Hi, my name is Jake, and I used to be a straight guy.
It’s kind of hard to admit, but I was a straight guy for
as long as I can remember, probably since birth ““ although
there may have been some doubt at the beginning, since the hospital
ran out of blue blankets and dressed me in pink instead.
Forgive me, but I didn’t recognize it as foreshadowing
anything at the time.
My first shoes were Nikes. I played soccer, tee-ball and even
high school basketball. I wore shorts in the winter and thought my
belt only had to match my waist size.
Basically, I was a straight guy from Bravo’s wildly
successful new television series “Queer Eye for the Straight
Guy,” before the makeover.
Now, after my own makeover of sorts, I try to call myself a
metrosexual, a term coined by the New York Times to describe
“straight urban men willing, even eager, to embrace their
feminine sides.”
Instead of “Queer Eye’s” Fab Five, I had two
close friends help me, but the idea was the same. I was transformed
from Jack Nicholson in “As Good as It Gets” to
something closer to Jack Lemmon in “Some Like it Hot.”
Not that I now want to cross-dress or anything, but by forcing me
to embrace my feminine side, my friends just made me want to be a
better man.
Lately, I sit in my Express (for men) jeans and overpriced
sandals and watch the five gay stars of “Queer Eye”
make over the wardrobe, apartment, grooming techniques, culinary
skills and cultural self-awareness of a different straight guy
every week. And while I laugh along with the jokes and conscious
stereotyping, I also smile, knowing that I went through the same
process and feel that I am a better person because of it.
The work done on “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” is
all about making people gay, and by gay, I mean happy.
All the straight guys featured in the show like the changes
imposed upon them.
Nobody wants to live in a cluttered apartment with floors so
dirty you can’t actually see them, and nobody wants to be
seen as unattractive, regardless of sexuality.
I wouldn’t think it would take five gay men to convince
guys to shave, clean up their apartments and learn to use an oven,
but considering the show’s track record so far, the Five are
all the more fabulous because of it. And they provide some
satisfyingly cheap laughs too.
More interesting than the show itself, though, is its
popularity. The growing metrosexual population further blurs the
line between what’s commonly thought of as “gay”
culture and what’s considered “straight.”
This is a good thing. If the perfect society does not judge
people based on their sexuality, blurring perceptions of gay and
straight should be welcomed. And this trend encourages people, both
men and women alike, to take better care of themselves and seem
more attractive.
Still, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” exists,
helping to disprove the final line of “Some Like it
Hot” and show that men, quite possibly, can be perfect.