Heather,

I wish I had seen this earlier and responded. As a straight male flight attendant with a wife and two teenagers I find it hilarious that people are still infatuated with this topic. I've worked in three different business sectors in my life and there were gay people every step of the way, many of them dear friends. Yes, the percentage of gay to straight males in my current profession is higher than the other occupations but, with all due respect to Brian, there is a dubious reason for it. Allow me to offer you "Jimmy's Theory."

The flight attendant profession has been shrouded in mythology and mis-perception for, oh, about 40 years now. Why? I'm not completely sure but I believe it begins with the nostalgic yearning for a time when the public dreamed (or claimed) every flight experience was a magic carpet ride through Hugh Hefner's mansion and, of course, the airline companies went right along with it, as the uniforms of the past bear out. Problem was, the airlines weren't very nice to their "bunnies" when they got married or pregnant. They fired them. Thankfully we have certain Constitutionaly-protected rights in the USA and the sexist pigs who were running the airlines then had their wrists slapped and wallets tapped.

At about this same time a book came out titled "Coffee, Tea Or Me" claiming to be a confessional tell-all of a rather promiscuous "stewardess", and her fast lifestyle. Problem was, it was all fiction. Worse than that, it was ghost-written by a confused man who fantasized the whole seedy mess. But why let a popular piece of perverted fiction spoil everybody's fun right? So gradually over time hedonism was accepted to be "the life of a flight attendant", even though most of us, when not deflecting snark and weirdness at work, are actually at home, mowing our lawns or coaching little league.

Eventually, the airlines got fed up with this whole notion of maternity leave and time-off, and realized there was another way. Hire gay men. They won't get pregnant. Won't need to take a leave. Won't have to take a day off with a sick kid. So they tilted the scale in that direction thinking "screw them bitches and their families, we don't need them." Problem was...., you guessed it, the public is a bit homophobic and began whispering, then shouting, "where are all the bitches!!??" So, they started to hire straight guys..., or to paraphrase Brian's image, hard-faced Alpha-types. That would be me, I guess.

The result is the airlines unwittingly ended up with a group of folks who are a micro-cosm of how America looks today, a collection of mutts who could care less what the orientation of a co-worker might be. I'm proud to be in the dog pound with them.

So, the next time a customer asks "how come...", ask them why they care. Then ask them "if you ever found yourself in an ambulance with someone trying to save your life, would you care what their orientation was?" Why does it matter? And no, I don't "fly this route all the time." What a dumb question.

Peace,
Jimmy Mack

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