With a historical outlook men have consistently held the highest offices with great majority.  We find that men are considered the dominate gender.  They are predominantly the so-called bread winners of existence.    As time has shown us, you can always rely on the man to set forth the rules and regulations that define our standards as well as carry them out, usually by force.
   

    History has allowed the rule of man to control society.  As it stands, men have been the dominating gender.  This is a direct result that men have been the more powerful, physically, and therefore took control.  When there was no government, no laws, no rules, physical strength alone determined who would hold control.  By utilizing their strength men were able to suppress anyone or anything that stood in their way of total domination. 


    Even today in our modern societies, men have been able to subdue the female gender on the grounds of physical strength. We see a significant number or date rapes, muggings, and beatings all with women as the object of destruction.  This is a Neanderthal approach to dominance.  On the flip side to that, men have been the ones to be allowed to use knowledge as their weapon of choice. 

    Look back into Ancient Greece we see that the governing body was solely a group of men, the senate.  It was formed by, governed, and dominated only by men.  They made the laws and carried them out.

    Very seldom have women had control of power.  Our predominating female leaders were gifted those positions on the grounds of a man.  Be it Egyptian queens or the queens of England, in the shadow of a man they took their reign.  Even in our more advanced and accepting modern age, which I say loosely, it is hard for women to attain a position of power.  There have been few exceptions to this:  Margaret Thatcher for instance. 

    However, there are other genders that people choose not to recognize.  These are the not so obvious or taboo.  They are homosexuals.  This has been a means of gender that has long been disputed.  Yes, homosexuals are a gender.  Anatomically they are men.  Their most noticeable difference being that they are attracted to other men. 

    Notably, in our distant history there have been few, if any, proclaimed homosexuals.  This is not to say that there were none.  It is not a popular trend of modern design.  It is rumored that many of the philosophers of the Roman senate were of homosexual persuasion.  Interesting how some of the most intellectual minds of history, those who set forth many theories and ideas that are admired today, were queer. 

    Ancient Rome had its own queer past, even outside of the philosophers.  In that page of history it was common place to bathe in a communal bathhouse.  There were separate quarters for both men and women.  The men would welcome the thought of free sexuality.  It was acceptable that the men engaged in many unconventional sexual acts with each other.  

    This is a piece of human history that has been long kept a secret from public knowledge.    As Rome fell, so did its queer lifestyle and acceptance thereof.
It wasn’t until the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s that this way of life was brought back into the spotlight.  Not to get the impression that homosexuality disappeared, it only found a subdued sense of acceptance in a realm of shadows.  There were those who were banished for it and those who paid with their lives for it.  The time of the hippie gave rise to a freedom of expression that had long been denounced and in turn gave rise to freedoms of speech, religion, and sexuality. 
When the American people denounced the traditional way of life to seek out their own, not only did drug use, nomadic lifestyles, and expression of ones self come forth but homosexuality found its key to the door that had been locked so long ago.  Men and women of free and open mind found themselves experimenting with feelings and thoughts that were taught to them as carnal and sinful.  The thought of a man laying with women one night and then men the next and even both women and men the evening after that would have been grounds for death not so many years before hand.  Now in a state of freedom and acceptance homosexuality was back.

    It really wasn’t until the early 80s that the full brunt of hatred showed its ugly face again.  This time it was in the form of a secret killer.  Certain classes of people had started to show signs of a new and different sickness.  It was a sickness unlike anything the world had seen.  It would be called AIDS.  This horrendous and incurable virus would claim the lives of millions of the world’s population by the turn of the new millennium. 

    Those most susceptible were gay males.  Now, not even twenty years later, there was a new reason for the world to discriminate another class, another gender, of mankind.  Many were uncertain as to how one contracted the AIDS but it was noticeable that if you were a gay male you were a risk.  Gay hate crimes and homicides were now a common practice among those who didn’t understand or accept the gender of gay men.

    As we step into the present, again just around twenty year’s difference, it can be found that little has changed.  The gay male is a gender very much still and enigma to the outside world.  They are hated and mocked.  People find any many a reason to distance themselves from a man who chooses to lay with another man.
With all of this information lain before you the question looms in one’s mind, “Are homosexuals a group of sick minded individuals, a trend, or really a different gender?”  To be honest, they are all three.  Within the realm of homosexuality there are divisions.

    There gay men who really are mentally disturbed as anyone can be.  These are the pedophiles and the sexual offenders that we find many places across the world.  They use their physical strength to subdue their prey.  It’s their sick mind and the media’s fascination to exploit people that cause this classification of gay man to be looked down upon with a more then necessary negative connotation.  There are these same people within the community of heterosexuals.  However, since it is a straight guy raping a woman there’s something sickly calming about it to the human mind that makes it easier to digest rather then a gay man. 

    Of course, there are men who choose the gay lifestyle as a means to find their place in life.  Many men who don’t make the cut of being “one of the guys” are usually left out of society.  They seek out any form of acceptance.  When they find a community of gay men who have been through the same situations in life and who are willing to accept them they feel they may have been gay all the while.  Once they find their way to standing on a foundation of friends with similar histories, they tend to slowly work their way back into the heterosexual world.  Thus, it is only a short lived trend.

    There still are those who wish to live a normal life, as a gay man.  Not to be confused, there are different classifications within the gender of gay men.  There are femmes, also known as queens or faggots, and homosexuals. 

    The first thing that probably comes to mind when one thinks of a gay man is that of a femme.  Femmes are given the name for the well deserved reason that they tend to act more like that of a woman.  These are the men who tend to dress on the feminine side.  They walk a little different then that of a straight man.  A femme can be found shopping in the woman’s section of the local clothing store.  These are the gay men who feel that they are women trapped in a man’s body; a transsexual. 

    There are also homosexuals.  Homosexuals are those men who find comfort in lying with another man.  They still believe that they are men.  They want to look and dress like men.  Homosexuals are really no more different then a straight man.  They enjoy going to the bar and watching sports while drinking a few beers.  They wear men’s clothing.  Homosexuals have the mindset that they are men.  Many times people never know that these men are gay until they make the effort to disclose the information. 

    I have lived my life in fear that I will not be accepted for who I am.  I am a homosexual.  I enjoy the company of other gay men.  It is only when I’m with other gay men that I am allowed to be myself without fear and persecution.  With this essay I make an attempt to define the different classifications of gay men to find a more accepting place in the world.

    It is a hope that within my lifetime I will not have to hide who my true identity, but celebrate who I am as most heterosexuals do on a daily basis.  It fills me with jealously to see the public displays of affection between women and men.  I long to be able to walk in the park with my boyfriend, holding his hand, and not be stared at for being a freak or having the fear of being beaten to death.  Revel in the light of domination and expand it to include all genders and classifications.  Only then will the light burn eternal.