Thursday, August 17, 2006 | by nathan

Now I Get It.

When I was living in Venice one of the three people I shared a room with was named Tim. Tim and a bunch of the people in our house went out to a bar one night, and for whatever reason, I didn’t go with them. But the next day we were talking about it, and Tim was telling me about some of the interesting people they had met.

"Dude, there was this one guy, and he was gay, right?" Tim said. "But he wasn’t, like, cool gay. He seemed like the kind of gay that would take you home and kill you and store you in his refrigerator."

I remember feeling vaguely miffed at this description; I didn’t know a single gay person who might do such a thing. Nor did I ever recall meeting a gay guy who fit that description. I just figured it was yet another example of the kind of homophobia that was common on my otherwise-cool southern college.

Until today, when this guy’s photo started showing up all over the internet because he killed JonBenet Ramsey. I mean, just looking at the photo is enough. Statistically speaking, he’s probably straight - most men who commit such crimes against children of any gender are - but either way I think I get what Tim was talking about all those years ago.

And what, one wonders, might someone who sexually assaulted and murdered a little girl be doing living in Thailand? I’ll just let you work that out for yourself.