Do you find the phrase 'straight-acting' offensive?

[DMsquared2]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 4:06pm

It speaks of self-loathing to me, and of course furthers the stereotype that all gay men are effeminate.

[nitsua]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 4:06pm

I want to meet someone who acts bi.

[DMsquared2]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 4:09pm

Haha! Or asexual for that matter.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 4:22pm

i did a search for the term "straight acting" and wow, i found a doozy.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 4:26pm

Not as long as people don't get offended when I say someone is "White Acting."

[mejusthavingfun]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 4:27pm

dunno but I do know there is a difference between 'straight-acting' and 'masculine.'

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 4:27pm

The term "straight acting bottom" is hilarious.

[DMsquared2]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 4:28pm

"The term "straight acting bottom" is hilarious."

Agreed.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 4:49pm

I don't get upset by the phrase. I just think its a very stupid and misguided phase.

Its just as ridiculous as saying that a straight man is gay acting. Gimme your best gay face.

[mejusthavingfun]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 4:57pm

What about "masculine bottom" does it play?

[DBillyP]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 5:12pm

I am not necessarily offended by it, but, for me, if a gay man refers to himself as "straight-acting" it sends up red flags.

[nealb1]

Posted: 4/17/08 at 8:41pm

I don't find it offensive at all. It's usually the guys who say that they are "straight acting," are the ones who are the biggest flamers out there.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 3:50am

to me, it is the single most offensive thing a gay man can say, as it implies that being any other way is wrong, hence you have gay bashing gay.

And it's usually the one not secure with their own sexuality who pull this crap

[Out In The Sticks]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 5:03am

It doesn't bother me! I do prefer non effeminate men as the reason I am gay is because I like men!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 8:30am

It's a phrase that goes back to the pre-Stonewall days, when gay men had to "butch it up" to "pass" in the heterosexual world. It became politically incorrect for a while during the 70s, because gay liberation was supposed to have earned us the right to be who we were without apologizing.

A very clever chorus boy friend of mine in the 80s (whom we lost to the plague) used to say "It takes courage to Be queeny!" about himself but he would also say "Smooth or hairy, just don't be a Mary" about potential sex partners. So it was a double-edged sword: He wanted the right to be effeminate himself without being criticized but he wanted his fantasy sex partners to be masculine and would criticize them if they turned out to be at all "nellie" or (gasp!) a bottom! (That's another complicated discussion: the misogyny and self-loathing of gay men using "bottom" and feminine terms as insults.)

Then in the 90s when the Internet came into play and people started coming out in their hometowns and small-towns without migrating to the big cities to live in gay ghettos, as gay men had been doing since WW2, "straight-acting" took on another meaning: It was now about being gay without buying into all the cultural signifiers that gay men previously developed in themselves and looked to in others: idolizing and dishing entertainment figures, music, fashion, design, never sports more violent than tennis.

These gay men coming out in small towns or rural areas keeping their ways of clothing and what they did for leisure: workclothes not designers; beer not wine or cocktails; and they played and watched softball, baseball, football, hockey, rugby--the same sports straight men played and watched.

The "Bear" community, which had previously been a network of overweight or hairy men, morphed into a worldwide movement of mostly working-class gay men, fat or muscular, hairy or smooth, who identified and eroticized a kind of masculinity that once again was defined as "straight-acting."

But the difference is that these men do not recognize anything "nellie" in themselves because they've never been nellie. They were not particularly effeminate or teased when they were growing up. Their coming-out processes never included coaching in opera or Broadway or Madonna or Brittany--their coming out process just involved realizing their preferred sex and relationships were with other men.

In their minds, "straight-acting" is not an insult of others, because they feel that they are the minority!

Me? I don't like the phrase. Never have. I find it defensive. I miss my friend Brian, who had the courage to be queeny.

And for one time and one time only I will agree with mejusthavingfun: A "masculine bottom" can be very hot.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 8:33am

Smells like closet.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 9:23am

Well, Out in the Sticks, I hate to break it to you, but effiminate men are still MEN.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 3:02pm

How I'd love to read a WFM ad that reads "prefer guys who are femme".

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 3:12pm

People act how they act. Some are naturally feminine or masculine (for lack of better terms), and some affect those characteristics. It's the hyper-masculine semi-misogynistic crap like the "If I wanted a woman I'd date one" variation a few posts above that drives me batty.

[Jonny boy]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 3:24pm

I don't take affence to the term. There are feminine gay men and masculine gay men. From what Ive seen ,The most masculine men I have ever met have actually been gay and some of the most feminine, straight.

[roquat]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 5:40pm

I don't find it offensive, just bewildering. It implies all straight men act the same way.

Anyone remember a mercifully short-lived program, "Straight Plan for the Gay Man"? A supposed satire of "Queer Eye", it featured a bunch of "typical" straight males who descend on a gay guy's life and go to work to make his interests and environment look straight. (Most of us are familiar with this already; it's called "high school".) I watched part of an episode with two straighter-than-straight musicians in which some poor gay sap's apartment was redecorated college-dorm style, he was forced to watch sports, etc. The hetero musicians were offended much more than I was by the notion that all straight males are misogynistic beer-and-nacho-and-football loving couch fungi.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 5:47pm

well said Johnny.

[nealb1]

Posted: 4/18/08 at 10:45pm

I find the word queen, very offensive. Terrible word......just like the N word. But, that's just my opinion.

PalJoey, I hear what you're saying about your friend who was nellie. And, he's right......takes a lot of balls to be that free and out, pardon the pun. Ha, ha... So many guys who are very queeny and nellie, not all of them......I think do it, just to be noticed. It's that......look at me, look at me......then when you gaze, they snap at you WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT look?

Updated On: 4/19/08 at 10:45 PM

[DMsquared2]

Posted: 4/19/08 at 1:50am

"People act how they act. Some are naturally feminine or masculine (for lack of better terms), and some affect those characteristics. It's the hyper-masculine semi-misogynistic crap like the "If I wanted a woman I'd date one" variation a few posts above that drives me batty."

That type of attitude drives me insane! Misogynistic gays are almost worst than misogynistic heteros.

[Parks]

Posted: 4/19/08 at 2:51am

"... You are SO straight acting! Can I pretend that you're actually straight??"