I remember watching Ruby Rose presenting the MTV Europe Music Awards and during the broadcast there were a slew of straight women on social media saying they’d “go gay” for her. Scrolling through Twitter that day was like hearing that line in True Romance; “If I had to fuck a guy… I’d fuck Elvis”.

Ever since that bewildering and somewhat offensive evening, I’ve seen various other idiotic straight people, not only on mainstream television but in day-to-day life, doing what I can only call “gay play-acting”. Watch almost any talk show, chat show, or game show today and note the straight presenters and straight guests joking about fancying one another, wanting to see each other naked or whatever else, knowing full-well this shite isn’t gonna happen.

The public agrees that there can’t be gay conversion therapy and that a person’s sexuality is in-built from birth and therefore unchangeable, so surely, there can’t be cajolery the other way around? So no, you cannot “go gay” for whomever you think looks the closest to the gender you’re actually attracted to. Uttering this phrase isn’t solidarity it’s stupidity.

It can’t be ignored that this wannabe-gay bullshit gained traction around the same time as the “Me Too” movement. These heterosexual males who I can only assume, sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and even raped females now think it’s okay to do the same with men. They’ve calmly and quietly transitioned to sexually harassing blokes instead, touching men’s pecs and arses and joking about wanting to have sex with them. It’s prison mentality as far as I can tell; they’ve been told they can’t fuck with women any more so now they’re pestering their own sex and they’re probably only one locked room away from acting on their so-called “banter”.

It’s strange to me how this kind of bad-taste appropriation evolves. I recall Caucasian Americans angrily waving the American flag after 9/11 oblivious to the Islamophobia Muslims were facing but almost two decades later they’ve got an Arabic tattoo on their wrist that reads “peace” as they eat organic hummus dip. This is just like all the white people who were quiet during slavery, silent during lynchings, apathetic to segregation, critical of the civil rights movement (or any kind of black empowerment for that matter). After 400 years of prejudice and violence it’s kinda offensive to see their offspring consume a culture simply because it’s popular. You’re never going to be profiled by security or pulled over and shot by a racist cop but it’s so great that you have cornrows, listen to Hip-Hop and talk slang. Welcome to the struggle.

Since the rainbow is the new black to you pricks and twats, now you want to be part of yet another culture like it’s a frigging trend. But don’t forget; you weren’t there for the incarcerations, the forced sterilisation, the AIDS epidemic, you weren’t there for the imprisonment, not to mention the stares and the jokes. It’s so great that you weren’t present to stop the gay bashing, you didn’t denounce homophobic music, movies, and TV shows, and you didn’t show up to any march, but now you’ll once again ride the wave of popularity and pretend you fancy your own sex because you think it makes you look current. Back in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s where the fuck were you all? You were probably part of the crowd making a gag about “fairies” and “dykes” because that too was popular back in the day.

To close, let’s go back to that opening quote from the Quentin Tarantino-penned True Romance. It was prefaced by the line “Elvis looked good. I’m no fag, but Elvis was good lookin’”. This is what you people sound like when you say you’d “go gay” for whichever celebrity, and this is how you come across when you pretend-pinch your co-worker’s butt-cheeks. I’d tell you all to suck a dick but you’ll probably fake-want to.

Y’all Gay AF.

This is a previously unpublished article from 2017.