I have had some personal problems lately - forces within me which I am just not sure I can control. I need your help.

          This is kind of difficult for me to say, but, you see, I think I may be a closet heterosexual. It is, of course, not easy to talk about this. Recently, for example, I felt a compulsive need to spend a night at the Booby Trap and Cheetah III, where nude female dancers vibrated erotically on stage. Armed with Heinekens. I sat in awe as I watched their bouncing bosoms and beautiful breasts pleasantly bobbing up and down, in a noble attempt to arouse my pubic parts.

          Then last weekend, I heard about these female caddies that were going to accompany male foursomes out to a golf course- stark naked. I wanted to be there to watch these women tell me how to play with my putter. It was apparently part of a promotion for a nudist club, and I was asked if I would be a judge in their annual no-clothes pageant of honor. I would have to judge women not on the quality of their minds, but on the size and proportions of their breasts. Could I get myself up for it, I asked.

          I realize these are dangerous forces within. And I am trying to fight them. After all, you know how those heterosexuals are always recruiting everybody to be just like them; how they flaunt their sexuality on the public beaches every weekend; how they are always making out in public parks; and how they inevitably propose by sky-writers in ballparks. But they are drawing me to them, those bastards.

          With the spiraling divorce rate, who can afford to get married and raise kids ? Then what happens- you break up and pay not only alimony, but child support for an infant who only cries and keeps you up all night, wetting in bed all the while. Who needs that? Not me, not you, not the good readers of HotSpots! How could I possibly be lured to a world of such frightening incivility? Perhaps Richard Gray will give me a room for the weekend at the Royal Palms Resort, so that I may immerse myself in a gay cultural experience.

          Of course, aren't those heterosexuals the ones who are into the molesting of little kids? Don' t they stand alone in shame for the increasing amounts of teenage rape infecting the soul of this country. Really, how many gay teenagers at The Saint on a Tuesday teen night do you hear about being part of a teenage gang, walking down AIA with a pit bull in hand? None! So I don't want to fall into that trap of contemporary American youth, and have a kid that takes out a teacher and a school bus with an Uzi. Not me. No, sir.

          To deal with my sexual crisis, I called upon Gay Sea Scrolls scholar, Dr. Dick Hunter, who insisted a good whipping at a leather bar like the Ramrod would steer me back into homosexual shape.

           Either that or " Just find yourself a bottle of vodka and a hard young man," he suggested, adding "A hard hard man is good to find." But I thought there was more to life than lust and sweaty, sticky sex. If I could only become heterosexual I could ask, tell, and serve. So I continued my journey into my soul of souls.

           It was a Sunday afternoon. I was on the beach. I ran into Gary Steinsmith, newly affirmed Gay-Consul-tant-for-Life. He was coordinating a rally entitled "Suntanners for MacKay" "What is the meaning of Life," I asked. "Follow me," he replied, "to the land of fund-raisers and politics." But politics gives prostitutes a bad name. Politics is what causes people to feud and fuss over little nothings. Politics and religion are fraudulent tattoos that brand people with anger and hate and bitterness. I could find no answers on the beach, either from the man in the shirt and tie preaching with his bible, or the bronzing male bodies blissfully bathing under their sun gods.

          So I went to the grandmother of all bars, The Copa, and saw bare-chested men dancing semi-naked at four in the morning, sweaty beads falling from their neck, and Paul Hugo drooling underneath them, microphone in hand. I left immediately, fearful I was violating some new municipal ordinance.

          Trying to find solace, I went to an upscale gay bar, the Cathode Ray, where hot men were coolly dancing barefoot on the bars, gyrating erotically to the sounds of new house techno rage. On the video screen, I watched a feature from the Center for Cosmetic Surgery, promising me a new you, showing tanned women with tight waists and amazing guys with rippled chests. Sex was everywhere. When will these drugs wear off, I thought ?

           I went to the Floridian, Fort Lauderdale' s home for the official gay late nite snack. Here, I would find comfort in food and the new chocolate to-die-for dome cake. But the coke had breasts. Instead, I saw the entire board of Lambda South, holding a nude encounter session. Unable to breathe, I reached for my bronchial inhaler, but instead sliced my nose open with a sharp wooden toothpick from Catalog X's "Anal Enhancement Quik-Pak". Obviously, my friend Mark Possien had surreptiously placed it in my pocket, while stealing my credit card in order to pay for a dinner bill at Herban Kitchen.

          I began aimlessly walking the streets of Fort Lauderdale, feeling like that dude in a sport jacket who shows up on a new street corner every day. I got only three blocks when I was overwhelmed by a young girl standing by the side of 6th and Federal, her bronzed legs glistening in the sun; her, tight silky satin silver-studded dress sparkling under the glare of a summer afternoon. "Want a date?," she asked, puckering her blushed red lips ? Was she Jewish ? Would she want dinner and a movie first ? Clearly, she was testing my heterosexual willpower. "Out you vipers," I cursed, to the demons in my mind.

          I reluctantly declined her offer. True, I had momentary convulsions. Still, I resisted. I rushed home, still troubled, thinking perhaps that I did not know which preference I preferred not to have sex in. I would talk it over with my boyfriend, I thought. I share my pain with him. He confides that he, too, once suffered from heterosexual lust, and in a moment of sexual frenzy married a woman and fathered a child. We agree to go to counseling together. Neither of us want to be gay sinners for life.

          You may not hear a lot from me for the rest of the summer. My boyfriend, Jason and I, are enrolling in The Pride Institute's new course for the sexually entangled. It's called "Heterosexuality for Trisexual Homosexuals." We will try anything. This course features trips to dude ranches, a visit to the John Wayne Mausoleum, and six weeks of basic Army training on Paris Island. In uniform.

          As part of your clinical training, you also get to visit a brothel in Nevada and the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Fully endorsed by the School Board, when you graduate you not only get a Certificate of Good Health from the American Family Association, you get to wear an American uniform without fear of being discharged.

           What was it Leonard Matlovich said: "When I was in the Army, they gave me a medal for killing two men, and threw me out for loving one..?"