Amid the screams of shock and laughter at a packed preview screening of Bruno, one detected slight sighs of relief. There were many gay people in the audience, and nothing interests them quite like monitoring how they are treated in movies and TV. It seems the gays have found, if not a friend in Bruno, at least a very tenuous ally in his over-the-top stereotype.

After watching Bruno, played by Sacha Baron Borat Cohen, traipse across America and incite whatever homophobic responses and misadventures he can, gays seem ready to accept that Bruno, which opened last Friday, will not hinder their hopes for pop-culture progress. Nor is it likely to inspire any. What Bruno inspires in gays is a lot of talking and thinking. Here is some more.

Bruno gave me a new thought about homophobia. The straight people in the movie have just as many issues about their orientation and desires as anyone else. Homophobia, schmomophobia. America has a giant case of sex phobia. The bedroom is a bigger hang-up than it’s ever been. Gays just happen to be on the unfortunate side of the bed.

We’re all afraid of sex. Forty years of gay rights after the Stonewall Inn riots in New York have not moved sex forward. In fact, the more political being gay gets, the more afraid everyone gets of sex. So much for liberation..

Bruno is unlike anything the American multiplex has ever seen, with its raunchy acrobatic sex acts between the Bruno character and his fey Filipino lover. Bruno will make all the well-meaning homophobia seen in this decade’s movies seem like blips on the gaydar.

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