You’ve been wondering it. We’ve been wondering it. And while Barbara Walters regrets these types of questions, Larry King asked Rep. Eric Massa if his unseemly groping of male staffers makes him a gay.
He didn’t like the question, and he refused to answer it. And we all know what that means. (Is Massa professing to be a heterosexual? Well, he wasn’t doing that last night.)
Massa, wisely, hid behind the “that’s offensive” defense. And not because it probed into Massa’s personal life (which everyone will be doing), but because it branded the gay community as, well, as disgusting as Eric Massa. And that is why the disgraced former congressman wouldn’t answer it.
And really, stop point to all your years in the Navy. Because talking about all the sailors we should speak to to assess your sexuality makes you sound like a giant ‘mo. On the other hand, thank you for 30 seconds of television that was more interesting than a whole hour of Glenn Beck.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Brian En Guarde
What I really hate about this twat is how he blamed his staffers for misinterpreting him. He even suggested one of them was acting unmanly. F$$#% off, douchebag.
Cam
The fact that he is defending his actions by saying it was a “Tickle Fight”. Well either what really happened is worse because saying THAT is no defense…..Or…this guy is in the habit of putting on baby doll nighties with his staff, making smores having pillow fights and talking about boys.
Robert, NYC
He’s a despicable character. He makes being gay something sordid, to be ashamed of. The right wingers will embrace this piece of shit of course. He ought to join the GOP, a party that fosters closet cases more than the democrats. This bastard also opposes marriage equality. No straight male in his right mind, inebriated or not would hit on another guy, let alone pretend it wasn’t sexual. He’s no better than Roy Ashburn, Larry Craig, Ted Haggard or Mark Foley, among others. He gives us a bad name and he should pay for it. He deserves every bit of scorn he gets. On to Carl Kruger, the closet case who voted against marriage equality in NYS. He’ll be keeping a low profile of course.
MissTransSylvaniaTV
What a loser. What a queen. Democrats are just as bad as Republicans. With friends like these…
Lukas P.
Groping staffers is wrong. Period. Whether they’re male or female. Call me old school, but inappropriate, unwanted touching — especially in a work setting — is creepy.
Answering the question “Are you gay” is kinda like answering the question “Are you Korean.” Possible answers include “Yes,” “No” and “Partly.” Not a perfect analogy, but it’s not terribly complicated.
Given the circumstances, I think Mr King’s question was reasonable and should not have been unexpected.
Fitz
The question really shouldn’t be “are you gay”… because if he had groped his female staffers it should be considered just as much an issue. It’s not a question of gay or straight, it’s a question of honorable or sleazy.
Cam
No. 5 · Lukas P.
Groping staffers is wrong. Period. Whether they’re male or female. Call me old school, but inappropriate, unwanted touching — especially in a work setting — is creepy.
_______________
He must have done something worse…staffers on the hill are used to working for assholes who do whatever they want. The staffers are either true believers or resume builders and would NEVER do anything to jepordize their jobs. The fact that one filed a complaint about this guy to me says that something worse went on or the staffer was the child of very important people and didn’t feel the need to kiss Congressional ass.
hardmannyc
tickle fights are SO GAY.
AlwaysGay
Another victim of heterosexual oppression. He is willing to say everything except that he is gay. What we have learned from people who hide their homosexuality AND pretend to be heterosexual is that eventually something has to give. They either kill themselves because they can’t reconcile their sexuality with the oppressive heterosexual environment or they decide to have sexual contact with people of the same sex only to be caught. I also blame some gay people who instead of blaming the true evil of heterosexual oppression they only blame the gay person. There will continue to be people like Eric Massa, Roy Ashburn, Jim McGreevey, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig etc by solely blaming them instead of the heterosexual environment that CAUSED them to do what they did.
ben doverr
I realize that “gay,” composed of a mere three letters, is awfully convenient when you’re trying to make your header fit on one line.
Still, may I gently suggest (as I have so, so many times here) that folks like Errant Mess-up (who is married with a child or two) are likely to be “bisexual”?
Edfu
Why do all these homosexuals keep sucking my dick???!! Jeez!
Brian NYC
R O M A N C A T H O L I C
The Artist
I’m sorry this guy is ICKY and I would touch him to scratch him. Who cares if he likes men, the question is, why the hell would they like him. PEACELUVNBWILD!
The Artist
I’m sorry this guy is ICKY and I wouldn’t touch him to scratch him. Who cares if he likes men, the question is, why the hell would they like him. PEACELUVNBWILD!
Geoff M
@hardmannyc: EXACTLY! How many straight men just LUV “Tickle Fights”?
Bruno
Nothing he says or does makes sense to me. It’s like he’s on another planet.
terrwill
I don’t think his creating a new Sesame Street Charachter Tickle Me ElHomo was what caused this hornets nest to be stirred up……..There is a whole lots more to this story that hasn’t come out yet………….
jason
Larry King comes across as a homophobic turd. He’s typical of liberals who claim to be gay-friendly but who are actually being quite negative in how they use the word “gay”.
Massa, in my view, is either heterosexual or bisexual in his orientation. Not gay.
Lukas P.
You probably know this but there are more than a few people running around with a sexual fetish for tickling/being tickled. They have to separate those folks from other kinksters at fetish parties because they make so much noise giggling!! Like any form of sex/kink, it should be consensual.
@CAM: You got that right! I’m sure more parts of this story will leak out. How could anyone aware of his handsy “problem” have turned a blind eye ?
jhd
this is what happens when you cross rahm emanuel
Bob
A gay person is one who not only accepts his homosexuality, but one who in fact celebrates being a homosexual individual.
A self-hating homosexual is not gay. Massa is right up there with all the other self-hating bigots, which accounts for at least 30% of Republican elected officials, and 70% of the Catholic ordained clergy.
If he were to embrace his gayness, he would not continue to use his wife and kids as a beard, and answer a direct question!
Duffy the Beer-Drinker
First, remember there’s a lot of bullsh*t politics going on here too, so we’ll probably hear 150% of the story before it’s all out in the wash.
But hold on everybody…why is it that ANY homoeroticism is now automatic confirmation that a straight dude HAS HAS HAS to be gay? And why is it ALWAYS our right to know when straight men go gay? Isn’t it worth pointing out that as long as sexual behavior defines one’s identity, there will continue to be ‘otherness’ and shame associated with a minority sexuality in a heteronormative society? You hear a lot of people pulling out the Kinsey scale when they think it’s hot, but if you really believe in a sexual spectrum these accusations are both groundless and harmful to Massa and bonifide homos everywhere.
Strikes me as just another moment of self-defeating idiocy in our very incoherent gay ‘community.’ What do you think causes ‘gay panic?’ The idea that if you touch the gay you’ll get infected is only reinforced when a public figure with curiously queer moments is met by crowds demanding he sacrifice his identity to make things easy for them. Why do we need the same f**king gay/straight binary we have to confront every day?
Instead, why don’t we take him at his word? If he says he’s straight he’s straight; and if you want to judge him for being queer every now and again, then save your worst for the straight men who do drag, the bisexuals who don’t date women or the ‘straight-acting’ gay guy who apparently needs to queen it up to your fierce standards.
There must be at least one reader who can attest to playing around with a guy who didn’t identify as gay, right? and which would you choose: a world with zero expectation or zero experimentation? I find the type of sexuality/identity that’s not absolute or deterministic more accurate to people’s real lives, and encouragingly progressive. My guess about Massa is he’s a guy who was raised when there were no homo options, so he grew up straight and like many other straight men considered homoerotic humor both normal and “no homo.” He served in the Navy (which Churchill claimed was held together by ‘rum, sodomy and the lash’), maybe fooled around once or twice but prob. stuck with the jay-jay, and now feels content to remain mostly straight but with a little lace on his doily.
The stories I’m hearing aren’t shocking as much as random coming from a Democrat–the party that DOESN’T keep their queers in chains.
Besides, there is no Kinsey scale–just a circle with the word QUEER written in the middle.
Lukas P.
@Duffy the Beer-Drinker: Okay, maybe he’s bisexual. Point is that he inappropriately touched at least one staffer [who is male] and also had complaints lodged against him when he was in the military–before he was in politics.
The whole “tickling” phase fades for most humans before the onset of puberty.
This isn’t a one time thing with him. This isn’t a case of two guys at boarding school who get each other off. It’s not a case of a male prisoner who rapes another male because there’s no women around.
He has a repeated interest in touching other men–men who have not agreed to be touched. Whether that is “gayness” or not doesn’t matter so much as that he behaves like a sexual predator and the target tends to be male. A non-consenting male, to be more precise.
If he is heterosexual, then why didn’t he answer Larry King’s question about whether he is gay? He could have said, simply, “NO,”
He didn’t.
Evidence on his past behavior continues to be unearthed.
Robert, NYC
It always amazes me when so called “bisexuals” claim they are not gay just because they like the other gender too. Many of them, not all, when they engage on same-sex activity, still maintain they are not gay. Last time I checked, someone who has sex with another of their own gender is GAY, period. The same goes for socalled “straight” males who allow another male to manipulate their genitalia without reciprocating, passive submissive. They can claim they’re straight all they like, but the action is definitely gay. Many of them too refuse to acknowledge it. This is all part of the denial in refusing to accept the gay side of their sexuality. It doesn’t matter if they like having sex with women. As long as they are having sex with men, that is 100% GAY. The sooner they (bi’s and straights)acknowledged that, the better.
Lezbo
@terrwill: Good one – Tickle me ElHomo!
Lukas P.
@Robert, NYC: The important issue here is that Massa has acted like a predator. That his intended targets seem to have all been men is interesting, but they’ve also been men who worked for him or reported to him. I’d hate to see us cloud the issue with his sexual orientation, because him “tickling” and fondling and getting handsy with women would be just as offensive — but less newsworthy perhaps.
Robert, NYC
LukasP, I understand your point, but in Massa’s case, there is no evidence that he has done this with women, only men, equally offensive either way of course. Each day, I’m hearing this man come up with a different excuse for his actions. His actions are most definitely predatory, I agree with that which only promotes the myth that gay men are nothing but that. His actions are not the actions of a well adjusted straight male who isn’t affected by a man’s sexual orientation. I tend to believe that these are the actions of a deeply closeted man who needs to address it by taking some responsibility by coming out. More’s the pity if he doesn’t. I don’t think we’ve heard the end of this.
Robert, NYC
LukasP, I agree, yes it would be equally offensive no matter the gender of the person he targeted. Each day, I’m hearing this man come up with a different excuse for his actions. His actions are most definitely predatory, I agree with that and that only promotes the myth that gay men are nothing but that. His actions are not the actions of a well adjusted straight male who isn’t affected by a man’s sexual orientation. I tend to believe that these are the actions of a deeply closeted man who needs to address it by taking some responsibility in coming out. More’s the pity if he doesn’t. I don’t think we’ve heard the end of this. The man is self-destructing unfortunately.
idforgotten
@Robert, NYC: It’s just a semantic thing. You can’t be gay if you also enjoy sex with the opposite sex because that’s outside the bounds of the definition of “gay.” At least, that’s the case if you’re trying to attach a label to an individual rather than to his activity at a given moment.
It’s easy to see this by reversing the situation. Imagine a gay guy who lives in the Castro, fucks men left and right, but craves a woman once every leap year. Would you call him straight? That’d be odd…
Robert, NYC
Idforgotten No. 29, I just have a problem with “bisexual” men who refuse to acknowledge that having sex with someone of their own gender isn’t a gay sex simply because they like women too. Believe me, there are many like that, not all, but many.
LukasP, No. 26, I concur, regardless.
Bruzintuc
I wouldn’t claim him as one of us. There’s a big difference between “gay” and “latent, self-hating perv.” Guess which one I think he is?