But this week I ain�t feelin� normal.
(And it�s just a coincidence that a certain little creep attempted to thrust himself back into the spotlight at a concert the other night�to hilariously boring results. Cheers!)
I�ve written similarly-themed articles before (look through the �Older Entries� for an article on Kathy Griffin, for example), but this one is a little different. This one isn�t whining about whether or not Clay Aiken is gay, or how mean some people are for saying so, because that is soooooo last year.
Just to get it out on the table, before I start, so that there are no misconceptions�
I don�t give a crap either way. Seriously.
And I am an adult, and I have the right to be sexually attracted to anyone I find attractive.
And it doesn�t matter if he, or any other man, might not be attracted to me, for whatever reason. It could be because I�m blonde. Or because I weigh more than he does. Or because I have a potty mouth. Or because I�m not a Christian. Or because I have a vagina. There are myriad reasons why any particular man might find me sexually un-appealing.
So let�s hope my writing this article doesn�t provoke the kind of brilliant �you�re a disgusting fat old hag and he�s a faggot and doesn�t want you anyway� repartee that typically follows anything referring to the presumed sexuality of Clay Aiken.
And let�s begin.
Recently, celebrity blogger and legend-in-his-own-mind Perez Hilton appeared on The View. Within five seconds of the beginning of the interview, he mentioned Clay Aiken. Or, rather, his fans. He said that Clay Aiken�s fans have been threatening him.
How unoriginal. People like him have been accusing Clay�s fans of threats, even death threats, for a long time. Funny how in this high-tech age, we can send a smart-bomb right up someone�s nose, we can locate a terrorist cell, but we can�t find a Claymate who sent a threatening email to some pissy little queen.
Of course, he said the scary threat of Claymates was the reason why he had to change his name from Mario Lavandeira to Perez Hilton. Because the world is stupid enough to believe that Claymates can time-travel as well as pose a serious threat to anyone.
Ten seconds after that, he referred to the �evidence� he has that �proves� that Clay is homosexual. The women on The View sure seemed to buy what he was selling.
Why did he bring up Clay Aiken? Because Claymates keep him in hair dye. He may not be very good at proving a point, but he�s not an idiot when it comes to making money off of his website. And he knows, as many do, that Clay Aiken�s fans will rush to any website or article that mentions his name, and post and post and post.
Every click translates into money. And the money and prestige that comes from those clicks is why VH1 just gave him his own show. A show that, I�m sure, will include words like �Gayken� at every opportunity.
I would love it if every one of Clay Aiken�s fans would imagine themselves handing Perez Hilton a dollar every time they click from one page to another, or �send� a comment. If the people who hate Clay Aiken only had each other to talk to, they wouldn�t have much fun.
And that�s the thing that bothers me more than Perez Hilton. He�s just one person. There is a huge number of people who not only hate Clay Aiken, but who find it necessary to seek out articles that allow comments so that they can post �HE�S A FAG� and get the fans all riled up. I don�t know who they are, but I�ll bet they don�t have jobs.
Just a quick aside to any �Claymates� that might be reading this�the fans have as much responsibility in this mess as the �haters� do. They hate Clay�s fans as much as, if not more than, they hate him. Don�t give them ammunition or new targets to shoot at. Believe me, I know it�s hard. But I�m trying like hell to play in my own yard and let them beat up on each other.
But that�s not why I decided to write today. I want to talk about evidence.
I could get all geeky on you and talk about the differences between scientific and anecdotal evidence, use big words like �fallacious post hoc reasoning� or �cognitive bias�, or how, when evidence that is contrary to the hypothesis is discovered, the researcher is expected to scrutinize that evidence more closely than that which supports his belief�but I don�t want you to fall asleep. You�re already online, you can look this stuff up for yourself.
I want to talk about what constitutes �evidence� to the people who strut around the Internet claiming that they have proven that Clay Aiken is gay.
They have �photographic evidence�. They have stories from people who claim to know things and swear they�re reliable witnesses. And they have even weaker stuff than that.
I�m not going to bother with who said what, because it�s irrelevant.
I�m going to talk about all evidence ever presented in this matter.
And I�m going to piss off a lot of people. But I�m okay with that.
Clay Aiken is an internet whore/predator.
The people who say this have been saying for years that Clay is online all the time, and is always picking up men. Before 2006, the stories were about him being this ugly, pathetic loser who would chat up guys online, then arrange to meet them�only to have the guys turn-tail and run once they saw him. After 2006, the National Enquirer was given a well-known story about a meeting in a hotel room. This story painted Clay as a smooth-talking, bossy, and aggressive predator who forced himself onto an unwilling partner.
Has Clay Aiken changed so much in recent years that both of these types of stories can be true? Are we to believe one and not the other?
Knowing what I know about gay men (and that�s quite a bit), I know that the pre-2006 stories are extremely unlikely, because no man would ever agree to hook up with someone after talking online without EVER having seen a picture of the person they were talking to. Every one of those stories started with �A guy I know said his friend met this guy online.� Those types of stories are automatically suspect to begin with, but when you combine the dubious origin of the information with the �as soon as he saw that it was Clay, he bailed�, it becomes completely unbelievable.
Once the early 2006 story surfaced, all stories thereafter followed suit. Clay was on tour. Clay chatted with X. X saved the conversation (What, nobody before 2006 saved chats? Oh wait, that�s right. None of those guys knew it was Clay Aiken until they were running out the door in horror.) and proudly posted it online, claming that he was being begged by Clay to meet.
The most famous of the stories was not only told by someone whose detailed claims changed every time he repeated his tale (he even once claimed for a little while that he made the whole thing up, and then deleted that claim from his website�the more people have to search a site for information, the more things they must click on�anything for hits! Dollars, dollars, dollars!), but who was trying to start a career in porn. For all his claims of innocence (and romance�don�t forget how he thought they were only going to talk and get to know each other better when he drove across town to a hotel in the middle of the night with a bottle of lube in his bag!), he swore time and time again that he never intended for the story to get out. But where did the National Enquirer get that hi-resolution professional beefcake picture of him, if he was trying so hard to stop the NE from printing the article? Do I need to go on with the inaccuracies and total lack of believability of this particular story?
Another story was accompanied by grainy, odd-looking webcam screen captures. These �striptease� pictures are referred to all the time, even today. Clay Aiken, according to a tabloid, chatted online with a man, soliciting him for sex, and stripped for him on his webcam. The pictures spread around the Internet like wildfire. Some claimed they were 100% real. Some claimed they were a hoax. Some offered real evidence that at least one of the pictures was photoshopped from an existing photograph of Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke (and if the other photos from that night were real, why fake this one?), but that information didn�t propagate as thoroughly as the more salacious stories did. The truth just isn�t as much fun as the lie.
There were other webcam-related stories later on. None of them were picked up by the tabloids. Probably because they were too ridiculous even for them. And those more recent stories didn�t even catch on online, because even the people who longed to believe them to be true weren�t convinced by them.
One of the funniest things about those most recent webcam shots (apart from the paint-by-numbers storyline that goes with them) is something that comes directly from my gay friends�no gay man would ever allow himself to be seen looking like that if his intention was to pick up men. Comb your hair and put on a nice shirt, ferchrissakes. In other words, not believable.
Even more interesting is the fact that men who put effort into picking up other men online can potentially score four or five times a week, if they are, as Clay supposedly is, �online all the time� and a �whore�. All these years, all these cities, all these potential pools of willing sex partners�and this is all you�ve got to show for it? Give me a break.
Clay Aiken � the �photographic evidence� of homosexuality.
Oh, and while we�re at it, since the alleged webcam pictures are the strongest bit of evidence these people have got, I�d like to present a little play, for your pleasure. I call it �Perez Hilton is a Big, Fat Liar with Stupid Hair.�
Me: Hi Perez. Those are cool shoes. Where did you buy them?
Perez: I didn�t buy them.
Me: Oh, so you stole them?
Perez: No.
Me: You took them without paying for them. That�s stealing.
Perez: They were a gift.
Me: Look at all these pictures of you wearing these stolen shoes.
Perez: I never stole any shoes. And I�m not talking to you any more. You�re mean. ::starts to leave::
Me: Wow, I have tons of photographic evidence of Perez Hilton wearing shoes. Lots and lots of different pairs of shoes. Perez Hilton is ONE BIG THIEF.
Perez: Wait! ::turns around:: I�m not a thief! I never stole anything!
Me: Yes, you are. Everyone knows you are. And I have the pictures to prove it.
Aaaand scene. ::takes a bow::
Perez Hilton has �photographic evidence� of Clay Aiken being all gay and stuff. He told the women on The View that it included pictures of Clay with his shirt off, and other things that let you know it�s Clay. (But what in the picture lets me know it�s gay?) �It�s all on my site.�
So I�ve seen it then. Apparently I�ve seen pictures of Clay Aiken that prove that he�s gay. Only somehow I didn�t notice the gay parts. How unobservant of me.
Let me make sure I understand this allegation. Perez claims that he has a picture of Clay with his shirt off. Okay, if Perez believes that those webcam shots from the Star are really pictures of Clay, even the one showing the bare chest and no face, then, in his mind, he has a picture of Clay with his shirt off. But I�m not sure I follow how shirtlessness is definitive proof of sexual attraction towards men. Show me a picture of Clay on Castro Street, strolling arm in arm with a big ol� bear, and I�ll consider the possibility that you might have proof of something, Perez. Until then, shut the hell up about your �photographic evidence�.
But others have pictures they claim are �proof�, too. Sometimes Clay goes out, like to concerts or sporting events, and he�s with a group of people. Sometimes it�s Clay with a bunch of girls, which can only mean one thing�faghags. And sometimes there are men. Sometimes a man is sitting in the seat next to Clay. On the other side of that man could be a woman, but the proximity of that man to that woman means nothing. It only has meaning when it�s a man next to Clay Aiken. There�s your so-called proof.
Reminds me of the early days. I recall how Clay used to always refer to his female college friends. PROOF! He has no male friends, therefore he is a big ol� homo. Oh look, he has a male friend who moved to Los Angeles to help him out. PROOF! Clearly they are dating. Oh wait, that guy�s not gay? Oh well, a gay guy cuts his hair. That�s close enough.
Important thing to remember when you�re trying to prove that Clay Aiken is gay: everything is evidence when you�re single-minded and trying to prove that your opinions are facts. Ignore anything that doesn�t support your claim. It makes it a lot easier. But it doesn�t make it true.
Clay Aiken used to troll for men while he was on American Idol.
This is one of my favorites.
A friend of mine told me that her roommate saw...Clay in the back of a limo, cruising all over Hollywood looking for boys.
Really? Is this why he didn�t know that Corey Clark was boinking Paula Abdul� he was never in the house to see Corey getting all those secretive phone calls because he was out in a hired limo looking for action? Clay�s family couldn�t visit him in the house�not because the contestants were sequestered, but because Clay was always out in search of young men to have sex with?
Thanks. I needed a good laugh.
Clay Aiken had a fling with Reichen Lehmkuhl from �The Amazing Race�.
Never mind that Reichen denied it vehemently. As did his mother.
Never mind that even the people on the Internet who insist that they know for a fact that Clay is gay were saying that the two of them could never be a couple, because Reichen is a bottom (how they know that, I have no idea!) and Clay could never, EVER be a top.
And never mind that the �spiky-haired singer� Reichen used to be spotted with in blind items on gossip pages ended up being Lance Bass.
Fact: Bloggers and gossip columnists will never retract a juicy story if they think they�ve got something on Clay Aiken.
PS�Remember how all those people said Clay couldn�t be a top? They had no problem with Clay being a top when the Enquirer story came along. Isn�t that convenient?
Clay Aiken refuses to answer questions about his sexuality.
Clay Aiken is kinda nelly.
Well, DUH.
I mean, when it comes right down to it, �a little on the nelly side� is really all they�ve got. I�m totally willing to concede on the nelly. I see it, too. Apparently not nearly as much as other people�despite my having been watching him pretty closely for four and a half years, and the people who don�t like him have maybe seen him, on average, for a total of less than an hour. But, whatever. They are convinced that I know less about him than they do.
A touch of nelly proves nothing, and anyone who�s spent any time with geeky or Southern guys knows that there�s a really fine line there, and it�s often hard to tell who�s gay and who isn�t. Go to a Star Trek convention in Alabama sometime. You�d think it was Pride Week in Provincetown.
If you had the nelly with some real evidence that was concrete and believable, then you�d have something. But you don�t.
In conclusion�give up. You�ve got nothing. All this time, all this energy, and you�ve got zilch. And you don�t matter. You keep screaming, and the world keeps not caring. Play your stupid little games with someone else�s life and reputation, because, to quote Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, you have no powers here.
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