In front of the TV, and swelling with pride, Howard Brackett listens to the thankyou speech of Oscar winner Cameron Drake, who thanks his former teacher for the inspiration for his role as a gay soldier. He was, after all, gay himself. Howard's mouth drops open: this was the first he'd heard of this. Much to his discomfort almost all of his friends and acquaintances (except his head teacher) try to assure him, as politically correctly as possible, that they still love him. Especially his mother Berniece. But for all these developments, she insists he marries Emily Montgomery, to whom he promises his eternal, perfect and heterosexual love. But the media have other ideas. They churn out any amount of useful gossip about the influence of the involuntarily famous teacher on the Oscar winner and follow the dispairing Howard's every step. In particular, gay reporter Peter Malloy, who tries to help the outed homosexual to come out of the closet properly. When even his pupils confirm that a clean-living Shakespeare-loving cyclist who takes three years to finally tie the knot with his fiancée simply must be gay, Howard starts on a fast-track road to macho-ism to prove to the world that he is straight. In time the poor man sinks deeper into insecurity...