Yeah being an “ally” isn’t enough. People need to be subjected a purity tests too because that’s been a super successful strategy so far!
Seriously, if someone isn’t super comfortable with gay people but they overcome those feelings and support gay rights, just take the win.
But how will I tone police them if I don’t tone police them?
I used to get accusations of being gay a lot because I had a lot of friends that happened to be women and I didn’t constantly sexually harass them or whatever.
I physically can not be gay. I instinctively chew anything that is in my mouth for more than ten seconds.
Fucking hamsters writing comments on Lemmy
I’m a straight guy. I don’t wish I was gay, but being bi would be pretty cool. Twice the options.
sadly it still equals zero
As they say, 2 x 0 = 0
I used to work at a tech repair shop right next to a big lbgtq hub in my city and there’d be gays guys in there a couple times a day who thought I was gay. Never once did I find it offensive, everyone in there always had the best outfits that look like they had a professional stylist, the most clear skin I’ve ever seen and the confidence of an alligator in a chicken coop. I know that’s kind of a stereotype but that’s exactly what it was and I would love getting lumped in with the group.
The tips there we’re a lot better than the other spots in the city too, no fights, the store only got robbed once in the 3 years I worked there and the customers weren’t dickheads who’d walk in, throw their broken phone on the counter (breaking it more) and say “fix this” without saying another word. It really was a decent spot to work.
Why is this okay because they are straight? Imagine saying you thought your Trans friend was a man, when they are trying to present as a woman.
These kind of tests are so toxic, and serve nothing but to spark an argument and hurt feelings.
You are part of the problem.
100% agree. It’s only going to alienate people who would have otherwise been supporters.
Crappy comparison…
I don’t see how those two are related at all and honestly treating them as interchangeable is… cringe.
There is no harm in suggesting you thought someone was gay or straight, especially because sexuality has nothing to do with outward appearance and can be kinda nebulous to infer at all. If you’re not comfortable with the idea of being lgbt+, how are you an ally? Nothing differentiates a gay man from a straight one, outside of attraction to other men.
Whereas so much of trans struggles and validity relate to how they’re/we’re perceived. Do I pass enough to shit in the restroom that conforms to my identity?
So you think there isn’t a lot of extremely toxic male culture that will make men feel invalid for not being perceived as straight? Because that shits everywhere. It’s perfectly normal to struggle with that, feeling insecure about your self image has nothing to do with your support of others.
And insecurities can come from very personal things and no one should be judged for them. Lying about how you perceived someone as a “test” is toxic as fuck.
Yeah, it’s bad to ask if your friends are comfortable being viewed as gay because they might have insecurities from toxic masculinity 🙄🙄🙄
So you think the amount of toxic male culture making men feel invalid for not being masculine enough is comparable the current level of toxicity, discrimination and legal persecution that is making trans people feel invalid ?
I also explicitly, at several occasions and in several comments pointed out that I fully agree that it’s toxic and dick move to call straight people gay as some kind of test, so the fact that everyone repeatedly keeps arguing against me with a position that I’ve literally explicitly agreed with several times, sure seems very indicative of you guys not actually bothering to read or understand my comments.
My sole argument has been not that it’s fine to call straight people gay, merely that whilst being toxic, it’s not remotely comparable to the level of toxicity of deliberately misgendering a trans person, and it’s demeaning and disrespectful towards the very real struggles of trans people to compare the two to each other.
Despite dozens of downvotes and replies, literally not a single person has yet replied to, countered, or even acknowledged this explicitly stated stance of mine. All the replies and downvotes are coming from the POV of me supposedly having said that it’s perfectly fine and acceptable to call straight people gay.
I disagree about it not being remotely comparable. There’s little doubt that on average it’s gonna be far worse to misgender a transperson in that way (though “i thought you were x when i first met you” isn’t really misgendering either since it’s explicitly saying they’re not that, but w/e we all know what we’re talking about here) since there’s a very high chance they have some degree of trauma associated with it.
But I think in individual cases the “i thought you were gay” can be just as bad, so I do think it’s entirely comparable. I think it’s important to also think about the worst effect it could have, and it’s such an unnecessary action that both cases are just toxic and never a good thing, so I don’t think there’s a need to rank one as worse than the other. (And ofc both can also be fine if it’s clear everyones comfortable with it, and that’s more likely in the gay case, but hopefully that’s obvious).
So of according to you, if there is a single guy on earth who gets just as upset from being called “doofus” as a black person from being called the N-Word, that in your mind makes calling someone a doofus and calling a black person the N-Word comparable ?
Did you skip over the part of it being completely unnecessary? Insults are a part of human communication, you can’t just erase them, so of course it makes sense to classify some as worse than others. It’s a fundamental part of insults even.
You literally just argued, verbatim, that because being called gay in isolated cases can be just as bad as a trans person being misgendered, that makes deliberately misgendering and calling someone gay comparable.
That was your verbatim argument. And you’ve suddenly moved the goal posts to “of course it makes sense to classify some as worse than others”
As someone agender this entire thread is wild to me. I accept any gender, any pronouns, and do not care how people percieve me. None of this seems offensive to me, whether people thought i was trans or gay or whatever. Pretty sure the offense is mostly just whether offense was intended.
Pretty sure the offense is mostly just whether offense was intended.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but since I read this sentence I understand why I dislike this suggestion. Saying something to your friend to see if they’ll be uncomfortable is intending offense, imo. You should be kind to your friends and not give them shit tests, or else just don’t be friends with them anymore. It honestly feels like OOP is suggesting your straight friend isn’t really your friend, but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
What do you mean there’s no harm? People still get killed for being gay, yeah?
The premise of this post of an openly gay person talking to their straight friend/acquaintance. Pretty sure it’s fairly safe to assume that this isn’t set in Uganda or Saudi Arabia. And even in the deepest fucking south of the USA, no straight person is getting hate crimed because one time their gay friend called them gay as a stupid bit.
Pretending this is relevant to the discussion is disengenous.
Irrelevant to the discussion at hand
Yeah, calling a straight person gay as a joke/bit is not even remotely comparable to deliberately misgendering a trans person, and it’s kinda crass and disgusting to pretend it is. Screams to me that you don’t actually know any trans people, or at least no closely enough to understand how devastating such a comment can be to them.
Straight people, with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay. Being forced by society to express themselves as gay, even though it made them feel awful. They didn’t spend potentially decades feeling unwelcome in their own skin. They don’t spend hours upon hours worrying that society won’t accept than as “a real straight”. They don’t spend days worrying about the hate crime, discrimination and legal persecution they are susceptible to if they don’t look straight enough. Triggering that level of trauma isn’t the same as making someone slightly uncomfortable because they found out they unknowingly didn’t express their outward sexuality as strongly as they felt. It isn’t remotely, on any level, comparable, and that is an objective truth.
I am also notably not defending calling straight people gay. I’m just pointing out that deliberately misgendering a trans person is on a completely different plane of shitty behaviours. Not every shitty behaviour is automatically equally shitty.
Classic straight people. You’re just completely unwilling accept that some mildly crappy behaviour towards you isn’t universally described as the worst behaviour ever. I bet you people also think that calling a white person a cracker is exactly the same as calling a black person the N-Word.
with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay
Except just about every guy who has ever been bullied. While the bullies usually don’t actually believe that, it certainly explains why straight men get defensive about someone thinking that they’re gay. Plus it’s just inconvenient if you’re trying to find a girlfriend.
I also like how I gave an entire paragraph of the hardships of that trans people face day in and day out, prior to coming out they have to listen to even their closest friends and loved ones seeing them as the wrong gender every day, in every interaction, in every conversation, and you literally just picked out the very first sentence, ignored everything else, and went “Um akshually straight people get this occasionally too, in very different context and with very different conotations, so equatingthem is fine”
You can’t seriously think that some bullies insulting you by calling you gay, whilst clearly and evidently and outwardly just using is a generic insult, rather than actually meaning it, is even in the same universe as a trans person being forced to express the wrong gender identity for several decades.
IMO, it’s a difference in severity, not in kind. It’s a fairly regular thing for bullying victims to kill themselves or get seriously injured or killed by their bullies. Go a couple of decades back and out homosexuals, especially men, were exactly where trans people are now. Remember how the Republicans handled AIDS, or how male homosexual acts were literally illegal in many western countries until like the 90s or early 00s?
Bottomline is, don’t say your “friend” is a different sexuality or gender than you know they are, just as a test.
IMO, it’s a difference in severity, not in kind. It’s a fairly regular thing for bullying victims to kill themselves or get seriously injured or killed by their bullies.
That true, and it’s awful, but it’s not BECAUSE they were called specifically gay, at least in the majority of cases. Switching “gay” for any other generic insult/slur wouldn’t make the bullying less bad or impactful in the vast majority of cases, whereas for a trans person there is virtually always a massive, massive difference between just being genericly insulted/harassed and it being specifically misgendered/targeted at their gender identity. So IMO, it also very much is a difference in kind.
Go a couple of decades back and out homosexuals, especially men, were exactly where trans people are now. Remember how the Republicans handled AIDS, or how male homosexual acts were literally illegal in many western countries until like the 90s or early 00s?
We’re not IN the 90s or 00s anymore. Trans people are facing this level of persecution and discrimination today. It’s also not comparable, because it is much easier to keep gayness a secret Vs keeping transness a secret. That isn’t supposed to make light of the suffering of gay people in 80s to 00s, just pointing out that gayness isn’t necessary an outward expressing. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Being trans is directly, intrinsically and inseparably linked with your outward expression.
Bottomline is, don’t say your “friend” is a different sexuality or gender than you know they are, just as a test.
Yes. A point that I have literally made explicitly several times already, and yet everyone here is pretending as though I said it’s perfectly fine, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it to do pull this shit. The only point I’ve made is that, as sucky and shitty as it is to call a straight person gay, it’s demeaning and insulting to the struggles of trans people to equate it to being deliberately misgendered.
A fact that you can literally survey in this comment section where there’s tons of straight men commenting that they wouldn’t be upset/insulted by such a statement, and merely point out the inaccuracy, and I’m willing to bet every penny I own, that the amount of open trans people who would react comparably mildly to being misgendered is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the men commenting here that it wouldn’t really upset them that much.
Oppression olympics never gets anyone anywhere. The people who were bullying and persecuting gay men 20-30 years ago are often literally the same ones who are bullying and persecuting trans people right now.
It’s not “oppression Olympics” to point out that it’s insulting to equate a minor dick move towards straight people with the ongoing systemic persecution of trans people.
Most notably and importantly because straight people AREN’T oppressed. There is no large scale legal systemic discrimination or oppression of straight people, anywhere on earth. Individual dick heads being asses is not the same as large scale, systemic and legal persecution.
Here’s a question for you: Rape “jokes” are never acceptable. But, would you consider making rape “jokes” towards a woman who was never victimised the same level of shitty behaviour as making a rape “joke” towards a woman who you know is a rape survivor. And how would you react if someone was arguing that those two situations are totally comparable and equally bad.
If your answers to those questions are “of course not” and “outraged”, congratulations, you agree with my point.
Shit, you’re right. Without allies like you, how would we learn and grow? Thank you for your insights.
Not an ally, Im a member bitch. And this aint okay
I’m glad you understood the point so well. I’m so glad you’re here.
Exposing people’s insecurities is not a test of allyship.
I agree.
It may undermine a person’s self-image without indicating they think any differently about other people’s sexual interests or perhaps even their own.
there’s a lot more to what it means to be perceived as gay in this society than just that person, personally hating gay people.
i had someone say that to me and i’m just extremely self conscious so i was just trying to figure out why….
was it my tone of voice? mannerisms?
all these penises in my mouth?
Is that why women are seldom romantically interested in me? Do they all think i’m gay? is that the key to my loneliness? (probably just the ugly part).
if you tell someone, “oh i figured you like country music” and they don’t, they’re going to wonder why.
and i don’t know if they stopped, but kids used to be pretty mean calling people gay… it can be kind of a “touching on childhood trauma” thing.my advice: don’t “trick” people with clever “tests” and try to be genuine with your friends. If you’re gay and you have straight friends, those friends probably aren’t the problem even if they have a problem with being misidentified as gay.
my advice: don’t “trick” people with clever “tests” and try to be genuine with your friends.
That’s was my reaction to reading this, it’s like shittestting in a relationship. YOU are the asshole if you do that. You’re also an asshole if you think your straight friends would react like that. You’re also terrible at picking your friends.
This post is basically saying “your straight friends aren’t actually your friends, this is how you can prove it”
Yeah I once had some guy give me a sly grin and say “I can tell you’re Mormon” and to this day I have no idea what he meant. I am not nor have I ever been Mormon
but if he tries it enough times, eventually he’ll be right
No matter how many times he says it, I will not be Mormon
what if he said it 800 trillion times? like he paused time for 76,052,972,416 years, repeating that he can tell that you’re a mormon….
then would you slowly lose your mind until you didn’t know anything else other than that you’re a mormon?
Agree. Let’s approach this from the rational angle. “If they don’t react how I think they should react, then they must be…” But that’s clearly not a rational process. Its not even a decent heuristic.
I wonder if this kind of “advice” has always been prevalent, or if it’s an artifact of the Internet that everyone thinks they’re smarter than everyone else and feels like coming up with “tests” like this. In a real friendship you’ll have months or years of context on how a person acts that you’ll use to actually have a decent picture of their personality, their strengths and weaknesses, any reactionary tendencies, etc and you won’t need to “test” if they’re a real ally because you’ll have an idea of what’s going on.
there’s contexts where it could be fine I think, like if you know your friend will take it lightly, and you’re not taking it seriously either. but actually trying to test someone with that is stupid
Well said, there’s a pretty obvious difference between not wanting to be perceived as something and actually hating it.
I feel the need to emphasize that there is no difference between a straight person and a gay person outside of where they fall on the kinsey scale, just as there’s no difference between a trans person and a cis person, outside of the difference between their physical traits and preferred gender.
People are made up of tens of billions of neurons firing in a complicated puzzle, every one of us is unique and different. We should use caution and discretion in defining and perceiving the labels we use to categorize people using any trait that is not directly influenced by that trait.
i don’t believe in labeling people as such either, but for the sake of being able to communicate i’ve used the vernacular terms aforementioned, here within.
Also the kinsey scale is yet another human attempt to collapse the broad, multidimensional aspects of sexuality into a one dimensional “scale”. Like the “political spectrum” plane, it’s overly reductive and attempts to understand and explain the elephant by feeling its tail.That simple spectrum is how we get paradoxes like “there will always be yin in yang” and “horseshoe theory”. One dimension is not enough to describe the complex universe.
I think that’s more of a tell on your own insecurities if the notion makes you uncomfortable. You can’t tell if someone is gay, even if there are some trends/social queues.
But the trends and social queues are important for how people view you, and how people view you has a big impact on your life. e.g. imagine you were trying to flirt with people but everyone you talk to assumes that you’re not into their gender.
Just because you can guess doesn’t mean you can definitively tell.
This thread has been great for reminding me that nobody on the fucking planet can read.
Right back atcha.
you should look up “gaydar”
I feel that was covered by saying “trends/social queues”
“Gaydar” is just making a guess based on social queues. Maybe it’s an educated guess but it is a guess.
I completely agree with you.
I hate to be this person, but I have to ask: did you mean “cues?” A queue is a line or an order.
Yes
no, that’s how someone straight would guess….
gaydar is more of an intuitionIntuition - “quick and ready insight; the power of knowing things without conscious reasoning.”
Iunno, I think that’s covered by “social cueues and tendencies”. Your intuition is still fueled by the things you perceive and isn’t magic, or necessarily accurate.
👍 sure
🧊 cool
As a cis male, I support women 100%. I would not want someone to think I am one. This is a shitty and childish way to alienate supporters.
EDIT: the irony that people are actually telling me I’m the one that has the problem for saying I’d correct someone if they said I was something I am not is god damned delicious!
Where exactly at any point in this post does anyone talk about calling a cis male a woman?
The post is about calling a straight person gay. Equating gayness with not being (real) man is hella homophobic.
Excuse me for making the mistake of pointing out that being slightly crappy towards a straight person isn’t the end of the fucking world.
You’re so right, straight people already have to deal with so much discrimination and worries regarding their sexuality, it’s totally fair to compare it to misgendering a trans person, after all, we all know straight people on average worry just as much about their sexuality, and societal acceptance of their sexuality, than trans people do.
And I would bet fucking money, that if someone was arguing that misgendering a trans person isn’t that bad, all of you people down voting me wouldn’t have half as much issue with that.
Where exactly at any point in this post does anyone talk about calling a cis male a woman?
Nowhere “exactly”. It’s an analogy.
So, I’m guessing there’s a bit of trouble extrapolating the point here.
At no point did anyone talk about calling a cis male a woman. That wasn’t the point being made.
What I did, was I used myself to illustrate being called something I’m not, and then gauging whether or not I still can say I support said thing even if don’t want to be called said thing.
I suppose I could have used animals as an example instead? I am all-in on supporting animal rights, minded domain, and stand firmly against animal abuse, though I’d prefer not to have people refer to me as a chihuahua.
Or what about nature conservation? I fully sport the protection of nature and wildlife habitats, however I’d prefer not to be referred to as a sycamore tree.
The point is, one can very much support something while preferring people not assume that they are that thing. It’s not about whether or not it offends them, It’s about them feeling that they should be respected for who and what they are.
Isn’t that what it’s all about anyway??
While I get what you’re saying, you would still be the person who is choosing to take offense in this situation, and getting yourself worked up. This would be more like if someone said you look like you’re from Boston, weird because there’s not a true ‘look’, but not a big deal at all.
Equating it to someone calling you a dog is the energy you’re putting on it yourself. It’s generally considered dehumanizing to equate gay people to dogs, something to consider
Jfc…. There’s no point debating this.
Complains about people not trying to understand your point. Immediately refuses to engage in any meaningful way with a comment literally starting with the words “I get what you’re saying”.
My dude, take a look in the mirror.
You are the one who needs to step back and actually think about the rhetoric you are spewing before just pushing it out there. From your own standards that you defined in your conversation here, you are saying that when a Trans person gets misgendered, THEY are CHOOSING to get worked up if they get upset and correct someone. Your own rhetoric is transphpbic. People have a RIGHT to express and maintain their own identity. You need to understand that.
I’d love for you to explain to me where that follows from the standards I’ve laid out.
I explicitly said that a straight person who is secure and comfortable in their sexuality will not mind. Being secure and comfortable in your gender identity ain’t exactly something trans people are known for, so only someone who knows fuck all about trans people could possibly think this is remotely comparable.
Straight people, with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay. Being forced by society to express themselves as gay, even though it made them feel awful. They didn’t spend potentially decades feeling unwelcome in their own skin. They don’t spend hours upon hours worrying that society won’t accept than as “a real straight”. They don’t spend days worrying about the hate crime, discrimination and legal persecution they are susceptible to if they don’t look straight enough. Triggering that level of trauma isn’t the same as making someone slightly uncomfortable because they found out they unknowingly didn’t express their outward sexuality as strongly as they felt. It isn’t remotely, on any level, comparable, and that is an objective truth.
I am also notably not defending calling straight people gay. I’m just pointing out that deliberately misgendering a trans person is on a completely different plane of shitty behaviours. Not every shitty behaviour is automatically equally shitty.
Then you kinda missed the point. The point isn’t to call a straight person gay, and laugh at them if they react in any way negatively whatsoever. The point of the post is that despite calling themselves allies, many straight men would react to this as though it were an inherently bad thing if they were gay, rather than just an inaccurate assessment.
If you don’t think being a woman is bad, and you present in a way where confusion is reasonably possible, surely you wouldn’t get upset at someone (seemingly) accidentally misgendering you. You would simply point out that it’s inaccurate. You might feel a bit bummed out that you weren’t presenting as masculine as you wanted, but unless you’re a major dick, you won’t get upset at (at least outwardly) someone with no malicious intent accidentally misgendering you.
If you get immediately upset at someone accidentally, falsely clocking you as gay, that is an enormously strong indicator that you perceive an allegation of gayness as personal insult, rather than merely an inaccuracy.
I still think this it’s a dick move, mostly because you never know if someone you think is straight might actually be in the closet, or struggling with their sexuality, but it’s nowhere near as bad as you make out, because ultimately someone who is actually steaight, and comfortable with their sexuality, would only get upset at a person for being accidentally called gay if they view gayness as inherently bad.
LAMO…. I give up. I was warned that rationality and nuance are things not often considered by people on lemmy.
Ironic, considering you’re the one who is painting this entire issue as entirely black and white (“It’s bad because I think it’s bad”), whilst I’m the one actually bringing in nuanced arguments.
You’ll also note (or maybe not, if you didn’t bother actually reading my comment) that I LITERALLY agree that this it’s a dick move to actually do this, and just argue that you’re making it out as worse than it is, and for the wrong reasons. That’s called nuance, my dude. You’re welcome to disagre with my arguments, and provide a counter. Or you can just do the intellectual equivalent of flipping over the chess board, because you think your opponent is playing bad.
All right then… you go and enjoy being outraged by everything. Be sure to keep rewriting everyone’s point for them so they are too busy defending themselves against shit they never said instead of the pout they actually made.
Going to block you now. I prefer to not have my time wasted by people who won’t even try to underywhat someone is saying without Turing it into a pointless debate.
You’re literally the one who is blatantly refusing to even for a second entertain the possibility that I have a point. Every accusation a confession.
I mean yes but no. I think a lot of gay people would also react poorly if you called them straight and thats why you shouldnt.
I feel like this is more of a test for confidence than for supportiveness.
I don’t think that would be my reaction as a straight man, but I could see why some people could be upset by others thinking that they were gay. It means you are not projecting the kind of appearance and energy you are trying to. It’s like telling a trans man “oh when we first met I thought you were a woman.” Maybe they can laugh that off but it probably stings still. It doesn’t mean they think being a woman is inferior to being a man.
Yeah, this kinda feels similar to the whole “you can’t be racist against white people/sexist against men” that tries to turn it into a cycle of revenge rather than bring anyone together.
It seems just like false flag division tactics. On the surface it seems like a good point, but you peel it back a bit and see it’s more likely to just drive away people who might otherwise be on your side for not being “supportive enough”.
If you’re not comfortable being perceived as lgbt+, are you an ally?
I think that’s what this post is asking.
I fall in to the +, but not gay. I spent my teen years with people assuming I was gay because I didn’t project masculinity, nor fawn over/chase women. It was frustrating to be misidentified. I’m sure people who don’t fit into LGBT+ are similarly annoyed at being misidentified.
It’s not a part of my identity, so no, I’m not. I just think that it should be irrelevant to whether or not someone should be allowed to exist or be respected as an equal. Does that make me an enemy?
I’d also feel weird if someone randomly said I seemed like an artist. Even though I’ve made an art or two over the years, it’s not a label I consider a part of my identity. Hell, even labels I do consider part of my identity can feel weird if someone randomly said I seemed like that out of a context where I’m demonstrating that. It’s nothing against anyone who identifies as any of those labels, but more of a general discomfort from being reminded that no one really knows me but will try to quantify and qualify who I am anyways.
It’s like saying “if you don’t want to be one of us, you must hate us”.
What does the implied perception have to do with your own wants?
Not entirely sure what you’re asking, like if others’ perception of me threatens my identity or something? It’s not that big of a deal. Discomfort, not distress or outrage.
To be clear, the issue I have is using this as a shit test, not that people might label me wrong. It’s going to happen, it’s just not comfortable. But treating reacting with discomfort as if it implies hatred is just going to start a conflict where there wasn’t one and increase division in a time when we really don’t need more things dividing us.
There’s more to it than that, being gay 30 years ago was enough to ruin your career - even if there wasn’t any proof. This is where the term “metrosexual” came from in the 2000s. Being gay was so bad that men came up with a word that meant “I’m straight but I like to shower and dress nicely.”
So if you’re a Millennial or older, odds are that you still carry the scars from that stigma to some extent, even if you’re an ally. When I was a kid, calling something gay was the worst you could get without swearing.
There’s no difference between a gay man and a straight man, outside of specifically who they’re trying to fuck. Suggesting someone might be one or the other isn’t harmful, since there’s no real way to tell without asking.
Telling a man they didn’t pass is rude af.
I don’t see how those can be equivocated. Sexual preference and gender identity are different things defined, characterized, and experienced in wildly different ways.
If straight and gay men are so similar then what made your hypothetical friend seem gay to you? Are you implying that society associates certain behaviors with sexuality and that you observed gay-coded behavior in him?
Read it again because that’s not what I’m saying
You literally mention the difference but then want to ignore the implications of that difference.
Gay men and Straight men generally have differences on average in what they do to attract perceived partners past the baselines of having a pulse and being a functional human being.
Yes, but that’s all social and varies person to person, region to region, etc. Even if there are typical differences, that’s not a rule. Which is the point.
Even if there are typical differences, that’s not a rule. Which is the point.
Something not being a rule doesnt make it locally insignificant. People in these various regions and cultures all have general ideas of how they would like to outwardly present themselves.
So in one sentence you say there is no way to tell, in the next you say there are differences, then back to “it’s hard to define, therefore there are no differences at all”.
There’s no way to definitively tell but you can still make assumptions based on appearences? Fuck off ffs
Exactly. You are contradicting yourself.
I get what you mean, and certainly you never know for sure if someone is straight or gay when you first get to know them… but are you saying you never make assumptions based on how someone dresses, talks, carries themselves, and interacts with the men and women around them?
No, I’m more saying that those traits vary from person to person and you can’t know until you ask. Assumptions and preconceived notions are how we deal with not having definitive information
My brothers friend came out to his group, and apparently one of them just went “gayyyyy” and they had a laugh and that was that.
A lot of people thought I was gay my answer was always “Yeah, I get that a lot, not sure why though.”
Is it because you’re gay?
Nope
I’d say “because I’m stylish and I work out?” (Context: I’m fat and wear jeans and graphic tees year round)
