We almost blew our load when we read this article. There’s just so much to discuss. It comes to us from ABC News and seeks to uncover the truth behind gay stereotypes. As an opener, reporters John Stossel and Gena Binkley chat it up with the world’s leading gay experts, Carson Kressley and Ted Allen to define some gay stereotypes.
It’s that you’re obsessed with fashion, and that you tan a lot and that you color your hair,” they said. But, says Allen, the stereotypes are not always true. “Not all gay men are superstylish. Not all straight men are bad dressers,” he said.
These are two men who’ve made careers of perpetuating stereotypes and they have the balls to sit there and try to dispel them? Fuck, what kind of bizarro world did we wake up in?
Stossel and Binkley then turn their attention to Michael Bailey, a psychology professor from Northwestern who once helped 20/20 construct a gaydar test for television. Among his words of wisdom, Bailey says:
There’s no obvious reason why sexual orientation should be associated with how masculine or feminine one is, but it is in our species. And it probably has to do with the causes of sexual orientation and early effects of hormones on the brain.
Wait, it gets worse.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Gay men absolutely talk differently, on average. You can tell far better than chance who’s a gay man from just listening to him say four sentences.
Nice, but we think his arguments may be lacking something, so we’re going to add a few other “true” things about gays. One, all gay people have AIDS because they’re all slutty drug addicts. Two, gay people want nothing less than to see the world die off from lack of reproduction. As this mission undoubtedly takes a while, gay people shall satisfy themselves by molesting and, in rare cases, eating your children. Three, all gay people like it in the butt. Why? Hormones, of course.
Mark
Let’s not over react, boys. This is hardly ground-breaking stuff. You can’t deny that there are common attributes gay men share with each other that straight men just don’t understand. It’s not derogatory to say that gay men have similar ways of speaking, similar interests, or similar ways of behaving… on average, it’s true.
Very different to what Micheal Bailey is saying, the Queer Eye guys can eat it. They only now, with the cancellation of their show, want to start offering an alternative to the gay “beauty obsessed” stereotype they’ve been peddling. Come on!
RSL
Someone should tell John Stossel about the Castro mustache. I’m sorry, but that’s pretty fuckin’ gay.
mattymatt
Also, we want to destroy marriage.
And did I miss it, or did they not cite any evidence for anything? Seemed like it was it all based on one or two interviews with some douches. “ABC News: Some Stuff That A Guy Once Told Us.”
westvill
Actually, I thought it was an interesting study. The argument they stated was that for some reason gay men (who were born that way) for some reason tend to accrue some of the stereotypes. They did not only study this for gay issue, they also did this with race (they examined the stereotype that black men are not supposed to do well in school etc)
I thought it was the most honest look at how we become who we become due to sociological issues.
I repeat, they were not saying that gays become gay through nuturing…the show accepted the belief that we are born gay.
dustin
although, i too, agree that the queer eye guys can go and take it up the butt… the program wasn’t really all that bad.
the person that they inteviewed, bailey, or whomever, did mention that people were born gay, and it seemed like they pretty much went with that.
at least there’s some sort of acceptance that i didn’t make the fucking choice to be a ‘mo.
weirdchesthair
When they put poor gay people living in trailers, or chubs on the cover of the advocate… when the photos on this very website’s banners contain mormal looking people instead of (slim) muscle porn stars, then the gay community can complain about how its image being represented by the fab 5 on TV. Lets do a little more ourselves to quash this by being a little more accepting of others, which is how we want others to treat us.
Cullan
Sweet Jesus, weirdchesthair! I think I love you! Can I get an amen from the congregation! There are enough different types of hot guys out there to lust after them all yet…. Anyway, I digress. So in celebration of how all gay men aren’t a stereotype, I want to see some hot, beefy bull with a forest covering his pecks and delicious bubble butt on this site ASAP. I’m talkin’ a fuckin’ animal. A man whose doctor has to be a vet.
Martini-boy
There is a tendency to attribute homosexuality (and as an extension, heterosexuality) to prenatal forces (i.e. hormones on the brain). However, that’s just a clever discursive plot to make either homo and/or heterosexuality seem more ‘biological’ and thus ‘natural / normal’. I’d like to take the stance that they’re both equally as ‘normal’, preferring more of Freudian perspective: that is, that we’re all born neutral (or in his case, bisexual) and that our preferences are determined VERY EARLY in life according to our environment (i.e. upbringing). Either way, it still seems natural to us because the preference is something that is formed before any sense of self (and self-reflection) is possible.
And, I completely disagree with the statement that “Gay men absolutely talk differently, on average.” One notices the (more effeminate) gays by the way they speak and act because they’re the most different from ‘the norm’ (i.e. the no lisp, deep-voiced male). It’s more prominent, and as a result, they stand out like a sore thumb. Considering that those gay men without lisps are rarely ever noticed and pass off as being straight quite easily, it seems like this “on average” talk is a whole crock of shit. And let’s remember, not all straight-acting gays (or even femmy gays) like to admit that they’re gay, for whatever reason. STIGMA certainly skews results (as Kinsey so aptly noted), which makes it harder to get a sense of what the world is REALLY like, on average.
So, in conclusion, while Carson and Ted make a very good (yet, painfully obvious) point, it is competely necessary for those ignorant, close-minded heterosexual/ heterosexist people who still remotely believe in such a thing as a homosexual species.
RSL
I did want to address that comment about the speech patterns of gays as if all gays have [by their nature] a tell-tale lisp or affectation. I do believe that, as a subculture, there are many shared, memetic language characteristics between us boy ‘mos. [I’m not even trying to lump ‘mo women into this study because I have no idea if there’s any linking patterns there.] However, these speech patterns were all [most likely] adopted after our willing identification with our fellow queers. There is also, perhaps though less likely, a chance that some of these patterns stem from a common gender speech pattern [straight] women share. Since a great percentage of gay men more closely identified with opposite sexed parents, it would make sense that some of those speech characteristics might potentially rub off as well. But that’s the end of the correlation between gays and speech. “Gay men absolutely talk differently, on average. You can tell far better than chance who’s a gay man from just listening to him say four sentences.” isn’t a whole lot different than “College graduates absolutely talk differently, on average. You can tell far better than chance who’s attended college from just listening to him say four sentences.” These differences do not stem from biology or psychology but sociology and the subtle influence of how the people we surround ourselves with speak themselves.
NYSailorScout
That’s a ridiculous stereotype. Gay men do not all talk in the same way. Half of them have a gay accent. But half of them don’t, and they pass for straight. There IS something biologically similar about all gay men (which is why we can pick out our brothers), but it isn’t their speech or manner of talking.
Nick
I’m with weirdchesthair, Martini-boy and NYSailorscout. I am SO sick of people (especially gay men themselves) trying to lump us all in one inherent category. You need proof of a “gene” and innate characteristics (based on stereotypes, hello) in order to make peace with yourself? Fine. But don’t force it on the rest of us.
Heck, I’m kind of effete myself. But I can put on different faces. I know that when I camp it up and start getting all sibilant and swishy that it’s largely an affectation. Just like I know that there are plenty of gay fellows who present more “regular guy” than some straight fellows. And, of course, this presentation does not innately determine one’s status as top, bottom, or healthy mix.
Plus, as has been said, the study ignores the women. Beecause as we all know, lesbians aren’t worth studying because they don’t pluck themselves raw and destroy their credit ratings just to keep up with what a subculture dictates. (Oh, and girls just don’t matter.)
Thanks for posting this article. I appreciate it being looked at subjectively, instead of the usual rushing to conclusions in the effort to prove to the world that it’s not our fault we’re swishy queens. It’s OKAY to be a swishy queen (or not)–we don’t have to be passive about it! (Pun not intended.)
Screaming queen
Also, it bears saying that as supportive as Michael Bailey purports himself to be, he’s also obsessed with how transsexual women are extreme cases of authogynephilia, and his whole book about gay men is a bunch of junk science-y drivel with some really homophobic undertones.
But what do I know? I’m a swisher who isn’t supposed to be interested in books anyway.
Anon
I saw the show and it was reductive garbage (as one might have expected). As far as the 5 minute segment on gay men goes, everyone “studied” was completely out of the closet; that is to say, there was no acknowledgement of constructed social behaviors and/or semiotics within a community.
Was was even more offensive than the actual writing were the production methodologies. The editing and vox pops interview segments were exploitative and borderline racist. I could just hear a white ABC producer saying, “Okay, we need to find some scary black men acting like ignorant fools — ooh, see if you can get them playing a sport — BASKETBALL! That’s very “urban.” And if they have their shirts off, even better. Take my Metrocard and go down to the West 4th St. courts — you’ll be safe there.”
Garbage.
[email protected]
I saw this, and the Blogger really only is telling one side. I think that 20/20 did a fair job of presenting the fact that gay sterotypes exist for a reason, but they also made it a point to say that not all gay men fit into the sterotype.
If I recall correctly the “audience evaluation” showed that the person they thought was most gay, was gay. Surprisingly the person they thought the most straight, was gay as well.