Apr 22, 2005  |  By: RYAN LEE  | COMMENTS     

For the three decades that a global spotlight has blazed down on Michael Jackson, inspecting and judging his every public (and often, private) move, the “King of Pop” has moonwalked the thin line separating reality from fantasy — with his critics calling him “freak” or “wacko,” and even his fans sometimes having trouble rationalizing his flamboyant behavior.

Jackson’s musical prowess is indisputable, particularly during the 1970s and ‘80s when solo albums like “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” dominated Billboard charts and awards shows, and profoundly shaped the burgeoning medium of music videos.

But beyond that, Jackson remains an enigma to the American public, leaving many perplexed and agitated by his unwillingness to conform to traditional societal roles, according to Alisha Gaines, a graduate student at Duke University who has studied and written about Jackson, particularly as he relates to black masculinity.

“I think because he’s this burden to label — he sort of exists between black and white, male and female, child and adult, gay and straight, guilty or innocent — we’re not sure what to categorize him, so we call him a ‘freak,’” said Gaines, whose studies focus on African-American literature, pop culture and gender and sexuality studies.

“The fact that he is so ambiguous has really inspired, simultaneously, a desire and an anxiety we have for Michael where we try to answer those questions about him ourselves,” Gaines said.

Soon, 12 jurors will decide whether Jackson is guilty of charges that he plied a 12-year-old male with alcohol at his Neverland Ranch in California, then sexually molested him, as his trial approaches its third month.

In the meantime, many Americans will continue to judge Jackson, and some gays fear that his alleged sexual interest in young males may influence how the general public perceives gay people.

‘Questionable sexual activity’
James Kirchick, a gay junior at Yale University, fears what will happen if gays too closely align themselves with Jackson or celebrate him for “being this kind of gender-bending figure who broke cultural norms.”

Kirchick wrote an editorial for Yale’s student newspaper last September, blasting the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian & Gay Studies at Yale for co-sponsoring a two-day academic symposium on Jackson. Kirchick called the event a “celebratory conference on a man who is widely, and rightly, viewed by society as a disturbed individual who engages in questionable sexual activity.”

“I think a lot of straight people are coming closer to accepting homosexuality and homosexuals,” Kirchick said. “Having events like this [conference at Yale], where you’re celebrating the perversion and sickness of Michael Jackson, does not help us gain that acceptance.

“The only thing related to sex with Michael Jackson is that he has a penchant for little boys, and so to associate that with [the Larry Kramer Initiative] is not a positive,” said Kirchick, who is also an occasional columnist for the Blade.

But Seth Clark Silberman, a professor in Yale’s Larry Kramer Initiative who helped organize the Jackson conference, said the entertainer’s influence as a cultural force warranted review.

“We felt it was time to have a very serious discussion about Michael and his lingering presence as an anxiety point around issues of race, gender and sexuality,” Silberman said.

Still, Silberman said he doubts many people will make the link between Jackson’s alleged actions and the push for equal rights for gay Americans.

“I’ve never even read a great deal about Michael as a gay male, or trying to rehash those ridiculous stereotypes, not even during the first case in ‘93,” Silberman said.

“I think [the trial] certainly does bring up those transgenerational issues, but since Michael is so unique in many ways, I haven’t seen this generate a lot of discussion about pedophilia and homosexuality, and I’ve been happy to see that.”

Misbehaved or misunderstood?
If Jackson is found guilty of the allegations that he engaged in sexual acts with a 12-year-old male, the singer would exist on an ambiguous threshold: the line separating pedophilia from ephebophilia, according to Frederick Berlin, founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Pedophilia describes the sexual attraction an adult has toward a pre-pubescent child, while ephebophilia characterizes adult sexual attraction to teens who have already experienced puberty but are largely below the age of consent, Berlin said.

It remains unclear ...