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    Rich JuzwiakRich Juzwiak
    8/25/14 3:47pm

    This resonated with me particularly because I found myself in a conversation much like it Friday night. I was at a small gathering and got into a conversation with a friend of a friend about the Weeknd vs. The-Dream (I came down firmly on the side of the latter, as I am a person with ears and sense). I built a rapport with this dude, so when he later asked me where I was going, I told him I was headed to a gay club. I could tell he was straight and figured this would be a dealbreaker for him, and this way we could efficiently part ways.

    "Oh, you're gay?" he said.

    I am not revealing this to brag; I don't think that being mistaken for a straight guy is any kind of compliment. It is notable, though, not just in the context of the interview, but because this is literally the third time I have been wearing my Samantha Fox T-shirt that someone has explicitly, openly assumed that I am straight. Every time someone does that, I ask him, "What about this shirt doesn't read screaming homo to you?" I love that shirt precisely because of its capacity to telegraph how gay I am.

    What ensued was a conversation that went similarly like the one between Ebro/Rosenberg and Cakes. This guy was ignorant, but I could sense that he wasn't trying to mock me, that his questions were legitimate, and that he actually wanted to learn something. There's an attitude amongst some minority members, often voiced on Twitter from people who'd probably be too timid to actually express it to a well-meaning IRL person, that goes, "Do your research about my group; I am not your researcher!" I think that's bullshit and I think it's overly hostile. Interaction and familiarity do what words sometimes can't. Conversations that can alter a person's worldview are amongst the most important ones to have.

    That said, this guy tried me! He noted my frame and muscles and said iterations of, "I never see gay guys like you," half a dozen times. This dude lives in New York. I told him that he sees gay guys like me all the time, he just doesn't realize they're gay. I knew that he doesn't even think to realize that they're gay, because of a limited view of what gay looks like that doesn't even entertain all of the readily available stereotypes.

    At one point, he said, "If a big gay guy beat me up, the next day I would..." He trailed off. He said it again a few minutes later, and I completed his sentence this time: "You'd feel emasculated."

    "Yeah, I would."

    "Well, you should work on that," I told him. You know, in case it happens.

    I appreciated his honesty, but we'd been going back and forth for a few minutes at that point and, you know, he had some homework to do.

    Then, his friend interrupted. He was wearing a bow tie and reminded me a bit of Luther Vandross. If you showed me a picture of him and asked if I thought he was gay, I would have said yes.

    "Since I didn't meet the girl of my dreams last night, can we leave now to find her?" he interrupted. "Can we go somewhere and talk about pussy?"

    That seemed rude, and pointedly so. I thought that any sort of retaliation or correction was likely to be in vain as the ignorance was already running so thick. I was still more happy to provide a service than I was irked, but it struck me that the march to equality sometimes feels like baby steps. Along the way, you step in some shit, inevitably.

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      Bryan LevyRich Juzwiak
      8/25/14 4:15pm

      I do a podcast with a girl that I absolutely adore who happens to be a lesbian and one of the reasons she's on the show is to call me out on my bullshit. I came up in the world with bro-ish tendencies, and I am working to fix them. the general thought I have come up with is this: "Fuck whoever you want, I don't care. But at least ask me questions about it so I can wrap my head around. And I promise, I'm working on pronouns, I really am, but the rules for them are changing really fast."

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        empire_of_bottle_capsBryan Levy
        8/25/14 4:41pm

        Do you ask your straight friends the same questions about what they do sexually? (serious question)

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        Bryan Levyempire_of_bottle_caps
        8/25/14 4:48pm

        If I know a dude doing weird shit to a girl, absolutely. "So, there's a hole in that giant mascot suit?"

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      not workingRich Juzwiak
      8/25/14 5:25pm

      "I think he meant to ask if a femme guy could be sexually attracted to a butch woman, which I guess, does follow a certain line of logic, though it abandons another (that being: gay boys kiss boys)."

      gay woman here whos on the androgynous side - gay guys hit on me all the time. but the difference is when push comes to shove neither of us would be interested in actually fucking, even though we both find the other attractive.

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        Rich Juzwiaknot working
        8/25/14 5:31pm

        Yeah, it's an interesting phenomenon, one more about essence and queerness than the nuts and bolts that Rosenberg was going for. His presentation was dumb, but really, he was kind of getting ahead of himself...

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      therealquash ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗRich Juzwiak
      8/25/14 4:17pm

      Related: straight women ask gay women stupid questions. People, of our generation and older at least, tend to ask people who are different than them in any way incredibly dumb questions. I kind of wonder if it is because we don't allow kids to ask such questions when they are young and the questions aren't so offensive. Such as when I, as a wee one, asked a gentlemen eating dinner at my home why his skin was so much darker than mine and my mother literally melted from embarrassment. Better to ask those dumb-ass questions as a 3 year old than a 40 year old.

      Now I'm imaging a 3 year old asking cakes, "So is it the PENIS you really like???"

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        esalocanegratherealquash ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ
        8/25/14 6:08pm

        I can appreciate your comment. I used to babysit a friend's little brothers when I was in middle and high school. When he was about 3, he asked if my skin was brown because I bathed in a dirty bathtub... His parents reacted the same as yours, literally, and his mother began to respond angrily. I stepped in, and told her it was okay, not to worry about it, that it was an honest question. He asked, I answered. I could tell he had more questions but was too embarrassed, and feared the wrath of his mother, who probably still said something to him after they dropped me off at home. I would not be surprised if it is a story told by the family during walks down memory lane. If I ever saw him again, unless he grew up to be a complete asshole, which I doubt it, I know I would be compelled to bring it up myself for, hopefully, a (hearty) laugh or two; because, when I think on it now, it was pretty hilarious.

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        therealquash ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗesalocanegra
        8/25/14 6:12pm

        My little cousin was the cutest. He wanted to know if black people smelled like chocolate because he SWORE his mother smelled like vanilla. I guess she had a hearty bath and body works obsession. But he thought that was her natural smell. I told him no and it was best not to go around smelling people to get his answer.

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      sacmacphearsonRich Juzwiak
      8/25/14 4:17pm

      I guess I can see why you'd say it 'screams homo', but it is a cool looking shirt gay or straight.

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        Rich Juzwiaksacmacphearson
        8/25/14 5:31pm

        It's basically my favorite thing I own, thank you. Bought it direct from her eBay store. Really good merch for someone whose time was about up by '90.

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      A House In VirginiaRich Juzwiak
      8/25/14 4:35pm

      to be fair: I can't be snarky about straight guys seeking to educate themselves.

      Because it means they're one baby step closer to unlocking the Magical World of the Prostate ("Movember" grates on me).

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        CapriciousSonA House In Virginia
        8/26/14 11:15am

        Happy Anal August!!

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        A House In VirginiaCapriciousSon
        8/26/14 11:24am
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      Sean BrodyRich Juzwiak
      8/25/14 4:29pm

      Rich, slightly off topic. I am not sure if you saw that the Rose Of Tralee (Ireland's iconic pageant of female wholesomeness) revealed that she is a gay woman.

      http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/i…

      It's a fantastic bit of visibility for a sometimes chronically conservative country.

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        SimuLordRich Juzwiak
        8/25/14 4:22pm

        My best male friend is gay, and in the 11 years I've known him, I've never felt the temptation to ask him what it's like to fuck dudes. If I wanted to know what that was like, I'm otherwise comfortable enough with my own sexual identity that I'd seek it out for a one-night stand or something.

        Instead, I adhere to the same principle with gay dudes that I do with women, namely don't talk about sex unless you're actually heading in the direction of having sex with someone. This makes it a lot easier to talk about things like, I dunno, video games and work and police brutality in Ferguson and LOL Sam Bradford one less team for the Seahawks to worry about this year.

        Y'know. Treating people like human beings and not walking depositories for DNA? Is that so challenging for some people?

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          krystollaSimuLord
          8/25/14 6:21pm

          Honestly, I love talking to people about what they find attractive. Gay, straight, male, female — I just find it interesting to see how different people view the world. There's more to beauty than the Golden Mean right. Of course, it's not something that comes up in conversation often and I can't really imagine a worse way to broach the subject than 'So is it the penis?'

          But since two straight women will hardly have exactly the same turn-ons, I can't imagine that every other member of whatever group will have exactly the same interests.

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          SimuLordkrystolla
          8/25/14 6:24pm

          There's a difference between me asking my buddy Mike what he finds attractive in dudes vs. "Hey, how 'bout that suckin' dick, huh?"

          Mike gives back as good as he gets on that with me, too. I'll link him to a picture of Bruce Lee and say "Hey, here's one of those little Asian guys you love so much" and he'll come back with some girl with real-life anime gag boobs and say "I found your new girlfriend."

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        ISPOKEWITHG0DRich Juzwiak
        8/25/14 4:09pm

        I'm just here to say that Cakes Da Killa is the shit.

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          thecowman16ISPOKEWITHG0D
          8/26/14 11:58am

          I asked my GF once if we could try anal sex and she said no, it's disgusting. Then literally two days later she tells me that a gay dude friend of hers was getting married and it was beautiful or something. Then I said, well, your gay friend is having anal sex with that guy and it's beautiful, why isn't it for us?? Then she called me an asshole.
          I dunno, we just have a lot of questions, and not sure which ones are OK to ask. I was just asking!

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        MitchRich Juzwiak
        8/25/14 4:28pm

        I've never understood the incredible need to put gay sexuality under a microscope. Of course sex works differently between two men than between a man and a woman, but I tend to assume gays and lesbians are into the same sex the way straights are into the opposite, unless someone specifically tells me otherwise.

        But, up to the point of having sex with a woman, does a straight guy ask them in a random conversation... what it is that they find so hot about guys? I'm not about to go up to a guy I know is gay and say "You like.... dicks?" any more than I would to a straight woman.

        Because that's fucking childish.

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          SimuLordMitch
          8/25/14 5:58pm

          I've asked a woman that very question "what is so hot about that to you?", but she had my dick in her hand at the time and a look of almost childlike wonder (stop looking at me like that, she was 20 and I was 22) on her face at the time.

          Her answer wasn't radically dissimilar to what I'd say if she asked the same question about my fascination with her lady bits. "I don't have a dick to call my own, I have to envy yours." (Ferris Bueller reference. I loved that girl.)

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