Gotta say I’m loving this topic. I’ve never really done any of these things yet, but I’m learning a lot about it. Hopefully, it will keep me from doing something stupid in the future. 🙂

So when we come out…..finally……we have no other image of what it means to be gay or lesbian so we often go the most visible expression of the gay community which is found in the gay ghetto. As I call it in my book…the tip of the iceberg……its a subculture.

I totally agree with this. I think that the more visible homosexuality becomes in everyday life, the less people will feel like they have to go to the ‘gay ghetto’ in order to find acceptance. I used to think the only future I had was sex stuff, because frankly, the church didn’t seem to want me and at the time, I didn’t know of any Christian colleges that would accept gay students. Praise God I learned there was more for me than that and I’ve found a great Christian college that will accept gay students and I’m hoping to apply there during my senior year.

I’ve always felt the church was partially to blame for all of this. They say, ‘we don’t want you’ and then they complain when they go live sinfully. What the heck? It’s nonsensical.

Thankfully, I learned some time ago that gay people are also everyday people. I’ve felt pressure (from myself) to be more flaming before, under the logic that it would mean I wouldn’t have to come out as much. And I’m sure there were other reasons, mostly to just show how gay I am to everyone else and just get the whole charade over with. But then I was like, I don’t really want to be that, I actually quite like myself the way I am. So then I decided to just be myself. We could talk for days and days about the importance of living as yourself and what exactly that looks like, but wow, it really is important and it really is a challenge. This is a great topic. 🙂

Plus I have noticed the “scene” has changed so much and their are much more feminine girls out than 15-20yrs ago and they are not picked on or called pretenders.

I know that this is off little interest to everyone else but it might interest you to know Maggie that a recent American study on the self-identification of lesbians found that only ten percent-ish identified themselves in semi-masculine terms, i. e. butch women if the term is still politically correct. 10 percent! I pretty much cried 😥 😆 😆

Nowadays the “inbetween” identification is more popular and the femmes are still out in force. Though really, thats highly representative of women in general, to display some feminine and some masculine characteristics. Way back in the days when i went to gay clubs people used to tell me I should be more feminine not more masculine bacause I had “the face for it” i. e. blond hair and blue eyes. No one understood that my dress code was determined by how close to laundry day it was and not some kind of lesbian politics.

Since this can of worms has been opened up 8).

LMAO! 😆 😆 What was I thinking posting this topic! 😯 😉

Re gay subcultures, I’ve seen this a lot in the literature read to date eg a str8 acting dominant masculine subculture.

Re gay subcultures, I’ve seen this a lot in the literature read to date eg a str8 acting dominant masculine subculture.

This whole straight acting thing is interesting to me. Is it not possible for a straight male to act feminine? So then isn’t the very term straight-acting enforcing the stereotype that straight men are masculine and gay men are feminine? I think gay guys and straight guys are more similar than they might realize at first glance. Really, we can do whatever we want. I think if people start to think, “I want to do that, but I’m supposed to appear straight (or gay) and if I do this then that will disrupt my image.” or anything like that, then really, this whole acting thing is doing more harm than good. It raises a lot of questions.

I’ve always wondered with some gay people how much of their femininity came naturally and how much of their femininity was an act they put on because “I’m gay and this is what gay people do.” Hm. Well, I think the very best thing to do would be to forget the politics of gender and sexuality and all the political correctness it entails and just be the person who you want to be. That’s my personal thought, but you still can’t deny that there are many questions and musings that are brought up by this topic. I’m quite fascinated. 🙂

This whole straight acting thing is interesting to me. Is it not possible for a straight male to act feminine? So then isn’t the very term straight-acting enforcing the stereotype that straight men are masculine and gay men are feminine?

I think your’re right gettingthere … it does seem stereotypical to say that gay men are by default feminine unless they consciously change their image to be more st8 acting 8) We should be free to express ourselves in whatever way we feel comfortable in communicating with others (gay or str8) that enables us to be authentic and true to ourselves 😀

Interestingly, I came across a forum devoted to “straight-acting” guys at http://www.straightacting.com when I googled the term 🙄