“Straight-acting” — those two little words that represent a complicated social order of how a man is or isn’t supposed to present to the world.
Is it time to retire “straight acting” to describe queer people whose personalities and overall demeanor seem to have more in common with how non-queer people behave?
With everything we know about the wide and wondrous spectrums of gender and sexuality, what does “straight acting” — a term that implies stereotypical and outdated attributes of masculinity — even mean?
Turns out we’re not the only ones wondering. A gay, Reddit user recently wrote about his thoughts around the term, and similarly frustrated comments soon started flowing in.
“I don’t act ‘straight’ I act like myself and im not ashamed of being gay,” wrote the OP. “I was into My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic in it’s hey day for crying out loud am also a weeb and love cute shit. Just because I don’t like typical gay culture stuff doesn’t make me lesser then other gay guys.I don’t have to speak and act a certain way for you and I won’t.
“‘Straight Acting’ needs to be abolished, they concluded, “and guys who use it unironically need to be kicked in the nuts.”
“It’s a stupid term,” agreed one commenter, “because it:
“Implies that it’s an act, like you’re putting on a performance;
“Implies that straight = masculine.
“Implies that straight guys are all the same, have the same hobbies, interests and personality. Consequently it implies that gay guys are all the same.”
Another shared similar ideas, writing, “I hate it.
“It’s more or less the same as saying you are straight but hooking up with men. You aren’t. And there is no ‘straight acting’ either. I’ve seen straight men that like to dress up, that like make up, that wear pink, that like flowers and ‘girly’ stuff.
“There are no gender roles as much as there are no orientation roles or act/bottom roles. Everyone is [a] person and everyone likes and does different stuff. What we see as ‘the norm’ is so fleeting that it doesn’t make sense to try and explain it using stereotypical boxes…
“Liking make up doesn’t make you any more or less straight. The only straight act is to look for the opposite gender for sex stuff.”
Thoughts?
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CatholicXXX
Masc guys are better than fem, or the pc “non-binary.” That’s a FACT.
wikidBSTN
That’s an opinion. Dumb try, troll.
cuteguy
I agree: men should act like men. If I wanted to be with a fem, I’ll be with a female. There’s nothing wrong with pref a masc guy
James Hart
Nearly every profile on gay “dating” sites, say, “no fems,” “no fats,” “no grandpas,” etc..
It’s a given that Gay sex and gay intimate relationships are only for the physically fit, young, and very masculine homosexuals.
That’s the way it’s been and that’s the way it’s staying.
To the gay Don Quixotes on this site, stop wasting your time tilting at windmills.
DarkZephyr
Its not a FACT is an OPINION and a really SH*TTY one.
DarkZephyr
@cuteguy
There is nothing wrong with preferences, that is true. But when you are a f*cking d*ck to the people you DON’T prefer, you suck at being human.
@James Hart
If that’s your experience, I feel very sorry for you. lol You are out here trying to have us all believe that feminine guys are all virgins n’ sh*t. lol
THAT Steve
There’s nothing wrong with whomever you might prefer (with exceptions that are illegal and immoral). What’s wrong is when someone thinks the people they aren’t attracted to are somehow lesser for not being who they are attracted to.
thisisnotreal
Getting rid of the term “straight acting”? Sure I can get behind that, cuz In my mind it’s really just about playing up the fantasy that the person you are hooking up with is “forbidden” or “off limits” to you normally but somehow making an exception for you personally. I would not be tired or sad if our community stopped idolizing straight identifying men as the ultimate prize to win at the fair. But where I don’t want to see the line drawn is masculine acting or presenting etc. people can call it internalized homophobia all they want to try and discredit it but the fact is that some gay guys (myself included) just happen to be more attracted to men who are more masculine personality wise. I don’t believe that makes me homophobic to be attracted to masculinity as a gay man, it’s just a preference. Doesn’t mean I (or other gay men) automatically hate effeminate gay men or want nothing to do with them, just means we have a romantic or sexual preference for men that differ from that.
Donston
The problem is that there is a good amount of resentment towards more effeminate males, and there is a good amount of “masculine”/“straight passing” privilege. While for some it is indeed an “act” so they can fit more easily in the “straight world” and can have more wide-ranging appeal. (Being “straight acting” means you can appeal to a greater percentage of effeminate males, masculine males, closeted males, women and can more easily blend. It definitely gives you more options, more freedom and more ego-boosting attention if it’s partnered with good looks). These are all things that need to be acknowledged and more widely talked about. Doesn’t mean you have to be with a more effeminate guy of course. But it needs to be acknowledged.
I’ve never really used the term “straight acting” to describe myself or anyone. It always seemed like dated and tacky terminology to me. And if you truly embrace your queerness and are comfortable with it, why would you even want to attach the word “straight” to anything describing you? I’ve always preferred “masculine presenting” or conventionally masculine. A term like “straight acting” just seems like something someone would put in their Grindr bio or something an escort or porn performer might use, once again, for more wide-ranging appeal, to incite fantasy and to make use of “straight” privilege.
It also seems to be a term more guys who have some gender and sexual fluidity/contradictions are using. In that case, it just reveals that you view “gay” and “straight” and “masculine” and “feminine” as convenient costumes, which they definitely are for some people. As individual or complex as sexuality and the gender, sexual, affection, romantic, emotion, commitment spectrum can be so can masculinity and femininity. And that’s fine. But yeah, “straight acting” is definitely a term that needs to die outside of hook-up apps and porn.
wikidBSTN
Then what term do you use for someone who is not effeminate? I like effeminate guys – and I like guys who are “not effeminate”.
Seems like the “problem” is not the term itself, but that a distinction is being made at all. Sorry, but it is a legitimate distinction, characteristic, qualifier or whatever you want to call it.
Donston
Nowadays, a lot of people are using “masculine presenting” or “gender conventional” or conventionally masculine. You definitely don’t have to use “straight acting”. As I said in the previous post, if you’re truly embracing your queerness and are comfortable with it, why would you even want to attach “straight” as an descriptor? While there are less than masculine guys who are “straight” or heterosexual or hetero-leaning when it comes to the sexual, affection, romantic attachment, emotional investment, relationship comfort, commitment spectrum. So, “straight acting” doesn’t even make much sense outside of describing a “queer” trying to appear “straight” or appear more “straight” than they are.
DarkZephyr
You can’t think of something that is better than “straight acting”? lol
If being butch is just who and how you are, and you’re gay, you are acting like yourself, a gay man and not like a straight man. I prefer “butch” to “straight acting” OR even “masculine”.
Jaquelope
I agree with @DarkZephyr on his point that “Butch” would be a better term to use than “straight acting”. In my last job, except for my family who worked there, no one knew I was gay, until I came out in a Letter to the Editor of a local newspaper, and I received a lot of support from coworkers. I never presented myself as “Straight Acting”, or even “Butch”, but no one ever thought that I was gay, either. No one seemed to really care one way or the other. The place I worked had specific anti-discrimination policies, but I doubt if that had anything to do with it.
Donston
“Butch” is also extremely dated. I don’t see anyone younger than 40 still saying “butch”. It typically incites images of leather daddies. However, it is less “problematic” and less nonsensical than “straight acting”.
Prax07
Most guys that ARE straight acting don’t need to put straight acting on their profiles. When someone does it usually means they aren’t.
And yes, I definitely am not into fem guys. Girly guys are in no way sexually attractive to me, no matter how physically hot the guy is.
James Hart
“Most guys that ARE straight acting don’t need to put straight acting on their profiles.”
Great observation.
bachy
Are we still allowed to be cis-gender? Or is that bad now, too?
stan2015
he has is 100% correct.
Donston
Nothing in this article has anything to do with trying to force people to be more into effeminate guys and to date them or trying to force people to behave more “fem”. So, I don’t know why some of you are trying to make that a point. “Straight acting” is simply a toxic and dated term, and it also implies that “straight” and “gay” are more about mannerisms and personality rather than about sexual dimensions, general preferences, romantic attachment, relationship ambitions, where you are in the overall spectrum. While yes, the majority of guys who make it a point to constantly say that they’re “straight passing” and put “straight acting” in their bio’s and shit are typically more obviously queer than they believe they are. It’s a term that just screams queer insecurities.
DarkZephyr
Gonna have to agree totally. 100%
robertkalin
“Straight acting” and “discreet”. Both need to stop.
SamB
“Straight-acting” — those two little words that represent a complicated social order of how a man is or isn’t supposed to present to the world.
No it isn’t complicated. Men should act like men, women should act like women. See?
white-queer-african
SammyyyBbbb……
Rightwing nut job that needs a….
Diplomat
Straight acting is all a matter of perception. It’s an accurate term for some who use it, it’s a pretentious term for others. There would be more headway made by nixing the term they them or cis or queer as descriptors, all shots in the LGB foot, though Queerty as a journalism name is good.
Tom Brady – – – Straight Masc – – – never “outdated”.
S.anderson
I think… we are better served, not by hearing “Queerty” or anyone else telling us all what we should no longer do, but rather, that we have more choices. And to give encouragement for all to seek the identity that fits them best. I’m growing rather concerned at all the efforts to discourage and cancel the identities of those brave LGBTQ folks who came before the current decade’s trendy queer troubadours. Erasure is violence, cousin.
Seth
It “implies” that you are less likely to be randomly attacked on the street for looking/acting too gay. It “implies” that 12 yr. old kids, and younger, won’t feel confident enough to badger and harass you at gas stations, grocery stores, etc…it “implies” that they don’t have to have tiresome, boring conversations like this one because society, at large, considers them one of them.
I’m fine with straight-acting.
I’m fine with queen and queer.
I’m fine with fat, femme, and every ethnicity/background.
I’m fine with however we all come and find it both hilarious and sad when the rest of our community does not. We have enough obstacles without creating our own.
There, see how easy it is to stand atop a soapbox spouting personal opinion? It’s almost like anyone could do it and it never needsed an article written about it. Weird.
Seth
*needs
scotty
get over yourselves.
Joshua333
This is why we need to ban straight people from society.
Bosch
“men should act like men”
Says the biggest queen in the room.
dario717
I’m not going to say that “straight-acting” is a complete turn-off, but it’s not exactly a turn-on either. I’ve never really found anyone with that in his profile to be terribly interesting.
Terrycloth
I also don’t want to have to grab a dictionary to look up the pronoun out of the 500 different ones to find out if I am a match for you. Forget masc acting.. even at just gay you still wanna know what they are into before you hook up. It’s not getting any easier to meet other like minded people .it’s like a menu now too many choices , rules and demands you’re better off with your dvd player some toys and movies
QJ201
this conversation is 2000 and late.
Comes around every few years to no avail.
JessPH
The term confuses me as well. I’ve been described as “straight acting” by other gays simply because I have a deep voice and don’t watch Drag Race. Ugh. I hook up with men. I watch a ton of gay porn. How on earth is that “straight acting”?
Cam
The guys that were too obsessed with acting “Straight” or looking for “Straight acting” guys always seemed to have major baggage in my experience.
You’d start talking to them and realize that very often there was a LOT of self hate going on.
Not always, but often enough.
So no surprise the same old troll screenames are so into “Straight Acting”, they defend anti-LGBTQ bigots, so their self hatred is pretty obvious.
Bosch
I wonder why they even come here. Just to get mad at stuff and have an angry wank?
alexpof
only effeminate people will complain about this kind of stuff
Cam
Except you’re complaining about it. Seems to have really triggered you.
GreekKeys
I’m going to try the trans approach that the gay press is so supportive of:
This is more of the mascuphobic gay community ERASING men. It is literal violence. The entire religion of gender just doesn’t exist. Wearing make-up means nothing beyond you like to beat your face. STOP mascuphobia! Masculine men ARE men!
PS: If all these gender fluids are so confident in their liquidity, why do they all run to The Eagle at 3am?
Josh in OR
Considering how many of the rights we have today – not to mention the public approval we generally experience (which was UNTHINKABLE only a couple decades ago) – are due to trans women, drag queens and unapologetically effeminate men?
Yeah.
‘Straight acting’ is bullshit fetishization of our oppressors. Expecting ANY self-respecting gay man to force himself into a mold of what is deemed ‘acceptable’ to heterosexists is no better than demanding we all go back into the closet, and should go the way of ‘t***ny’ and ‘f***ot’ in terms of public discourse.
Some gay men are ‘masc’ (whatever THAT means, and believe me, it means different things to different people, even among the straights), some are ‘femme’. Most of us are some blend of the two, depending on our mood or the day or what may be going on around us. Some are neither traditionally ‘masculine’ nor traditionally ‘feminine’.
All are men.
All are gay.
All have value.
Shaming someone for not being ‘masculine enough’ when we owe SO much to the men who got tired of straights bullying them for being different? That just shows your own ignorance, toxicity and self loathing way more than it shows your imagined ‘manliness’.
Deacon
It’s funny how much energy is being put into the comments, even the point of equating masculine as a preference is giving me a good laugh, I wish white gays put this much energy into calling out profiles that say ” no Blacks / Asians” and only want Latino’s of european descent. If the alphabet community would stop comparing everything to a heterosexual ideal of what’s normal or acceptable we wouldn’t be having this debate. Not all masculinity is toxic and YES there is a unbalanced amount of feminine toxicity in the alphabet community that never gets addressed, 90% of men coming out as gay see how being gay is presented and thinks that’s how they have be and when the other 10% refute that presentation they get labeled as toxic.