A friend of mine once referred to me as an “anecdotal sociologist,” a lofty title I’d have never
had the balls to come up with myself. But I guess it’s an apt enough description of the work I do, and the methodology fits my subject matter well; I like to grab a guy, in person or online, and get into his head, find out what he thinks about sissy boys or muscle men, underage kids having sex,
dudes with fake pictures or profiles, gays in the military or at the altar, or why he thinks he might be gay, and take a “snapshot” of his thoughts. Now a single snapshot, or even a dozen, usually doesn’t tell a story, at least not a complete one. But if you take enough, the different tiles build something of a mosaic, and a picture begins to emerge.

Gay men have to be among the most fascinating subjects of study I can think of, unbound as we are from heterosexual convention yet subject to so much discrimination and derision from the earliest ages, in the homes we grow up in and/or the places we go to school. How any of us manage to survive the constant buffeting sustained by our self-esteem is anyone’s guess; how all that shapes our personalities and the way we carry ourselves from teens to seniors is a
rich vein to tap into. And I’ve barely managed to scratch the surface.