I remember when I was a kid, I totally assumed that KISS frontman Paul Stanley was gay, or at the very least overcompensating for something. Ultimately, I was being ignorant. I was associating effeminacy with homosexuality, which of course, is stereotyping and not mutually exclusive. You can be effeminate and be straight as an arrow, as Stanley has proved, and you can be super macho and love digging in on dick.
Which is all to say that I am clearly not the first person to question Stanley's sexuality, not that it's any of my business. Interestingly, Stanley was recently interviewed by New Zealand's The Breeze and when asked what the craziest rumor he's heard about himself was, Stanley mentioned the gay rumor. The response he gave couldn't have been more perfect:
"Well, the oddest, to me, was always — and it's always persisted over time — is that I'm gay. And it's an interesting thing, because if I were, I'd be proud to be whatever I am. As long as you're a good person, sexual orientation and stuff like that is totally irrelevant. But, that being said, besides having four children, honestly, I never saw a guy where I said, 'Gee, that's a close second to a woman.' Honestly, I never looked and said, 'You know, if I can't have that girl over there, I'm taking the bloke,' you know what I mean? So that's always been really interesting — that some people can't find a way to take my comfort with sexuality to misreading it as something it's not. But, that being said, I more scratch my head at that. So that's always been something that was, and is, persistent. And I just kind of go, 'Well, the boys may not understand, but the women always did.' They got it in more ways than one."
That last line had me like…
All kidding aside, this is one instance where I very much admire Stanley's confidence and his ability to say fuck the haters, think what you want, I'll be over here screwing your girl. At the same, I like that he at no point knocked gay people and instead said everybody should be proud of your sexual orientation. Good work, Paul!
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