Thank you! You know, when I first got to my Marine Corps infantry reserve unit when I was a closeted gay college student in Iowa, I got very confused very fast.

I didn't know what to think about my squad leader pinning a macho machine gunner down onto the floor and humping him like mad while everybody laughed like crazy, some of them even thrusting their pelvises.

It didn't take me long to realize that this sort of humorous flirtation with homosexuality was ordinary. It wasn't just limited to my Marine reserve unit. Frat boys at Iowa State did lots of similar things.

The guys doing this were not, as far as I know, gay. This was strictly heterosexual – like a ritual male ... something. Ask an anthropologist, I don't know what to call it.

Real gay men don't much behave this way, by the way, at least not in my experience. When we flirt with each other, we don't play. But, that's a different subject I guess.

I've watched a lot of Madison Cawthorne criticism with a certain amount of dismay. How quickly much of it turned into blatant homophobic slurs against him, even or especially from people on the left.

I understand people were probably just trying to call him out as a hypocrite ... But a homophobic attack is still a homophobic attack. It wouldn't have any sting if it didn't actually matter.

I really wish people wouldn't do that.