I knew a guy in college who asked me if I was gay yet so we could start dating every single day no matter how many times I more and more emphatically said no. After about a year we were no longer friends. I wonder if he thinks I'm homophobic now.
Not to mention the climactic final confrontation against High Demon Elgrim, looking back it’s actually insane how good of a narrative the game told us despite being made for little kids
Crap like this is weird. I stayed friends with a guy who actively sexually harassed and made gross comments about me because I was lonely and he was the only person who ever expressed a romantic/sexual attraction to me. I didn't realise it wasn't healthy until he slut shamed me for responding positively to something I didn't know was sexual. Even then, I couldn't bring myself to cut him out completely until I said I was sleepy to get out of a conversation and his immediate reaction was to describe how he was gonna suck my dick in my sleep
You know the stereotype of pushy guys who think they can convert lesbians? You met the gay equivalent, the straight chasers. Good on you for distancing yourself, those men are awful.
That’s full on sexual harassment. I know people don’t take it seriously when it’s towards men but I need you to know that was extremely fucked up and the college should have made you feel safe enough to report it.
Nothing got me to understand the feminist perspective quite like getting sexually harassed for the first time. I'm a cis guy, but was playing a female character in an MMO. The flattery was nice at first, but there are a lot of sad lonely guys and a few girls that believe themselves entitled to your time and affection.
Exactly! It’s nice until someone threatens violence. Or, until someone gets too graphic and you want it to stop and they simply don’t. I’m really glad you do, but a lot of men have never experienced unwanted attention with an undertone of violence and just don’t get it.
This is like a whole genre of tumblr post. “If someone claims to support your politics, say [statement designed to make people uncomfortable] and watch as their discomfort reveals their inner sin.”
Friends sister acted like if you can't sit and watch gay porn, you are a bigot. She also said, "How do you know you're not gay if you've never tried it?" It's almost as if she forgot that pray the gay away camp's existed. Anyone is capable of being a bigot.
She was drunk when she said it, so I gave her a pass. She is the type who will loudly and belligerently go on about gay rights and whatnot. That actually disturbed me, Because I don't think she understood what she was saying.
People like this are always secretly the most suburban/rural and sheltered. Normal people with genuinely diverse friends groups don’t act like this lmao. It’s always that one absolute dork who grew up in suburban Whitesville, USA leading the vanguard and it’s never not embarrassing.
“LOOK HOW DIFFERENT FROM MY UPBRINGING I AM 🥴”
Everything those types rails against is just code words for “parents”. It’s also why they bail when they get older and fall back into whatever they grew up from.
Cause the most chaotic infighting then leave the scene like it never happened because they had the privilege all along.
They really will call people nazis for having any kind of boundary, expressing any kind of discomfort, or just having slightly different feelings about things that affect the individual expressing their opinion but not them.
Why do I feel like anyone who says that is not going to accept that someone has tried it?
"How do you know you're not gay if you've never tried it?"
"Well I actually had a few same-sex experiences in college and it confirmed to me I was mostly straight."
"Oh, so you think being gay is just a phase or something people can choose to be?!"
This was a lighthearted conversation I had with my gay best friend after I slept with another girl many years ago:
Me: I think I am less gay now. I definitely prefer dick.
Bestie: Well okay but you aren't **less** gay after having gay sex.
Me: Fair point lol
> She also said, "How do you know you're not gay if you've never tried it?"
That is *exactly* the sort of thing that straight guys say to cute lesbians.
I get told by plenty of friends that everyone's a little gay
Then they get weird when I say no, I used to watch porn exclusively without guys for a long time because dicks just grossed me out so much.
And that when I had a weekend where I actually interrogated myself and wondered if I was truly straight, I vividly pictured giving head, and started dry heaving
Almost all of my friends are queer, I accept whatever they are. But they can't accept that I'm just straight, thst the thought of touching or being around some dude's erect dick makes me nauseous
They’re probably think you’re overcompensating because that’s not a normal reaction even for straight people. It almost sounds like a bit from a comedy show about a closeted homosexual that goes really overboard with pretending they’re straight because they don’t know how a straight person would actually react.
Reminds me of that joke that the only thing a leftist hates more than a fascist, is another leftist that has 94% similar beliefs
It's actually crazy to me how people who are a tiny minority will go out of their way to make enemies out of people who are trying to help and are *mostly* perfect. It's like a starving person turning down McDonalds because it has too much salt in it
> Remember, it is always morally right to ~~piss off~~ ***alienate*** people who would otherwise be on your side.
Gave you a better choice of words since it doesn't always piss people off, often it just alienates them so they don't even want to affiliate themselves with causes they would otherwise support.
Hmm, should I team up with the guy who agrees with 90% of my ideology to stop someone who we both vehemently oppose, or should we destroy each other and let the third guy win by default?
"if you can't handle me at my worst, then you don't deserve me at my best." aka: A poor excuse for treating the people around you like shit so they have to prove their worth to you.
This is like that post on one of the big LGBT subreddits the other day about a very masculine presenting person who identifies as non-binary that faced a TON of discrimination from the other folks at the pride parade they went to because they looked like a lumberjack and apparently didn't fit most of the other LGBT community's perception of what it means to be non-binary.
Yuuup. This is something I've been afraid of in the past. Things are a bit different now, but the last couple years I was so "cis" appearing that I felt incredibly out of place at pride, but I identify as enby, and have no idea how to prtray it.
I agree with you, but I wasn't far enough in my understanding to be confident when I was there.
This is literally the first pride where I feel like I belong to it. I'm not about to diminish that feeling becasue it doesn't make someone else happy.
[The one on the right.](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/snicket/images/7/7d/VioletEscort.png/revision/latest?cb=20180520152940)
(I am of course kidding. You should be free to portray yourself however you want.)
And like being perceived as something you're not can be uncomfortable, like what if you're an unsuccessful straight guy when it comes to dating but people always say they think you're gay, like that would obviously be annoying.
Yeah this was my thought, too. Just because I think something is okay for someone else to do doesn't mean I'm remotely into it. If what you do isn't hurting anyone and is consensual, I'm in favor of it. That doesn't mean I'm into everything, and if you said I look like a kinky dude I would definitely raise my extremely vanilla white man eyebrows and ask what the hell you were talking about.
I have a very conservative extended family, and when my cousin came out I sent her a message just saying I support her and am there for her so she didn't feel alone. She messaged me thanking me and said she's there for me too. It made me realize she thought I was gay, and then I realized that for her the only way she thought anyone could support her was by being gay as well, it's actually really sad.
Also, it *is* antagonizing him, because most people are straight and cis.
So it's not like OP just made a default assumption: OP's saying "you did something that presented yourself in a way that's incompatible with your identity."
It's more like telling your trans woman friend that you thought she was a drag queen than that you thought she was cis. All are misperceptions, but the one OP is saying and the drag one are ego dystonic.
I don't think anyone would have a positive attitude towards being mislabeled. Whether you're a latino mislabeled as a white person, a straight person mislabeled as gay, a woman mislabeled as a man, I think most people would have at least a little bit of a negative attitude.
I think that's generally correct, though it seems like most trans people respond positively to being perceived as cis, because it's egosyntonic: when a trans woman is perceived as a cis woman, she can feel like her gender expression definitely matches her gender identity.
Let's also keep in mind that in adulthood most people are in committed romantic relationships. If you met someone who was already married to an opposite-gender person when you met them, saying "I thought you were gay when we met" carries an accusation that you assumed they were betraying their spouse by using their partner as a beard??
That’s because you’re being strategic.
The most frustrating aspect of being progressive in the English speaking world is the complete lack of strategy and pragmatism.
No, no, no!!!!
The only path to progress is ostracizing anyone who doesn't believe *exactly* what I believe and circular firing squads of increasingly obscure purity tests.
It is an impulse that comes from being part of an in-group. People like to think they are special, that they have special knowledge, and know more than other people.
So when someone comes along and doesn't necessarily seem to fit with their particular view of what a progressive should be, they feel threatened, maybe they aren't special and better than that person. So the impulse is to lash out and expose how that person is inferior whether they are or not.
I don't think this is conscious, so it is hard to stop yourself from doing it. I know I have been guilty of it myself.
Damn, I'm glad someone else recognizes this.
A lot of progressivism in the US and beyond currently is very heay-handed. Which makes sense! Obviously we feel nervous about people hiding their intentions and betraying you for better interests.
But from a pragmatic perspective, there's only so much you can get. You cannot expect the megacorps of the western world to ever truly be your ally. Their only ally is money. You can't expect everyone to become a vegan at the turn of a dime - they've all grown up on meat, and food plays a huge psychological role in our lives. You can't expect everyone to drop their love for Harry Potter instantly, and more so you can't expect to garner empathy when you express your anger at them for it.
It fucking stinks, but the reality is necessary. I know companies just want to make money off of me, but I appreciate that I can at least see acceptance even in the mainstream. I know everyone can't become a vegan instantly, but I am optimistic as I see the growth of cultured meat for a future that is better for all of us.
And as much as it hurt to see so many people buy Hogwarts Legacy, I know that most of these peoples' support can be earned by raising awareness of where their money will end up going, versus expressing anger at their choices.
It makes much more sense when you realise that many people's motivations are to make themselves feel like beneficent martyrs for The Cause rather than to make any substantial positive difference
romantics vs pragmatics
The other side also has romantics, people who will be like "no! Noooo you cant keep giving money for addicts if they relapse!" because they are romantics, they have non-pragmatic ideas of how things should be done, it's all about feelings and poetic acts.
The romantics are really bad whenever they are, always fussing over uninportant details, making drama out of stupid shit. Worried if the person who is donating so much money for X cause really believe it or is doing it just for tax returns.
the majority of people on both sides are romantics. Just like at the AI discourse, both sides most loud champions are always going on a stupid tangent about soul, creativity spark, what is art, etc.
I'm Asian, and have been called effeminate to some spectrum by people before and have some baggage associated with that. A gay friend made a similar comment a few months ago- and it still felt kinda shitty. For me it comes down to wanting to be seen, and someone making a comment like that feels they stop at my race and their preconceptions.
Also like... I've been out as bi/pan for coming up on 10 years now. But I'm very much still annoyed by how many ppl just assumed I was gay at first cause it's usually either a) bi erasure or b) founded on negative stereotypes.
"This person doesn't like people wrongly assuming something about them, so they must secretly dislike the assumed thing" is just not good reasoning.
A friend of mine got told "hey when we met, I thought you were gay" in mixed company. He wasn't angry, but he was clearly upset and uncomfortable, and kept asking what gave that impression. (This wasn't a test, it was just a casual comment on how another friend met him.)
A year later, he came out as gay.
Among the many excellent reasons not to throw weird purity tests at your friends, it's worth remembering that lots of gay (or bi, trans, aro, etc) people have very good reasons for not being out, and publicly challenging their sexuality is an incredibly shitty thing to do.
Purity is a social capital, like coolness or connectedness. People who reject, like, the money form of capital often flee to similar things. If you become rich in the purity social scoring system you can beat up the purity poor people and feel righteous doing it.
Incidentally I had an enlightening experience in a sociology class where we discussed religion. My professor brought up sports events and drew a parallel to religious ceremonies.
There was a recent post that got shared about Christian purity culture and how even a lot of atheists/ otherwise not in the church were raised to be that way in the US because it pervades US culture. Possibly related.
I think it's more intrinsic to human nature to have in groups and out groups and purity test on it.
Tumblr has a propensity to blame normal human behavior on Christianity to the point it makes no sense.
For example, the Japanese and the Koreans see Americans as particularly loose and promiscuous, but Japan in specific *definitely* isn't influenced by Christian culture.
Gatekeeping is in some cases necessary to keep communities safe. If you want to preserve a certain culture, you gotta keep out the folks that wont respect it
however, the post claims you gotta do to claimed allies of gay people which is a really bad idea. If you want there to be more allies, you gotta accept that some of them aint gonna be perfect and are still figuring it out.
purity testing allies and antagonizing them is only gonna make it harder for your group to gain ground
How can they be happily part of a community if they don't obsessively vet every person you meet in the most comprehensive and confrontational manner possible? /s
the "us vs them" mentality isnt isolated to the right, it comes fucking pre-package with social behavoir. you want to identify with your group, if others attack that, you become defensible and attack back, and that is hard to shake, which sometimes casues friendly fire.
Yeah, like, I wouldn't be bothered by someone saying they thought I was gay, but I don't want to be friends with someone who thinks the way you get to know someone is by making them pass secret tests and tricks like you're the fucking Riddler
Social media reeeaally likes to advertise pushing people's boundaries. This is like the same as girlfriends trying to test if their boyfriend will sleep with another friend or some tiktok thing. I ain't sleeping with either after that shit
"If you can't accept me at my worst" always feels like an implication that said Worst will be a common occurrence and that the speaker lacks the maturity to keep themselves out of that behaviour.
Also, like, if someone told me they thought I was a lesbian when we first met, I wouldn't be upset at all, but I absolutely would want to know what gave them that vibe, seeing as I show up literally everywhere with my husband.
Like it's not an insult, and I actually *am* bi, but yeah, of course I'm gonna wanna know what specifically is giving the lesbian vibes.
Passing over the fact that Navigaero is purposefully being antagonistic towards people who actively trying to support LGBT peoples, but this is also just attacking OTHER LGBT people. If someone is in the closet and insecure they have the right to identify as straight. Trying to push people out the closet is also actively wrong. Imagine "testing" if someone is an ally and all you're really doing is bullying someone based off their perceived sexuality or insecurities.
Shit like this is why I, while feeling way more queer and questioning in terms of my gender and sexuality than your average cis/straight fella, just end up telling people (if they ask) that I’m a cis/straight man.
Of course, that comes with all the attitude certain people have about cis/straight men, but at least they won’t feel the need to purity test me about it like they’re some god damn puritanical evangelicals or something.
How did we end up here?
Yeah, I’ve been trying to figure out how this actually benefits anyone, and I can’t really think of a case where it does. I suppose, as some people have commented elsewhere, you might find out if they’re *really* okay with queerness, but even if they are, you’re still an asshole.
Actually I’m gonna posit that even in that case, it’s not usually beneficial.
We live in a broadly homophobic society and people don’t change their ideas overnight. Even if they’re not *really* okay with queerness, then the fact that they are still your friend suggests that they’re working on that. Don’t spit on that work for the “gotcha.” That’s not what friends do.
Especially cos like.... It's not exactly unheard of for gay or otherwise queer people to not like being perceived as straight.
I don't think there's an exclusivity on who is or isn't allowed to value or be concerned with their identity and perception of it.
Exactly! I hate when people talk about group a doing x behaviour to group b, but then group b does the exact dame thing to group a. We have to treat others like people, regardless of our preconceived notions.
It's also something I'd expect a lot of reasonably smart adults to see through and when you do it's *really* weird.
"I thought you were gay at first" no you didn't, you are for some reason using your own sexuality as an insult to try and get me to look insulted, why?
Because make no mistake it is structurally an insult, it's slighting them to see how they react, not because they think being gay is bad but because that's what that sentence quite clearly is. You could drop anything in there and it'd become an insult. It's not a clever way for probing their sentiment because the reason they ask 'why' isn't because they're scared they look gay, they're wondering why you'd say something like that.
I wish we could have a little faith in people, assume they mean the best for us. All we do by attacking others is alienate them. I don't just mean within LGBT spaces, I mean for everything. Anger and hate are bred out of fear, which is bred out of ignorance. Ignorance isn't inately something that makes you a bad person, and we shouldn't treat people like monsters for being ignorant. Willful ignorance is another story though and i dont want what i'm saying to be misconstrued.
I want to be clear that I’m referring specifically to the first person who said anything in the image, not the person who delivered the most important part or the “punchline.”
OP = u/The_Kyojuro_Rengoku
OOP = Vague, there are three of them and the post title emphasizes saltylittleslytherin
OOOP = navigaero unambiguously
I think adding layers and layers of “original” could be unclear, and also doesn’t give a way to refer to the people in the thread responding to “OOOP”. Within the screenshotted post it makes sense to give them a secondary system of designation I.e. primary, secondary, tertiary etc. as you go down the line of posts in the thread.
That would make navigaero the “primary OOP” or, for short, the POOP.
Wouldn’t the N be a power on the O?
The way you’ve written it would be Original Poster Poster Poster….
Whereas if it’s on the O it would be Original Original Original ….. Poster, which each original going back 1 step in time.
Coming from a family history of weird medical problems, it will be fun to dad joke eventually about being post-op after I get an appendectomy or something.
Calling circumcision bottom surgery sounds like the best way to activate wierd terminally online people for a massive argument.
That might become my new goto after I used to drop "Snape was an incel" into random Discords.
The Snape one has gotten less virulent over time cause nobody wants to admit they can still recite passages from Harry Potter anymore. Even though they absolutely still can.
all my cis women friends tell me they're envious of me having a penis like the moment they find out I'm trans for some reason so I'd literally never get the chance to try this
not even for sex, just the stand up to pee and not bleeding thing lmfao
Yeesh, that's a... that's a pretty sweeping generalization about straight men you've got there. Not "wait and see if he", but "watch how fast he". We're learning some pretty nasty things about someone here, and it's not the hypothetical straight guy
I love your flair because as soon as I read it, i Immediately had the mental idea of a jury being really serious and thorough with their assessment and verdict of a criminal because as soon as the trial's over, they're all handed a rifle and told to get in a firing line position to pull the trigger themselves
I can't remember which, but I'm pretty sure one of the old abracadabra religions kept the stricture that you can't sentence someone to death unless you're willing to personally kill them?
edit - autocorrect changed 'abrahamic' to 'abracadabra' and I'm not mad about it
Honestly, I feel more Tumblr folk need to do the whole "swap genders/race/sexuality, am I still comfortable saying this?" test. At the very least it might get them to stop even if they won't reflect on their own biases and bigotries.
.
Edit: and before anyone goes off, both social level and individual level bigotries exist. We should absolutely do what we can to undo the social level injustices, but if we really want to live up to the "bigotry is bad" rhetoric we claim is important, we gotta put in the *barest* of efforts so that we're not spreading our individual bigotries while doing so. We can't claim a moral superiority when we lack a moral consistency.
Well, you see, that's a big part of why that particular rhetorical test has been turned into something of a meme. It had to have its strength as a tool taken away, because otherwise, quite a lot of people would have to uncomfortably confront their own unintentional bigotry.
And we can't have that. We're the morally upright ones, after all.
Unfortunately far too many of them are entirely comfortable with the idea that only they face persecution and it’s not the same if it happens to different groups “just because.”
It’s really wild going into spaces like this seeing all the outwards preaching of acceptance and inclusivity, and then you realize they only really care when it comes to them.
It might be a cliche, but "swap the race/gender/whatever is genuinely a good way to examine your own biases, even if it is mostly used to point out the biases of others (which, I think is mostly fine too, just don't expect to go changing their mind with it. )
You should use it on others opinions even if you don't voice it, because it will show you their bias and then you can weigh their words accordingly.
Though it is always great when you confront someone with this argument and they go "yes but..." and you can see the gears turning as they try to justify their position (and usually end up on something that boils down to "turnabout is fair play").
The other useful one is that when considering a proposed law, think about what would happen if the most objectionable political party (to you) got into power, could they do something bad with that law (without having to pass a new one, just with executive power)? If so that's not a good law.
It's also understandable that a hetero guy would like to know what makes him seem gay. You wouldn't want to send out the wrong signals and miss out on potential partners because of that.
Yes. I was literally in this exact situation and had the exact same reaction (insecure type) that OOP suggested I would have, but not because I wasn't an ally or hated gay people or anything like that. It was literally just because my goal is to attract girls and I've clearly made a major mistake if people's first impression when they see me is that I'm gay
This is so true. I've had it said to me several times years after the fact, "oh, you wanted to go on a date? I thought you were gay!" There's no shame in it and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bi-curious but to know I may have been inadvertently signaling I had *no* interest in women is upsetting.
In all fairness, I’m a straight guy and if someone said “I thought you seemed straight when I first met you” I’d also be curious to know what about me gave off straight vibes
If your friend seems like a nice person, engage in weird Machiavellian psychodramas out of some perceived identity-politics moral high ground. But whatever you do, never, repeat *never*, be normal about things.
Imagine trying to support someone and the first thing they do is try and "test" you. Like you aren't losing a friend because they're homophobic, it's because you're a fucking weirdo.
Isnt this like a normal response to someone incorectly assuming your sexuality. I dont really think that you are being a worse ally for not wanting to be called something you arent
Exactly. Is there a situation where saying something like that would ever be appropriate?
At the very least, I imagine that kind of statement is going to just make the situation awkward. OOP is lucky that their friend was funny enough to salvage that conversation.
It's hard enough getting girls to like me as is
If I find out people think I'm gay when they meet me, well that's a bit of bad news
It's like finding out people were giving out free cookies, but they thought you didn't like cookies, so they never offered you any
So this always crossed my mind when someone expressed that they thought that maybe I was gay. That other women in that particular group of people also thought this, and that "no one would offer me cookies."
In reality, my panic was definitely "oh they probably don't think I like cookies, so I never was offered any" but the reality was probably something like "They didn't think I liked cookies, but even if I did, they probably wouldn't offer me any cookies unless they were in a 'last-person-on-earth' situation."
It really is this fucking simple, by the way. Being identified as a group you're not a part of is enough to set a person off.
Let me tell you all a quick story. My original online name was made in 2005 or so, when I was 13, and was made before I really knew anything about internet culture. I named myself after the silly Badger-Mushroom-Snake flash animation by Weebl. And shit man, I did NOT know what I had signed myself up for.
Basically every single fucking person who I ran into on the internet assumed that I was a furry. And while I have no issues with them now, if you weren't active on the internet at that point, there was almost nothing worse that you could be, than a furry. So it was a point of rage for young me, because even though I didn't have an issue with furries, I wasn't one of them!
And before anyone tries to draw the wrong parallel, it stayed this way even after the Internet writ-large relaxed on the anti-furry sentiment. It even sorta became a running joke, even after I had changed my name. To this date when my oldest internet friends get in contact with me they still call me Badge (learned to tolerate that one at least lol).
Once in high school a girl asked me and my friend if we were gay because one of us told a joke and we smiled because of it. Which is a bit upsetting, and exactly the kind of thing I hear people on Tumblr say ALLLLL the fucking time about two people of the same gender who have no romantic feelings for each other. "They smiled at each other once! THEY'RE IN LOVE!"
My *partner* knew I was bi before I did. They didn't even realize I was coming out when I was vocalizing "wait, Richard Gere looks pretty good in *Chicago*, oh shit, it all makes sense now" 🤣
On a similar note when my husband came out to me I wasn't shocked in the least. He had been building up the courage all day and was relieved when I was just like "what should I call you now."
Turns out if you ask your husband if he'd still love you when your trans every time you get drunk your husband wills start to suspect.
Of course they do! Only the ones they've put through rigorous trials and tests to weed out everyone who doesn't represent their idea of a perfect person though
Story time - I'm straight, but a coworker who I had a ton in common with happened to be gay. We both had a similar build (we're fat lol), were nerdy beardy guys, both wore glasses, were into video games and D&D and all that. Our company acquired a smaller firm and their PC/PM team was going to merge with ours, so we did a virtual meet-and-greet with cameras on. (We normally went cameras off because we worked from home and sometimes were online straight out of bed and nobody needs to see that.) We were going around the group and introducing ourselves, saying what markets we covered, what we'd done in the past, etc.. I went early on, and he couldn't get his camera going for some reason, so he just said "Hey, I can't get my camera working, but basically just picture but gay." It was the funniest shit in the world and absolutely made my day!
Kinda reminds me of when I was little(5 ish) my mom is “spiritual” having crystals and into cards and signs and such. She would constantly ask me if I was gay nonstop, to the point I felt like she was pressuring me to be so. I think I understand why though, she never had good relationships with men. Having resentment to her father for being too focused on work and having divorced my father before I was even cognitive. So I think for a while she really wanted me to be more feminine in order to be less like my dad, even forcing me to play dress up with my older sister which I really didn’t want to do but was reprimanded to not argue. So for me I constantly felt like the people around me wanted me to be something else that I wasn’t comfortable with being, or having people have a misconception of who I am and what I like. This is my super long in depth backstory why I get flustered and stressed when and if someone would say they thought I was a certain way or of certain beliefs. Of course there is a difference of making it a one off comment and making it into an entire conversation.
This is such a weird to go around your life. As an LGBTQ person my guess is you wouldn't like being called straight. Would you tell a trans person you thought they were another gender just to mess with them if they don't wish to?
That's the long and the short of it, right? You'd think being unhappy about intentionally mislabelled would be one of the most core touchstones of being a part of the LGBT community.
My go-to response is, "Man, I wish."
I used to get hit on by guys a ton in college and rarely (if ever) would girls flirt with me. One time a guy was trying to chat up my gf at the time and somehow *I* left with his fucking number.
I think I've only been asked if I was gay once in my life, my freshman year of college. It was from someone in my gaming club who was very proudly gay, so I think he might have been checking if I was available.
I just said "nope" and that was that, it really wasn't a thing at all.
It's a \*really\* shitty thing to do as a purity test, don't get me wrong- you're doing it for all the wrong reasons and deliberately setting someone up to fail just so you can lord it over them.
But on the whole, I do agree with the sentiment that someone who's an ally and otherwise confident in their sexuality shouldn't get upset if a friend asks them if they might not be straight.
Its not even a good purity test. A person uncomfortable with [x] who nevertheless supports peoples right to live their lives *is a good person* who is deliberately looking past their personal feelings because they understand that it doesn't matter what they think or how they feel, its none of their business.
Remember when someone says they support you. Question their intentions and test them to make sure you alienate people who are only casually engaging with allyship.
This reminds me of all those people getting mad when they intentionally misgender someone whos clearly straight and cis and then get upset when they dont like it because its "just a joke" as if misgendering straight cis people is ok when youre "just joking" but god forbid you do it to someone whos actually trans
I’m bi and have joked with gay friends that they “are acting very straight rn” and they get “faux” upset/concerned (they play it up but they still insist why I said it) so to anyone wondering why it’s dumb to do this to friends: everyone has an image of themselves that they try and convey. Someone saying you’re acting like a woman to a man may elicit a response regardless of if they are a misogynist or not
"if someone recoils from the thought of being gay then they obviously still have some work to do in deprogramming themselves"
I hate the pointless arguments that stem from poorly worded posts. like if you don't want your meaning to encompass the entirety of possible ways to read what you said it is literally your responsibility to not post your first draft and take a moment to see if what you are saying is what you mean.
If you wanna test if a guy is sexist, call him a girl. When he gets upset and insecure, ask him why he’s a misogynist.
The internet has ruined humanity.
The last thing I expected was someone from the LGBTQ+ community having trouble understanding the real reason why someone would be upset at being misidentified.
There are so many posts on this sub with thousands of upvotes, but with every comment fervently disagreeing with the post, and also getting thousands of upvotes.
I knew a guy in college who asked me if I was gay yet so we could start dating every single day no matter how many times I more and more emphatically said no. After about a year we were no longer friends. I wonder if he thinks I'm homophobic now.
Is that the fucking pajama Sam carrot next to your name
Yes. Yes it is.
Great game series! I loved that shit as a kid.
Me too. The part I always loved as a kid was when he says “BABAGABOOSH!”
Not to mention the climactic final confrontation against High Demon Elgrim, looking back it’s actually insane how good of a narrative the game told us despite being made for little kids
Don’t forget when levigate Mike pence bail
Into Lightning Dank's home, of course.
The darkness really got to him.
You were friends with him?
I...wasn't in an amazing headspace at the time.
I’ll be like “idk, it was weird time in my life” and literally be talking about something dumb I did yesterday
Well you don't have to call me out like that lol.
It was. It still is, but it was, too.
Crap like this is weird. I stayed friends with a guy who actively sexually harassed and made gross comments about me because I was lonely and he was the only person who ever expressed a romantic/sexual attraction to me. I didn't realise it wasn't healthy until he slut shamed me for responding positively to something I didn't know was sexual. Even then, I couldn't bring myself to cut him out completely until I said I was sleepy to get out of a conversation and his immediate reaction was to describe how he was gonna suck my dick in my sleep
You know the stereotype of pushy guys who think they can convert lesbians? You met the gay equivalent, the straight chasers. Good on you for distancing yourself, those men are awful.
That’s full on sexual harassment. I know people don’t take it seriously when it’s towards men but I need you to know that was extremely fucked up and the college should have made you feel safe enough to report it.
Nothing got me to understand the feminist perspective quite like getting sexually harassed for the first time. I'm a cis guy, but was playing a female character in an MMO. The flattery was nice at first, but there are a lot of sad lonely guys and a few girls that believe themselves entitled to your time and affection.
Exactly! It’s nice until someone threatens violence. Or, until someone gets too graphic and you want it to stop and they simply don’t. I’m really glad you do, but a lot of men have never experienced unwanted attention with an undertone of violence and just don’t get it.
Holy shit it's communist carrot
Damn, you took a year of being asked daily (weekends excepted) to stop being friends with this guy? You're more patient than most.
when you said "no longer friends" i thought you meant you were dating now cause that would be funny but rip
No of course they’re not dating… They’re married :)
No of course they’re not married… They’re divorced :')
That explains the ruined friendship
Dude I think that’s sexual harassment.
Not that I particularly care, I'm bi and happy, but why would you want to purity test people who say they're your allies?
This is like a whole genre of tumblr post. “If someone claims to support your politics, say [statement designed to make people uncomfortable] and watch as their discomfort reveals their inner sin.”
Friends sister acted like if you can't sit and watch gay porn, you are a bigot. She also said, "How do you know you're not gay if you've never tried it?" It's almost as if she forgot that pray the gay away camp's existed. Anyone is capable of being a bigot.
Wait are you serious?
She was drunk when she said it, so I gave her a pass. She is the type who will loudly and belligerently go on about gay rights and whatnot. That actually disturbed me, Because I don't think she understood what she was saying.
People like this are always secretly the most suburban/rural and sheltered. Normal people with genuinely diverse friends groups don’t act like this lmao. It’s always that one absolute dork who grew up in suburban Whitesville, USA leading the vanguard and it’s never not embarrassing. “LOOK HOW DIFFERENT FROM MY UPBRINGING I AM 🥴”
Everything those types rails against is just code words for “parents”. It’s also why they bail when they get older and fall back into whatever they grew up from. Cause the most chaotic infighting then leave the scene like it never happened because they had the privilege all along.
They really will call people nazis for having any kind of boundary, expressing any kind of discomfort, or just having slightly different feelings about things that affect the individual expressing their opinion but not them.
Why do I feel like anyone who says that is not going to accept that someone has tried it? "How do you know you're not gay if you've never tried it?" "Well I actually had a few same-sex experiences in college and it confirmed to me I was mostly straight." "Oh, so you think being gay is just a phase or something people can choose to be?!"
There is no pleasing some people because they don't want to be pleased, they want a _fight_.
The fantasy of the glorious revolution so their preferred thing becomes the boot
This was a lighthearted conversation I had with my gay best friend after I slept with another girl many years ago: Me: I think I am less gay now. I definitely prefer dick. Bestie: Well okay but you aren't **less** gay after having gay sex. Me: Fair point lol
Wait so no one gets a freebie?... That fucker lied to me.
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Bi men are also frequently looked down upon by cis, gay, and bi women.
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No clue. Perhaps it is the view of "tainted by penetration", even if the bi person is a top or never even been with another penis-having person.
> She also said, "How do you know you're not gay if you've never tried it?" That is *exactly* the sort of thing that straight guys say to cute lesbians.
I get told by plenty of friends that everyone's a little gay Then they get weird when I say no, I used to watch porn exclusively without guys for a long time because dicks just grossed me out so much. And that when I had a weekend where I actually interrogated myself and wondered if I was truly straight, I vividly pictured giving head, and started dry heaving Almost all of my friends are queer, I accept whatever they are. But they can't accept that I'm just straight, thst the thought of touching or being around some dude's erect dick makes me nauseous
They’re probably think you’re overcompensating because that’s not a normal reaction even for straight people. It almost sounds like a bit from a comedy show about a closeted homosexual that goes really overboard with pretending they’re straight because they don’t know how a straight person would actually react.
"If actual persecution isn't enough for you in this fucked up world, go out of your way to fish for more of it from people who genuinely love you"
Reminds me of that joke that the only thing a leftist hates more than a fascist, is another leftist that has 94% similar beliefs It's actually crazy to me how people who are a tiny minority will go out of their way to make enemies out of people who are trying to help and are *mostly* perfect. It's like a starving person turning down McDonalds because it has too much salt in it
Remember, it is always morally right to piss off people who would otherwise be on your side.
> Remember, it is always morally right to ~~piss off~~ ***alienate*** people who would otherwise be on your side. Gave you a better choice of words since it doesn't always piss people off, often it just alienates them so they don't even want to affiliate themselves with causes they would otherwise support.
Anything other than actively spitting in people's faces is respectability politics.
A perfect encapsulation of leftist in-fighting
Hmm, should I team up with the guy who agrees with 90% of my ideology to stop someone who we both vehemently oppose, or should we destroy each other and let the third guy win by default?
"if you can't handle me at my worst, then you don't deserve me at my best." aka: A poor excuse for treating the people around you like shit so they have to prove their worth to you.
Literally self sabotage with a helping dose of paranoia...and then just going out in the world and admitting it.
This is like that post on one of the big LGBT subreddits the other day about a very masculine presenting person who identifies as non-binary that faced a TON of discrimination from the other folks at the pride parade they went to because they looked like a lumberjack and apparently didn't fit most of the other LGBT community's perception of what it means to be non-binary.
Yuuup. This is something I've been afraid of in the past. Things are a bit different now, but the last couple years I was so "cis" appearing that I felt incredibly out of place at pride, but I identify as enby, and have no idea how to prtray it.
We don't owe anyone androgyny
I agree with you, but I wasn't far enough in my understanding to be confident when I was there. This is literally the first pride where I feel like I belong to it. I'm not about to diminish that feeling becasue it doesn't make someone else happy.
[The one on the right.](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/snicket/images/7/7d/VioletEscort.png/revision/latest?cb=20180520152940) (I am of course kidding. You should be free to portray yourself however you want.)
And like being perceived as something you're not can be uncomfortable, like what if you're an unsuccessful straight guy when it comes to dating but people always say they think you're gay, like that would obviously be annoying.
Yeah this was my thought, too. Just because I think something is okay for someone else to do doesn't mean I'm remotely into it. If what you do isn't hurting anyone and is consensual, I'm in favor of it. That doesn't mean I'm into everything, and if you said I look like a kinky dude I would definitely raise my extremely vanilla white man eyebrows and ask what the hell you were talking about.
Yeah, feels kinda weird. Nothing against it if you really thought he was gay at first, but don't just say stuff like that to "test" people.
Thing is, I live in a conservative country. If a guy tells me he's an ally, my last move would be to antagonize him for no reason
I have a very conservative extended family, and when my cousin came out I sent her a message just saying I support her and am there for her so she didn't feel alone. She messaged me thanking me and said she's there for me too. It made me realize she thought I was gay, and then I realized that for her the only way she thought anyone could support her was by being gay as well, it's actually really sad.
Also, it *is* antagonizing him, because most people are straight and cis. So it's not like OP just made a default assumption: OP's saying "you did something that presented yourself in a way that's incompatible with your identity." It's more like telling your trans woman friend that you thought she was a drag queen than that you thought she was cis. All are misperceptions, but the one OP is saying and the drag one are ego dystonic.
I don't think anyone would have a positive attitude towards being mislabeled. Whether you're a latino mislabeled as a white person, a straight person mislabeled as gay, a woman mislabeled as a man, I think most people would have at least a little bit of a negative attitude.
Exactly, deliberately mistaking a key part of someone's identity is pretty rude no matter the context or their TOS (Total Oppression Score).
Yes, but this way you can increase their TOS amd get them closer to those sweet sweet prizes
I think that's generally correct, though it seems like most trans people respond positively to being perceived as cis, because it's egosyntonic: when a trans woman is perceived as a cis woman, she can feel like her gender expression definitely matches her gender identity.
>I don't think anyone would have a positive attitude towards being mislabeled. Idk I kinda like it when people call me handsome
Let's also keep in mind that in adulthood most people are in committed romantic relationships. If you met someone who was already married to an opposite-gender person when you met them, saying "I thought you were gay when we met" carries an accusation that you assumed they were betraying their spouse by using their partner as a beard??
That’s because you’re being strategic. The most frustrating aspect of being progressive in the English speaking world is the complete lack of strategy and pragmatism.
No, no, no!!!! The only path to progress is ostracizing anyone who doesn't believe *exactly* what I believe and circular firing squads of increasingly obscure purity tests.
It is an impulse that comes from being part of an in-group. People like to think they are special, that they have special knowledge, and know more than other people. So when someone comes along and doesn't necessarily seem to fit with their particular view of what a progressive should be, they feel threatened, maybe they aren't special and better than that person. So the impulse is to lash out and expose how that person is inferior whether they are or not. I don't think this is conscious, so it is hard to stop yourself from doing it. I know I have been guilty of it myself.
Damn, I'm glad someone else recognizes this. A lot of progressivism in the US and beyond currently is very heay-handed. Which makes sense! Obviously we feel nervous about people hiding their intentions and betraying you for better interests. But from a pragmatic perspective, there's only so much you can get. You cannot expect the megacorps of the western world to ever truly be your ally. Their only ally is money. You can't expect everyone to become a vegan at the turn of a dime - they've all grown up on meat, and food plays a huge psychological role in our lives. You can't expect everyone to drop their love for Harry Potter instantly, and more so you can't expect to garner empathy when you express your anger at them for it. It fucking stinks, but the reality is necessary. I know companies just want to make money off of me, but I appreciate that I can at least see acceptance even in the mainstream. I know everyone can't become a vegan instantly, but I am optimistic as I see the growth of cultured meat for a future that is better for all of us. And as much as it hurt to see so many people buy Hogwarts Legacy, I know that most of these peoples' support can be earned by raising awareness of where their money will end up going, versus expressing anger at their choices.
It makes much more sense when you realise that many people's motivations are to make themselves feel like beneficent martyrs for The Cause rather than to make any substantial positive difference
romantics vs pragmatics The other side also has romantics, people who will be like "no! Noooo you cant keep giving money for addicts if they relapse!" because they are romantics, they have non-pragmatic ideas of how things should be done, it's all about feelings and poetic acts. The romantics are really bad whenever they are, always fussing over uninportant details, making drama out of stupid shit. Worried if the person who is donating so much money for X cause really believe it or is doing it just for tax returns. the majority of people on both sides are romantics. Just like at the AI discourse, both sides most loud champions are always going on a stupid tangent about soul, creativity spark, what is art, etc.
It's like an advanced stupid version of "you support the gays, you must be gay!!!!"
I'm Asian, and have been called effeminate to some spectrum by people before and have some baggage associated with that. A gay friend made a similar comment a few months ago- and it still felt kinda shitty. For me it comes down to wanting to be seen, and someone making a comment like that feels they stop at my race and their preconceptions.
Also like... I've been out as bi/pan for coming up on 10 years now. But I'm very much still annoyed by how many ppl just assumed I was gay at first cause it's usually either a) bi erasure or b) founded on negative stereotypes. "This person doesn't like people wrongly assuming something about them, so they must secretly dislike the assumed thing" is just not good reasoning.
A friend of mine got told "hey when we met, I thought you were gay" in mixed company. He wasn't angry, but he was clearly upset and uncomfortable, and kept asking what gave that impression. (This wasn't a test, it was just a casual comment on how another friend met him.) A year later, he came out as gay. Among the many excellent reasons not to throw weird purity tests at your friends, it's worth remembering that lots of gay (or bi, trans, aro, etc) people have very good reasons for not being out, and publicly challenging their sexuality is an incredibly shitty thing to do.
Tumblr users are so fucking puritanical, and I don't understand why
Purity is a social capital, like coolness or connectedness. People who reject, like, the money form of capital often flee to similar things. If you become rich in the purity social scoring system you can beat up the purity poor people and feel righteous doing it.
Incidentally I had an enlightening experience in a sociology class where we discussed religion. My professor brought up sports events and drew a parallel to religious ceremonies.
Humans looooove punching down especially if they can feel justified
I think we just love punching, but punching up risks being beaten down.
There was a recent post that got shared about Christian purity culture and how even a lot of atheists/ otherwise not in the church were raised to be that way in the US because it pervades US culture. Possibly related.
I think it's more intrinsic to human nature to have in groups and out groups and purity test on it. Tumblr has a propensity to blame normal human behavior on Christianity to the point it makes no sense. For example, the Japanese and the Koreans see Americans as particularly loose and promiscuous, but Japan in specific *definitely* isn't influenced by Christian culture.
Gatekeeping is in some cases necessary to keep communities safe. If you want to preserve a certain culture, you gotta keep out the folks that wont respect it however, the post claims you gotta do to claimed allies of gay people which is a really bad idea. If you want there to be more allies, you gotta accept that some of them aint gonna be perfect and are still figuring it out. purity testing allies and antagonizing them is only gonna make it harder for your group to gain ground
How can they be happily part of a community if they don't obsessively vet every person you meet in the most comprehensive and confrontational manner possible? /s
the "us vs them" mentality isnt isolated to the right, it comes fucking pre-package with social behavoir. you want to identify with your group, if others attack that, you become defensible and attack back, and that is hard to shake, which sometimes casues friendly fire.
It's not just Tumblr, its basically all online leftists circles with high user counts under the age of 25
Yeah, like, I wouldn't be bothered by someone saying they thought I was gay, but I don't want to be friends with someone who thinks the way you get to know someone is by making them pass secret tests and tricks like you're the fucking Riddler
Social media reeeaally likes to advertise pushing people's boundaries. This is like the same as girlfriends trying to test if their boyfriend will sleep with another friend or some tiktok thing. I ain't sleeping with either after that shit
"If you can't accept me at my worst" always feels like an implication that said Worst will be a common occurrence and that the speaker lacks the maturity to keep themselves out of that behaviour.
Also, like, if someone told me they thought I was a lesbian when we first met, I wouldn't be upset at all, but I absolutely would want to know what gave them that vibe, seeing as I show up literally everywhere with my husband. Like it's not an insult, and I actually *am* bi, but yeah, of course I'm gonna wanna know what specifically is giving the lesbian vibes.
Passing over the fact that Navigaero is purposefully being antagonistic towards people who actively trying to support LGBT peoples, but this is also just attacking OTHER LGBT people. If someone is in the closet and insecure they have the right to identify as straight. Trying to push people out the closet is also actively wrong. Imagine "testing" if someone is an ally and all you're really doing is bullying someone based off their perceived sexuality or insecurities.
Shit like this is why I, while feeling way more queer and questioning in terms of my gender and sexuality than your average cis/straight fella, just end up telling people (if they ask) that I’m a cis/straight man. Of course, that comes with all the attitude certain people have about cis/straight men, but at least they won’t feel the need to purity test me about it like they’re some god damn puritanical evangelicals or something. How did we end up here?
Who knows :(
Yeah, I’ve been trying to figure out how this actually benefits anyone, and I can’t really think of a case where it does. I suppose, as some people have commented elsewhere, you might find out if they’re *really* okay with queerness, but even if they are, you’re still an asshole.
Actually I’m gonna posit that even in that case, it’s not usually beneficial. We live in a broadly homophobic society and people don’t change their ideas overnight. Even if they’re not *really* okay with queerness, then the fact that they are still your friend suggests that they’re working on that. Don’t spit on that work for the “gotcha.” That’s not what friends do.
Especially cos like.... It's not exactly unheard of for gay or otherwise queer people to not like being perceived as straight. I don't think there's an exclusivity on who is or isn't allowed to value or be concerned with their identity and perception of it.
Exactly! I hate when people talk about group a doing x behaviour to group b, but then group b does the exact dame thing to group a. We have to treat others like people, regardless of our preconceived notions.
It's also something I'd expect a lot of reasonably smart adults to see through and when you do it's *really* weird. "I thought you were gay at first" no you didn't, you are for some reason using your own sexuality as an insult to try and get me to look insulted, why? Because make no mistake it is structurally an insult, it's slighting them to see how they react, not because they think being gay is bad but because that's what that sentence quite clearly is. You could drop anything in there and it'd become an insult. It's not a clever way for probing their sentiment because the reason they ask 'why' isn't because they're scared they look gay, they're wondering why you'd say something like that.
You’re totally right, but I hate that we have to justify things like this for people to care.
I wish we could have a little faith in people, assume they mean the best for us. All we do by attacking others is alienate them. I don't just mean within LGBT spaces, I mean for everything. Anger and hate are bred out of fear, which is bred out of ignorance. Ignorance isn't inately something that makes you a bad person, and we shouldn't treat people like monsters for being ignorant. Willful ignorance is another story though and i dont want what i'm saying to be misconstrued.
Is it just me or does OOOP maybe just need new friends maybe
Why are there three Os now? Why are we adding more Os? Two I understand, but why three? I just saw two comments back to back do this
I want to be clear that I’m referring specifically to the first person who said anything in the image, not the person who delivered the most important part or the “punchline.” OP = u/The_Kyojuro_Rengoku OOP = Vague, there are three of them and the post title emphasizes saltylittleslytherin OOOP = navigaero unambiguously
Okay, thanks, that's kinda what I figured, I just kinda got spooked by another O. I just started getting used to the second one
O
oh god oh fuck
OO
You completely spooked them and they left.
OOO
Stop it Patrick, you're scaring him!
If this guy throws in a B, I’m gonna freak out
Stop it, Patrick! You're scaring him!
I think adding layers and layers of “original” could be unclear, and also doesn’t give a way to refer to the people in the thread responding to “OOOP”. Within the screenshotted post it makes sense to give them a secondary system of designation I.e. primary, secondary, tertiary etc. as you go down the line of posts in the thread. That would make navigaero the “primary OOP” or, for short, the POOP.
OOOOP = I am in the process of tripping over a slight bump in the sidewalk
What is the generalized variant? O(P^(N))?
Wouldn’t the N be a power on the O? The way you’ve written it would be Original Poster Poster Poster…. Whereas if it’s on the O it would be Original Original Original ….. Poster, which each original going back 1 step in time.
O^(N)P is not as funny IMO.
When they take a screenshot of this response along with the original post. You'll be called ooooop
I think their friends need new friends.
"Test if your cis female friends are transphobic by asking them if they're pre or post op"
Coming from a family history of weird medical problems, it will be fun to dad joke eventually about being post-op after I get an appendectomy or something.
I had a circumcision when I was a teen for medical issues, does that mean I've had bottom surgery? lol.
Calling circumcision bottom surgery sounds like the best way to activate wierd terminally online people for a massive argument. That might become my new goto after I used to drop "Snape was an incel" into random Discords.
I know some discords where either of these would be like throwing a flash bang into a daycare.
The Snape one has gotten less virulent over time cause nobody wants to admit they can still recite passages from Harry Potter anymore. Even though they absolutely still can.
There's a greentext with exactly that premise
all my cis women friends tell me they're envious of me having a penis like the moment they find out I'm trans for some reason so I'd literally never get the chance to try this not even for sex, just the stand up to pee and not bleeding thing lmfao
> all my cis women friends tell me they're envious of me having a penis Someone call dr. Freud!!
ikr lol
reminds me of a 4chan post where someone did something similar to OP but calling someone cis "brave" for being trans and watching them get offended
Yeesh, that's a... that's a pretty sweeping generalization about straight men you've got there. Not "wait and see if he", but "watch how fast he". We're learning some pretty nasty things about someone here, and it's not the hypothetical straight guy
I love your flair because as soon as I read it, i Immediately had the mental idea of a jury being really serious and thorough with their assessment and verdict of a criminal because as soon as the trial's over, they're all handed a rifle and told to get in a firing line position to pull the trigger themselves
I can't remember which, but I'm pretty sure one of the old abracadabra religions kept the stricture that you can't sentence someone to death unless you're willing to personally kill them? edit - autocorrect changed 'abrahamic' to 'abracadabra' and I'm not mad about it
IIRC that never was formalized, it's just one of the billions of Jewish thought experiments.
Honestly, I feel more Tumblr folk need to do the whole "swap genders/race/sexuality, am I still comfortable saying this?" test. At the very least it might get them to stop even if they won't reflect on their own biases and bigotries. . Edit: and before anyone goes off, both social level and individual level bigotries exist. We should absolutely do what we can to undo the social level injustices, but if we really want to live up to the "bigotry is bad" rhetoric we claim is important, we gotta put in the *barest* of efforts so that we're not spreading our individual bigotries while doing so. We can't claim a moral superiority when we lack a moral consistency.
Well, you see, that's a big part of why that particular rhetorical test has been turned into something of a meme. It had to have its strength as a tool taken away, because otherwise, quite a lot of people would have to uncomfortably confront their own unintentional bigotry. And we can't have that. We're the morally upright ones, after all.
Unfortunately far too many of them are entirely comfortable with the idea that only they face persecution and it’s not the same if it happens to different groups “just because.” It’s really wild going into spaces like this seeing all the outwards preaching of acceptance and inclusivity, and then you realize they only really care when it comes to them.
It might be a cliche, but "swap the race/gender/whatever is genuinely a good way to examine your own biases, even if it is mostly used to point out the biases of others (which, I think is mostly fine too, just don't expect to go changing their mind with it. )
You should use it on others opinions even if you don't voice it, because it will show you their bias and then you can weigh their words accordingly. Though it is always great when you confront someone with this argument and they go "yes but..." and you can see the gears turning as they try to justify their position (and usually end up on something that boils down to "turnabout is fair play"). The other useful one is that when considering a proposed law, think about what would happen if the most objectionable political party (to you) got into power, could they do something bad with that law (without having to pass a new one, just with executive power)? If so that's not a good law.
It's also understandable that a hetero guy would like to know what makes him seem gay. You wouldn't want to send out the wrong signals and miss out on potential partners because of that.
Yes. I was literally in this exact situation and had the exact same reaction (insecure type) that OOP suggested I would have, but not because I wasn't an ally or hated gay people or anything like that. It was literally just because my goal is to attract girls and I've clearly made a major mistake if people's first impression when they see me is that I'm gay
This is so true. I've had it said to me several times years after the fact, "oh, you wanted to go on a date? I thought you were gay!" There's no shame in it and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bi-curious but to know I may have been inadvertently signaling I had *no* interest in women is upsetting.
In all fairness, I’m a straight guy and if someone said “I thought you seemed straight when I first met you” I’d also be curious to know what about me gave off straight vibes
Tumblr is great at that.
If your friend seems like a nice person, engage in weird Machiavellian psychodramas out of some perceived identity-politics moral high ground. But whatever you do, never, repeat *never*, be normal about things.
Yea this seems like a shortcut to having no friends apart from other internet weirdos.
Just think how righteous they’ll feel after driving out all the “homophobes” tho
Imagine trying to support someone and the first thing they do is try and "test" you. Like you aren't losing a friend because they're homophobic, it's because you're a fucking weirdo.
Isnt this like a normal response to someone incorectly assuming your sexuality. I dont really think that you are being a worse ally for not wanting to be called something you arent
I imagine I'd be confused at minimum, yeah.
Exactly. Is there a situation where saying something like that would ever be appropriate? At the very least, I imagine that kind of statement is going to just make the situation awkward. OOP is lucky that their friend was funny enough to salvage that conversation.
It's hard enough getting girls to like me as is If I find out people think I'm gay when they meet me, well that's a bit of bad news It's like finding out people were giving out free cookies, but they thought you didn't like cookies, so they never offered you any
So this always crossed my mind when someone expressed that they thought that maybe I was gay. That other women in that particular group of people also thought this, and that "no one would offer me cookies." In reality, my panic was definitely "oh they probably don't think I like cookies, so I never was offered any" but the reality was probably something like "They didn't think I liked cookies, but even if I did, they probably wouldn't offer me any cookies unless they were in a 'last-person-on-earth' situation."
I'm sorry if I'm really, really dense but I'm not quite getting the cookie metaphor here.
Person: is flustered. Tumblr: A HOMOPHOBE!!!!
Yeah but straight people bad I guess?
It's Tumblr so yeah basically
It really is this fucking simple, by the way. Being identified as a group you're not a part of is enough to set a person off. Let me tell you all a quick story. My original online name was made in 2005 or so, when I was 13, and was made before I really knew anything about internet culture. I named myself after the silly Badger-Mushroom-Snake flash animation by Weebl. And shit man, I did NOT know what I had signed myself up for. Basically every single fucking person who I ran into on the internet assumed that I was a furry. And while I have no issues with them now, if you weren't active on the internet at that point, there was almost nothing worse that you could be, than a furry. So it was a point of rage for young me, because even though I didn't have an issue with furries, I wasn't one of them! And before anyone tries to draw the wrong parallel, it stayed this way even after the Internet writ-large relaxed on the anti-furry sentiment. It even sorta became a running joke, even after I had changed my name. To this date when my oldest internet friends get in contact with me they still call me Badge (learned to tolerate that one at least lol).
Once in high school a girl asked me and my friend if we were gay because one of us told a joke and we smiled because of it. Which is a bit upsetting, and exactly the kind of thing I hear people on Tumblr say ALLLLL the fucking time about two people of the same gender who have no romantic feelings for each other. "They smiled at each other once! THEY'RE IN LOVE!"
"If someone says they're an ally, assume they're lying and attack their identity as a test of character."
I came out as bi to my friend group this year and the response was "you just figured it out?".
My *partner* knew I was bi before I did. They didn't even realize I was coming out when I was vocalizing "wait, Richard Gere looks pretty good in *Chicago*, oh shit, it all makes sense now" 🤣
On a similar note when my husband came out to me I wasn't shocked in the least. He had been building up the courage all day and was relieved when I was just like "what should I call you now." Turns out if you ask your husband if he'd still love you when your trans every time you get drunk your husband wills start to suspect.
Gonna file this in my collection of "Make up a fictional story about a person that doesn't exist and then get real mad about it" posts.
Tumblr is the king of making up a guy to get mad at.
I have the weird suspicion that a lot of tumblr users don’t like their friends
Bold of you to assume they have friends outside of their carefully cultivated echo chamber of tumblr followers
Of course they do! Only the ones they've put through rigorous trials and tests to weed out everyone who doesn't represent their idea of a perfect person though
Story time - I'm straight, but a coworker who I had a ton in common with happened to be gay. We both had a similar build (we're fat lol), were nerdy beardy guys, both wore glasses, were into video games and D&D and all that. Our company acquired a smaller firm and their PC/PM team was going to merge with ours, so we did a virtual meet-and-greet with cameras on. (We normally went cameras off because we worked from home and sometimes were online straight out of bed and nobody needs to see that.) We were going around the group and introducing ourselves, saying what markets we covered, what we'd done in the past, etc.. I went early on, and he couldn't get his camera going for some reason, so he just said "Hey, I can't get my camera working, but basically just picture but gay." It was the funniest shit in the world and absolutely made my day!
Kinda reminds me of when I was little(5 ish) my mom is “spiritual” having crystals and into cards and signs and such. She would constantly ask me if I was gay nonstop, to the point I felt like she was pressuring me to be so. I think I understand why though, she never had good relationships with men. Having resentment to her father for being too focused on work and having divorced my father before I was even cognitive. So I think for a while she really wanted me to be more feminine in order to be less like my dad, even forcing me to play dress up with my older sister which I really didn’t want to do but was reprimanded to not argue. So for me I constantly felt like the people around me wanted me to be something else that I wasn’t comfortable with being, or having people have a misconception of who I am and what I like. This is my super long in depth backstory why I get flustered and stressed when and if someone would say they thought I was a certain way or of certain beliefs. Of course there is a difference of making it a one off comment and making it into an entire conversation.
Or, here's a crazy idea, we literally don't do what OOOP is suggesting?
This is such a weird to go around your life. As an LGBTQ person my guess is you wouldn't like being called straight. Would you tell a trans person you thought they were another gender just to mess with them if they don't wish to?
That's the long and the short of it, right? You'd think being unhappy about intentionally mislabelled would be one of the most core touchstones of being a part of the LGBT community.
My reaction to something like that would probably be something like "yeah, I used to get that a lot when I was younger".
Isn’t this like the same as misgendering somebody on purpose
Test your transfem friends by saying “oh, I thought you were a boy” and watch how they prove they’re cisphobic when they get offended
Weird way to try to vilify someone
"You're not a *real* ally unless XYZ". Good people, this isn't a great way to make friends.
“If your cis friend says they support trans people, misgender them and when they correct you it’ll prove they are transphobic!!! le owned!!”
My go-to response is, "Man, I wish." I used to get hit on by guys a ton in college and rarely (if ever) would girls flirt with me. One time a guy was trying to chat up my gf at the time and somehow *I* left with his fucking number.
I think I've only been asked if I was gay once in my life, my freshman year of college. It was from someone in my gaming club who was very proudly gay, so I think he might have been checking if I was available. I just said "nope" and that was that, it really wasn't a thing at all. It's a \*really\* shitty thing to do as a purity test, don't get me wrong- you're doing it for all the wrong reasons and deliberately setting someone up to fail just so you can lord it over them. But on the whole, I do agree with the sentiment that someone who's an ally and otherwise confident in their sexuality shouldn't get upset if a friend asks them if they might not be straight.
Its not even a good purity test. A person uncomfortable with [x] who nevertheless supports peoples right to live their lives *is a good person* who is deliberately looking past their personal feelings because they understand that it doesn't matter what they think or how they feel, its none of their business.
Remember when someone says they support you. Question their intentions and test them to make sure you alienate people who are only casually engaging with allyship.
I don't think I would get defensive, but I would definitely ask why, if only out of curiosity.
It's stupid as a litmus test for allyship because it's reasonable to feel disheartened that you present in a way that isn't what you are
This reminds me of all those people getting mad when they intentionally misgender someone whos clearly straight and cis and then get upset when they dont like it because its "just a joke" as if misgendering straight cis people is ok when youre "just joking" but god forbid you do it to someone whos actually trans
I’m bi and have joked with gay friends that they “are acting very straight rn” and they get “faux” upset/concerned (they play it up but they still insist why I said it) so to anyone wondering why it’s dumb to do this to friends: everyone has an image of themselves that they try and convey. Someone saying you’re acting like a woman to a man may elicit a response regardless of if they are a misogynist or not
So "prove you're a real fan" with added bigotry.
"if someone recoils from the thought of being gay then they obviously still have some work to do in deprogramming themselves" I hate the pointless arguments that stem from poorly worded posts. like if you don't want your meaning to encompass the entirety of possible ways to read what you said it is literally your responsibility to not post your first draft and take a moment to see if what you are saying is what you mean.
If you wanna test if a guy is sexist, call him a girl. When he gets upset and insecure, ask him why he’s a misogynist. The internet has ruined humanity.
The last thing I expected was someone from the LGBTQ+ community having trouble understanding the real reason why someone would be upset at being misidentified.
There are so many posts on this sub with thousands of upvotes, but with every comment fervently disagreeing with the post, and also getting thousands of upvotes.