"When I'm going down the street I get called a fag all the time. We have iPhones, and I'm still getting called the same names as when I was 13," he shrugs.

"There is a sense of self-empowerment or recapturing who you are by people calling you 'fag,' and being like, 'Yeah, I am a fag.' Even though you're not. What does somebody respond? That dude has nothing to say about that again.”

"Homophobia is the last acceptable hatred," the rocker says. "People treat sexuality the same way that [during] Jim Crow [white] people treated African-Americans... It's totally dehumanized." Wentz thinks whatever bias remains will not survive another generation. "The actual acceptance of gay marriage is inevitable," he says. "It's just like how the next generation of kids are going to all have tattoos."

Wentz refers to himself as "half gay," and boasts of making out with boys, even when corporate sponsors or fans' parents balked or boycotted.

"When I said that I make out with dudes, there was a slight sense of sexual rebellion in that. And I probably even made it a bigger deal than it was," Wentz says. The first time he kissed a guy was when he was 16 or 17, probably on a dare at a party. At 18 or 19, he says it was more like, "I'm going to try this thing." And most recently? "Probably when I was 22," Wentz responds.

The stopping point comes when the action strays below the belt. "It's really about the equipment," Wentz says and gestures at his crotch with a grimace.

Last update: 01-29-2009 21:03