So a while back Holly of The Pervocracy said

It’s truly amazing how many men there are on craigslist who are “straight, looking to suck & fuck with another straight guy.” On the one hand, I sorta get what they’re trying to say—straight in their daily life, stereotypically straight looking and acting—but on the other hand my mind always boggles a little.

It sort of makes me sad too. “I’m not some queer, I just fuck guys sometimes!” shouldn’t be something you need to think about yourself. I applaud the idea that sucking cock shouldn’t define your entire identity, but I hate that it’s done by linguistic denial of the sexuality itself.

She said it here.

What Holly said!

It’s easy to imagine (see the “shocking surprise” in American Beauty) that it’s closeted people like that who are often behave like the biggest homophobes. Well, easy to imagine in part because it’s sometimes true.

And it’s easy to imagine as well that the consequences of even more closeted, denial-based behavior (see attempted displacement predation on children, for instance) are responsible for quite a bit more of our most negative narratives about homosexuality. Because in part that too is true.

But I think it’s also the case that as Holly suggests there’s a probably larger and, I think, generally quieter and less disruptive population that doesn’t identify as “queer” or “gay” not because they aren’t attracted to men, or even prefer men, but because they don’t identify with the stereotypes of being queer or gay.

Which might be sort of like the gazillions of women who say “I’m not a feminist but…” Or women who say “I must secretly be a man because I enjoy…” Or men who are told because they’re emotional, or domestic, or unconflictedly monogamous that they’re in touch with their “feminine side.”

Or like that whistling-past-the-grave-yard joke “The difference between alcoholic and drunks is us drunks don’t have to go to them damn meetings.”

You have no impulse to be a hairdresser or interior decorator, you don’t mince or dish, you’re neither comfortable with nor attracted to flamboyantly, stereotypically gay men? Then maybe they might feel only common-parlance language really is “straight, looking to suck & fuck with another straight guy.”

In other words their stereotypes… our stereotypes!... aren’t big enough to encompass who we… any of us!... are.

And it’s not like we can just say “oh, let’s get rid of stereotypes.” (There comes the tide, here’s a broom. Good luck with that too.) It does say, though, that since we’re stuck with them it’s important to keep assessing them, challenging them to keep them. Otherwise they’ll continue to choke us.