PETE WENTZ to OUT MAG: "YEAH, I'M A FAG"

Fall Out Boy Pete Wentz speaks candidly in a new exclusive interview with Out magazine (on sale July 8).  Never one to hold back, Wentz discusses his sexuality, his new in-laws and how he'd rather say he's gay than bother denying it:

"Whenever you say that homophobia is stupid, you just get called gay," Wentz tells Out's online editor, Shana Naomi Krochmal, in the August issue. "There is a sense of self-empowerment or recapturing who you are by people calling you 'fag,' and being like, 'Yeah, I am a fag.' Even though you're not. What does somebody respond?"

PETE WENTZ ON KISSING GUYS:
"When I said that I make out with dudes, there was a slight sense of sexual rebellion in that," he admits. "And I probably even made it a bigger deal than it was."  MORE AFTER THE JUMP -->

ON BORROWING FROM GAY CULTURE:
"If I was gay," he says, "and I saw people playing with it, being ambiguous, I don't really know how I would feel. I look back at Elvis and I'm like, Was Elvis a dick?"

"We appreciate the knowing, deliberate way that Pete Wentz subverts the rules," writes Out Editor in Chief Aaron Hicklin in the issue. "There is a long history of rock stars playing with sexuality, but Wentz takes it further because he knows the distinctions are artificial and largely meaningless."

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
Out's annual Sports Issue goes behind the scenes of the world's gayest sport -- the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Mark Simpson explores the pornographic, bloody battles that dominate pay per view channels. "Mixed martial arts is gay porn for straight men because its violence not only justifies the intimate, protracted physicality of the sport but also preserves its virility," Simpson writes.

PLUS:
For the first time ever, a former professional men's tennis player talks about being gay on tour. Francisco Rodriguez, a two-time all-American college player who was once ranked in the high 300s, tells David Thorpe, "I miss the thrill of competing a lot. I just couldn't travel alone anymore. Wanting a boyfriend was in the back of my mind all the time."

READ MORE AT OUT.COM

Comments

[Truth]

Out, the magazine working to undermine gay people. They once again have a straight person on the cover to the millionth time. To top it off they slap a anti-gay slur on the cover too. The message the magazine sends gay people month after month is that you are worth less than straight people and they are the judge of everything you do. They are sick.

[Toby]

Truth? What kind of name is that... Get with the 21st century. Gays don't live in ghettos any more, and gayborhoods are so 1990. Me and my friends are plenty interested in people like Pete Wentz who have more to offer the culture, gay, straight, and in between than gay fascists like yourself who would keep us all in our separate boxes.

[Toby]

Truth? What kind of name is that... Get with the 21st century. Gays don't live in ghettos any more, and gayborhoods are so 1990. Me and my friends are plenty interested in people like Pete Wentz who have more to offer the culture, gay, straight, and in between than gay fascists like yourself who would keep us all in our separate boxes.

[Toby]

Truth? What kind of name is that... Get with the 21st century. Gays don't live in ghettos any more, and gayborhoods are so 1990. Me and my friends are plenty interested in people like Pete Wentz who have more to offer the culture, gay, straight, and in between than gay fascists like yourself who would keep us all in our separate boxes.

[Toby]

Truth? What kind of name is that... Get with the 21st century. Gays don't live in ghettos any more, and gayborhoods are so 1990. Me and my friends are plenty interested in people like Pete Wentz who have more to offer the culture, gay, straight, and in between than gay fascists like yourself who would keep us all in our separate boxes.

[brad h]

*yawn*
i'm with truth, yet ANOTHER self-identified straight guy on the cover of your magazine.

dress it up or justify it any way you want, it is a product of internalized homophobia and heterosexism.

do you think black readers would accept 90% of their magazine covers being graced by non-blacks?

this man is not brilliant and supporting him just because you think he's "hot" is juvenile at best.

this man is simply capitalizing on the taboo of having any kind of non-normative sexuality while at the same time reaffirming his own self-identified heterosexuality every chance he gets.

pete wentz was actually correct in one thing - non-self-hating gays SHOULD be offended by self-identified straight guys like pete who use faux-ambigious sexuality as a commodity simply to create a stir and then turn around and turn around and say they are doing it in SUPPORT of gays. we should be offended because this kind of behavior actually RELIES upon and plays into homophobia. without the homophobia pete is pretending to be subverting, pete wouldn't even be able to get away with what he's doing...because it would be meaningless. his actions REQUIRE homophobia.

not accepting pete or anyone like him gracing the cover of a so-called gay lifestyle magazine does not mean that someone has trouble accepting the "straight" end of the straight/gay alliance. what it means is that we're tired of editors who promote heterosexuality as more valuable every chance they get. and it means that we're tired of self-identified heterosexuals like pete turning sexuality into a commodity by capitalizing on the "taboo" factor.

"out" is not a gay magazine until it stops promoting heterosexuality, homophobia and heterosexism on the majority of its covers and until it is willing to feature ACTUAL GAY PEOPLE on EVERY SINGLE COVER.

we wouldn't ask any less of any other "lifestyle" magazine. why should gay magazines be different.

oh, that's right....because that straight actor is so hot. and that straight model is so cool for thinking it's ok to be gay. and, oh yeah, that other straight actor is so hot.

*yawn*

[velvet mafia]

IS he even gay? Love David Roemer pictures of him