"No Homo!"

Let’s examine the phrase ‘No Homo.’ For the uninitiated, “no homo” is what you say when you’re a straight man volunteering an opinion that could be misconstrued by another straight man as gay. You know, like, “nice tie.” Or, “nice hair cut,” or “nice ass.”

No Homo is a phrase that I hear a lot at my school. A school I take the piss out of a lot, but love with equal measure. Howard University’s best kept secret? We’re a magnet school for the gays, man.

Now our brochure writers cloak this fact with euphemisms like: “Most Fashionable Campus,” and “Best College Newspaper.” See, Howard’s kind of like Xavier’s School for the Gifted out of X-Men. A place where the feared, scorned, and tormented individuals born of a minority persuasion, can congregate en masse. I’m not talking about blacks. Or mutants. Let’s call them gays. And while we’re going with “Nerdy Fiction Metaphor for $300 Alex,” let’s change the school’s name to something more thematically appropriate. Hogwarts?

But I stray.

Saying ‘No Homo’ is fascinating because it reveals the paranoid depths a straight will go to, all to maintain the stability of his fragile Metro ego. Most of the time this straight will be wearing something like lime green flip flops, bright plaid shorts, XS Tee that matches flip flops, a pink bow tie, and like, a cravat. When I hear such a character say this, I have only one silent reply: “Saying ‘no homo,’ does not help your case bro!”

My point is, if you get laid on a regular basis by someone of the opposite sex and you enjoy said activity, well, guess what? You’re straight! Enough anyway. Now please, on that basis, feel free with impunity, to express yourself naturally.

Posted By: Hannibal