Good looking man who can sing and dance is gay: well, that’s a shocker really, isn’t it? 

“I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am.” 

And with that Ricky Martin shocked, well, shocked almost no one really. While maiden aunts aren’t as dim about sex as everyone seems to assume (you’ve got to know something about it to remain maiden) I still doubt that there were any such even remotely unaware that Ricky was not quite as other men, that his interests were those of a minority. A vibrant, inclusive, nothing at all wrong with that minority, but a minority nonetheless. Even if his suspicious ability to boogie to a beat were not enough his twin sons born to a surrogate back in 2008 were a clue: if hetero he really wouldn’t have any shortage of those willing to bear them for him now would he?

But much more important than whether Ricky prefers to pitch and catch is that I simply don’t care. Just as I don’t care whether Rosie O’Donnell does play hide the salami or not, has to floss after sex or not. Whether Monica Lewinsky spits or swallows: these just aren’t things that interest in the slightest. As PJ O’Rourke pointed out there are times when the differences between men and women are unimportant, like when trading bonds, and times they’re important, when trying to make babies. Similarly, how consenting adults like to take their sex is simply not interesting if you’ve no desire or intention (or chance of course) to ever have sex with them. As long as Ricky pumps out the bubblegum Latino pop, Rosie keeps telling decent jokes and Monica being the butt of them we’ll all get along fine. I’m no more interested in their predilections, I should be no more interested in them, than they are in mine for middle aged women (perhaps to be correctly uxorious I should say woman there).

We all recognize that there was a time when having sexual interests outside the mainstream was indeed dangerous. Not just to careers either, I can still remember reading with astonishment a newspaper report of a Supreme Court case over whether Georgia could arrest a man for giving another a blow job. What? This absurdity even made it to the first level of the court system? Wasn’t tossed by the desk sergeant? Perhaps I shouldn’t be quite so dismissive, given that homosexuality was only legalized in England a few years after my birth but seriously, this is now 2010.

That people have different sex drives, OK, we get it. But can we please stop having these people coming out of closets? Really, seriously, it’s over. We’ve got it now and no, we don’t need yet another “€œrole model”€ and we really don’t need another publicity hound taking to the media to tell us about their sexual preferences.

The New York Daily News polled their readers as to whether they already knew if Ricky was gay or not before the announcement. 84% said yes. Of course it was obvious, and only 16% agreed that they were thick as dirt. Despite the existence of People Magazine no, the media isn’t run for that dumbest 16% of the population so, sorry folks, but if you’ve not cavorted out of that closet yet just don’t bother. The Nirvana of sexual freedom really has arrived.