The Great Master’s recent column on “Why are gays attracted to members of the same sex who look like the opposite sex?” could have mentioned that straight people don’t necessarily look for oppositely-gendered traits in their partner. A significant minority of straight women like feminine or androgynous-looking men (consider the popularity of the bishounen look in Asian cultures), and there’s several studies (which I am too lazy to look up at the moment) suggesting that even the majority of straight women, when designing the ideal partner, prefer feminine-coded over masculine-coded attributes for a certain subset of physical traits (as well as some psychological traits). I haven’t seen much research on the converse, but anecdotally many straight men are attracted to butch-y women.
I don’t know who wrote that article (and don’t give me that Cecil horseshit), but it was straight up nasty to call the question asker a ‘complete dumbshit’. I’d strongly suggest editing that out.
I don’t know about others, but it’s a question I’ve wondered about as well. Guess I’m a complete dumbshit too.
Would it have been that hard to say too say ‘well, there’s not a lot of data, here’s the data we do have and just like in the straight world different people are attracted to different things’. Basically, what was written, but without the insults.
And it’s not like the person who asked the question just made it up out of nowhere to be mean, I’ve seen (and know) plenty of gay/lesbian couples where one has more masculine qualities and the other looks more feminine. Read into that what you want, but, IMO, it wasn’t any more wrong than asking why some men like girls that look more boyish (or super feminine).
Any number of nutters (including Joan Rivers, just today) claim that Barack Obama is gay and Michelle Obama is a transgender woman. *That *seems pretty unclear on the concept.
Yes, the response was quite snarky. The reader most likely doesn’t know very many gay people and is thinking in terms of fairly stereotypical effeminate men and butch women. Not the both don’t exist, of course.
In American culture today, you are supposed to be polite to everyone, unless they say something that’s politically incorrect.
I’m a lesbian who’s attracted to this woman:
http://vidtrigger.com/halle-berry-shows-off-her-newborn-son/the-hollywood-reporters-annual-women-in-entertainment-breakfast/
Yeah, she looks like a man, all right.
Put me down as another reader who was taken aback by the overzealous snarkiness of the writer. I didn’t detect any prejudice from the questioner, and I’ve wondered the exact same thing.
By and large, it does seem as if there is, let’s say, a top and a bottom when it comes to all relationships, gay or straight. And from my own empirical observations, it seems as if there is a masculine/aggressive vs. feminine/deferring quality to the couples, gay or straight.
Of course I’m speaking in generalities here. There are plenty of women out there who are way more aggressive than a regular joe.
It is obviously a flat-out absurd question.
I’ll restrict myself to lesbians so simplify the language. The same holds for gay men. Another simplification: all lesbians are either feminine or masculine.
So we can have three types of couples:
- Feminine-Feminine.
- Masculine-Masculine.
- Feminine-Masculine.
Obviously the existence of the first type is somehow beyond the ken of the questioner. Let’s look at the third group, which must make up a significant percentage of lesbian couples. There is a startling clear issue that exposes a problem with her thinking:
While the feminine lesbian seems to be attracted to a masculine partner,* the masculine partner is attracted to a feminine person*!
Assuming that groups 1 and 2 are of similar size, around half of all women in a lesbian relationship are attracted to a feminine woman.
The only, seeming, out is to assume that the second group significantly dominates the others. But that implies that the vast majority of lesbians are masculine. If this were true, it would be inevitable that most lesbian couples would be in group 2. In any society, if most people belong to a certain segment, then most couples would be both from that segment. Preferences would be hard to deduce given the core Math.
That’s hardly grounds for formation of a stereotype.
A phrase involving the word “dumb” is required. Prejudice arises from assuming something is true without thinking it through.
I didn’t understand the snark either, and I’ve noticed the same thing.
But again, I’ve also noticed the same thing in heterosexual couples. By definition, in heterosexual couples the masculine/feminine roles are defined, but the dominant/passive are also spread as well.
Take a relationship with a typical overbearing asshole alpha male. He almost always has a meek and mild female partner. Same way with a dominant, bitchy female. She has a meek and mild male who puts up with her.
Most people are in the middle of these extremes, but I think that most people (gay or straight) look for a romantic partner who will complement them. If I am a person who rarely asserts myself, then I look for an assertive person to “complete” me so that the relationship has a little of everything. If I am strong and dominant, I need someone who can show sympathy to make the relationship whole.
I think this is why most Hollywood marriages don’t work out. You have two outgoing, alpha dominant types who are always battling each other for attention. Nobody gets what they are missing.
I didn’t interpret the question that way. I saw it as pretty straightforward:
If I am a male, traditional society would expect that I am attracted to soft, effeminate features that a female possesses. However, I’m not like that because I am homosexual. So, if I am unattracted to a female with these types of characteristics, why would I then be attracted to a male with these exact same types of characteristics?
My answer: the question improperly assumes that all straight men like soft effeminate women. Many like athletic or dominant women. Same with gay people: they like different things.
The question is a bit simplistic, but I don’t think it deserved scorn.
A)It is grounds for the formation of a stereotype, we know that since it’s essentially happening already. How many people think of a big butch ‘dyke’ when picturing a lesbian (or half of a lesbian couple). Someone like big boo from OITNB. Who, BTW, does basically look like that IRL.
B)A phrase using the word dumb isn’t required. All it would take, IMO, is a simple explanation. Something along the lines of "some straight men are attracted to boyish women, some straight women are attracted to feminine men. The same thing goes for gay and lesbian men and women. Calling someone a dumbshit is just going to make them not want to ask the next question they’re curios about. If you want to perpetuate a stereotype a fabulous way to do it is by not educating people or calling them dumbshits by asking about them.
Think about it, if I said “Why do all black people like grape juice?” Are you going to get father with “Well, in a study it was found that 43 percent of ______ and 37 percent of ______” or “you jackass, keep that to yourself”. Which one of those answers is going to get me to ask about the next question I have and which one is going to make me not ask about it and just keep assuming it’s true?
Seriously? Are you that unfamiliar with Cecil’s works that you’ve failed to notice that scorn towards the question writers is commonplace? I mean, yeah, maybe it’s not quite as eloquent as “If ignorance were corn flakes, you’d be General Mills,” but the sentiment is the same.
I do feel obliged to point out that the original questioner never says “all”, but rather “many”.
Good grief that was a rude response. Sort of breaking the SDMB “don’t be a jerk” rule, isn’t it? That would get “Cecil” a mod warning here.
Never occurred to me to wonder about this, and “Cecil’s” answer was fairly informative. But although s/he referred to many studies, none were actually linked to or cited directly - again this wouldn’t fly without cites and links on the message boards. So for all we know, “Cecil” could be citing 20-year-old community college studies involving twelve subjects. So at this point, were I want to learn more about the subject, I would not consider “Cecil’s” answer to be authoritative in the least.
I generally love Cecil’s snappy remarks to readers, but that is the first time I recall ever being taken back with the “complete dumbshit” remark. I went to this thread to see if anyone else felt the same.
C’mon C, what got into ya? Keep doing that, and you’ll end up in the Pit! :mad:
Cecil has never been one to mince words. And his columns aren’t these Message Boards, so he’s certainly not bound by our rules.
It was written by the same guy who wrote the great Cecil snarkisms of the past decades. Seriously, you’re only just now noticing that he’s a bit impolite?
Ok Cupid has a blog that delves into some of the oddities of human attraction. They work off of a pretty rich dataset.
Some interesting data on heterosexual relationships. Mars and Venus are both warped, but in different ways. http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/
Cecil shoulda given those guys a holler. Then again, the result would have been another Ok Cupid blog post, which would have scooped the column. D’Oh!
Each week an estimated 87,261 questions flow into the Straight Dope headworks; of these one is chosen as silage for the dinner table and frathouse conversation of America (and now, the world).
If the questioner is a dumbshit, so too is he who pulled the handle to flush him into the media spillway.
Yep, this was a collective decision to send it, I’m sure. Generally C’s witty retorts to a reader often made me laugh or at least smile, he always did it in a roast type fashion. I kept reading this one thinking he would add additional comments to maybe help take the sting out, but he didn’t. I suppose it’s the same Cecil still writing his columns, but can see why a few others for some time now have been questioning it.
Oh dear looks like I’m a lesbian too.