“The power and the promise and the mystery of that body made me suddenly afraid. The body suddenly seemed the black opening of a cavern in which I would be tortured till madness came, in which I would lose my manhood.” In other words, David is ashamed and scared of what he had done with Joey. During that time, there were a lot of discrimination, stigma, stereotypes, and criticized against gays because of religious beliefs that everybody has to be attracted to their opposite gender. Because of that, he lied to everyone and himself that he is not gay, yet we all know that he enjoyed his first romance with Joey “Odd to remember, for the first time in so long, how good I felt that night, how fond of Joey.” In order to hide the truth, he bullied Joey “the sadder this made him, the nastier I became” and he lied and said he has a girlfriend over the summer. On the other hand,  David is afraid to admit his sexual orientation, and especially how would his father see him as. Since he can’t admit his true sexuality he flew to Paris to search for his real “manhood” as an excuse. Nonetheless, he failed at his flight because he can’t hide the fact that he’s gay, especially his relationship with Giovanni in chapter two.
Yes, and this behavior continues when David interacts with his friends in Paris. I think it is especially important to pay attention to David’s descriptions of the patrons of Guillaume’s bar. Do you think his actions are homophobic? Something else?
Yes, his actions are homophobic. At the start he described the environment/surrounding inside Guillamue’s bar. Also, he felt unease by the post office man because he wore makeup, earring, skirt, and high heel. Another example, “If that was his sister…, I’d invite her to have a drink with us. I don’t spend money on men”, stated David (p244). According to this quote, David rejected Jacques requests to buy a drink for Giovanni because he is not gay.