Grugby or Gay Rugby?

Adam, who hails from New York and now resides in Chicago, submits this post about the semantics of naming gay activities.

Much like the Apple “i” branding phenomenon, placing the letter “g” in front of activities declares that whatever activity it is, it is a gay activity. It didn't hit me that it was such a common thing until I started doing it myself.

My usage stemmed from when I told my roommates, and my neighbors who had once been roommates, that I was joining a local rugby team. All of my roomies and neighbors, who all happen to be straight (although a few have been called questionable by my gay friends) thought it was a great idea. But the inevitable schoolgirl giggle came when I explained that it was a mostly gay team. Of course, I was bombarded with questions. The most common being "Will you shower together?" to which I always replied "I sure hope so" in a half-joking, half-wishing manner.

One of my friends, Tommy, started to dub any gay rugby activity as a gRugby activity. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I had gRugby practice. Saturday meant a gRugby game. The ironic thing is that 85% of the people who meet Tommy for the first time are absolutely convinced he's gay. While there is no doubt in my mind that he loves girls, I gave up trying to prove his straightness after so many failed attempts and started to help fuel the fire that burned in these strangers minds. To them, there is no way this Jewish 5'7” man with dark hair and blue eyes, having unhealthy man-crushes on Tom Welling and Kirk Heinrich, and a walk gayer than Clay Aiken singing "Seasons of Love" with Liza Minnelli was straight. I knew Tommy was not creating a nickname for my gay rugby activities to hide any hidden gay insecurities. He did it because it was funny.

After adopting the gRugby for my everyday use, as well as for iCal scheduling purposes, I started to notice that many of my friends would do the same for the other activities I liked to do. gReading, gWriting, gEating, gWalking.

My straight best friend Charlie, with his short but athletic form, smooth childlike face, and soft bubble booty that I declared as "Soccer Ass", always seems to get the attention of gay men. While I was always the one to notice that he was getting checked out as he was oblivious to such things, he started to declare that he was "gAdorable" or "gHot" and was proud of the attention. While I don't generally categorize myself, my friends would not classify me as feminine so it didn't offend me, but it bothered me on some small level. Why?

After I contemplated this for a few days, I came to a conclusion. My friends were basically saying that no matter what I did, my sexuality was at the forefront. This bothered me because in my 22-year-old life I had gone out of my way to make sure I was never classified. There are many aspects to me, but I never let one take precedent over the other. I was never blacker than I was gay. I was never more of a Psychology major as much as I was a New Yorker. All of it came together to make me who I was. Then I realized it was just a friendly way of making fun of each other and I was just over complicating it. We all made fun of Tommy for being stereotypically Jewish when he would eat six bagels and cream cheese in one sitting, and made fun of Charlie being so short he could audition for Little People, Big World. Either way, I knew it wasn't because my friends were saying I was really feminine or the only redeeming quality I had was my homosexuality. It was a testament to our friendship and our sense of gHumor.