Living In Sin: I Ain't No Queer

Every week in Living in Sin, Jen Sincero provides advice to LA's sexually confounded. Sign up for her newsletter and have it sent to you every week. Ask Jen your questions: all are posted anonymously.

Dear Jen,
I have an issue with a male friend of mine. We've been friends for several years and he has always been very emotionally open. Since we were 16 we've hugged each other hello and goodbye, but on one semi-drunken evening he extended that hug to an open (his mouth, not mine) kiss. He saw my face afterwards and pretty much ran off before we had a chance to discuss it. I chalked it up to alcohol and a little too much affection. Since then he has become increasingly open with his sexual urges towards me. He tells me how he would give me a blowjob, and sometimes tries to grab my crotch. He does and says these things in a joking manor, but it's obvious I could take him up on the offer any time. I am completely straight and he knows this, but I feel because I don't punch his lights out for grabbing my crotch he thinks he has a chance with me.

Dear Barking,
I've been sitting here for a couple of hours trying to write something that would do justice to your hilarious letter (which means checking my email, my Myspace page, watching Jake Gyllenhaal perform in drag on SNL over and over, filing my nails, getting up to stand by the heater, watering my plants, reading the paper, putting away my dishes, etc.). It's now one o'clock, and although my house is spotless and my eyebrows properly plucked, I still have nothing. I really wanted to leave the house today, too.

Why is the brain at its most creative when it comes to love/lust/your best friend's balls and not when you have a column due the next day? It's amazing how effortlessly people can fabricate these fantastic stories when they desperately want something to be true that isn't: "He said I was a psycho and that if I came near him again he was going to get a restraining order, but I could tell by the way he was looking at me that he thought it would be hot to restrain me." Nearly everyone does it in varying degrees of absurdity. It's the reason Greg Whatshisface has sold a bazillion copies of that book "He's Just Not That Into You" - nobody wants to listen to something they don't want to hear, they'd rather listen to their own version instead. Regardless of how little fact they're actually working with.

It sounds to me like your drinking buddy there has quite the flair for storytelling and that your polite, turn the other way methods aren't helping. Here's why:

1.) You've informed him you're straight in hopes that that will get him to leave you alone. He's informed you that he's straight, too, in hopes that you'll find nothing faggity about putting your dick in his mouth.

2.) You're assuming your subtle non-acceptance of his offer will be taken for a no. You're forgetting that when someone wants you, and isn't getting you, not saying anything is the equivalent to coming to the door dressed in nothing but a bow tie and cowboy boots next time he stops by.

You need to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that your meat is off limits. He may not listen, he may see the fact that you mentioned your genitalia in his presence as a green light, but at least you'll have said your truth and can refer back to it when he's singing outside your window late one night, sobbing and demanding to know why you won't watch the game with him anymore.

The fact that you're pro-manhug and anti-violence is very inspiring indeed and may or may not be the reason you attract the "straight except-for-you types." It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you're honest with these dudes because as uncomfortable as it is to reject someone to their face, it's better than having to wear an athletic cup every time you sit down for a beer with them.