Shannon Keating’s last unpleasant run-in with men was here.
Say you’re this straight guy. You’re an artsy, liberal-minded type, employed in some capacity by the music industry. You live in Brooklyn. You have a beard. You get laid with relative regularity. You think you are very, very cool.
On a summer Sunday night, you’re on a rooftop bar in Williamsburg, and you’re three gin and tonics deep. You’ve met up with a friend of yours from work and some of her friends. You are altruistic and charming, so you buy everyone shots of Jameson, then teach them all your favorite toast: “Here’s to pussy and gunpowder; one brought me into this world, the other will take me out, and I love the smell of both.”
“We can make up a version involving penises, for the ladies,” you offer. You’re generous like that.
Your new acquaintances laugh; someone explains that two of the women you’ve just met are gay, so for them, that won’t be necessary.
“Oh, that’s awesome,” you say, backtracking. For a moment you’re thrown off, perhaps because it’s hard for you to remember that there are women out there who—for any number of reasons—are not the least bit interested in sleeping with you.
But you recover. Now is your chance to demonstrate your ultra-hip literacy in queer progressivism. You bare all: you tell the crowd about how, when you were fourteen, your mom started a relationship with a woman that lasted a few years; at first, you were really pissed off at her, worried that the kids in school would find out and make fun of you, but eventually you threatened to beat up anyone who talked shit about your mom, because she’s, like, your mom, and you love her.
The listeners nod politely.
Encouraged, you veer into full-blown poetic territory: “You know, it’s just like, love is love, man. Love should be, like, the right of every single human being. Who cares about gender. And anyone who doesn’t believe that, I mean, fuck ’em, you know?”
You notice the two women—the lesbians—sitting across from you are smiling at each other behind their hands.
“What’s so funny?” you ask.
One of the women tells you it’s great to see you standing up so passionately for the queers. “Please accept a gold star for your efforts,” she says.
The woman is smiling, but you are not smiling.
“Hey,” you say, “I get that you’re joking, but isn’t that a little catty of you?”
She smiles again, and shrugs. “So I’m catty. It’s funny to hear straight people explain my own cause to me.”
You grab onto your fourth gin and tonic, to anchor you. “Hey, my mom dated some other lady. I just told you all about it. How much closer can you possibly get to the cause than that?”
Your new conversational adversary across the table isn’t smiling anymore. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says, “maybe actually being a queer person.”
“Listen,” you say—sloshing your drink, throwing your fist to your chest, unable to accept that this is a conversation in which you may not belong, your anger building like a tide—“Listen. I’m getting pretty pissed off. Here I am, offering my support. And, you know, there is a total other side to all of this.”
The woman laughs, joylessly. “You mean, a ‘side’ that drives queer teens to suicide, keeps a huge proportion of us in poverty, denies us marriage and adoption rights, and condemns us to hell? That sort of side? No, I had no idea. Please do tell me more.”
This woman is continuing to make jokes at your expense, and it enrages you. You were teased in high school because of your queer mom—the way you made fun of other kids who occupied marginalized spaces, before you found yourself on the outskirts of one alongside them—so, in your mind, you are The Victim. You can’t possibly imagine anyone else being victimized in different, more profound ways directly tied to their own bodies and identities. You believe you have the right to speak longest and loudest about this topic, without question or critique.
“Well,” you say, projecting your injured ego across the table and dumping it, soaked in whiskey and gin, upon this woman’s lap, “Well, I could just as easily be a part of that side if you don’t want my support. By acting this way, you’re allowing that other side to exist. People won’t stop hating gay people if this is how you treat the people who actually support you.”
By now, everyone else at the table is looking at each other, trying to figure out how to stem the bleeding from an otherwise perfectly happy and healthy Sunday night. And the woman from whom you have just threatened to revoke the right of human respect and dignity asks you: “Are you saying I’m responsible for my own oppression?”
“Yes,” you say.
“Because I sometimes make jokes that disparage straight people?” she clarifies.
“Yes,” you say.
“Got it,” she says. “Got it.”
The group at large then wrestles the conversation away from you. Debates when you’re drinking are never a good idea, we’re all friends here, and all that. You quickly calm down enough to ease yourself back into your carefully constructed persona of friendly, funny, aloof Brooklynite, secure in your beliefs and your beard.
By the time the night rolls to an end, you may forget the confrontation entirely. You can box up your sense of victimhood until the next time you have to pull it out in a socially-conscious crowd, like a party trick. But in between, there’s no real need for you to actively consider the plight of queer people, or your role in helping or hurting the cause about which you purport to care so deeply. For you, there exists a simple binary of being either For Gays or Against Gays; you believe you are owed glorified recognition for your self-ascribed membership to the former, though you can always consider swapping to the latter if a lesbian (who may or may not be the author of this essay) ever pokes fun of you at a bar. Thank goodness that if your feelings ever get too hurt, you always have that option.
Tags: dudes at parties, feminism, lgbt, misandry, shannon keating
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oh mate. this is perfect. i was talking with a friend only last night about these exact people who claim to “support” queer people because they don’t actively hate them just so they can distance themselves from the problem and avoid having to actually listen to queer people.
i love that you used a chasing amy photo.
omg
this is a great piece!!!
thank you i picked that pic that was me and i accept your praise
protesting on the grounds that the REAL Ben Affleck surely wouldn’t be this much of a douche.
I was so torn when I saw the photo. I was like yeah, it works perfectly, but also I have this irrational love of Ben Affleck so it hurt a little too.
When I saw the picture I thought “OH NO DID BEN AFFLECK DO SOMETHING TERRIBLE” before I realized it was from Chasing Amy. (I have never watched Chasing Amy.)
Preserve your well-being and don’t subject yourself to it!
I saw Chasing Amy when I was but a young teenager and had not yet met any Real Life Queer People (to my knowledge, in retrospect I totally had) and even then I was like “wait, I thought this was not how it works? something about this film is off” and now as an adult I occasionally think of this movie and wonder if maybe I remember the plot wrong or there was something I misunderstood at the time because no, that’s not how anything works at all and everything about this movie is the worst.
I actually love Chasing Amy, but Holden McNeil is the perfect avatar of straight dudes who do not get it.
I do too! And the film makes it very clear that Holden Is Wrong About Everything.
My dad (a huge Kevin Smith fan) frequently brings up criticism of it as an example of why people shouldn’t expect art to be “politically correct,” it’s just ART. So I have long since vowed not to watch it!
(Funnily enough, he also deploys the “politically correct” argument whenever I try to watch or read something about PoC/women/queer people. I love, you Dad. But please don’t talk.)
This:
For you, there exists a simple binary of being either For Gays or Against Gays
sums up the half-assed attitude of brogressives to queer issues so well. (See also the simple binary of being For Women or Against Women, determined entirely by one’s position on abortion.)
And also on whether or not one has heroically refrained from sexually assaulting an unconscious woman at a party.
Oh dear deities, YES.
‘Hey, I’m a good guy – I’ve never taken advantage of a drunk woman even when I totally could have!’
Like they’re expecting a Purple Heart (a Blue Balls?) for not assaulting people.
Brogressives. Perfect. (I go to UC berkeley and I swear to god every other guy I talk to is like this)
BROGRESSIVES.
I can’t decide which brogressive dude’s facebook to post this to there are just so many
All of them. Please?
One thumbs-up of support is inadequate; this comment is offered as many more, signifying that we are in the same boat but you put it better
Haha, I was about to ask a dumb clueless question and then I went back and read the whole thin g again & I think I’m good.
I very much dislike the attitude that the behavior of one (or even most!) of an oppressed group absolves one of any responsibility to end said oppression.
You grab onto your fourth gin and tonic, to anchor you.
Why does this never work? I really feel like it should work.
it’s because if you’re mixing them right, no matter what you do with G&T #4 (hold, drink, topple all over someone’s lap) you’re gonna be dealing with the ol’ whooshywoos
but they have limes! Which prevent scurvy!
And quinine! For malaria!
Malaria and scurvy, the social scourges of our time!
whooshywoos! haha!
You have to become a boat first.
Oh god there are so many of this guy.
Oh god reading this made me so nervous I am literally sweaty with secondhand embarassment
This piece is wonderful and I’d like to thank the comment thread for introducing me to the term “brogressive.”
My favorite part about this (though the whole thing is fantastic) might be the “misandry” tag.
And also ‘wooshywoos’
Oof. It’s terrible to see a few whiskeys wash away a facade of allyship. Seriously, dude? You could just as easily be a part of that “side”? It should be pretty fucking difficult. Thanks for writing, and I’m so sorry you had to deal with that. (I’d never be half as eloquent…it’s hard enough to see theoretically supportive people squirm when introducing me with my girlfriend. Seriously, girlfriend, partner, whichever, it’s ok. Just please stop squirming. I hate jumping in to help them out, but the alternative still feels worse to me. sigh.)
Haha, that got me too. “I deeply believe in love and equality, but if ONE LESBIAN is NOT NICE TO ME, then FUCK THEM ALL.”
Can I just say, Shannon, that your responses to douchebro were amazing. No l’esprit d’escalier for you. I am in awe.
Ugh I hate that I have acted in small ways like this guy (though I was 18 and a freshman in college).
Yeah I have to own that I have been a shitty ally to poc and queer people in the past in ways like this although with much less beard.
Same here re: POC and QPOC, though I have learned the valuable art of “shuttingthefuckupmystoryisnotimportantinthisspace.”
I wish English was more like German and that whole string became an accepted word all on its own.
Sometimes, we all need to shutthefuckupmystoryisnotimportantinthisspace.
I believe our version is gratuitous acronyms you have to mentally spell out the first 800 times you type it.
But seriously, we all need a little STFUMSINIITS.
Yeah, as much as dudes are awful, women (myself included at times!) aren’t immune from being shitty allies either.
As a general rule, “One time, a thing happened to me that is superficially similar to your oppression,” or “someone like you was important to me somehow for a little bit,” or “for a while I had to endure some of the second-hand effects of your oppression” is almost never a good idea as a conversational gambit.
And especially not if the rest of it is something like “so therefore I have at least as much authority as you, and possibly more, on the subject of your oppression” or “so I am absolved from responsibility for my privilege or that thing I just said or did” or both.
It’s like talking about your dead cat to someone whose beloved mother just passed away. Like, OK, that is also difficult, and maybe you have a bit of a window into this experience, but… maybe just do the comparison in your head while you shut up and listen?
I recently had a friend compare her breakup with her ex to the fact that my ex had just died. Relating, people: we’re doing it wrong.
“Shut up and listen” is always a good idea. Bonus points for asking open-ended questions to encourage the other person to continue sharing if they want. WHY is it so hard for people to do this?
“Do the compassion in your head while you shut up and listen.”
Oh dear, I’m going to say this to a lot of people.
(And myself. I’m going to say this to myself a lot.)
Oh gosh yes, I wrote this comment to hammer it into my own head more than anything else.
Wise. Wise.
I enjoy this misreading of a comment.
Freudian slips can be about anything, right? Not just sex? Because I am deeply uncomfortable about emotions, and I think my comment reveals this.
Is there anything better to be deeply uncomfortable about?
Spiders.
My aunt did that to my dad when my mom had cancer. “Oh, you must be so worried; I know I was almost sick with worry when Tillie was so ill.”
Tillie was her 17-year-old blind and incontinent whippet.
Sympathy: “I know just how you feel. Let me tell you a story about myself/something I was peripherally involved in.”
Empathy: “That sucks. I’m going to support you appropriately and let you lead us on what you need.”
Sympathy is great for just BSing and casual conversation. Empathy is WHAT’S ACTUALLY NECESSARY when it comes to oppression.
Nice seeing you here!
We run into each other in all the best places on the internet!
Fancy seeing you here!
The best part of this was imagining the brogressive man as Holden McNeil. Holy shit, Chasing Amy is so much worse than I remembered it being when I was 16.
But rly though. This is perfect.
secure in your beliefs and your beard.
Laser accuracy.
I love love LOVE IT when a straight dude tries to claim that we’re nothing without our allies, just so that I can bury them under a sea of ally-less LGBT activism anecdotes. The horrendous Stonewall article headlines will be used.
Ooh, would you mind sharing your go-to links? I’d be interested in having those on hand.
I congratulate you on your username. Killin it!
I see you have met straight white men.
I’m dying of terrified respect for the lady in this story, because whenever that happens to me I very calmly leave the table and go to the bathroom until it is over and I no longer need to talk about gender or sexuality in public with non-gay peers.
unable to accept that this is a conversation in which you may not belong
DING DING DING
OH MY GOD. This is the first time commenting on an article here, but this was just that good.
I had a similar experience Friday night with my boyfriend’s friend who tagged along with me getting a drink with a friend once my boyfriend went home.
It wasn’t a Queer Ally issue though it was a faux-male-feminist thing. We were talking about situations where allys in different realms can sometimes do more harm than good and really can’t see why due to limited experience. As an example of how we all do it I brought up the time that he proudly declared himself a male feminist and then proceeded to refer to the girl he was seeing at the time as “one night stand girl” and didn’t see how that was offensive. HE FLIPPED THE EFF OUT. I know it wasn’t tactful and wasn’t nice to hear, but my usual group of friends are open to having honest discussions. I forgot this wasn’t my friend but my boyfriend’s. In defense of how feminist he is he began to yell at me and call me crazy and tower over me and swat my hands away while I tried to apologize. My friend stepped in to try and diffuse the situation because she was afraid he would escalate it – which of course he viewed as validation of his point of view which egged him on more. I remember at one point while he was yelling at me for “randomly bringing this up so late after the fact” – I asked “did I not say anything at the time?” (knowing that I had and that we had a long conversation about it) and he said “No you didn’t say a word and now you’re acting all crazy and bitchy!”. I left knowing that this was not a conversation that had any hope of continuing. The next morning both sober he sent me a message about “How I was mean and hurtful for no reason and even your friend agreed with me. You should feel awful about yourself, I’ve always been nice to you. However I accept your apology”. Great male feminist right there. As much as I wanted to respond with LOL NOPE, I just said ‘ok that’s nice, maybe you should just hang out with BF next time’.
UGH that’s awful. Hope that dude gets a really annoying paper cut on the skin between his thumb and index finger, or right on a joint where they take forever to heal.
Thank you. I am usually a “I wish you would step on a piece of lego with your bare foot” kind of revenge fantasy girl.
Ooh yep. Right in the instep.
That is TERRIBLE. I would not have been able to resist the LOL NOPE. Why on earth would he think that he deserved some kind of apology from you?
If this had not been my boyfriend’s friend the dynamic would have been hella different believe me. However I did screenshot the message and sent it to my friend who was there with the caption “LOL NOPE”.
This is why I don’t think men should ever identify as feminists. Show, don’t tell.
The best part of his morning after message was “I know alcohol was a factor” like I am too crazy to carry a conversation when the night before when he said “you’ve had too much to drink and you’re acting crazy” I very clearly said “this is not an alcohol issue this is a thought that I have that I would also bring up sober”. Way to listen bro. Because no girl could ever think you’re an asshole sober.
My favourite male feminist story is the time I disagreed with a dude about whether something was sexist (in this case, he was absolutely adamant that it was, and I thought he had none of the context and all of the yelly outrage over it), so his solution was to tell me that I should give back the vote, because he was such a better feminist than I am.
Yep.
straight mansplainers of the Queer Situation Today have ruined many a party. the best is when you are like “please just don’t keep talking about this” and they are like “no but listen stop erasing me I have more stuff to say about what the Queer Situation Today is like”
Straight Mansplainers are basically door-to-door evangelists for things they have no experience in/don’t understand.
HELLO, MY NAME IS ELDER PRICE AND I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU MY MOST AMAZING THOUGHTS!
I’ve reached a sweet little spot of Nirvana where I realize that as a White Male I probably don’t have the right perspective on anything. It’s quite liberating to just abdicate. Someone else can go have all the opinions.
What an amazing article. I’ve definitely seen this happen (although not in Brooklyn). Also:
“You were teased in high school because of your queer mom—the way you made fun of other kids who occupied marginalized spaces, before you found yourself on the outskirts of one alongside them—so, in your mind, you are The Victim. You can’t possibly imagine anyone else being victimized in different, more profound ways directly tied to their own bodies and identities. ”
I think you just described GamerGate.
ETA Except of course, sub in “because of your queer mom” for whatever it is #GooberGroat folks were teased for.
That is the worst, most Brooklyn hipsterbro toast I’ve ever heard. My skin is crawling just imagining some dude spitting those words through his beard and thinking he sounds real fuckin cool.
So gross. Also, gunpowder? WTF are you talking about bro. Like what even the fuck.
Is that toast a quote from some shitty movie? I feel like I’ve heard it before…
I feel like it’s something someone in a Tarantino movie would say. I cannot say for sure though, as I refuse to watch Tarantino movies.
Ernest Hemingway maybe? Beardbros who drink scotch seem to have hots for him.
Too vulgar for Hemingway, surely. I mean, he’d find some much more poetic way of describing the vulva, and his desire to dominate it.
I get all the multiple ways that this guy is horrible but I’m wondering what I should do — as a straight lady — if I was at a table at a bar with some friends and with some new people and was informed by a joint acquaintance (without any solicitation on my part) that two of his/her friends were queer. Is it better to not acknowledge the fact at all and to proceed with the conversation or change the conversation (since I’m guessing the reason it was brought up because of some assumption of heteronormativity in the conversation). To nod or maybe to say — umhum — and then proceed with the conversation or change the conversation? Or to discuss the update in some way. I am not being facetious here — just trying to sincerely figure out how to best to proceed in that hypothetical situation. And I’m sure it’s 100% obvious to many of you what would be best, but I honestly don’t know and I’d like to not offend anyone inadvertently.
In this situation, the guy brought it on with a heterosexist assumption (that all of the women at his table were penis fans), and the correct way forward was to accept the exceedingly mild check with good grace (“My mistake”) and move on.
“ok cool” and continuing with the conversation works fine! It is immensely uncomfortable watching people dance clunkily around presenting their Credentials Of Non-Bigotry to the newly-discovered Exotic Other when you’re just trying to have a drink.
Obviously the correct response is to lighten the mood by making a joke about how you’re also a lesbian, you’re just trapped in a man’s body.
NO
I’m not queer, so I’m no expert, but I wouldn’t change the conversation at all. I mean, what happened in the article all started with a toast that I would never give, but even under those circumstances I wouldn’t say much. Like maybe “Well I guess we can all agree on pussy then!” would be the closest thing I can imagine saying. But that’s gross too.
Basically, if you don’t start by being a douche, you should be fine.* But yeah, someone’s sexual orientation is not really an update. If someone announced you were straight, I wouldn’t imagine that you would want to talk about it much.
*ETA: I guess what I mean is, if you’re not saying things that are offensive in the first place, there’s no need to change what you’re saying. I don’t worry TOO much about being a bit heteronormative. I’m hetero, that’s my experience, so when I’m talking about my own experiences I’m talking about hetero ones, and I think trying super hard to not be so hetero in my speech is… moving into the article’s douche-bro territory.
I guess what I REALLY mean is that you shouldn’t be saying things that you wouldn’t want queer people to hear, even if you think they’re not around, so the announcement that someone around you is queer shouldn’t change a thing.
Thanks to everyone who replied! This is why I love the Toast!
“I apologize; I shouldn’t have assumed.” And then you go on with your evening!
I’m glad you asked this because I had a similar situation at work. I was letting my nerdy nerd nerd flag fly with a newish coworker, and in the middle of me explaining how all my serious big girl job taxation examples are actually Leverage in-jokes, he made a few comments that made it clear that he was gay.
I didn’t interrupt the conversation to pick up on it, since the comments fit perfectly within the tone of the conversation and making a big thing of it would’ve been weird, but later I was trying to figure out whether I should be acknowledging it in some way. Like, it’s not a big deal! I made a note to use Aldis Hodge instead of Beth Reisgraf in my ‘reasons you should watch this deeply flawed but oh so perfect TV show’ list and kept nerding. But in a workplace setting it is actually kind of a potential big deal! It is a thing! He shared a thing with me! I am glad he trusted me with a thing!
Overthinking things for the win.
I cannot read his mind of course, but you did exactly what I would want people to do if I did what your coworker did. If a queer person wants you to treat their coming out as a big deal, they will probably treat it as a big deal themselves (sit you down, solemnly tell you they have something to tell you, etc.). This guy sounds like he was just living his ordinary daily life as an openly gay person, which sometimes involves making comments that do not hide the fact that he is gay. He’s probably not hoping that someone will be like, “Wait, halt the conversation! I just realized that you are gay and therefore we must hàve a separate conversation in which I explicitly make note of that.” I mean, maybe he does want that, who knows, but I would guess not. I don’t mean to make fun of you or anything, I am pleased to see people who simultaneously a) are totally capable of simply absorbing the information that someone is gay and moving on with the conversation, and yet b) also realize that the gay person in question might possibly have had a hard time revealing that information.
Thank you for asking a sincere, good-faith question. Obviously it sort of depends on context, it’s not like there is The One True Answer that every queer person would be equally happy with, but a) if you don’t make heteronormative assumptions in the first place, it won’t come up as much (so in this case, for example, “we can invent a version with penises for those so inclined/for anyone who prefers those/etc.), and b) my advice as a queer person would be to treat it sort of like they announced their favorite color. She likes green, he likes yellow, you like purple… Don’t assume everyone’s favorite color is the same as yours because, duh, it’s not, people like all kinds of colors, some people have been blind their whole lives and may not have any favorite color at all, it’s not a thing you need to make a big deal about.
I mean if someone seems nervous about telling you and it seems like a big deal to them, then by all means be encouraging and comforting and thank them for telling you. But if they just mention it in passing and seem comfortable telling you, then just keep it comfortable. It is not necessary to (as many straight people) start listing all the other queer people you know and what wonderful people they are. Think of it this way: for queer people, being queer is a constant, everyday fact of our lives, like your shoe size or height or nearsightedness. And yeah, sometimes it’s really hard to have our shoe size, we are aware that many people hate us for our shoe size, but chances are if we’re having casual drinks with straight people we barely know, we probably aren’t looking to have a whole conversation about that fact. Probably we are just looking to, you know, live our ordinary lives and get pleasantly tipsy and have some ordinary fun, the same things you’re looking to do when you go out for casual drinks with a group including friends of friends. So it can be awkward if you then deliver a sermon on gay rights, when like, all anyone did was be openly gay in your presence the way they are every day in lots of people’s presences. (I’m not saying you would do this necessarily, I have no idea what you’d do, I’m just trying to shed some light on a queer person’s perspective in case it is useful to anyone.)
In my experience queer people often like it if you can comfortably and sort of self-deprecatingly joke about it, though obviously there is a lot of potential for things to go wrong there. An example of a straight guy making a joke that went over well: I went on a queer-themed trip that involved a tour bus, and when our tour guide introduced himself he told us, “I am the only straight on the bus, but maybe by the end of the trip you’ll convert me.” I realize that’s a different situation than the one you asked about — I hope something in all this rambling was somewhat helpful? Basically just, don’t freak out, if they seem upset about something you said then simply apologize (sincerely but briefly, unless they are SUPER upset and then there might need to be a longer conversation if it seems like they want that), but if they don’t seem upset and they’re just matter-of-factly correcting you, then be equally casual and move on. So like in this case, I’d agree with “Well I guess we can all agree on pussy then” that someone else suggested — I mean I wouldn’t recommend that toast in the first place, but that’s the type of response tactic, if that makes sense. Or, like, “Penis for anyone who cares for it, then.”
My mom told me a few weeks back that she can’t be trans-phobic because she’s “got a trans friend”.
In my mom’s defence, she’s not super trans-phobic, and she’s working on it, but it’s a brave new world and a bit overwhelming sometimes.
I guess gay women WITH penises don’t exist at all, I’m glad the cis gay “correction” of bro’s joke cleared that one up. Sigh.
Alternately, this is a story about two specific partnered gay women who are allowed to tell a dude that he’s wrong when he assumes they’re interested in dicks.
Honestly, she didn’t even address that bit, and it wasn’t just letting douchebro’s cissexism stand but going at how he supposes himself a Powerful Ally and the queer ladies not sufficiently Ally Allies to support him in his struggle
I llooooovvvveeee this. Isn’t it interesting how the absolute most important thing to these assholes is not the work they’re doing, it’s not how queer people actually feel, it’s not fighting horrific systematic oppression, no. The very most important thing is that other people recognise how open and awesome and ~edgy they are, and if they don’t get that praise, god help me, I will go and join the violent bigots, I swear it!
Kill it with fire
ughhhhh I had this same interaction, except about feminism instead of the gays, with a very close male friend I’ve known since high school, down to the part where he told me that maybe the reason women/poc/gays etc are still oppressed is because we use the word “privilege” which makes non-oppressed people feel guilty and we should find a different way of saying it, like “I don’t have some advantages that you have”, because that puts the onus on us rather than them and they would be more receptive to that. I want to send this article to him soooo badddd ugghhhh
But doesn’t “advantage” come off just the same as “privileged?”
Apparently “the word privilege implies unearned and undeserved!”. (Yes darling. That’s kind of the whole point.) Also in the sentence “I don’t have some advantages that you do” “I” (the not-SWM) am describing myself rather than describing “you” (the SWM), so it’s BETTER because I shouldn’t say something not-flattering about a man– that might hurt his feelings and make him hate women! I should say something not-flattering about myself instead! MISOGYNY: SOLVED! *facepalm*
So basically, instead of “society treats you better than it treats me,” he thinks you should say “I wish I could be more like you.”
Yes.
Although the situation is slightly less funny when the dude is your own brother. Sigh.
Enlightened brogressive to the gay guy-” totally not into dudes, but you would be my type if I was! ”
No, not ever, not even with asbestos gloves.
He was doing fine until he couldn’t take being gently teased. Men. No sense of humor.
There is nothing in this world quite as fragile as the egos of men.
Like, I'm approx. 100 years old and don't know what that show is, but the only way I can see that as related is as the kind of story girls use to justify biphobia? Which was ultra-extra-super-not my point.
These are things said to me (many times) by ladies who suck at being queer allies, when they find out all my exes are ~girls.~
But totally, Brooke sounds like the worst. Presentations like hers feed into the same attitudes my exes used as an excuse to cheat on me or otherwise rip my heart out, and that keep me too scared and sad to ever consider seeking out LGBT community ever again. wut wut
But in the context of this post, it *is* about something external to the lesbian community. It's about this straight dude assuming all women want dick. Meaning that the most generous interpretation of the initial comment is that it's totally off-topic, but for someone like me, who is not inclined to be generous in contexts where it seems like anyone, man or woman, is trying to negotiate my boundaries away, it sounds like "but that bro is right, maybe you would like a dick."
She smiles again, and shrugs. “So I’m catty. It’s funny to hear straight people explain my own cause to me.”
He stopped a moment, taken aback. “Oh shit, I just did that thing, didn’t I? I am so sorry. Sometimes I just like hearing myself talk. I’ll stop now. Grab anyone another drink while I’m up?”
And they all lived happily ever after.
There is nothing in this world quite as fragile as the egos of men.