Well, I like to think that I’m gay in my art and straight in my life. Although, I’m also gay in my life up to the point of intercourse, and then you could say I’m straight. So I guess it depends on how you define gay. If it means whom you have sex with, I guess I’m straight. In the twenties and thirties, they used to define homosexuality by how you acted and not by whom you slept with. Sailors would fuck guys all the time, but as long as they behaved in masculine ways, they weren’t considered gay.”
—Straight James Franco interviewing the gay James Franco for Four Two Nine magazine in which one asked the other the very straightforward, nagging question everyone wants answered: are you fucking gay or what?
H/t: Slate
Ron Jackson
clear as mud…
rickhfx
Yawn.
Billy Budd
LOL. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that he has never had pussy in his life.
Roan
So he thinks about men during the build up to intercourse, then grudge f *cks the vajay du jour to release all the pent up gayness? OK. That makes sense.
Eldred
I don’t give a shit what he is, I’m still in love with him!
Desert Boy
James Franco is a very conflicted man.
Billy Budd
@Desert Boy: He is not conflicted at all. He is just a teaser. He teases everybody with his ambiguity. He does it on purpose.
gauty
@Roan: Hahahahaaa DRAGGED!!
jtroi
there was a time twenty years ago when james franco could turn heads. how things change.
aliengod
Again, let’s make sure we don’t cut him a break. James is completely non-judgmental and accepting of the LGB community. We should definitely make snarky comments and cut him down whenever possible.
jwtraveler
I’d be very disappointed if I found out that James Franco is gay, but I don’t believe that will happen.
RIGay
At some point you would think an adult should reach a level of maturity to stop with the mind-fuck-in-the-name-of-art BS he continues to sling. Enough, already.
I stopped caring a long time ago, and did most of the adults in the room.
Mike G
“Sailors would fuck guys all the time, but as long as they behaved in masculine ways, they weren’t considered gay.”
Not exactly. It had little if anything to do with being “straight-acting,” particularly since anything else could get you thrown in prison or/and dishonorably discharged in the first place. It was more like “it ain’t queer unless it’s tied to the pier,” in the era before women were allowed to serve alongside men.
I think maybe he just needs a good, long nap or something.
GG
All the guys I f**k are gay, but I’m not.
etseq
As an acolyte of Michael Warner at Yale, Franco has been indoctrinated in the pseudoscience of “queer theory” as is evidence by the banal attempt at deconstructing any any objective meaning for homosexuality by the rhetorical move of re-defining homosexuality by citing homophobic theories from the past or other cultures whilst maintaining an epistemological relativism that denies any objective truth. This intellectual anarchism has allowed the religious right to promote ex-gay torture therapy, which Franco trivialized in his recent move about Michael Glatze, which adopted the moral relativism and science denialism of queer theory by indirectly validating Glatze’s ex-gay “identity” by some warped attempt at balance by false equivalency. Queer Theory, ironically, exists mainly as an minority academic phenomenon in the humanities where the vast majority of practitioners are heterosexuals. Like Franco, they are blind to their heterosexual privilege so they suffer no real world consequences for their contrarian theories that have little connection to reality.
Caramelo
Wasn’t he just trying to solicit an underage girl on line, though?
jwtraveler
@RIGay: If people stop asking the question, he won’t have to keep answering it.
ingyaom
@etseq: You talk about moral relativism as if it were a bad thing. Are you a moral absolutist?
Paco
The cuteness of being a tease wears thin quickly. The older you get, the more pathetic it becomes.
Clark35
Yes he’s a tease and a major closet queen. *yawn* When will this talent less “actor”‘s 10 seconds of fame be up?
twooten
@aliengod: Franco uses homosexuality as a punchline to a joke more times than you can count. He has a very juvenile, sophomoric, high school locker room view of anything even close to resembling homosexuality. Nearly all his “non-gay” movies are littered with gay joke after gay joke after gay joke in which a character’s masculinity is teased using suggestions or threats of homosexuality.
James Franco is not some LGBTQ ally for the masses. He is an attention seeking typical straight-identified male who thinks that above all else gay is “funny.”
His brother is even worse.
BuyK
@Caramelo: Yes, I get the impression it’s very convenient for him to push this “am I gay?” BS, as he’s probably in reality just a creepy old het.
Bauhaus
@Roan:
Yeah, Im thinking he’s gay in spirit but straight in the flesh.
jason smeds
James Franco makes a really interesting point. Before the advent of gay identity politics, homosexuality was considered something any man could do on an informal basis. Taking part in homosexual activity did not create an identity, and nor was it used to solicit support for a social scene based on segregation. This is why more men would admit to taking part in homosexual activity back then as compared to now.
Today, only a tiny percentage of men admit to taking part in homosexual activity even though many men do it. It’s because gay identity politics has created its own stigma which shames men out of identifying with an identity based on a segregated social scene.
An additional factor is that the rise of feminism has created a less gender-segregated society, thus reducing the possibility of informal homosexual activity between men. Keep in mind that one of the factors which encouraged informal/casual male homosexual activity in previous centuries was the high degree of segregation of the genders.
In essence, feminism has made informal/casual homosexual activity between men less likely.
Realitycheck
Gay by assimilation, he has gay friends and get the culture, and he is 100%
comfortable with gay people, but it is 100% straight, I wish all straight guys
were like him.
Mykaels
Well considering a lot of douchbags think they are straight up until the point they have sex then they are gay, it makes about as much sense to me
Bauhaus
@jason smeds:
I just thew up my breakfast. Go get help. Right away.
Roan
@Bauhaus:
Yeah, that’s what he’s saying. There’s a term for that: “Not out yet” or “Bisexual”
crowebobby
@jason smeds:As late as the mid-1950’s, letting a “fairy” blow you or f*ucking one didn’t make you “queer” in mind of most other straight men, at least not in Small Town New England or New York City. A hustler could go up to a cop and denounce you for blowing him if you didn’t pay. As late as the 1990’s, a friend of mine who is a nurse (straight) had an Hispanic patient who was HIV positive and a “mystery” because he was swearing on his children’s heads that he didn’t take drugs and had never had a homosexual experience. It seemed obvious to everyone that he was telling the truth just from his demeanor. Then someone thought to ask him if he had ever “f*cked” a man and the answer was “of course.” These examples are from my own experience, if you do a little research you’ll find that in the early part of the 20th Century, a “lumberjack” could have a lover for years and if the “lover” was a “Nancy,” “fairy,” or “punk,” other “real men” might disapprove, but they wouldn’t considered him a homosexual . . . and that included the police. The times there were achanging.
Saint Law
@jason smeds: I didn’t read your post, but I saw the word ‘feminism’.
Let me guess, you’re still blaming the womenz for the fact you can’t get laid?
Pistolo
I think I define gay as being interested in the same sex and knowing it, knowing you can’t change it, maybe not even wanting to change it, knowing it’s the only option for you and even liking or loving the fact that it is in spite of the fact you’re always left vulnerable to discrimination or…worse.
I don’t really define being gay as being an ENTITLED, PRETENTIOUS HETEROSEXUAL WHO LIKES TO SHOCK PEOPLE BY PRETENDING TO BE GAY. So f–k you, Franco, why don’t you just continue to luxuriate in how you get to choose when you want to be perceived as gay, you pr–k. For some of us it isn’t a career move.
Kieran
Wouldn’t it be great if James Franco became the new stereotype of gay men? The school yard taunt, “That’s so gay” might actually take on new meaning.
larrywb
Being gay is not only who you like to have sex with or act like like James thinks…but is actually who you fall in love with…that’s why I’m gay, anyway…
Captain Obvious
This girl… I’m so over her.
Zenguy
He is addressing, in subtle terms, the reality that though you may have sexual relations with the same sex, you may still maintain your identity as straight. I get that. Sexuality is fluid, and for some people the lines between gay and straight are blurry. That seems reasonable. That’s why they don’t want to classify themselves as one or the other. I get that!
I recently saw a documentary about gay Mormon men who classify themselves as having SSA – Same Sex Attraction. They acknowledge their attraction to men, but want to lead a traditional life with a wives and children. And they create those lives, with their wives fully aware of their SSA. While it may seem very bizarre to some people, it works for them. Why should they be subject to judgement? It’s how they choose to define themselves.
Footnote:
In the documentary, there is a social group of SSA couples. And as in such typical social situations, the girls will do things together, and the guys will do things together. I can’t imagine the tension that exists when a bunch of guys with repressed homosexual tendencies are together. Does their Mormon faith restrain them from fooling around, or do they ravish each other. I suppose the latter.
robho3
Personally I could care less…..this man irritates me to no end.
Random
I’m so bored of James Franco’s public ‘flirtations’ with homosexuality. This latest comment just seems to be a way of saying that he has, or has had, sex with men, but doesn’t label himself as ‘gay’. Big deal. This has long been recognised as a category in the area of sexual health and is known as ‘MSM’ (men who have sex with men).
The difference between those men and Franco, though is they don’t constantly draw attention to that aspect of their lives. Increasingly, he comes across less as someone presenting a healthy re-imagining of homosexuality, and more as an unstable closet case.
martinbakman
@Eldred: Agree! He’s an awesome man.
I don’t understand why so many guys want to rain on his parade when he is such a good guy.
Haters wanna hate I guess.
Malcolm Ingram
If gay media, film festivals and distributors only gave a fragment of the attention to gay artists …. That they give this jackass… It would be a far better world to live in.
Frank Croix
It’s a yes or no question. Quit beating around or behind the bush.
Ron Parsons
Hey, Franco!
etseq
@Zenguy: And here is the real world implications of this “linguistic creationism” as Stephen Murray once derided Queer Theory and its extreme social constructionism – validation of ex-gay ideology. If words have no real meaning the of course gay, ex-gay, SSA, sexual orientation, identity, etc. can all mean anything and nothing at the same time.
Sorry, homosexuality exists as an objective phenomenon and while gay certainly has a social component to its current definition, it also has a fixed meaning at this point in time. To ignore this and cede the battle to the right wing christianists is absurd. Of course, a heteosexual married life for a homosexual man is a bad thing – that was the whole point of gay liberation. It certainly wasn’t some non-judgmental, wishy washy relativism where no one can be judged for their actions.
slinky49
@etseq: You had me at “epistemological relativism” How now to quell this intense desire…