vanilla, when you get a moment if you could check out this thread - I just had a question for ya.
Thanks.
Esprix
It’s purely a sociological semantics phenomenon, but it has its place. Yes, they are all terms to use to describe someone who acts in a specific, society-defined way - they’re classifications. But, as pointed out above, each has a subtext.
So “straight-acting” wouldn’t apply to the guys you like. After all, if they’re gay, and they “act straight,” then they’re pretending to be something else? Or are they? (You see?)
As you pointed out yourself, sanity has little to do with attraction, love, sexual energy and relationships. Who knows why we like the things we like? Who cares?
Generalizing the gay community? Tut, tut, dear lad - we know you wouldn’t go there. 
There are plenty of other gay guys who act similarly to you, and no doubt you’ve found them and their own subculture. They’re great guys, you included.
Me, I don’t know whether I would have more in common with a “typical” gay man or straight man - I will dance to disco and Madonna, but don’t care to buy her albums, I’m not a label queen but I know what looks good on me, I also prefer a good book and a cup of tea over clubbing, but much prefer to spend time with friends no matter where they are, I don’t smoke, do drugs or drink, and I’m not a sports fan.
Everybody’s different. The English language is fascinating. Take your pick. 
Esprix
Well, this is the religious argument: sex is meant for procreation, not for pleasure, and only within a sanctioned marriage “as God intended”. Homosexuals can only have sex for pleasure; therefore homosexual acts are offenses in the eyes of God and even a marriage cannot sanction that. Never mind that there are plenty of straight people “having it off”, in and out of marriage. The Church has turned a relatively blind eye to that for centuries. Whereas I have been, um, alone for far longer than a lot of my straight friends because I haven’t met the right guy in a while. (Oops, there goes another stereotype! I’m not doing my part to keep up that “threat to family and society” thing.)
I am speaking, of course, primarily of the Roman Catholic Church specifically, orthodox and conservative Christian denominations more generally, and not at all about non-Christian religions.
Oooh, better watch out, goboy; someone might try to take away your card.
Seriously, though… I’m with you. I like guys who are just – well, guys, without pretense. Self-aware without being self-conscious. Straight men don’t worry about whether they’re “butch”, “straight-acting”, “masculine” (well, maybe some do worry about that). I feel more comfortable in “straight” setting (like my neighborhood bar) and/or in “mixed” company. I have a few close gay friends, but none of them are stereotypical either. I don’t enjoy gay bars much. I don’t like disco or techno or dance music, and although I do like a lot of Madonna’s music I don’t think she’s some kind of goddess… Anyway, I hear what you’re saying.
I’m never going to get my toaster oven this way, let alone meet Mr Right!
Well, I prefer guys who are themselves also. But, dont most people like it when people are being themselves? Anyway, i’m not sure if i have more in common with striaght guys or not. I mean, from what I can tell from my friends the only major difference between me (and the guys at least) is I like men, and they like women.I hate disco, but I do like dance music (as well as many other genres). Madonna is ok, but I dont worship her. I do like some fashion (but, not as much as my straight brother does. In fact i’m more comfortable in jeans/cargo pants and t-shirts). I’m no clubber, and i dont smoke or do drugs either. I prefer to just hang out with my friends, or go to dinner, or whatever. I dont like sports but that just a personal thing. I wouldnt say because i’m gay i hate sports (i’m just bad at them)…
Hey, I wonder if you guys have ever heard of the “Night if 1000 Gowns”? It’s apparently some sort of ball/event for transvestites (or something) in NYC. I was once hanging around the lobby of a NY hotel about 10 years ago, and thus saw alot of the attendies on their way in. (I tried to sneak in myself, but was stopped by security). Anyway, I wondered what element of the Gay community that represented.
During my entire high school career, we had exactly two class periods in health class in which the subject of homosexuality was even tangently touched on.
Of course, I did change schools between times. If I had moved in the opposite direction, I might well have gotten none.
So: two hours (if that) about the entire basis of my future sex life. Of course, I did have to take an estimated 1,500 hours of advanced physics, chemistry, and calculus for which I have no use.
Oh, and no home economics or anything of that sort. (I guess they figured that if they taught us all that chem phys and cal we’d all be rich enough to afford maids.)
IzzyR: Drag queens.
Well these guys were wearing massive, ostentaiteous outfits, with feathers, trains etc. They couldn’t possibly have gone artound like this in day-to-day life. But is it implied that they dressed like women in daily life? Is there a difference between a transvestite and a drag queen?
A guy hanging around the place claiming to be doing a study (or report) on it pointed out one guy and claimed that this guy had clearly been on hormones for a while and had actual breasts? Is there a connection between the transexual and drag queen communities?
All of this actually merits its own thread, really.
I can’t speak at all on the general intersection of the gay and MTF transgender communities. What I can tell you is that, yes, “drag queens” and “transvestites” are two different things.
Current research shows that somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-85% of male-to-female transvestites are heterosexual men. A great many of them are married. Some of them dress as women full-time. Others dress only occasionally. There is a wide variety of desires in the transvestite community concerning degrees of “passability,” motivations, etc. There are certain cyclical behaviors experienced by many crossdressers, in which they will purge themselves of all their feminine paraphernilia and clothing, go without dressing for a time, then start again. Most of them dress in what you would consider “everyday” female clothing and simple wigs. Some don’t wear any makeup, some do. Some go out in public, some don’t.
Drag queens, OTOH, tend to be gay men. They present themselves as exagerratedly (is that a word?) feminine, with huge weeks, evening gowns and sequined party dresses, huge heels, overdone makeup, etc. They are very theatrical in demeanor. Very few live like that on a day-to-day basis, although many make a living performing.
I can’t comment at all on the TS/drag queen aspect, except to say that most MTF transsexuals I know or know of are nothing like drag queens. To qualify for gender reassignment surgery, you have to be on hormones and live for at least a year in real life as a woman. For the vast
majority of transsexuals, a drag queen getup would be extremely impractical, to say the least. I’m sure there are drag queens who are also transsexuals, but I have to make an educated guess that they number in the minority.
We covered some of this ground in one of the first two ATGG threads.
So a transvestite does it for kicks, for lack of a better term. I’ve seen studies that indicate the majority of transvestites are heterosexual men.
So a transsexual wants to be the opposite sex, not just get a charge out of appearing like them.
I’ve often seen transgendered and transsexual used interchangably (as in “the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community”).
The Night of a Thousand Gowns is simply the biggest drag party in the country. It really says nothing about its participants, who might do just this one thing annually, or maybe go out in drag once in a while, or cross-dress every day of their lives. Think of it as a Halloween ball, but it’s specifically designed for the drag community.
Esprix
Drag queens, btw, do not impersonate women. Women do not go around wearing what drag queens do. (Oh, what is that RuPaul quote? “I don’t impersonate women. How many women do you know who wear six inch heels, skintight dresses, and four foot wigs?” Something like that.)
Transgenderism is a whole different thing. I used to date a FTM transgendered kid, and I have several friends who are also trans. It’s almost separate from sexual orientation inasmuch as the trans person identifies as a member of the opposite sex, and may or may not identify as straight, gay, or what have you. Does that make sense?
If you are interested in more about transgenderism, I would recommend Trans-sister radio. It’s quite a good book that chronices the dating life of a MTF trans person. It also has a lot of information regarding surgery, ect. Very worthwhile resource.
**pldennison:
Does this mean that a person can be a drag queen without being a transvestite? IOW dress like a man most of the time and camp it up as a woman on occasion?
Well, they sure fooled me. I actually thought they were women until I asked someone how it was that there were all these six foot tall women coming in.
Ah, the innocence of youth…
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by IzzyR *
****pldennison:
Does this mean that a person can be a drag queen without being a transvestite? IOW dress like a man most of the time and camp it up as a woman on occasion?
Absolutement. Actually, this is true of both transvestites and drag queens, but you’ve got it. Many (most?) drag queens appear as men in their daily lives, and when they put on female garb, they do indeed camp it up. Most transvestites also appear as men day-to-day, and when they dress, they look more or less like “ordinary” women.
pldennison wrote:
There was a show about transvestites on the Discovery Channel a while back. In one scene, they interviewed a room full of about 4 transvestites. One of the things that struck me (as I hadn’t thought about this angle before) was that they said the first time they dressed up in women’s clothing, it was a huge turn-on for them. At least half of the people in that room said they masturbated the first time they put on women’s clothing.
It’s almost as though it started as a women’s clothing fetish. Wearing the women’s clothes merely has the effect of placing as much of it as close to the body of the wearer as possible, thus increasing the fetish turn-on.
You mean like eight or nine days long?
This has been indirectly answered somewhat…but how has being gay or lesbian affected any of your relationships with your respective religious experiences? Did you lose religion or your belief in God (or whatever deity you believe in?) Or did your faith get stronger? I have been out of the closet for 10 years now and found it difficult to reconcile my homosexuality with my religion (I am one of them there Catholics) but then I figured out that my faith in God doesn’t necessarily have to revolve around the earthly religion of Catholicism or any other for that matter. So, what are y’all’s experiences?
Dolly Parton? 
**Christina25 wrote:
This has been indirectly answered somewhat…but how has being gay or lesbian affected any of your relationships with your respective religious experiences? Did you lose religion or your belief in God (or whatever deity you believe in?) Or did your faith get stronger? I have been out of the closet for 10 years now and found it difficult to reconcile my homosexuality with my religion (I am one of them there Catholics) but then I figured out that my faith in God doesn’t necessarily have to revolve around the earthly religion of Catholicism or any other for that matter. So, what are y’all’s experiences?**
My homosexuality caused me to leave the Christian church. There are other reasons, but that’s the main one. Once I recognized I was gay, I knew that my religion and my homosexuality wouldn’t be reconciled. It wasn’t difficult since my family was never that religious. We moved around a lot (my father was in the service) so I was never in any one congregation for long.
For a while I was atheistic/agnostic. There’s no hard evidence pointing toward the Gods, but something in the back of my mind kept saying “there’s more to this than meets the eye” so I kept looking. Eventually I fell into the SF&F (science fiction and fantasy literature crowd). That lead to the SCA and finding people and books that helped guide me into Neo-Paganism and Wicca.
Now I’m happily associated with the Oak Ash and Thorn tradition out of Madison, TN.
Looking back, I’ve reconciled myself with the Christian diety, but his followers are another problem all together!
I’m a devout (and obviously liberal) Methodist. I’m also queer as a football bat. I personally don’t find the two to be exclusive, but I’ve been lucky in a lot of respects. For starters, my home has a very large gay community, and my church reflected this. So I have a lot of fellow gay Christians in my church community. Many of them are some of the most respected members of the church. In addition, my minister is very accepting. There were difficult times for my family where she literally came in as a mediator so that my parents and I could have a conversation about my homosexuality without things getting ugly.
It’s my personal opinion that being gay and Christian isn’t incompatible. There are various interpretations of the “anti-gay” bible passages, and I don’t think it’s a sin. I’d go into it, but it’s been gone into before with better discoursers than I.
I will admit that I nearly turned my back on my religion after having some run ins with people who thought they were the voice of G-d. They watned me to change. I’d already tried. I think it’s a great tragedy that gay people are being driven away from Christianity because of perceived intolerance.
Have I had problems? Yes, but I’m still faithful to my church and G-d.
Here’s a slightly more abstract gay question, obviously there isn’t a deffinate answer, but I was curious if gay dudes found it likely or offensive.
Is there a connection between an area becoming High Tech and a large gay presence. I heard this theory from a gay coworker. The tradional gay kid in high school is confused and scared, and therefore tends to be somewhat of a loner. The gay kid, being a loner,starts messing around with things like electronics and computers more than the average kid. So by the time they get out of college they are well versed in technology, and when a high percentage of gay people get together, there is a high technical ability. So basically Silicon valley on developed as fast as it did because of the large gay presence in San Francisco. He also used Boulder as corroboration. Boulder was the closest thing to a gay tolerant community in a wide area of the Mountain West, and was among the first communities to take off with the tech boom.I have noticed what seems to be a larger percentage of my fellow computer geeks being gay opposed to the population in general. On the other hand,this may also be correlated with the fact that the average CS class has 10-1 male to female.