And its not because the idea is in any way funny either, though some of the macho-maniacs interviewed in last week's memorable segment of ABC-TV's 20/20 were, in fact, extraordinarily laughable.

One huge macho daddy-yo hiding behind sunglasses, says he can't imagine why the harassed men complain and he adds, "They aren't worth the hair on our back sides."

Hmmmm. So that's what he considers valuable?

Such "he-men" as these are confused as to why their straight co-workers think it necessary to blow the whistle on their provocative shower-room behaviors instead of just…well… blowing them? They consider those co-workers very bad sports indeed for reporting their predilections. Must we pity them? Or are there more questions we must ask?

Question: What happens to the theory of homosexual genetic causation in such instances?

Answer: It takes an unexpected drubbing.

Loony-tuned author of Men in Groups, Lionel Tiger, who was briefly interviewed on this unprecedented program, insists that such "heterosexual" behavior has nothing to do with sex. Straight men, like certain monkeys, he blurts, are simply making an adjustment in their ranks, showing who's dominant in the workplace hierarchy, or rather, who's boss.

But 20/20's interviewer John Stossel, seems to find this disingenuousness almost as hard to believe as I do. "Why didn't they grab an ear?" he asks Lionel Tiger, "instead of the genital area?"

Tiger mumbles something about grabbing whatever is handy.

One trouble with Mr. Tiger's botched theory is that in the case of 20/20's showcased straight-identified and sexually-pursued Louisiana oilrig worker—he's cute as a button. This cutie's case now rests in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court and he may have the last laugh. No wonder that the macho-maniac men, isolated with such a sweet-natured good-looker, chose him as an object for their sorely confused way of seeking satisfaction.

Mr. Tiger, it seems, has been watching the wrong apes for the past quarter century. Hey, Lionel, get hip to "the forgotten ape"--the Bonobo apes! (See GayToday's current Book Review). Bonobos are bisexual, you know. Bonobos aren't dominating, Mr. Tiger, they just wanna have fun!

Walt Whitman believed that "the germ---the seed that allows same-sex attraction--is in every one".

A twisted culture's macho code causes such seeds to grow into ungainly plants, namely these little-known types of "he-men" who pinch, fondle, pat, and attempt intercourse with fellow males working at their sides at muffler factories, gyms, and isolated oil rigs. These ungainly big boys are men who self-identify as heterosexuals. Their homosexual advances, they insist, are nothing more than innocent boyish behavior.

Really?

The youthful southern oilrig worker, who 20/20 first shows with his wife and children, tells 20/20's interviewer what happened to him hundreds of miles out in the Gulf of Mexico-- and in front of "all the other guys". A much larger man placed his genitals atop him and said, "S___k on that!"

Well, that's certainly a peculiar kind of dominance! And, horribly and not surprisingly, it made the poor young man feel lower than whale s___t. When he complained, things got worse.

His boss and another man broke into the shower with him and grabbed a bar of soap. "They rubbed it between my buttocks," he said, warning him "We're going to sodomize you," except—as he pointed out—"sodomize" was not the word they used.

20/20's investigation, edited by Bob Ventresca and produced by Steve Brand, has opened new worm cans in both the sexual orientation debate and around legal questionings that call such behavior sexual harassment.

Judge John Nangle, a St. Louis Appeals Court judge is heard on the 20/20 soundtrack insisting, like Lionel Tiger, that there's nothing sexual about such behavior.

"It's not sexual harassment," he says, "It's just another one of those dumb stupid things that men do."

Yeah, right.

He asks if the harassed man has been in the army, and after hearing he'd always been a civilian, Judge Nangle pontificates:

"You might have to change the practices of the United States Army, Navy and Marines."

Tiger is also heard saying, "It's just something we (men) do."

Is that entertainment? Or what?

Just in case it isn't, lets quote (to add a bit of amusing provocation) the great Welsh-American Buddhist scholar Alan Watts, who wrote in 1970: