What if Patrick Bateman was gay?

In the movie, he explicitly shrugs off his girlfriend several times, wanting nothing to do with her. [clips]

When he actually meets a gay guy, after failing to strangle him, reacts to being flirted with with absolute floundering. He doesn’t know how to respond. He could still have gotten away with a murder, even though it was less slick, but he doesn’t. He avoids this man, and possibly, this part of himself.

Sure, he does have sex with women, but it seems more like a power thing for him than anything actually about them. He gets off on how uncomfortable he’s making these women, and them still going through with it because he holds power over them. Whether monetary, politically, or physically. 

This type of power play, if we except that as an expression of his sexuality, or an expression of deeper psychological torment through sexuality, we have to realise that the first person he kills, is a Man. Paul Allen is his the first kill and opens the floodgates to his further murders.

After he kills Paul, he doesn’t actually kill anyone else for a while. He spends a lot of time trying to cover up Paul Allen’s murder. Making his suitcase, imitating him through a phone recorder, making an alibi, dragging his body in a trunk. He really takes his time with him. It’s like a post-coitus clarity, where he realises that he’s going to have to ‘clean up’ as it were.

Now, I want to get back to the gay man he nearly strangles in the bathroom. Bateman’s sexuality is built off power plays. He’s going after another man, in a public bathroom, probably to relieve some tension after a long day. But it fails, and the guy identifies his advancement as sexual in nature. Bateman’s brain short circuits. Not because he isn’t trying to do this, but because the guy sees it and in a way, reciprocates what Bateman is laying down. This man is so open and comfortable with his sexuality that he;s ready to get down and dirty right there in a public bathroom. This level of openness is completely alien to Bateman, who is more mask than person. 

Consider this. If he was actually gay, he would Never acknowledge it as it doesn’t fit into his mask. As established from the opening, he is all about his outwards appearance. He feels like he is skin-deep, empty inside. But that isn’t actually true of anyone. Even though we may put on a mask that covers us whole. There is still an entire brain, and an entire past that it’s working off of. No matter how empty you feel, there is still something that is feeling that emptiness. And that something can be gay as fuck.

Now. Why am I telling you this? It’s because a new archetype just dropped; the Gay Sigma, which Gay Patrick Bateman, as well as others like Tyler Durden or the protagonist from Disco Elysium is a part of.

The archetype of the sigma male, when it’s used unironically, is a man that is anti-social, stoic, not interacting with his feelings, and also Jacked af. Someone who handles social situations effortlessly in an aloof way despite not being in very many. Doesn’t need anyone else, is the master of his own mind.

The evolution of this archetype is fascinating, as it was then instantly mocked by those who didn’t subscribe to the manosphere talk, prompting satirical sigma male edits with really sad and pathetic captions over people like the Joker.

But then it started being used post-ironically, like the twitter account Sigma Bale. Sigma bale was a big poster of Sigma edits back in roughly 2022 Twitter, and got thousands of likes on his stuff. Were the sigma male meme format was used to share genuine vulnerabilities and pain.

These vulnerabilities often were the results of things that the pre-ironic sigma memes championed. Being anti-social became intense loneliness and longing for deeper, more intimate relationships. Not interacting with feelings, became just, all the negative consequences of bottling up rage and pain until you crumble under the weight of a thousand unexamined papercuts and a few big gaping gashes for good measure.

And it was admitted that not being in many social situations isn’t cool and actually just makes you worse at talking with people. Especially women, they really can’t talk to women. Like, maybe I’m the crazy one here but dude, they talk like they are another species when we’re all just people. Like chill. (I had a lot of women friends growing up and yea I don’t really get it. Men though, don’t get me fucking started.)

So that’s post-ironic sigma males. More honest and vulnerable. Still homophobic though. Sigma Bale’s account would often post jokes were the punchline is just “gay bad” which would still receive positive reception. I don’t know by how much, but it definitely wasn’t a deal braker for his main audience. Ahhh… even in the post-ironic performance of the woes largely brought on by a unhelpful view of masculinity, the same clarity isn’t extended to gay men.

Now, in response to this, an new account was created, called “Woke Sigma Memes”. It was a blatant parody of Sigma Bale’s account, posted Sigma memes but using general leftist takes on masculinity and queerness and all that. Now, I hate to say it, but the funniest thing this account did was piss of Sigma Bale to the point of leaving twitter for instagram. He couldn’t handle This (saul goodman gay).

And while that’s funny, I personally don’t actually find the memes themselves that funny. Like, they have the same grammar and format, but they really lack an oomf and they feel a lot ‘safer’. Now, that’s me admitting my biases. I find Sigma Bale’s interpreted honesty about the failures of the mentally ill masculine experience more humorous than the joke being “Gay Good”. I do prefer it over “gay bad” but it doesn’t have the zing that offensive comedy has. You know Im right. [cJ the X clip. Subjectivity in art]. Now obviously there are good gay jokes, you just need to actually take from your actual gay experiences and twist them into something funny. See contrapoints The Darkness for more about this, absolutely vital video.

The current state of sigma male memes has seemingly bulldozed over this evolution to go Waaay into the far-right direction. My platform, youtube, mainly through shorts, is filled with younger boys who are just doing a far-right wing with the language of sigma, or gigachad, in a wave that probably was accelerated by Andrew Tate’s influence over the past few years. There generally seems to be a global shift towards the right wing, which uhh isn’t great. I quite liked the period were being gay was at least somewhat socially protected, can we keep doing that please? I still gotta get my hoe phase done before I get hatecrimed in the street for holding hands with my boyfriend.

(This is what my 2010’s internet album was about BTW)

So, as this wave is crashing around us, I want to propose this new sigma archetype, the Gay Sigma. The Gay Patrick Bateman.  Here’s why I think it will work.

Back when I was 13, I was more influenced by the environment around me, which was about 2012 internet. It was common to use gay, or the r-slur as an insult on just the youtube homepage. It was just seen as normal. And that reflected my school environment too and so yeah, I would call shit gay without really thinking about it. I was following trends, I wasn’t thinking deeply about the implications, or even considering if that was something that applied to me. 

[Business card, dick measuring contest]

And guess what, as I grew older, I started to experiment and realise “damn, im kinda into guys”. The guy calling shit gay at 14 was getting stuffed like a turkey at 19. And that isn’t just me, that’s a bunch of people. The kids who grow up gay will find themselves in an environment that is hostile to them, and they are probably gonna have a lot of that internalised by the time they realise that they are in fact, not straight. 

As a sidenote, i’m using gay here as it’s directly related to me but you can apply this to Sooo many other human variations from the standard right-wing view of humanity. Being trans, being a dog [patricia taxxon], being therian or plural or any other identity label that you find true to you.

But this is the situation that a lot of older teenagers are going to find themselves in a few years, and I think it’s good to have something there, that might just cross the gap between the toxicly-masculine and the reality of being queer, as that’s a gap me and other find themselves in now.

Patrick Bateman, is a deeply closeted bisexual. His closet is so far in his head he can’t even confirm it exists or not. The idea that it does exist, and that he knows what’s in there, is ejected out of his mind with a force that could puncture titanium. This is just one way in which his approach to the postmodern condition, namely blank slate masculinity, is killing him. Patrick Bateman doesn’t get a good ending. He goes on his biggest spree yet, erupting with emotion and he calls his lawyer, hoping for something to give, something to come out of it. But nothing. He’s denied any pushback, any counterforce that would require him to evolve, change, take off the mask. Meaninglessness overtakes him as he dissociates from everything in this hallowed stare.

My favorite bisexual, Patrick Bateman

His good ending, I think, is where he does in fact receive enough pushback require a change of lifestyle. Probably going to jail, or to some small idyllic village in france. He re-discovers himself, finds out what’s going under the surface and integrates it. He learns to open up to people, to converse, to admit faults and talk from the heart. He makes friends, genuine friends with the contents of his heart. He learns to fish. He complains about not getting many catches this time of year. He gets a bit of chub. He meets someone who brings out the best in him, and he tries, and probably fails to meet them halfway for the first few times. Maybe it doesn’t work out, or maybe it does after getting stable ground. He laughs, genuine belly laughs. He cries. He dreams. 

Maybe that’s too much to ask for a guy who’s killed like 20 people. In fact it totally is… but… maybe it’s not too much to ask for for a guy who called things he didn’t like gay when he was 13.