Straight-Acting

"Hot, 24 yo, Straight-acting masc vgl guy"... ahh words that are repeated over and over on Craigslist day after day...

As I mentioned earlier in a post that generated some response from Stolie, I certainly have an opinion on the use of the term "straight-acting" or "bisexual" in describing oneself to a potential fuck buddy. Now, I myself am not "ultra-feminine or queeny," but I wouldn't say that I exude masculinity and gruffness, either. However, I did write a term paper on this phenomenon in college. It is all based on one small theory-- why is it hot for a potential fuck buddy to appear straight to another guy when obviously the two would never date?

Now, I realize that the obvious answer is most gay men don't want a relationship, and would rather fuck all day long as many times as they can. But this answer is also so pre-Brokeback Mountain and all those other "it's cool to be gay like Jake Gyllenhall" fads. This is when it seems all gay couples in the New York area suddenly starting walking hand in hand and making it utterly apparent that they were happy with their life partner/boyfriend/fuck buddy/daddy/little bro/slave/bear/twink/Chelsea boy/power bottom.

Then again... I think it's symptomatic of something much worse: gay-bashing within the gay community. It's almost like gay men end up hating other gay men who are feminine or queeny. Does this make sense? Of course it does. There is this kind of "inner group" hatred in every demographic you can imagine: I'm white but I hate white trash; I'm Bill Cosby but I hate thugs; I'm from West Virginia but I hate the hicks from Eastern Kentucky; I'm Samantha Jones but I hate other sluts.

In the gay community, there is literally a book describing just that. Sissyphobia is an excellent resource that offers a more expert opinion on how this dynamic works in the gay community. for a good laugh, you should check out Straightacting.com. I just went back to it for the first time since I wrote my paper three years ago, and found that it looks cooler, but had crashed recently. It used to have a feature where you could look at pictures of other guys and rate how "straight acting" they appeared. Yeah. You read that right. But, they describe themselves as "Masculinely Politically Incorrect," but I think a better description would be "Gay Politically Incorrect." Because they aren't warping the idea of masculine. They are trying to warp the idea of gay. And that's all fine by me.

You may recall from some of my previous posts that I don't really think there's anything wrong with specifying the type of guy you'd like in your online dating profile. If you want to sleep with a black guy because you like black guys, then why not say that and save other unsuspecting guys the time? Similarly, if you like young guys, even if you're 50, why not say that up front and save the other oldies who might want to get with you some time?

However, if you like masculine guys, then say just that-- because saying you like straight-acting guys makes you sound fucking retarded.