single-phile: It's (Not Exactly) Raining Men!

Take a look at the charts. Do any gay artists jump out at you? If we'd looked a week or two ago, we would have found Adam Lambert, who had a couple entries on the charts around the same time he outted himself as a gay man. Even before he came out, the ambiguity of Lambert's sexuality (or lack thereof, depending on your perspective) on American Idol was groundbreaking. Whether or not Lambert goes on to become America's next big pop star (which is somewhat unlikely, given his not-so-fashionable glam rock style), we certainly haven't heard the last of him (case in point: the release of his pre-Idol recordings this week).

This week's charts, however, are sorely lacking in Friends of Dorothy or Freddie or anyone else. The closest we get is Katy Perry, whose "Waking Up in Vegas" video has a distinctly drag queenly air about it (as do so many of Katy's performances), but is thematically much more heterosexual than her Sapphic-sampling hit of last summer, "I Kissed a Girl." And frankly, that song doesn't count anyway: it's not "so gay," as Katy would say, it's gay for a day (or gay for pay, if you want to get really bitchy). "I Kissed a Girl" engaged in a longstanding pop-music practice I like to call "pink face" (see also: T.A. T.U., hair metal, even David Bowie, depending on his mood and the decade); Beth Ditto of Gossip recently called the song a "boner dyke" anthem, "for straight girls who like to turn guys on by making out or like faking gay."

That comment right there exemplifies one of the many reasons why Gossip are such an important figure in pop music right now: Beth Ditto does not mince words when it comes to her politics -- or her outness as both a lesbian and a self-professed fat girl. In short, she is a very unlikely pop star who has, despite her queerness (in all senses of the word), managed to become Kate-Moss-befriending, fashion-designer-inspiring Perez Hilton fodder. And her band has produced a somewhat hot and definitely disco ball-sparkly lead single that, in a sense, encapsulates their ambivalent position relative to mainstream popular culture: "Heavy Cross" pairs a Knight Rider-esque lick with lyrics about struggle in a cruel world, at once staking a political claim and planting four firmly on the floor, making social justice danceable and dancing an activist pursuit.

But is "Heavy Cross" a pop hit? It's certainly making waves in England -- where the music media has a, uh, dyke boner perhaps? -- for the band, but it hasn't made a dent in the stateside charts since its release at the end of April. Despite their major-label backing (and production by Rick Rubin), Ditto and her crew are more likely to be relegated to a respected fringe status, adjunct to but not starring in the big show. They will be in good company: the annals of pop music have housed many a fringe LGBT almost-pop-star, from Me'Shell Ndegeocello to Rufus Wainwright to Scissor Sisters, to name just a few recent examples.

Post-fame coming-out announcements are also becoming more common (see: Lesley Gore, Lance Bass, even Clay Aiken, who isn't exactly "post," but, well...), which is great. And gay-friendly icons are certainly a mainstay on both the dancefloor and the charts (see: Lady Gaga). But out and proud big-time pop stars -- your Elton Johns, your Melissa Etheridges, your George Michaels, even your (very rare) RuPauls -- are still rarities, even as gay actors and personalities have become almost commonplace on television, long the bastion of mainstream "family friendliness." So why is pop music -- a division of popular culture that was practically founded on transgressive sexuality -- so dang straight?

Forty years ago this June 28, a group of gay men, lesbians, drag queens and "queers" decided they had had enough of the police harassment that happened regularly at "suspected" gay bars like the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. So they fought back -- with words, hands and even beer bottles -- resisting their unjust (but legal) arrests and, in the process, instigating the gay and lesbian rights movement. Today's LGBT community can thank the Stonewall patrons and the activists who followed them for many things: certain legal protections, the increasing public acceptance of homosexuality, Will and Grace and RuPaul's Drag Race. Yet in many ways, the battle that began at the Stonewall Inn rages on, as activists, politicians and just regular bar patrons who've had enough continue to fight for the right to be and love who they want without fear of prejudice, persecution, discrimination or violence.

Similarly, popular music has been using sexuality to break down social taboos, shock the parentals and just generally throw a fabulous dance party practically since its inception. But that battle, too, is apparently far from over -- especially when even the "out and proud" in popular culture take to hurling homophobic epithets, as Perez Hilton recently did in his disappointing feud with will.i.am and Fergie at Canada's MuchMusic awards. Maybe if the charts had a few less "gays for a day" and a few more LGBT artists, it wouldn't be so easy to use sexuality so casually as an insult. At the very least, I would have actually had some singles to write about in today's column.