Gay men are dogs. I’m not trying to be offensive or derogatory; I’m trying to be literal. I think we’re actually a canine breed. Right now, the women reading this are thinking: “Why limit that to gay men? All men are like dogs.” Yes. Straight men are like dogs, too.

I had a straight friend, once. Abe. He even slept over at my house, despite the wild protests of his Republican parents (who were afraid I would rape him or convert him in the middle of the night, at 11:11 — the Queering Hour). Good old Abraham, he slept over anyway. He didn’t even mind that I tried to lick his face. He was flattered, but I didn’t convert him. Or rape him. I went to sleep, content with my new pet; that coy “I’m really not gay” game was so endearing, how could you not love him?

I woke up in the morning to find that Abe had chewed his way through eight Diesel sneakers, seven Jack Spade bags, six cashmere sweaters, and the feather hanging out of Abe’s mouth didn’t bode well for the partridge in my pear tree.

I scolded him and he pissed all over my carpet.

I put him up for adoption, and an old white lesbian women named Vulva and her four black daughters rescued him. I haven’t had a straight friend since. (Abe still professes to be heterosexual but has recently been sighted wearing lycra jumpsuits, eight-inch heels, metallic gold makeup, and using the handle “Fallopia.”)

So yes, I agree. Straight men are like dogs. But gay men are dogs. Take a moment.

Butt-sniffing as a courting ritual.

Humping your leg. Your third leg. Or fourth in some cases… don’t over think it.

How often do heterosexuals actually do it doggy-style compared to homosexuals? I think we’ve got them beat.

Female dogs go into heat and the male dogs go crazy. When the females aren’t in heat, male dogs will have sex with just about anything, including each other.

The whole S&M, leather-daddy, master-slave, put-me-on-a-leash and walk-me-down-the-street subculture. It’s a city thing.

Country gays don’t do leashes. Country dogs roam freely and poop freely. I won’t even get into the poop thing.

My housemate adds the following comparisons: “Gay men love bones! Ooooooh! Hey Chad, you’re always chasing tail! OOOOOOOOOOh!!! Oh God. Please don’t publish that.”

I have a gay friend in Chelsea with the same haircut my grandmother just gave her toy poodle.

But the real clincher is gay-years — like dog-years, but backwards and less stupid. As my mom told me when I was four, “One ‘people-year’ is seven ‘dog years,’ cuz dogs die so much earlier than we do.”

I didn’t even know what death was when mom told me that. I cried for days.

Also, the family dog we got three years ago is already old enough to drink, and I’m not. That’s messed up.

The gay-years theory is a bit out of my mom’s frame of reference, I’d imagine.

I’m 20 in people-years, but only four in gay-years.

As homosexuals, we are conceived the moment we begin coming out of the closet; we are born when we’re fully out and proud. Homo Homo Sapiens are an odd species — their gestation cycles vary greatly from Queen to Queen. Some sad, shy, neo-mo’s never leave the womb; they may even marry a woman. Some begin to climb out, breathe their first queer breath, cry like the babies they are and jump right back up between Mama Gay’s legs, never to leave again. Some take four full years of college (I imagine Mama Gay is addicted to morphine by the end of that labor). Some go from conception (telling their parents) to birth (telling everyone else) in about two days flat. Talk about premature: those out and angry early mo’s probably won’t get laid for another two and a half years.

Gay development is a lot like baby development. When we first pop out, everything’s so new we just want to cry all the time. So we do. By the time we’re a year old we just want to touch everything. So we do.

As two-year-olds, we want to put everything we touch in our mouths. Three-year-olds have anal sex and go to “alternative lifestyle night” at BAR.

All right, so the comparison’s not perfect.

A lot of girls I know date older guys, as a rule. They argue that men need to be older to be at a woman’s level of emotional maturity. I think they just like guys with more chest hair. I have a similar rule not to date guys who are too much younger than I am in gay years. I feel like older gays are more likely to be over all their pesky “coming-out issues.” But times (and other things) get hard, so my highly cerebral rule breaks down pretty quickly.

Dogs are always horny. If the bitch is in heat, I probably won’t be using my brain.

Chad Callaghan likes his leather leash.