Does anyone have an idea where this meme came from? I remember reading an article about a guy in Jamaica killed by a crowd because he was buying tampons so they assumed he was gay. You can also see jokes on this in movies like I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry.
Now I ain’t no rocket scientist, but gay men are the LAST people I think would be buying female menstrual cycle products :dubious: What the hell would they do with it?
In fact if you see a guy buying pads or tampons you can pretty much guarantee he is in a serious relationship with a woman and doing the grocery shopping.
He probably meant that for the people who think buying them means a guy is gay, that could be their reasoning. Which I admit is not something I thought of.
I wasn’t aware it was a meme, but getting killed by a mob in Jamaica because they think you’re gay is pretty easy, common, and widely accepted I understand.
“Um, yeah. I need one of those combs over there, a six-pack of Bud, that Penthouse magazine, a pint of Old Harper–a box of Tampax tampons–some beef jerky, a bag of Doritos–aw, make it two–and a pack of Marlboros. Phew.”
I don’t get it. What would a gay guy do with tampons? If he is getting off playing with tampons then I’d think he is a confused gay person… and a juvenile.
You may not be a rocket scientist, but neither should you assume that there are many rocket scientists in a mob that would kill someone for being gay.
It’s about enforcing societal gender norms.
Think back to high school. (Maybe things have changed since I was in high school.) Weren’t there certain boys who were weaker, not very good at sports, a little sensitive, or just did not fit in? Maybe there was a boy whose mother made him wear a flowered shirt she sewed? And didn’t a lot of the boys then refer to them by derogatory terms for homosexuals? Bully them? Ostracize them? Steal their lunch?
Was this because they had seen them kissing other boys? Was this because they sat down and reasoned “this boy has an innate orientation that causes him to feel emotional and romantic attachments to other boys”?
Unlikely. Any boy who was weak or did not fit into the stereotypical norms for what the group regarded as “masculine” was lumped into the group “faggot.” The boy may desperately have longed to have a romantic relationship with a girl, but the mob did not know or care about this, he was still a “faggot.”
Even when we get out of high school, we find ways to enforce our social norms. I was recently watching a romantic comedy where the leading lady meets an old boyfriend in a city she was visiting. He turned out to be wealthy and invited her to a fancy dinner party. She hadn’t packed any evening clothes, so he says not to worry, he’ll have a dress sent to her hotel room. The woman is starting to have a good feeling about him and meets him at the party with great expectations for a rekindling of their romance. Of course, you could see this coming from a mile away, he tells her he is gay. In the popular culture, what other kind of man would buy a dress?
Back to the question at hand, in that culture it is unmanly for a man to buy women’s things. This man violated cultural norms. He is not a man, he is gay, or perhaps just p-whipped. The mob must punish. It is not based on a lot of deep analysis and understanding of sexual orientation on the part of the mob. Any man who does not adhere to the cultural expectations is “gay” just as much as the weak kid in high school was “gay.”
I can’t recall one who would fit them all… well, I guess the guy who was in a wheelchair, but the sensitivity was understandable and the not-fitting-in had a lot to do with buildings being old.
No, but there was one who wore lots of pink and light grey. When Mr BigMouth With Possible ADHD asked him how come, he answered “I like it, I think it looks good on me. Plus my mother hates it :D”
Not where I could hear it.
I thought you’d said high school, which I thought was grades 9-12. Bullying got cut off by the time we were in 2nd grade.
Nope, the closest thing we had to anybody being ostracized were those of us girls who refused to obey Eva’s orders, but that ended by 8th grade - plus we knew what to do if we wanted to be “in”, all we would have had to do is kiss Eva’s ass.
Most of us didn’t eat lunch at school; for those who did, food was provided by the school. We did buy sandwiches (footlong subs) for midmorning. In any case, attempts at stealing food off any of us could have resulted in the thief losing an arm to a bite… you don’t steal food off a hungry 15yo.
When I see how many people in these boards consider bullying “normal”, I thank my lucky stars I grew up in a society which didn’t. The folks in the vocational HS tended to have the IQ of oak planks, those in the public HS would have behaviors which our school (both teachers and students) would have deemed intolerable… but bullying? Fuck no, in any of the three schools.
FTR, the classmate which turned out to be gay was not the one who wore pink and grey. He was superpolite, always very well put together, our mothers loved him, but he was also on the better half of the class for sports and part of the group of boys every girl our age and for several villages around dreamed with.
Oh, I stand corrected that, doh, I didn’t think of the feminine and masculine components to gay relationships, not that I know anything about it in depth. So I can see that it is plausible a feminine gay guy might have some fetish feelings toward feminine stuff.
I was at Dollar Tree yesterday buying some sink cleaning sponges. I saw what I needed, but was temporarily stunned when I noticed the pack said “Tampons” in bold letters. I figured the check out clerk doesn’t read or read labels anyway. If the pack had not been clear, I’m not sure I would have purchased them.
In French, any little squishy cottony things like these or these could be referred to as “tampons”, so maybe it wasn’t a mistake, but a language thing.
