About three or four times each week, I get an email from a frantic young man that goes something like this: "Chris, I like to ___. Does this mean I'm GAY?!?!?" The blank is filled with anything from "think about my buddy while I masturbate" to "put on women's underwear." The fact that I get this question so often shows that things are about the same now as they were when I was a kid, and probably about the same as when anyone reading this was a kid. The number one worst social blunder you could make was to do or say anything that might cause people to think that you are a homosexual.

As we get older, of course, most of us slowly realize that some people we know are gay and that these gay people really aren't all that different from people that aren't gay. We let down our guard a bit, because in part, it's not socially acceptable among mature people to talk badly about "queers" and "faggots." Perhaps it's also partly because it's now commonly accepted that many people who "gay-bash" are, in fact, repressed homosexuals themselves. But one thing is clear: Most of us still don't want people thinking that we are gay. "I'm cool with gay people," we'll hear ourselves say, "I mean... more chicks for me, right?"

So, this article is for all you people out there who are trying to figure out if you are a homosexual. You want a formula, an equation into which you can plug your thoughts and actions and out will come a "GAY" or "STRAIGHT." Well, you're in luck—I'm going to give it to you.

The most popular class at my college was a psychology course called "Human Sexuality." The course was progressive and beneficial for everyone who took it. One of the topics, of course, was sexual orientation. The professor proudly explained to us that there is a new system of classifying people according to their sexual orientation.

First some background: Early methods of classification were simple. Either you were "straight" (i.e. normal) or you were "queer" (i.e. different). But bisexuals threw a wrench into the system. So, a sort of linear scale evolved:

|---+---+---+---|---+---+---+---|
Straight      Bisexual          Gay

But this doesn't cover everyone either. What if you're extremely attracted to members of both the opposite and same sex? What if you're really not attracted to either? So, enter The Sexuality Matrix (my name for it). This is the latest and greatest classification method.

You can plot a person's sexual orientation on the two-dimensional graph by first plotting his/her level of attraction to the opposite sex on the 0 to 10 scale. Do the same thing for his/her level of attraction to the same sex, and you can now happily determine whether s/he is heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or asexual. Ahhhh... All fixed.

So I flaunted my knowledge of this new, politically correct method of classifying people by their sexual preference on the Whispering Lily forum. The ensuing conversation led me to a simple conclusion. This is crap. All of it is crap. No one goes around drawing up graphs so they can plot how much people like, say, sunsets versus sunrises. (I am, by the way, a bisolarphile.) None of this "science" answers the question: Who cares and why?

The answer is more complex than any of us know, I'm sure. The only reasonable reason that I can see for a person wanting to know another human being's sexual preference is so the person can determine if the other is a possible mate or partner. And just because the preferences match doesn't mean that the other will be attracted to the particular person in question. So, there really is no good reason for caring if someone else is gay. But that does not change the fact that people do care if others are gay. And, in turn, people care if they are gay themselves.

So, here is your answer: Homosexuality is not a disease. It is not a condition that you wake up one day and find you have. It's not a condition at all. It's a concept. It's used to communicate to others what it is that you're looking for.

It's common for people to be attracted to people of the same sex—many experts believe that everyone is to some extent. After all, when you masturbate you are engaging in a sexual act with someone of the same sex. Does masturbation make you gay? No. Does the fact that you have fantasies about people of the same sex make you gay? No. Does wearing women's clothes make you gay? No.

It's up to you to decide if you are gay or not. And, better yet, it's up to you to decide whom, if anyone, you tell about your decision. Even better: you can change your mind. So the next time someone asks you if you're gay, say whatever you want. If you're not in the mood, I recommend "Not tonight."