“Where have all the good men gone, and where are all the gods?”

So starts Bonnie Tyler’s howling, rhetorical cry to the universe, the anthem for Generation X’s gays and 'hags looking for one true guy to save the day.

As a boy, my male family members didn’t step up to the plate when I needed to witness a champion in action. As kids do learn through observation of parents, I was shown that adultery with justification, physically violent argumentation, and neglect of warmth and love were normal. As I developed into a young, curious man, television replaced my parents, but provided few memorable gay role models.

There was Jodie Dallas, played by Billy Crystal on Soap. Although the character identified as gay, he was portrayed more as bisexual, and a boyfriend in the first season was a cross-dressing, pre-op transsexual football player. In later seasons, he impregnated a woman, desired to marry her although she left him at the altar, and towards the end he lived with a lesbian with no future boyfriends brought into his storyline. Not much in the way of someone to look up to, but it sure was a funny show.

There was Showtime's Brothers, where one pair of brothers featured a gay, ex-baseball player named Cliff, played by Paul Regina. For lispy comedy relief, there was sidekick Donald, most likely written into the script for the scratching heads of the straight viewers. In hindsight, the scripted mix of Regular Joes and stereotypes was amazingly realistic.

There was also Aidan Quinn (hot!) in the 1982 made-for-tv film, An Early Frost. For the first time on television, we were shown a young, regular-closeted guy character “stricken” with AIDS. I wasn't allowed to watch this movie, so because it was on after my parents went to sleep, I watched it on the television in my room. I was a 'tween, I barely knew I was gay, but I cried in sympathy for this character.

These were the only gay male role models on television I took notice of, of those offered. The others… the token represented limp-wristed fem-bot caricatures, went through one eye and ear and out the other.

Being raised in an emotionally confusing environment, where "fag" and "sissy" were commonly used at the Sunday dinner table to describe gays, being raised to believe that being gay bought me a ticket straight to Hell and with few positive gay male role models on television, as well as having none I was aware of in real life — well, not to be a whining fag-sissy, but I feel I was kind of screwed right out of the gate.

This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2010.