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In their essay "Sex In Public", Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner relate the following: "Time's theory is that by the twenty-first century interracial reproductive sex will have taken place in the United States on such a mass-scale that racial difference itself will be finally replaced by a kind of family feeling based on blood relations" (356). Russell Potter recounts a similar tone for "the late 1990s. The new national Zeitgeist declares that because race as a category is now supposed to have been largely transcended, we don't need to acknowledge race as a meaningful question — in fact, to do so somehow marks us as cynical old leftists who can't get wit the new post-racial reality" (77). Both of these read as naïve and overzealous corrections to the more simplistic ways of considering ethnicity — those 'one-factor analyses' which 'lose touch' with the complexities of thought and action in the world, and which [would], in their simplifications, provide props for racism, sexism, and monoculturalism" (During 256). For those whom have experienced oppression due to their racial categorization, both approaches are fallacies — that racial identity is either entirely moot or entirely encompassing. A more accurate sentiment would be "that all categories are slippery," making Pedro's work on The Real World and, as mitigated by Judd, in Pedro and Me (Potter 77). This work, says Muñoz, includes "the denouncement of the dominant public sphere's publicity that fixes images and understandings of queerness and latinidad" (143). So, what does it mean to be gay or Latino or both? A thoughtful answer to those questions are probably beyond the scope of this writing, but addressing some of the issues involved in answering those questions — for both Pedro and, in many ways, for Judd — might be.

Muñoz marvels at Pedro's ability to balance the two worlds as publicly and confidently as he did on The Real World: "The performance of Latina/o, queer, and other minoritarian ontologies — which is to say that the theatricalization of such ethics of the self — conjures the possibility of social agency within a world bent on the negation of minoritatian subjectives" (145-146). The key word here is "performance"; "Used this way, performance strongly implies that the action so named is subject to evaluation" (Shumway 188-189). That is, these categories are more determined by an audience than they are the person for which they apply, making the person him/herself subject to evaluation and alteration by others. "In this definition, a performance is not of a work; it is the work" (Shumway 190). This twisty relationship smacks of postmodernism where "it is no longer possible securely to separate the 'real' from the 'copy,' or the 'natural' from the 'artificial'" (During 142). Said another way, no one is simply Latino or gay — instead, people act Latino or act gay, and an audience identifies them as such. Further, the actions themselves are not fixed, but instead become mutually understood to connote some category. This is not to imply that heritage or sexual preference is some grand illusion; but the strict categories we use to contain either are largely artificial and performative. Whiteness is no less so performative and may, in fact, be the most actively monitored designation of all, since "the invention of whiteness cannot be disentangled from questions of sexuality and gender" (During 241). "Indeed, in the largest terms this racial trope obliges us to confront the process of 'racial' construction itself, the historical formation of whites no less than of blacks" or, for that matter, Latinos or Jews or even Conservatives (Lott 243). All of the Real World members performed for MTV's video confessionals, "small rooms within the casts's living space where individual members are encouraged to 'confess' to the camera outside the space of social negotiation" (Muñoz 145). Note that even "outside" that space, members like housemembers like Rachel continued to perform their categories, either realizing that they now spoke to a larger space — namely, a television audience — or simply, absently upholding their designation in a vacuum. "We cannot simply 'auto-identify' once and for all. Thus same-gender sex, like different-gender sex," as well as same-race/interracial sex, "involves a mixture of both kinds of identification" (During 320). As Sedgwick says, "Axiom 6: The paths of allo-identification are likely to be strange and recalcitrant. So are the paths of auto-identification" (337).

Pedro is exceptional in being able to perform both gayness and hispanicism at the same time without any sign of contradiction or effort. This is rather extraordinary given that "the disjunctures between queer and Latino communities are many. The mainstream gay community ignores or exoticizes Latino bodies, while many Latino communities promote homophobia" (Muñoz 146). Judd even seems able to follow Pedro's rhythm, finding in the overlap places of humor the two can share; in response to Pedro's announcement of marrying Sean, Judd plays with stereotyped performances of both hispanicism and gayness saying, "You Latinos pick the worst colors. Teal, right!? It's gonna be teal!?" (Winick 108). Yet Pedro not only accomplishes this melding performance, but also do so in the context of a mainstream television program while portraying himself as wholly likeable to its primarily non-Latino, non-gay audience. "The most desirable option for people of colour who promote the new cultural politics of difference," says Cornel West, "is to be a Critical Organic Catalyst. By this I mean a person who stays attuned to the best of what the mainstream has to offer — its paradigms, viewpoints, and methods — yet maintains a grounding in affirming and enabling subcultures of criticism" (266). Certainly, he had plenty of practice leading up to The Real World, speaking all over the country "to anyone that would listen," including television and radio talk shows (Winick 57). In short, "Pedro's work enabled the possibility of queer and Latino counterpublics, spheres that stand in opposition to the racism and homophobia" which Muñoz feels is so prevalent in "the dominant sphere" (143, my emphasis).

Sexual orientation may be a particularly highlighted performance, in that sexuality itself is often relegated to being that which remains publicly un-performed. "Nothing divides the personal from the public more than the idea that the personal is where intimacy happens, with sex being the most immediate area of all" (During 354). The reaction Judd receives, more from the wincing middle school teachers than the guffawing students, when discussing "stuff like mutual masturbation and dental dams" exemplifies this point (Winick 162). This could also be one reason why The Real World's producers were not successful in their goal of having housemates mate, including Judd and Pam. However, unless one is willing — and, in some cases, hoping — to confine any acknowledgement of a homosexual orientation to private clubs and clandestine meetings, he/she has to perform their sexuality so as not to be drowned out by society's rampant heteronormativity. "Zamora is willing to sacrifice his right to privacy because he understands that subjects like himself never have full access to privacy […] the national fantasy of privacy to which other subjects in the public sphere cling" (Muñoz 150). Muñoz reminds us that heterosexuality is just as much a public performance as homosexuality — but, if so many of us are singing in unison, one stops noticing his or her own voice, only those who are in another key or whistling a different tune entirely.

Pedro traverses/performs both hispanicism and homosexuality, thereby being beholden to neither while being recognized as both. Bill Clinton — who said that Pedro "gave AIDS, a very 'human face.' Beyond that, he gave it a vibrant, attractive, politicized, and brown face" (Muñoz 154) — makes it possible for the rest of Pedro's Cuba-bound family to come to him in his final hours and take part in that recognition. "It is thus important to see this family embrace their son and brother without hesitation, The image of Cuban-Americans loving, accepting, and bring proud of a gay son complicates the map of latinidad that is most available within U.S. media" (Muñoz 156). Their performance is as important as Pedro's, yet also shows that "performance" and "genuineness" need not be mutually exclusive. Nor are such performances meant to necessarily undo the performances of others. "The performance of a commitment ceremony itself might be read as an aping of heterosexual relationships. Such a reading would miss some important points […] Pedro and Sean's ceremonial bonding is not about aping bourgeois heterosexuality; rather, it is the enacting of a new mode of sociality" (Muñoz 159). This point is made by Muñoz, but is largely overlooked later in his accusations of Puck and Toni's engagement being a overriding response by the producers to Pedro and Sean. One can perform for others and one can perform for one's self — in fact, that is what we are always doing: performing for one's self so as to build it. "The homosexual need to 'invent from A to Z a relationship that is formless' and eventually to arrive at a 'multiplicity of relations'" (Muñoz 159). I would go further, to say that we all should, whenever possible, acknowledge the multiplicity of relations we each have and be aware of the performances we each render.