Political Crossfire Forums

[F'losrix]

Yep. Give an honest but unexpected answer to a 'getting to know you' sort of question and suddenly you're labeled as a wacko activist forcing your sexuality on them - as if we're under some obligation not to upset the rest of the population with the truth about this one aspect of our lives. Suddenly it becomes the sum total of all we are to them. You're no longer just a coworker - now you're the 'gay coworker', as if it was the all-important thing that supersedes all the other facts about you.

The phrase that really makes me cringe once someone has started to move past the initial shock? "But you're not like most gay people." As if we were all supposed to be alike in the first place, nevermind the ridiculous idea that most gay people are walking talking stereotypes of some sort.

Or when you've tried to keep it under wraps because you really don't want to jeapordize a new relationship or are concerned that the knowledge could be misused if it fell into the wrong hands, and then when the other person finds out they're all mad because you didn't tell them 'up front'. What are we supposed to do, blurt it out whenever we're introduced to someone new?

Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

[Æ]

John Galt wrote: George W Bush wrote: I aint gay. But, ive got tattooes, ear, tongue and eyebrowe piercing and am just as socially stigmatised (if not worse) as you's.
What else do you expect from pompous people? Anything outside their realm has to be reaffirmed. At least the person admitted his mistake. Most of the time there's no guilt, no shame from them - in fact, alot of them act like its their job to remind you how different you are.
The best thing to do is kill em with kindness. Personally, ide want nothing of a party where at least half the people arent like me.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of work do you do? I know Dairy Queen won't hire a person who has metal hanging out of their face, nor would I unless they had some advanced degree and was a necessity to my workforce. I always wondered where such folk find jobs. And are the tattoos on your face, hands or anywhere visible? I'veseen people with tattooed faces and I can only see themworking in a tattooing place... although I did see one painting one time.
People who do this piercing (in odd places, like the tongue) and tatooing just don't respect their bodies. I see this sort of thing no different than I see smoking except smokers have no respect for the health of others. Nonetheless, people should be free to do what they want with their bodies as long as it doesn't involve someone else.

[TheGirlNextDoor]

Skeptical Mystic wrote: Here's the background:

My life partner has been close friends with a couple (heterosexual) and their immediate family for 20+ years (took family vacations with them for many years, etc.). They share several other friends in common from their college days, and the group gets together several times a year for various occasions (football parties, Christmas parties, New Years, etc.) They all know that he and I are a couple and treat us accordingly. The subject of our homosexuality mostly just doesn't even come up, as everyone has developed a certain level of comfort with having us around so there's nothing really to be said about it.

We don't go around announcing that we're gay, don't engage in public displays of affection, etc. At the same time, we don't make any effort to pretend that we're straight; the fact that we're a couple is fairly obvious to anyone who is the least bit observant.

Now the situation:

Yesterday we attended the aforementioned couple's 25th wedding anniversary with about 100 other people. We're generally a bit more reserved at such events as we don't want our presence as a gay couple to distract from the actual purpose of the event. Even so, we decided it was acceptable to join in the dancing - just the fast dancing, no touching or overtly suggestive movements. I sat out all the slow dances, though my partner did indulge a few of his female friends; a fairly typical thing at such events where people don't have to necessarily be a couple to share an innocent dance together.

Things seemed to be going fine, with no one taking particular notice of us. But toward the end of the evening (we'd been dancing on and off for probably a good 3 to 4 hours by this time), a guest with whom we weren't acquainted (and had not even been introduced to) suddenly blurts at us, "are you guys gay???". I was so completely caught off guard that I just stood there, gaping. My partner turned to me in mock surprise, eyes wide and asked me, 'Are you gay?', to which I managed to eventually stammer out an affirmative answer. My partner turned to the man who had posed the question originally and said, "So am I - so I guess it's unanimous - we're gay." The guy and his wife quickly moved away from us and eventually off the dance floor entirely. When the song ended I went to use the restroom; my partner reports that the guy came up to him while I was gone to apologize for acting like an ***hole, to which my partner replied that we just laughed it off as a joke. (Mainly so he could avoid having to discuss it further or get into a confrontation over it.)

It was a minor incident, but it's really bugging me. I'm always wary at events like this because I don't want our presence to prevent anyone else from enjoying a good time - I'd rather just not go at all if it's going to be a problem. The trouble with that being that we could potentially just end up having to decline the few invitations we do receive. So we attend and constantly second-guess ourselves with regard to our behavior. Sometimes the more one tries not to draw attention, the more conspicuous one seems to be.

I'm just curious if other gay members have ever encountered a similar situation and how they reacted - and whether it deterred them from attending subsequent events. Thankfully we don't have anything else coming up soon - if we did, I'd probably look for an excuse to get out of it.

Well, I'm not gay.. I'm a heterosexual female.. but I think when people ask questions like that, it's always good (IMO) to bounce the ball right back into their court.

Normally with something along the lines of:

"Are you two GAY!?"

"What would possess you to ask such a question?"

Or when I first read your post, the thought that immediately came to mind was a reply of "Why? Don't tell me you're heterosexual - *gasp*"

I can't believe people can be such asses. I swear....

[connermt]

UrielsFyre wrote: connermt wrote: A guy I worked with & I went bike riding one Saturday afternoon. While we worked in different departments, we did talk a lot together, as was the necessity of the business. We would also chat during work just for fun when the opprutunity arose. So I go to his place, put his bik in the back of my truck with mine & head out into BFE (had no idea where we were headed). About ¾ the way there, from conversation, he ask me the question & I say "Well yeah - doesn't everyone know?!?" I guess not everyone did. He asked me to turn around & take him home immediately. Needless to say it was an uncomfortable drive back to his place. It was a reality check for me for sure. It is my belief that this guy was dealing with his own sexuality (from the conversations we have had in the past & the one we were having at the time). So I took that under consideration. For weeks he wouldn't even talk to me then all of a sudden one day I get an email from him & he was chattin' with me like nothing happened :shock: & we continued that relationship until he got another job. Weird.
Then another time there was a guy that sit behind me & everyday he made the point to say hi to me when he came in. We chatted @ work, but never did anything outside of work. One day some people brought in some Valentine's Day candy for my group. I'm not a big candy person, so the candy I didn't want, no one else did either. So I go over to this guy & say "Hey, you want the rest of this candy?" Wow - I thought his head was going to explode. He informed me, in a few different ways, that he is NOT into that. I was simply trying to get rid of candy that no one else wanted. He didn't talk to me for a few weeks then went back to normal loke nothing happened.
Double weird

I had something like that with a coworker once too.

There was a guy that I had worked with (at a bank) for about 3 months. Every day we talked, and he was always a nice guy. We never talked about our personal lives much, other than surface things (movies, books, hobbies, etc). We had the same lunch time one day and he asked if I wanted to go grab something to eat with him.

During lunch we started talking more about our personal lives. He mentioned his ex-girlfriend, his current fiance, and about six others girls he had dated in the past. When he asked me if I was seeing someone, and I said I was, he said "oh, what's her name?"

"Well, his name is Andy," I said. That was all he needed to hear. He went nuts. He started lecturing me about forcing my sexuality down his throat and, of course, pulled out the "I don't care what you do behind close doors, just don't go parading it around...it's sick."

You know, all I said was that I was dating a guy named Andy. That's it. I didn't go in to our sex life, as that isn't anyone's business. How was I forcing it down his throat...especially since he asked about my love life??

Needless to say, we didn't have lunch again.

Sometimes people who react that way have had a negative experience in the past, rather it be physical, emotional or whatever - at least that has been my experience. Maybe it's because I don't like confrontation with people I work with, but I am not as open with coworkers until I get to know them better. But in my cases above, hoenstly about 70% of the people I worked with @ this company were gay so I assumed (stupid of me) that everyone knew about me.

[F'losrix]

The thing that really tires me is this idea some people have that it's okay to say all sorts of rude things to or about a gay person, or to ask them all sorts of rude questions - just because they're gay. As if we automatically surrender all rights to our personal privacy and dignity just by being gay.

For example, if a guy tells me he has a girlfriend, I don't assume that's an invitation to interrogate him about the details of their sex life or how they divide household chores, etc. Yet some people seem to have no qualms about posing such questions to someone upon learning that they're gay.

I understand that people may have some natural curiosity about it, and for the most part I just take it in stride since I feel it's better to use the opportunity to educate them and dispel myths. But still, are we really so interesting that they really want to know which one of us does the laundry or fixes stuff around the house, or the nitty-gritty details of how we make love to each other? Besides, it's not as if what's true of us is going to be true of every other gay couple - some people just don't seem to get that we're just as diverse as the rest of society, in every aspect of our lives.

[F'losrix]

TheGirlNextDoor wrote: Well, I'm not gay.. I'm a heterosexual female.. but I think when people ask questions like that, it's always good (IMO) to bounce the ball right back into their court.

Normally with something along the lines of:

"Are you two GAY!?"

"What would possess you to ask such a question?"

Or when I first read your post, the thought that immediately came to mind was a reply of "Why? Don't tell me you're heterosexual - *gasp*"

I can't believe people can be such asses. I swear....
Or my personal favorite: "Why do you want to know?"

In retrospect, I'm not sure why it caught me so completely off guard. Odder still was my partner's reaction - normally I'd expect him to be the one to be flabbergasted and speechless while I'm usually quicker to come up with a response. It was a complete role reversal for us.