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"  Gideon, God rest his soul, was the first gay man I ever knew. I didn&amp;#039;t know that he was gay -- I was but a lad of ten or twelve when I met him, back in the early 1960s -- and as far as I know, Gideon, the twentyish son of family friends, dwelt inside the closet all his life. But my mother knew, and her mother knew, and their word for golden-haired, dimple-chinned Gideon was faygeleh -- &amp;quot;little bird&amp;quot; in Yiddish. I&amp;#039;ve never heard one fellow taunt another with &amp;quot;faygeleh&amp;quot; in order to impugn his manhood -- it is far too nice a word for that purpose -- and I&amp;#039;ve overheard this type of taunting all my life (and not because I&amp;#039;m not a stud-hoss red-blooded 100 percent ungay guy, which I almost certainly am, and I will hurt you dare you question it). We American men are so manly that any epithet belittling our manhood is either a fighting word or, hurled at a buddy, the safe way to channel the inchoate erotic yearning at the core of most male friendships.  I&amp;#039;m kidding, of course, about that last point. Men can be close without being sissies, punks, fairies, pussies, queers, bitches, twats, or faggots, and men -- particularly sweaty, muscular men who shower together on a regular basis -- often use such terms with great cheer and frequency, generally without a downward glance. A vast majority of these guys, despite their loose talk and taut, shapely butts, have no doubt not experienced anal or oral sex with another man, pitching or catching.  It&amp;#039;s worth noting that the most offensive of these slurs, faggot, spent whole centuries as a derogatory term for a shrewish woman before it became an insult to men who are nothing like me. The first time I saw the word used in print, in The Sun Also Rises, I was shocked that a guy with a ball sack the size of Hemingway&amp;#039;s was so fixated on manhood as a source of malfunction, but I was far too naive to grasp the crucial differences between an author and his character, nor was I then aware that Papa had on his favorite red dressing gown when he gave his shotgun a last farewell kiss.  One thing for sure: Ernest Hemingway was no faggot or faygeleh, even if all of his mooning over bullfighters and boxers made him seem like a bit of a twat. And don&amp;#039;t even get me started on Fitzgerald. Still, on the continuum of sexuality, no man can truly judge another, although a bashful kidney often means the guy next to you at the urinal may be light in his loafers. Not that a real man would even notice. Are you an asshole? Or maybe you&amp;#039;re just a prick, dick, or son of a bitch? To find out, click here. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a4744/gay-men-0708/>