Breeder's Digest

Let’s do something different tonight, Dear Breeder. Let’s spend the evening looking at one another, deeply, intensely. Except I see you every day, everywhere I turn. So let’s just look at me tonight, and maybe we’ll get around to you sometime next month, okay?

If we gays didn’t seem to spook you quite so badly, appearing suddenly at your elbow, offering forth plates of homemade brownies and decorative bath soaps, you might catch more than a passing, panicked glance of us. You might then be graced with the opportunity to study our faces, our visages, las caras de nosotros. You might finally understand the innumerable physical traits and expressions that separate the gays from everyone else.

For then, and only then, Dear Breeder, will you have faced your greatest fear: the gay face.

“What do you mean ‘gay face’?”

Gay Ears

We’ll start with something simple, in order to gently ease you into the warm waters of gay men’s faces: the ears. You may have taken yours for granted, but we would never dream of doing something so callous. The ears occupy a very powerful region in the vast geography of gay men’s faces. Sure, we use them for such a diversity of workaday tasks as hearing, listening, and—most important of all—tuning you out. But gay ears hold a mystique and allure all their own, serving as both final frontier and forbidden fruit. Simply put, the unyielding ear canal mocks gays with penises everywhere as the only orifice we’ve yet to exploit for non-procreative pleasures of the flesh. Talk about a prick tease!

Gay Teeth

As I’m sure you haven’t noticed, teeth can vary greatly from one slobbering gay mouth to the next. Some have the weathered, European look of a house on the verge of collapse, seeming to revel in their bold defiance of modern dental intervention. This is a popular look on gay artist-, musician-, and intellectual-types, and serves to emphasize the quirkiness and adorability of the homosexual in question. Successful showbiz gays (and their equally moneyed and closeted business counterparts), however, prefer their teeth to be uncompromisingly uniform and preternaturally white. These teeth practically stand up and demand to be counted. Seriously, I think Ryan Seacrest may have bought himself a few extra.

Gay white horse seeks stable relationship for long trots on the beach.

Gay Noses

While gay men may be primarily known for using their noses to root through the forest floor in search of truffles (men can be such pigs!), we’ve recently discovered as a people that this important sensory organ has other uses. It’s been scientifically demonstrated that the noses of gay men are approximately 800 percent more sensitive than the noses of straight people (with a margin of error of plus or minus 800 percent), and we use it to our advantage on a daily basis. I can smell when the battery in my wristwatch is about to go bad. And with a casual whiff, I can detect the name of the migrant worker who harvested the aubergine in my hand at my local farmer’s market (with a margin of error of plus or minus 800 percent). Most important of all, the nose is an indispensable ally in the gay bedroom, providing our first line of defense against bodily mishaps and ruined Egyptian cotton sheet sets when it comes time to “go south,” as we say in the south. By quickly analyzing the subtly-shaded bouquet which emerges when a man removes his underthings, a gay man can immediately make the decision to “head north” or “leave the country altogether.” A wise man once said, “The smeller’s the feller,” and never before have words rung so true.

Gay Eyes

Look into my eyes, Dear Breeder. Aren’t they beautiful? Gay men are known around the world for their eyes, and I am no exception. Over the centuries, we’ve managed to build up a dazzling rainbow of intricate vagaries of expression, all transmitted through our peepers, and our eyes. Whether they’re winking, blinking, twinkling, or giving you the stinkeye, you can bet our ocular organs are doing something amazing, involving the letters “i-n-k.” With a simple, unadorned look, a gay man can make or break your entire day, not to mention your chances of Broadway stardom. Suck on that a moment, the next time you’re secretly listening to the original cast album of Wicked for the hundredth time.

A textbook example of end stage “pink eye.”

As I, and science, have clearly demonstrated, gay men’s faces are teeming with a secret, inner life that virtually begs for closer inspection. Don’t be afraid to look me in the eye when handing back my change at the liquor store. Don’t hesitate to search for your reflection in my sparkling white and/or questionably healthy teeth. And please feel free to whisper sweet, filthy words into my ears following our hasty intercourse, next time your wife goes out of town for a long weekend. Face it, Dear Breeder, I can smell your fear. And something else I’d rather not put my finger on.