When you hear the term “gay TV,” what comes to mind? Let me guess, you pop culture aficionado, you: gay TV emerged in 1997 with Ellen’s airport confession to Laura Dern. Since then, Jack McFarland has danced into our hearts with his delicious rendition of “Oops… I Did it Again,” and the Fab 5 have revealed the inner beauty of dozens of hapless heteros (you’d find it under those dead skin cells, boys, if you only exfoliated). Right?

Well, not exactly. Gay characters actually have appeared on American television since the 1970s, generally playing bit parts. (Would you believe that one of the first gay characters appeared aside Archie “It’s-Not-Their-Fault-They’re-Colored” Bunker in “All in the Family?”) Since then, they’ve occupied progressively larger and more nuanced roles (think Willow in “Buffy,” Jack in “Dawson’s Creek” and Ricky in “My So-Called Life”), culminating in network television’s first openly gay lead characters on “Ellen” and “Will and Grace.”

But it was the summer of 2003, with the arrival of Bravo’s “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and “Boy Meets Boy,” that finally prompted a flurry of national news features and editorials asking, “Has TV become too gay?” I’ve got their answer: No. Sorry, folks, but this isn’t a rhetorical question like “How much violence is too much?” or “When do we stop marketing this as a music video and start selling it in a foil wrapper alongside Playboy’s Women of Reality TV?” There is a definite answer, and it’s definitely negative.

For starters, there are, by my count, only three predominantly gay series currently on TV (“Will and Grace,” “Queer Eye,” and Showtime’s “Queer as Folk”). Add to these one gay-themed network (I’m being conservative and not counting E!) and a pay-per-view channel available only to DirecTV’s 11.5 million American subscribers, and it’s clear that gays are not, in fact, taking television audiences hostage. Beyond being patently absurd, the “too gay” notion is also offensive: the equation of homosexuality with sex and violence, as a reality to be taken only in small doses, is ignorant and hurtful.

Perhaps more worrisome, however, is the dissension that shows like “Queer Eye” have engendered within the gay community. In August, one Boston Globe reader lashed out against “Queer Eye” in a letter to the editor, stating that “The blond, nasty, catty, tacky, queeny thing does not represent me or my friends and is offensive. We need shows like “Will and Grace” with characters like Will, who has a real job, stability, and none of those so-called stereotypical behaviors.”

The obvious mistake is that the Fab 5 of “Queer Eye” weren’t just meth-snorting drifters some casting agent stumbled across at a trashy disco in Chelsea. Each has attained an enviable degree of success within his respective field: Jai appeared on Broadway in Rent, Thom was named one of America’s top 100 designers by House Beautiful magazine, and the list goes on. So be honest, friend: it’s the “so-called stereotypical” behaviors that are leaving you and countless gays across the nation squirming. Maybe it’s Jai’s sleeveless shirts or Kyan’s impossibly creamy skin; maybe it’s the apple martinis and mimosas the boys sip so delicately at the end of each episode. Before you dash off to hide your Lancome and Stoli Razz, though, please come on down off your high horse.

Let’s face it: shows like “Queer Eye” and “Queer as Folk” weren’t created to represent Joe Homosexual in Fargo. They’re intended to entertain, to be fabulous, much like “Sex and the City” and “Friends.” Do we honestly believe that Carrie Bradshaw or Rachel Green represent the average heterosexual woman? Where’s the outrage there? I have a sneaking suspicion the genuine concern is related to image. What if my heterosexual co-workers watch “Queer Eye” and assumes that I get pedicures and back waxes? Apparently it never occurred to these men that someone who judges an entire population based on a makeover show perhaps isn’t worth impressing.

But let’s not forget that there are gaggles of gay men for whom “Queer Eye” is fairly representative. The truth is, the “Queer Eye” controversy reflects the larger struggle of “straight acting” gays to distance themselves from their more flamboyant counterparts. I have to ask, to what end? Are they afraid of being seen as another Jack McFarland?

As someone who’s been there, I can assure the Globe reader that fighting to fit into an externally dictated role is far too tiring. So order up an amaretto sour, buy those low-riding jeans (you know they make your ass look hot) and remember the next time you hear Kylie Minogue that sometimes a foot just wants to tap. As for the more flamboyant gays, don’t be so quick to judge them. One of these days, you just may find yourself waking up next to a boy wearing chipped black nail polish. And as you smile and roll over, remember what Dr. Seuss once wrote: “A person is a person, no matter how gay.” Something like that.

—Crimson Arts columnist Dan Gilmore can be reached at dgilmore@fas.harvard.edu.