Los-Angeles based vlogger Stephen LC is totally, thoroughly, 100 percent done with straight women asking him to be their “gay best friend.”
“I feel like most girls who say they want a gay best friend really just want a Chihuahua, or maybe they just want a fun, flashy purse?” he rants in his latest vlog. “Or maybe if you take it further back, they want validation from their father. Who doesn’t want that?”
Stephen spends the next four and a half minutes hilariously detailing all the reasons why he doesn’t ever want to be anyone’s “gay best friend” and, more importantly, why straight women need to get over their Sex and the City bullshit fantasies and stop asking him to be.
Check out the video below…
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgxff53rc6s
Les White Pigeon
Hmmm lol!
Sergio D Suhett
“Stephen spends the next four and a half minutes hilariously detailing…”
I was done watching before the 1 minute mark. I did not have the patience to wait around for the “hilarious” part.
broadshoulder
Well done! I am sick of straight girls wanting to be your best friend. He’s got it right! Its not Sex and the City. Yet another cliche we have to live with…
Glücklich
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/lax/336540406.html
Anselmo Martinez
I’m definitely my best friend’s gay best friend.
Benjamin Keith Boyd
And I’m over here like but G.B.F. :p
Daniel Bujes
So now we’re offended people WANT to be our friends? Welp, no hope for us then.
Milton Appleby
Many of my good friends are women. There is nothing wrong with being the GBF but I think the problem is the assumptions that come of the connotation. My girlfriends don’t treat me like the token gay who has all the answers when it comes to fashion, boys or anything else. The relationships are based on loyalty, trust and love. Do best mean they aren’t fun though.
David King
Being a GBF is great. It shows women are confident and trusting enough to know you won’t jump on top of them for sex.
Nathaniel McManus
I think this is mainly a fat girl issue.
feeps
Open rant.
There is something about the backlash against the “gay best friend” phenomenon that I find meanspirited, misogynistic, and lacking in empathy. First of all, these women are not “all straight women.” I mean, I am not straight woman, but I am pretty sure that some straight women are raging homophobes who want nothing to do with any of you. So, we already have identified one logical fallacy in the discussion.
Clearly, these men, as gay men, do not like being treated like objects or interchangeable “gay men” to play a role in these women’s lives. Well, welcome to being a woman. That is a phenomenon we deal with all day every day. When people try to compare misogyny, homophobia, or racism, I always say that the differences are apples and oranges. But, it is clear that gender bias is much more ingrained, intractible, and unconscious than other types of bias. Try to remember that next time you are getting pissy that all these straight woman is all up in your grill. And, remember that homophobia, especially towards gay men, has its roots in misogyny and vise versa. Gay men are seen as doing something feminine, and, to a lot of people in our culture, that is despicable. Maybe you can make the effort not to try not to perpetuate the very practice that perpetuates bias against you. If you don’t want to be treated like a cliches, have the respect not to do the same to women.
I think part of why this makes me so angry comes from the notion, and the comments I have seen on Queerty, that being a straight or queer woman is somehow easier than being a queer man. Please disabuse yourself of that notion right now. You would not believe how prevalent workplace gender discrimination is in every type of profession, except the ones that are underpaid and underappreciated. You should, the statistics are there–wage gaps, studies on name-based bias in recruiting, women owning less than 10% of property worldwide, even our political-legal system allows for discrimination based on certain “inate biological characteristics.” I have known more than one white dude who came out, experienced the attendant loss of privilege, and headed right back to the closet. Unlike the rest of everybody, they know what total privilege feels like, whereas women and men of color are all, “eh, more of the same.” I have a gay dude friend who goes on and on about how gay men are treated as biological dangers and vectors of disease that need to be controlled. I am totally sympathetic, but he seems unable to imagine how much that happens to those of us who can make babies with our bodies. Our experiences aren’t that different. When they are, it is really the apples and oranges of discrimination: it can be historically easier to be a lesbian is because women weren’t considered important enough to control; conversely, that they were so controlled, it wasn’t necessary to enact further restrictions; or they were/are not given access to the public sphere, so it’s easier to hide being a lesbian. In fact, lesbians sometimes fare better in the workplace because people perceive them as being more masculine, unless they’re femmy, then they are just sexualized.
Which brings me to my final point, women–straight, gay, fat, thin, old, young, pretty, ugly–are perpetually and involuntarily sexualized. A straight dude I know said that he left his gym because all the gay dudes were ogling him in the locker room. To which I wanted to respond, again, “welcome to being a woman,” and also, “you wish.” Imagine being constantly and aggressively cruised by women, all the time, and everywhere you went. And, when you were in groups, it got worse. Even closeted lesbians joined in on the fun, to prove they were straight. Random people telling you how to carry yourself, to smile, or “protecting” in some way you didn’t ask for. I had a motorcycle cop follow me home from the corner store once, pull up on the sidewalk, and say “just making sure you’re smiling.” Not anymore sir, but I pretty much had to smile at him to get into my home. Imagine every morning that you had to decide how sexual to make yourself. You could get too much attention at work or on the street, and backlash from female coworkers, but if you didn’t sexualize yourself in a hetero manner, you risked your job, advancement, or your pay. That’s why straight women want to be friends with you. They just want a break from that shit.
Growing up, my mom had some gay best biddies, and despite generally terrible parenting, it made coming out so much easier for me. Maybe one of these ladies could have a gay child, and you could be their queer mentors. In the seventies, both the second wave feminists and gay rights activists were criticized by STRAIGHT MEN ON THE LEFT for being elitist because those men weren’t invited to the party. That stain of elitism has continued to haunt both causes. Maybe it’s time we stopped putting each other down on behalf of the straight white men that are largely still in power today, and look for what are experiences have in common.
Close rant.
Xzamilio
@feeps: I post links to my blog here a lot, so this is going to be hypocritical: I didn’t read any of that.
feeps
@Xzamilio: Congratulations? Way to waste your time without actually listening to another human being.
Hillers
@feeps: Here, here! Well said!
Southstguy
And yet pandering to straight girls as a “best friend” is how these bloggers get a following 😛
J.T.
@Nathaniel McManus: If it weren’t for gay men, fat girls would never dance.
J.T.
He got it right about the chihuahua. All these silly girls are looking for is an accoutrement and a fashion accessory in which to deposit their self-absorption and narcissism. But it could be worse. You could North West or Jonathan Cheban.
meghanada
@Daniel Bujes: Yes, there really is nothing left for gay men if we don’t want to be some ugly women’s mascot.
Mikey Fernandez
I enjoy being a straight girls gay best friend. Nothing wrong with that nor I don’t think I should get shamed for it either.
L Daniel E Kaufman
I don’t mind being friends but let’s be clear we’re not pets …not ” your gay “. Thats my only ish with that.
meghanada
@feeps:
” it is clear that gender bias is much more ingrained, intractible, and unconscious than other types of bias”
In sum, you only wrote kilometric crap because you want gay men to know women are oppressed the mostest!
Ugh, wake me up when beating up women for being women on the streets becomes a thing, or when women regardless of race start to lose their lives under police custody on a weekly basis.
What an ill-argued, self-indulgent whine-fest. Pretty clear you wrote that because you’re uncomfortable when women get asked to reflect on their behavior for once. You’d rather you’d always be painted as being owed concerned reverence, as being in a position of being victims, and thus having the right to wave their finger at others’ face about how Objectifying they are and how much Discrimination they make women go through, as if no other aspects to how the sexes relate are ever worth commenting.
And your anecdotes sound made up, too.
Glücklich
@Nathaniel McManus:
Ha-ha-ha! Oh, that’s terrible! Slaps own wrist.
Glücklich
@Milton Appleby:
I hadn’t given any thought to who my best friend is or whose best friend I am (if to anyone, not that I care) but I guess my best friend is a woman? Toss up between her and a queeny bear whom I *adore*. And when I think of the friends for whom I go out of my way to spend extra time, the majority are women by a small margin. None of them, however, make me feel as though I’m their sounding board or fashion or relationship adviser.
broadshoulder
@feeps
You got to the second sentence without using ‘misogynist’. Your improving.
Greg Traverso
Dane Orrell
MarionPaige
First off, isn’t a large portion of the audience for gay vlogging boys girls? This guy should have weighed being viewed as funny or cute by a handful of old gay men who don’t subscribe to his channel over pissing off half his audience.
SECOND, the only people on the planet who can stand talking to a White female for more than 30 seconds are Gay White Queens. Nobody deliberately seeks out White Females TO TALK to them. I mean, the very definition of tried ass White Queen has to be that you can actually stand being around White Females.
feeps
@meghanada: Plenty of women are beaten up for being women in the street my friend. If you had read more closely, you would have seen that I am not actually a straight woman, so it is not really MY behavior we are talking about. But, I feel solidarity with other women. I support access to family planning, not because I need it, but because that goes hand in hand with the rights of queers to control their bodies. As I said, apples and oranges. I was talking about characteristics of certain types of bias. No one is trying to outlaw being a woman, but there are plenty of places where crimes against women are legal for example. Even straight privilege often seems to bring with it a sense of responsibility that makes men, especially straight ones, work themselves to death. So, no one is really winning here. I would give you some anecdotes, but you wouldn’t believe me. I was saying people should practice empathy, and talking about the experience of women to facilitate that. One of the things I love about the queer experience and the LGBT umbrella is the commonality it gives people from very different backgrounds, community and family that you aren’t born into, and the sense of empathy being queer has given me. I was merely saying that straight women might be looking for some community as well.
feeps
@broadshoulder: When you mean “you are,” use you’re. Your is possessive. Gay misogynists are like gay republicans, self hating.
sportyguy1983
Why exactly does anyone follow him?
Jonty Coppersmith
@Daniel Bujes:
That was my thought too!
meghanada
@feeps: Didn’t read.
meghanada
@MarionPaige: “This guy should have weighed being viewed as funny or cute by a handful of old gay men who don’t subscribe to his channel over pissing off half his audience.”
Right? He should just comply with being treated as a girl’s mascot.
Avery Alvarez
@feeps: I feel as though you’re playing the oppression olympics here. It seems like gay men can’t ever discuss gay men without someone saying that this group, or that group has it worse.
“But black people have it worse”, “but women have it worse”, “But trans people have it worse” It’s NOT A FCKING CONTEST, and you don’t breed learning and understanding by turning it into one.
CAn you and others just stop your selfish need to turn something like social justice into your own person vehicle of victimhood? Can you stop trying to make it a contest?
Can you stop demanding the that you’ve won the Oppression Olympics because your “feelz” have been hurt the most?
Fck, is the social justice left just as selfish and greedy and narcissistic as the religious right.
As for the article, my female friends treat me with dignity and respect, and not like an accessory. It’s mutual. That’s why we’re friends.
Luckily none of them ever wanted to debate something as useless and pointless as, “I demand you acknowledge my group had it worse! Or we’re not friends anymore!”
DC Sheehan
Finrod
It goes rapidly from Gay Best Friend…..
to Free Therapist…..
to Trash Bin for Unwanted Emotions.
spiffy
Seems like the straight girls who want the Gay Best Friend Experience that they see on TV are the basic girls… There are plenty of meaningful str8 girl/gay guy best friends; but those relationships happen organically.
Xzamilio
@feeps: I didn’t waste any time… I told you, I didn’t read any of that lol
bobbyjoe
It’s really pretty simple. Does a straight girl want to be friends with you because you genuinely connect as friends, or does she want to be friends with you BECAUSE you’re gay?
It’s the crucial difference between actual friendship and tokenism.
A few good signs of knowing the difference are:
1) does she always ask you and want to talk to you almost exclusively about stereotypically “gay” things?
2) does she overuse stereotypically gay terminology around you, but not around other friends (“fabulous,” “girrrl,” etc.)
3) does she make a big deal about having a “gay friend” to her other friends?
4) does she downplay, get uncomfortable, and/or not really talk much about any actual discrimination against LGBTs when it comes up (other than maybe “oh, that’s too bad”), but then shifts the conversation back to, say, fashion or “what should I do about this cute boy I like”?
If any of the above are true, you’re probably being used as a token. If, on the other hand, you’re friends with a straight girl and she talks with you about all sorts of things you both like to talk about, often on topics that aren’t specifically connected to stereotypically “gay” subjects, then you likely have an actual friendship. There’s nothing wrong with even a straight girl who hangs out with a lot of gay men, as long as she’s a genuine friend with them rather than vapidly using them as some status symbol.
Particularly these days, it’s easier to tell the difference.
Chris
I have friends. Some of them are straight women; but lots are not either women or straight. I have some deaf friends; but most of my friends are hearing. And some of my friends (more than one) are people who I feel comfortable sharing just about everything in my life with; we click that way. I do have an oldest friend, simply because we’ve been friends since preschool; and yeah, he’s straight.
All friends annoy one another from time to time; except me, of course, cause I’m perfect (right!). But friends who constantly annoy me because they are opinionated, drama producers, clingly, or whatever other reasons you might want; they don’t remain my friends very long. I’m at that point in my life where my tolerance for this stuff is not as great at it used to be and it no longer entertains me.
What I don’t get is the use of categories, like “gay best friend,” as if they have meaning beyond the stringing together of words or as if there’s a check list of kinds of friends I should have: “got the straight woman friend, check.” After all, Carlos Santana described the only kind of woman whose friendship has special karma to it: one who is a black magic (extra points to you youngsters who get the cultural reference).
Friends are friends. Maybe if we got rid of these other categories, we’d have simpler lives and a lot less (or more, your choice) drama to contend with.
jason smeds
Women feel safer around male homosexuality that is feminine in nature rather than masculine in nature. Male homosexuality that is feminine is a form of surrender to women. It’s as if the homosexual man is saying to women: I want to be like you, I don’t want to threaten you.
The thing that women fear the most are homosexual feelings in men who are also attracted to women. It allows the man to opt into same-sex behavior, thus escaping the total control that women exert over men who are exclusively attracted to women.
Jimm Wiedeman
Agree! Thank you.
I’m not a toy or novelty item.
Emily Cook
OK – go find a friends. Condemning something while embracing at the same time is not healthy but gets your vlog goin.
jwtraveler
Cute, silly, but he has a point. I’ve sometimes felt that my women friends expect their gay friends to be confidant, therapist, entertainment or a combination of all three.
I’ve never been asked to be anyone’s “gay best friend”, but a female friend did once refer to me as “my gay friend”. I didn’t like it.
youarekiddingme
@jason smeds: Your first paragraph is very confusing…homosexuality that is feminine in mature vs. masculine in nature? What are you talking about? Are you talking about men who may seem “effiminate” to you vs. those who seem to be more “masculine” to you? Isn’t that subjective to the person? The homosexual man is saying, “I want to be like you…” What are you saying? Where did you get this evidence? I have NEVER heard any of this research before in my life!
Your second paragraph is even more puzzling: …”women fear the most are homosexual feelings in men who are also attracted to women”. Isn’t that like being bisexual? Your last sentence: “It allows the man to opt into same-sex behavior, thus escaping the total control that women exert over men who are exlusively attracted to women”.
All I can make out of your last sentence is, somehow a gay man can “opt into” same-sex behavior and they won’t have to be subject to the control that women have over straight men??
Wow! I broke all that down, put it back together, and it still doesn’t make ANY sense whatsoever! Btw, what does this have to do with the content of the article about straight women wanting to be friends with gay men?
Giancarlo85
@jason smeds: You consistently prove your idiocy time and time again. You really know nothing about gender or sexuality. Leave the discussion to the adults. You do not qualify.
As far as this youtuber… A stupid attention hoe who has major antisocial issues. Perhaps he is both narcissistic (like smeds) and deeply antisocial. A friend is a friend. If someone looks out for you and is there for you when you are feeling down, that is true friendship. Is this idiot really making a big deal about it?
Will Moor
@Daniel Bujes: I am definitely with you on this. I have no problem with the “gay best friend” phenomena. For the longest time for many of us straight women were largely the only ones who WERE our friends. This is the stupidest thing in the world to be “offended” by. I am proud to be gay, I mean we throw Gay Pride parades. So if someone wants to attach a noble word like “gay” to the term “best friend” I am all for it. I am proud to be a gay best friend. Do we really want to come across as annoyingly offended and self righteous at ever turn? People WILL get tired of us.
meghanada
Will Moor: I don’t know what you’re talking about, Will. Surely you don’t ignore that gay men can be friends to other gay men as well? A 1990s survey encountered just that – that 80% of gay men named other gay or bi men as best friends. And bleh as for the rest.
JessPH
Straight women are biggest allies of the gay community. Yes, some of them are befriending us for the wrong or odd reasons, but who cares? They like us. They are nice to us. They defend us from their ignorant boyfriends. Let’s stop whining against them.
jason smeds
youarekiddingme,
You really need to make sure your head is clear before reading my posts. It helps to have an uncluttered mind.
PhukU
@Nathaniel McManus: “a fat girl issue”.. says the chubby scruffy man. Seriously you could skip a meal or two and get that ass to the gym. And lose the misogyny while your at it.
A lot of those straight women you are treating like shit right now voted in favor of gay rights. So fck off with your ugly attitude.
PhukU
@JessPH: Yeah, this is very disrespectful video. If you feel this way say it to the person directly most people who do that are not trying to cause any harm. Don’t make some drama causing post of youtube.
youarekiddingme
@jason smeds: You need to have your head clear out of your ass! I see you couldn’t respond to a thing that I said in my response to your ridiculous post, you ass clown!
Mercurical Memo
My friends are all women. I hardly have any male friends. I honest to god cannot say a woman has treated me as this guy has been treated by women. It sounds to me more of a case of ‘how can I think of a way to play victim’. Seriously, if you’re in a situation in which your friends are treating you badly regardless of their sex and/or gender here’s a tip: Don’t hang out with them. I know right? Mind. Blown. Just as this guy would probably have no pity for women who constantly go back to their abusers, and perpetuate violence -ahem Rihanna-so too, do I find gay men who whine about this obnoxious.
There are worse things happening to gay men, the religious right is prime, than to be worrying what imaginary ditzy chicks think about gay men. Wow, I can’t say I have ever met these type of women, or that they exist outside of a television set. Really? News to me…
youarekiddingme
@PhukU: Nathaniel is a depressed little man who sits at home and call others “fat” instead of finding the good in people. If you’ve got a friend, regardless of gender, race, color, creed or sexual orientation, they’re your friend. Many acquaintances, few friends…
feeps
@Avery Alvarez: Sorry if it came off that way. Mainly, I found the tone of the article and the comments to be like bullying. One of the things that I don’t like to see as LGBT folks gain mainstream acceptance is gay folks joining in on the bullying that was previously targeted at them. I do think that a post like this targeted towards a different group would not be determined to be quite so hilarious. As I said in my comment, I think that bias and discrimination manifest in ways that are impossible to compare quanitatively, so I was trying to give a qualitative understanding. My thesis on the issue is that no one wins. Even straight, white, male privilege (give or take any of those factors) brings with it a heartbreaking tendency of some men to literally work themselves to death (or to closet themselves in that direction).
And, as I said, I am not straight, so I was kind of sticking up for my straight sisters there. Partially, I was responding to comments that I have read more than once on Queerty about how “lesbians have it so much easier,” and comments on this page about fat girls. I was also offended that the article referred to “all straight women,” as though they are all stereotypes, while it was complaining about being treated as a stereotype. (These types of videos are, like racism, homophobia, and sexism, lazy, but sometimes they just my hackles up.) As I said, homophobia and sexism are culturally intertwined, and I don’t think we should forget that, even as things get better. I realize that Queerty is not necessarily the land of nuanced queer theory, much less gender theory, but I don’t like that it can feel like an unwelcoming place for women–we’re queer too.
Anyone who has presented as both gay and straight, or anything else, knows that the change in how you present yourself can have big changes in how the world views you. As I get older, I am amazed how much I see different people, in incredibly similar circumstances, experience it totally differently, based on their physicality (something a fair number of trans writers have commented on). But, at the end of the day, I may have been yelling into the internet because it would be bad for me to yell at people on the street. 😉
feeps
@Xzamilio: No, you really do keep wasting your time by responding to my comments without even a hint of irony. I didn’t write it for you to read, so I’m really ok with you not reading it.
Avery Alvarez
@feeps: I understand your point of view and consider it important. I’ve seen the comments about lesbians and “fat girls”, too. I, too, believe there’s a valuable conversation to be had there. But this is an article about gay men, and our feelings towards how we are treated by our female friends. I think there is legitimacy to what some gay men are saying.
You kinda pulled a #notallmen, by coming on here and saying #notallstraightwomen,
then you derailed this conversation about gay men and our feelings, and tried to turn it into a conversation about women and your feelings. Not cool.
Not everything is about women, or feminism, or how something affects women. Not that those issues aren’t important, they certainly are. There is certainly a time and a place for that conversation. I’d like to see an opportunity for that conversation here on Queerty, but this isn’t it. This is an article on gay men, and something that affects us. Not all of us feel this way. I’ve never felt that my straight female friends treat me like this. Others have said this as well. But still, there are gay men, including the one in the video, who feel differently. Their feelings shouldn’t be dismissed or neglected as “misogyny, although there is definitely some misogyny on this board.
Sometimes, you have to listen to other points of view, and take in what people are saying. Isn’t that what you ask of other people when discussing male privilege, or white privilege, or straight privilege? It’s time for you to do the same, and listen to what another group, another minority group is telling about how we feel. Listen to it, digest it, and really think about it before getting all defensive about how your group, or a group you identify with is “not all like that”.
The relationship between women and gay men is a special one. Between all minorities that have been put down, silenced, degraded, beaten, and killed is one that the majority will never understand. I just can’t stand when it becomes a contest. Human suffering is human suffering. I find it distasteful to try compare. There are certainly differences in the way it manifests itself, but the devaluement of human life is the same. I think it’s important to note the differences, without trying to devalue someones else’s experience. I consider social justice important to me, and I know that I have privilege over women, trans ppl, people with darker skin than I, etccc…and at the right time and place I want to hear their stories. I want to understand their struggles. But please, try to do it without lessening my experiences as a gay man, and the homophobia I have faced, and my struggles.
feeps
@Avery Alvarez: Point taken. I also realize that the part about sexualizing women, which I meant as an explanation of why women might want to hang out with gay men, may have come off as more pity party planning. But, as the fat girl stuff shows, even gay men are not exempt. I do think that reproductive rights, the righty to define your family, and holistic security affect (even being treated like an accessory) affect both groups in a lot of the same ways. I do get a little fired up when folks forget that and express it kind of maliciously. The first couple tiimes Queerty went with this meme, I was all whatevs. The fact that they keep posting it probably has more to do with linkbait. But, I did put a trigger warning up front: “open rant.” I wish there were crazy, pissed off, arm-waving feminist emoji. It would make my life so much simpler.
meghanada
Women have reacted to this in two ways – engaging in Oppression Olympics, crying that they’re more victimized gay men; and say, IF YOU DON’T WANT ME YOU CAN FUCK OFF.
It’s actually like these women – left-wing women, I have no doubt – don’t take seriously all the claptrap they’ve been telling men on Twitter and Tumblr to shut up and listen about women when they talk about their feelings. Because Queerty’s women sure are displaying a staggering amount of hypocrisy by engaging in the same tactics they accuse men of doing when confronted about feminist issues.
The stuff about Listening to Minority’s Feelings is just a way women have found to claim the moral high ground against people who come from other points of view. They don’t mean what they say, because they sure abandon their supposed Listening principles when they become the targets of their tactics.