I see it more like Black Like Me–a first person recounting of one person’s experiences in another’s shoes. No prank, just a wish to see things from the other side, as it were.
Being a woman my eyes are pretty open in that respect, though it would still be interesting to see what it would be like if I spent a year as a man.
I think the flaw with a man becoming a woman purely for the experience would be that your family would not immediately treat you differently (other than possibly being prejudiced). In my family for example, my grandmother speaks in a way to me that implies an expectation that I do all the cooking and housework. My SO is never expected to help in the kitchen, rather he would be asked by my grandfather to help him in the wine cellar, or, honour of honours, to do tool-stuff in the shed. I was not allowed in the wine cellar and I was not allowed to touch any tools. I doubt if my SO started dressing as a woman, these implications would fully extend to him. So in that respect, you could still never understand the experience of being a woman. He would not know what it means to grow up with these limitations and what they do to you. Then of course there is the physical aspect, but that’s obvious.
It would still be an admirable thing to do, and very interesting.
I had a thought in the back of my mind when I read the article. I wasn’t going to say anything because I though I might get hammered for it…until I heard a bit of an interview with this guy this morning.
I think he’s gay.
I can’t find the video, but I think it was possibly ABC news.
Ouch, that would be very sad. So you think he really is gay, couldn’t deal with the rejection and tried to make out that he was just faking the whole time?
If you started a thread about that, I promise I will read it.
I wouldn’t want to guess his motivations, but that’s possible.
Doesn’t make much sense tho (not saying you’re wrong, just that the ending point isn’t the most logical).
He “comes out” suffers through all of this crap, his family mostly ends up accepting him (particularly his mother) and he makes gay friends, all as an “experiment.” Not bad - his church hates him, and he gets called a fag in public - well, what did he expect? He didn’t get lynched, no one kicked him out of his home, and as far as “coming outs” go, this one doesn’t seem to have been too horribly painful. Ok, so why (if he IS gay) back out now? I would think a slightly embarassed real “coming out” to the few people who did know he was faking it - like his “boyfriend” - would solve the problem, if he really was.
Why announce “just kidding!” write a book, and then - what, wait 3 or 4 years and come out for reals? Or choose to live your life in the closet after a coming-out experience that wasn’t even that horrid? Seems like a lot of heartache for what’s essentially a practice run.
Have you considered the possibility that, in the process of passing as gay for a year, he may have acquired some mannerisms that you associate with being gay? If he actually is gay, why go back into the closet at this point? His mother had come around, and he’s certainly not going to win back any of his homophobic ex-friends by supporting gay rights.
I’m not saying it’s not possible, just that you could hardly ask for a better situation to trigger a false ping on your gaydar.
Yeah, why I didn’t really try to figure it out…there isn’t a good explanation. Oh wait, maybe there is:
Actually, I was pondering this possibility right after I posted my last comment. You may be on to something there…anyone who spends a lot of time around a group with their own social markers will pick them up.
If anybody remembers Blinded by the Right, the story of David Brock, the conservative writer who wrote those books about Anita Hill and Hillary Clinton and came out at the height of his fame and eventually abandoned the conservative world, he wrote about how while a lot of his conservative colleagues really did appear to be revolted by his homosexuality, but he was surprised how many really didn’t care. To him this signified how disnhonest the right is; they were just trying to win over the votes of conservative Chriatians.
Oh, and a meeting with Matt Drudge surprised him because Drudge apparently thought their meeting was a date and brought flowers!
Makes sense, he spent a whole year trying to “pass” and using stereotypical “gay” vocal patterns is a pretty obvious way to flag yourself as being part of the group. Now he’s talking about his experiences so remembering all of that will just put someone back into the mindset they had during the time.
Gives a whole new meaning to “gentlemen’s agreement.”
Or even just employ basic human empathy. I appreciate this guy taking the effort instead of just thinking “to hell with those faggots” like most fundies, but should you really need a walk in someone’s shoes to realize they don’t like being harassed and called names? And not having the same rights as straight couples?
Was it more about trying to understand gays or trying to understand how people would treat him if they thought he were gay? “Let’s just see how many of my friends and relatives cast me off because I’m one of Them. Will they cast me off or do some soul-searching of their own?”
When I was in college a very Catholic friend of mine was trying to reconcile her understanding that atheists go to Hell with the fact that her best friend, a kind, honest, wonderful person, could also be an atheist. You could just see the “Does Not Compute” in her eyes. How could a loving God, God the Almighty, All-Seeing, All-Knowing, cast Kathy into the darkness?
That’s where I would be putting my money.
Here’s an interview on the view.
I think he’s trying to straddle the line. I don’t see that’s there’s a lot if useful sociological insight here. We have millions of test cases of what happens when people come out as gay it’s not like we have to call in Sherlock Holmes to crack the case re what usually happens .
I watched the interview, and I’m about half way through his book (which is available on Amazon for Kindle for $4.99.) So far, I get no sense that he’s gay. While he was raise a conservative Christian, his family split and he started questioning the values he was raised with. Over time he became at least acquaintances of with a number of gays/lesbians who he came to realize were just as human as he was, so he decided to try to reconcile his internal conflicts by learning more about gay men, and in the process, himself.
So far, it’s a charming read.
I find myself wondering what would have happened if his family staged an intervention and called in a specialist to try to cure him of The Gay.
he is southern not gay:smack:. 98% of the guys round these here parts sound like him.
My extended family is from the south so I’m pretty familiar with southern accents. I didn’t say he “sounded” gay. My bet that’s he’s gay is simply the chances he did this out of the pure goodness of his heart vs the probability this let him indulge his deepest desires and then run back behind the gay line.
So is it because he’s a Christian, or do you just live a sad world where no one is ever a good person? It’s already been explained in this thread how little sense it makes to go back under cover after everyone either accepts you. Do you really think that any homophobe will go “Well, he was just faking, so I guess I can not hate him”?