Straight Acting. Yes the term bugs me. Its used by gay men who seem to have a problem being gay. To me when someone says they are “straight acting” I read it as “yes I’m gay but I’m not one of THEM , I’m not a fag or a queer or some girly man”
Fucks sake, its this self imposed fragmentation of the gay defintion thats doing harm. People think of gay men and think of some uber camp handbag toting hairdresser who is more feminine than your mammy and to help quash this ignorant stereotype what happens ? Gay men agree with it and try and serparate themselves from these fem boys by calling themselves straight acting.
What these beer swilling rugby playing “yeah footballs great” , crotch scratching masculine boys should be doing is not breaking away from the group but staying in the group and fucking over ignorant stereotypes.
Theres absolutely nothing wrong with fem guys at all, yet straight acting seems to imply there is. Gay people get discriminated enough already besides having gay men believe and enforce stereotypes.
Straight acting also implies ACTING.
” Wow Paul you could win an oscar there they way you walk like every other guy and your voice isn’t high pitched”
“Cheers man yeah, it was a hard task and I had a ‘straight coach’ help me on how to walk and not mince about and I never knew until I took this role that its not the norm to carry a handbag. I think I have a very good chance at the next gay oscars but my main competition was this guy who played a rugby player but who was gay. He is also in with a good chance as you know how hard and tough rugby is for someone that gets manicures”
Arghhhhh, Theres no acting in the way I walk and talk. “But you don’t look Gay” and this is said and I used to take it as a compliment. Maybe it should be rephrased to be “Jesus its great you are secure enough in your sexuality to not believe the stereotype and ‘assume the position’ so to speak and become that hairdresser and increase the pitch of your voice and turn your wrists muscles into rubber ”
Gee thanks.
Seriously lads and lassies, you are doing our community a great disservice by using the term straight acting.
Okay, its time to shut the fuck up now, but these are my views. Theres also a very good webpage I just found as I finished this rant. The webpage is also about the defintion of Straight Acting
You shouldn’t think too much about these things, it’ll give you wrinkles :-p