<nitpick>
It’s Perfect Master. He got promoted.
</nitpick>
(Edited by me) Confirmation bias. My experience is very different from yours. Few, in fact, gay couples that I have known are like that, and few gay men that I have known fall into one of those two categories. I could cite anecdotes for days, but that would be just as meaningless as your assertion.
It is the assertion itself that is painful. It feels like you (generic you) are trying to shoehorn people who are different from you into roles that don’t make you uncomfortable. You (you, mr. jp) conveniently ignored the rest of my post where I explained what it was about this that was uncomfortable to read.
(Unless we are supposed to assume that this has strictly to do with sexual roles, rather than other kinds of behavior. Lots of men are tops, lots are bottoms, and lots are versatile, and you can’t tell by looking which is which.)
However, having said all that, I will repeat from my first post that the insult to the questioner was egregious and counter-productive in the pursuit of enlightenment. Both things can be true, you know: the question can be very unpleasant and possibly disingenuous; and the answer can be too harsh.
Cecil’s answer didn’t say anything about the transvestites and transsexuals who keep their genitalia but grow breasts. He didn’t address the fact that there are indeed many “butch” and “bull dyke” types out there. I see them all the time when I go through certain areas of the North side and even in other places one sees them. They may not be the majority or even be 40% but they are not rare.
This is no stereo type either it’s a real phenomenon. Perhaps the original question should have been framed differently. It should have been “Why are SOME gay people attracted to members of the same sex who look like the opposite sex?”
Maybe the answer would have been better
Hey Cecil, how about you stop being a fucking bigoted, piece of shit leftist? An honest question asked without a hint of superiority, discrimination or meanness is met with a knee-jerk reaction of someone with a political axe to grind instead of someone who simply seeks to disseminate information. You have become what you have fought against for 40 years, one who spews ignorance. You owe the author of this correspondence an apology. Perhaps you should stop eating propaganda and think for yourself. Kudos on the fracking article, though.
The words actually used in the question do resolve to “some”. “So many” could be taken, I suppose, to mean “a thundering lot”, but the phrase does not provably signify more than “as many as there are”.
And, though I’m straight, a good deal of my adult life has been spent in the worlds of professional opera, operetta, and legitimate theatre, as well as in organized Wizard-of-Oz fandom, and in all these environments, the number of “out” gay males is way above the usual, so I can safely say that I know these things do happen—sometimes.
I just came here to post something to this effect…glad I’m not alone
Now that’s a hell of an entry.
I AM a bit disappointed that Cecil didn’t mention bisexuals. It’s as though in America, you’re either straight or gay and there’s no in between.
Cecil’s initial remark may have crossed the snark-line, but the tone of the initial question was also crossing the line.
The question initial question:
That’s pretty bad, but we can put this off as mere tone deafness. If that’s all the questioner asked, Cecil probably would have been more gentle in his response. However, it’s the rest of the question that puts this over the line…
This is beyond tone deaf into demeaning. What’s wrong with those people? Are the truly homosexual? Why don’t they just get it on with the right sex? After all, it’s what they truly desire.
Let’s leave out the first line of Cecil’s column for a second and look at the rest of the column. Cecil goes through a bunch of studies that pretty much blow away the questioner’s presumptions. he mentions that many lesbians look for feminine traits in their personal ads. He talks about gay culture and how diverse it is. He mentions that 96% of the respondents are looking for masculine traits in their partners.
On the whole the column is informative, and clearly explains why the questioner’s assumptions are simply wrong. A pretty good overall column.
So, it all comes down to the first line of Cecil’s post. Did he cross the line, or did he simply give the questioner received a well deserved Dope slap.
There’s a significant difference between related to an appearance, style, and public/social attitude, versus attractions based on genitals. I will suggest it for a follow-up topic, but I think Cecil is tired of trans topics.
Bisexuals were examined, but there was way too little research focused on their preferences, and it turned out to be mostly anecdote-based.
Golly gee, that Cecil sure is a stupid twat when he disagrees with me. But man is he swell when he doesn’t! :rolleyes:
The questioner didn’t ask about bisexual people. The question was specifically about homosexuals.
That said, it would be interesting to hear from bisexuals about what they look for in partners of either sex. I’m sure there’s a lot of diversity in preferences there.
ETA: Ah, thanks, Una, it’s a pity there isn’t more research available on the subject.
This is directed at qawart, on preview I see a few people got in while I was typing:
So, as I said earlier, answer the question, ‘correct’ the person, don’t call them a ‘compete dumbshit’. What is that person going to do the next time they have a question about gays or lesbians (or any other stereotype)? Are they going to come here and ask, nope, they’re going to either go somewhere else or they’re just going to go on believing it because they don’t want to get called a complete dumbshit again.
That article didn’t fight ignorance, it furthered it. Yes, it answered that question, but made sure no one will ask another one.
Maybe I’m curios as to why so many lesbians cut their hair short…I’m not asking ‘cecil’, that’s for sure. Maybe the percentage of lesbians that cut their hair short is just the same as straight women that do it, maybe it’s higher and there’s a reason, but I’m not willing to take the risk of being ridiculed for asking.
You want people to be more understanding and accepting of you, don’t say “you dumbshit” everytime they ask a question. Just the other day I watched a documentary called Mr Angel about a transsexual who didn’t have ‘bottom surgery’. He calls himself a ‘man with a pussy’. He explained his situation over and over and over and over, his wife explains it over and over and over. He answers every single question that gets tossed at him. Sometimes he even has to think about them because he’s not sure what the answer is (like what’s going on when man with a vagina has sex with a FTM man). Not once, not ever, did he even show a little bit of anger towards anyone, he never swore at anyone that asked him a question he just kept answering. The more people that he talks to, the more normal this all is for everyone and the more accepting everyone becomes.
Conversely, call someone a complete dumbshit for trying to learn and the opposite is going to happen. If you can’t answer the question nicely, at least do everyone else a favor and pass the article off to someone who’s willing to answer it in a helpful manner.
Might be worth a thread in IMHO. But speaking solely for myself, I tend towards butch women and femmy guys. But I suspect that might have to do with my adolescent Bowie fixation. 
ETA: nm. TMI.
OK, for the sake of argument, let’s substitute:
[NOTAQUOTE]
*Why are any gay people *attracted to those of the same sex who look like the opposite sex? If you are a gay man and presumably do not fancy women, why are you nonetheless attracted to other men who copy feminine qualities? If you don’t want women, it seems strange to want your male partner to act and look like one! The same for lesbians — they don’t like men, yet many of them try to look like men and seem to find that attractive in their female partners.
[/NOTAQUOTE]
(edited and with italics added for emphasis) Is that better? Are the underlying assumptions clearer? No, and Yes.
So there are two issues in this thread: one is the tone of Cecil’s first paragraph. Most of us seem agree it was unnecessarily, aggressively, crudely rude. The second is the tone of the question. Some of us, myself included, responded badly to the tone and to the apparent underlying assumptions and attitudes. Others defend it as innocent of any deeper meaning, perhaps agreeing only that it could have been worded better.
I have only been trying to say why I responded badly to it, while acknowledging that I am responsible for my own feelings of discomfort. That’s all.
Just want to +1 to the voices saying the response was childish and unwarranted.
Also, I can accept that saying that some lesbian women are “trying to look like men” could be offensive. But, other than that, I wouldn’t be able to ask the question much more sensitively than the questioner.
To those who say the question was out-of-line: how could you write this question in a way that doesn’t cause offense? Or is the whole topic off-limits?
MODERATOR NOTE: Although Cecil is a member of the board, and does sometimes (not often) post here, insults are permitted because he’s a celebrity. However, please, DO NOT start insulting each other. Some of the posts here leave me a little uneasy, in ascribing motives to other posters. Everyone has been on the OK side of the line, which is great, and I want things to stay there, so I’m just reminding folks: no insulting other posters.
Not at all off limits as far as I’m concerned, it could be something like this:
Is it true, as I have observed, that some gay men are attracted to effeminate characteristics in other men? I don’t understand, if they aren’t interested in women, why they would want their male partner to look or act like a woman; this seems counter-intuitive. Can you explain this dynamic?
What are the differences here? 1) Anecdotal experience is referred to but is not made a “fact”; 2) Information is requested in a manner that does not imply that there are things wrong or weird or “strange” about those being observed. Not that difficult if genuine curiosity is the only driver of the question.
Sometimes I think we’ve hit a wall where categorization doesn’t clarify, but simply creates more confusion. Facebook has over 50 gender categories.
For example here are ten of those new categories:
[ul]
[li] Cis[/li][li] Cisgender[/li][li] Cis Female[/li][li] Cis Male[/li][li] Cis Man[/li][li] Cis Woman[/li][li] Cisgender Female[/li][li] Cisgender Male[/li][li] Cisgender Man[/li][li] Cisgender Woman[/li][/ul]
What does cisgender mean? It means you identify with the sex on your birth certificate. That is, it’s the opposite of transgender. We now have ten new categories for what people would have at one time said merely stated they’re male or femaie.
The term cisgender is used in academic papers as a way of de-normalizing people who aren’t transexual. There was a thought that stating one is transexual was prejudicing against transexuals because it makes them look “abnormal”.
It gets to the point where even Dan Savage can’t discuss these issues without being glitter bombed. He’s been accused of being a racist, misogynist, rape-apologist, serophobic, and transphobic. He has been accused of ageism, ableism, classism, and sizeism.
I’m sorry about the rant. But, Cecil writes a column that has to fit into a newspaper. He can’t write a 50 page dissertation taking in all aspects of the various sexual categories we now have. Basically, he was asked a question and answered it.
I can understand the controversy over Cecil’s first sentence where he insulted the questioner. Sometimes people say stupid things without meaning anything by it. For example, “I love the way you Jews are so careful with your money!”. It’s an anti-Semitic statement. It makes terrible stereotypical assumptions. But, did the questioner mean any malice by it? Should I punch the questioner in the nose? (Please say “yes”), or should I sit the questioner down and explain gently why that statement might be insulting.
I am fearful that we are getting to the point where we can no longer discuss certain topics without people being accused of being intolerant and incorrect. At that point, we will revert back to simply not talking about those things in polite company, and pretending that it doesn’t exist.
I always heard Cecil’s insults the same way I hear “Jane, you ignorant slut.” Mixing high reason with low cunning for a beautifully cutting effect.
I’m just disappointed that “dumbshit” is particularly vulgar low-effort, esp. after the relatively clever anthropologist setup.
Was it, though? Maybe the questioner is asking because he knows several gay couples, who confide in him about their sexuality, and he’s noticed that those couples tend to be masculine/feminine pairs. If that’s the case, then yes, the question is about homosexuals. On the other hand, though, maybe the questioner has just seen two guys kissing on multiple occasions, and they met that description. In that case, the question could be about gays or about bisexuals. And of course, maybe the questioner has just seen random pairs of guys whom he assumes are romantic partners, without any evidence, in which case the question isn’t necessarily about any particular sexuality at all.