another gender item

[eirias]

No idea how old it is, but here's a Salon article I found on straight fairies. (I wonder if those guys are what last year's crowd liked to call "metrosexuals")

I was recently in a conversation with someone who was convinced her cousin had married a gay man. Wouldn't hear "maybe he's just a little effeminate" or other such arguments; her faith in his fruitiness was unshakeable. Me, I'm a little uncomfortable with the gender stereotyping that goes along with such surmising. I've been to a few queer events with my favorite lesbians and I do know that there's definitely a different vibe, somehow. But nevertheless I feel there's something a bit... inappropriate... about making assumptions about other people's sexuality. Part of that is because I think that people are complicated and sexuality and social roles are complicated and the labels people choose may tell you more about them than the labels you infer. Part of it is I guess that I think making public inferences about behavior that most people consider private is almost always rude. Particularly when you come at it with the attitude that you know them better than they know themselves. Even when that's true, it's never polite to say so.

Not that I've never done it myself (at least privately; I've never been in the business of gaydar self-promotion). But there have definitely been people who have surprised me, and I try to remember that.

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

*amused* elf my elf apparently pings a lot of gaydars, but in fact he's quite the straightest of my partners :)

[cos]

I've surprised plenty of people by coming out as straight on occasion. Normally I don't pay attention to the issue so I've probably surprised a lot more people without knowing it.

her faith in his fruitiness was unshakeable

Did she consider he might be bi? Fruity, sure, but not gay in the "not interested in women" sense.

[kirin]

Nice article. As you may have noticed from my last comment, I'm all for just tossing the notion of gender entirely when it's not particularly useful, which I think is the vast majority of the time.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I asked that, and her response was of the form "blah blah bisexuals today are gays tomorrow blah." Which I'm pretty sure isn't true, for a number of reasons.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Looks like the opposite of bears... or some other similar group. Gay men that do fit the manly man, sports and so forth concept, but are homosexuals.

I'd like to see the separation of lifestyle in the clothing, interests, beliefs sort of way and lifestyle in the who you have sex with sort of way. Because they don't naturally match up all that well.

Me, I like bi and straight guys who are secure enough to not totally freak if a guy hugs them. Which fits for both of the people I am with, even though they certainly present as in different locations on the effiminate scale.

I don't think I'm quite dyke in style enough to be the matching straight dyke type, although there definitely are females who are. People usually don't start thinking of me as bi until we get on the topic of gay rights. Then some people make the assumption that if you care about liberty, it must personally affect you. Or they think I'm bi because they hang out with so many women that they forget that some women are straight. At least, I think so. I honestly don't know how I present. And usually people find out pretty early that I am involved with a male, so that's kinda a huge clue.

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

wha?

*blinks confusedly*

weird...