the whole "wear denim to show your support for GLBTQ" thing
That's a thing? I had no idea that was a thing.
It was heavily promoted when I was at Michigan, but I don't know how popular it still is. I hear about it every now and then since it already registers with me.
It reminds me slightly of the PJ O'Rourke remark about the opposition to Noriega in announcing that their protests will take the form of driving very slowly through the centre of town and banging pans together. "This is genius, to make noise and traffic jams anti-government in a Latin country. Imagine how fast we'd have been out of Vietnam if golf and commuting had been anti-war."
Similarly, you can look around at the hundreds of people you see in jeans every day and think "They all support us!"
wear denim to show your support for GLBTQ
Way back when when I was in college in the late '80s, it wasn't primarily to show support, but rather that wearing denim jeans on the specified day was a statement that you were G, L, B, T, and/or Q. This was quite clever, actually, in that everyone always wore blue jeans, so anyone who wanted to opt-out had to go out of their way not to wear blue jeans, which some people actually did--members of one fraternity made a public show of ironing their khakis the day before, thus outing themselves as homophobic assholes. So wearing jeans was a way for the closeted to take baby steps towards coming out and for non-homophobic straight folks to show support.
That's somewhat sympathetic, making assholes be proactive about it.
Is P.J. O'Rourke still reaping the sophomoric asshole harvest like an '80s teen movie villain or did he exhaust himself defending GWB, like so many sophomoric assholes on the right?
Basketball should be as progressive as baseball where it is now known that a man can be gay and still run a horrible team during the heart of a two decade losing streak.
It forced straight folks to confront the issue and make a choice while getting dressed in the morning--"Am I worried that someone will see that I'm wearing blue jeans and assume I'm gay? Do I care?"
The concept has probably outlived its relevance, as society is in a very different place now than it was then, but seemed like a pretty effective tactic for the first few years, at least.
I'm just shocked to hear I'm supposed to be ironing my khakis.
There's been new pants technology and now you don't need to iron them. I think the make the crease with glue so it stays.
I'm not falling for your "new pants technology" line again, Moby.
How is it supposed to be "lame", Heebie? As with MAE's explanation, I always saw it as a way to turn the tables - "Oh, so I guess you're all gay for a day! Ha!" - but my reflex is to think that anyone who thinks a simple way to show support is lame is, in fact, lame. A kid in the middle of a one-horse town being metaphorically or perhaps literally beaten about the head and neck with a Bible on a regular basis gets the chance to look around and at least fantasize about a different life for one day. I don't really see the problem there. It is possible, however, that I am especially sensitive to criticism of the notion because those moments were so important to me when I was that kid in that town.
Oh, sorry. I probably just heard about it when it was past it's prime.
On the topic of sports figures and closets, there is just no way Ben Cohen is 100% totally straight and I and my imagination are 100% okay with this. Please, for the love of all the gods, let more hot athletes decide to befriend and stand beside the queer community by making calendars of themselves lifting weights in their underwear.
And I was a snide college student, and I thought the point then was to trick people who hadn't heard about it into looking like they were supporting gay rights and make up fake solidarity. That was my main takeaway - I know all these assholes are wearing jeans and didnt hear one way or another that they meant anything - what good does that do?
Anyway, I apologize.
This is the first I ever heard of the denim thing.
This is perhaps just a function of my age and where I live, but none of the LGBT people I know have anybody left to come out to.
It may just be a function of my age and where I live, but nobody wants to see my lift weights in my underwear.
Sally's friends are out in middle school. That's a big change from when I was her age.
Yeah, this one friend just had left her extended family back in Nebraska. Her parents reacted a few years ago by moving extremely religiously rightward, which has been really hard so she hadn't wanted to deal with the rest of them yet.
Apology accepted, Heebie, though I don't think an apology is necessary! Just offering a different reaction to it in a conversational way. I realize I sounded a little offended, but (a) I am slowly coming to believe our society is way too quick to give a fuck if someone is offended when really most of the time I think that's their problem whereas when I was younger I thought life was all about making sure no one's feelings ever get hurt and (b) I hoped to offset that offended tone by casting myself as being perhaps overly sensitive regarding the topic. I will decline to set off the chain reaction by apologizing for making you feel like you should apologize. Heh.
19: OTOH, how do you know who's closeted?
You have to leave your extended family in Nebraska because growing corn doesn't work very well with telecommuting.
I'm sorry for continuing the apology chain after you asked me not to.
I'm so incredibly irritated with her parents, btw. She first came out to them probably around 1998. She has to keep coming back out to them because they choose to believe she's no longer gay and is healed if it hasn't come up in a while. Also she has dated some men which was a total mindfuck for them.
I had to come out to my parents three times and it never really "took" until I presented them with the opportunity to meet Rah.
There was one guy who got outed in my junior high. He reacted by trying to own it and that didn't actually help him at all. He eventually ran away from home and, rumor had it, wound up in Atlanta as a homeless hustler. After that, the information bubble sealed itself around his fate and I've heard nothing new about him, rumor or otherwise, since 1988.
Fast-forward to 2012: most of the groups in the NC Pride parade a couple of weeks ago were gay-straight alliances from Piedmont middle and high schools and supportive mainstream churches. There was one float for the local MCC and a few floats with drag queens or shirtless college kids painted in school colors, sure, but otherwise it felt like it was mostly very earnest high school kids carrying feel-good signs and their Episcopalian parents carrying other, more Jesus-y feel-good signs. As someone who used to volunteer to work security and walk on the outer edge of the main body - when it was a march, not a parade - I wasn't really sure I knew what to do with that. I don't object by any means, it just isn't the world I recognize.
Presidential [ahem] to save other people's privacy, not mine. My nephew has apparently come out as bi to my sister. My sister told my wife, but not me. So I guess officially I still don't know. He's not mentioned it to me. I do wonder if he's told his grandparents [on his dad's side], as he lives with them [at the moment] and they are fairly conservative Scottish proddies.*
* that said, his dad's brother's ex-partner, came out as gay shortly after she got pregnant with his kid. So there's always been two Aunties in the family raising one of their grandkids, so one of the grandkids being 'out' shouldn't be as big as an issue as it would otherwise be.
The woman you reprobates call Lunchy often sneaks up on me at the gym, hoping to see me actually lifting something but usually catching me curling my iPhone. I don't wear a baseball cap, thank God.
27: From that description I have a bit of sympathy for the parents -- it must be very confusing for them.
The woman you reprobates call Lunchy
I like how this has become a fixed phrase. You should shorten it to TWYRCL (pronounced "tweerkle").
TWYRCL
TWYRC TWYRC TWYRC TWYRC TWYRC TWYRC
31: yeah but to cope they've become so religious that they no longer believe in evolution, global warming, etc.
I wasn't aware that not believing in global warming was a part of any religion.
33: I actually find myself somewhat receptive to the "download this as a ringtone" message on that one.
It's all wrapped up in to believing in science.
34: I'm not sure how that would help them cope. I would suggest that a belief that the physical world is all an illusion might be more helpful.
39: I could connect you with them?
Sure! I'm thinking of trying out a new career as an online counselor.
re: 39
You could become a Berkeleyan councillor.*
* this is a fucking brilliant idea. I'm tempted myself.**
** taking the Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge as our ur-text, naturally.***
*** maybe some business cards featuring a fat lexicographer injuring his foot on a stone.
What's the point of evolution if your kid turns out gay? All those millions of years of improvement, and for what: so the genetic material doesn't get passed on? And who cares about global warming if you're not going to be having grandchildren?
OK, I can't really put myself in these shoes, but it's interesting to try.
"My daughter is gay therefore global warming is a hoax" is just gloriously demented.
National coming out as pwned day yay!
Zo, haf you considered zat these dreams in which you are haffing sex with your mother are, in fact, just a manifestation of ze Realism Complex?
Most of my GiLBerT IQQuA* friends have been out as some form of gay so long that NCOD just seems like a weird superfluous thing. And most of them are anarchists or fellow travelers of course. My oldest friend was out in middle school (before I knew her). She's wound up dating a lot of men because she apparently doesn't perform lesbianinity correctly or something. It does seem like the whole NCOD business is really about those urban/rural, fundie/normal binaries now. At the same time, it has to be said that being a transgender youth, for instance, is still pretty fucking hard no matter where you are.
Until we outnumber them!
*Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer, Questioning & Allies -- i.e. pretty much anyone who's not a vile homophobe.
46: National Coming Out Day In Memory Of Chappaquiddick.
In a few years, there won't be any Oldsmobiles left on the road and our children will never understand.
I appreciated it in the early 90s when I was on a big college campus with lots of pro and lots of anti (UT: it has many fraternities.) It started a few conversations, I guess? Hard to remember clearly now, but I do remember one straight girl in my linguistics class wearing jeans and I asked was she wearing them for blue jeans day, which she was, and we had a smiley little bonding moment because one thing I have always felt cornily grateful for is straight-folks-who-liked-gay-folks-before-straight-folks-generally-liked-gay-folks, without whom we'd have been 100% screwed. Folks folks folks. I am Gay Joe Biden.
Now, maybe, it sounds a bit silly, but I have the luxury of living in Gomorrah-on-Hudson, so big gay grain of lavender salt.
You could turn the steering wheel 30 degrees before the wheels moved at all. They were just like big boats.
I am Gay Joe Biden.
Perhaps the awesomest thing to be.
53: No salt, Smearcase, that's sweet!
Have I told you all the story about my best friend coming out to me? I could have handled it better I suppose, but, to be fair to young peep, I could also have been a lot worse.
After he told me we went (as planned before) to see Risky Business and he got a huge crush on this new hot teen actor, Tom Cruise. I was a little freaked out.
I'm thinking of trying out a new career as an online counselor.
I almost wish this existed*. I was so freakishly elated two days ago to get to take care of a "why hasn't my shipment shipped if it's called a shipment already?" question with Amazon by chat rather than phone, just think how exciting it would be if I could conduct all my dealings with anything/anyone online.
*Oh you know what, it almost certainly does.
Your friend probably feels sillier today about his crush on Cruise than you do about your reaction to it.
60: You're probably right. I tease him about it from time to time.
Risky Business Cruise was pretty damn sexy, IIRC. I'm not even sure a crush makes one gay.
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This is kind of hokey, but still moving:
http://bodazey.com/israel_loves_iran_campaign_goes_viral_on_facebook.html
I wish it were that simple. It should be. Why don't people get it? Stupid governments.
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I always tease Lee about being lucky she ended up a lesbian, because she has a very clear memory of buying the Sports Illustrated with OJ Simpson on the cover and thinking to herself, "Wow, his wife is the luckiest woman in the world!"
If his first wife had a good enough lawyer, she's probably done O.K.
My best friend in junior high came out to me (sorta) in high school, and I think maybe she underestimated me. Or overestimated how SHOCKING it would be. But she told me (enough to figure it out) and I was all hm, not terribly surprised, let's keep being the friends we have been and talk about the things we always have, and I think she took my lack of reaction as not catching on, or maybe not wanting to dicuss Being Lesbian. It wasn't that, I'd have talked about Being Lesbian if she wanted. But I didn't know that we had to have an adjustment period involving drama, so I didn't react much. Somehow, that was wrong and we weren't as close after that.
You're my age, which means I'd expect coming out in high school to be drama-ridden -- even if not with you, with family and other friends. Wouldn't you have thought that she was hoping for active support through the rest of the coming-out process?
Maybe it was easier in LA than in NY, but even in a very liberal school in NY, coming out wasn't smooth sailing for people who did it in high school.
I didn't think I was precluding active support. I'd have been active support if she were getting trouble from anywhere else. But I guess I didn't signal that enough, because I took it in stride.
69: Interesting! Maybe my failure to take it in stride was more supportive. Unlikely, but possible!
I guess I'm projecting from my most memorable someone-coming-out-to-me story, where it was pretty clear that emotional support was what was wanted.
(I was looking for the story in the archives, because I'm sure I've told it, but can't find it. Freshman year roommate, halfway through the year figured out she was gay by (mutually) falling for another housemate from a conservative Christian background. My roommate was freaking out, her new girlfriend was freaking out, I look calm and grew up in NYC so my job was to say soothing things like "No one's going to Hell, you don't have to tell your parents until you're ready, lots of people have been lesbians before you and it works out fine." I was faking it a bit -- I knew some gay boys but didn't actually know any lesbians yet so I was a tiny bit weirded out -- but I'm pretty sure I covered okay. But of course I wouldn't have known to be supportive if she hadn't been freaking out.)
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File under "squee."
Language Log was linked at me earlier in the day (note how cleverly I use the passive voice to avoid violating SOOBC) and for some reason, in a weird mood, I wrote to Geoff Pullum and thanked him for the snow hoax essay, and said I refer to it often but have always had trouble memorizing exactly what I am supposed to say in response to iterations of the titular hoax.
He most amusingly wrote back:
"Thank you, [Smearcase]. It has been a long wait these past 23 years ('Hoax' was first published in 1989!) but I am glad to have your belated appreciation of it!"
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The weird thing about my exact age/milieu is that it was totally OK to be gay in culture generally (or at least totally not OK to be openly bigoted about it), and there was an expectation that large numbers of people would come out immediately upon entering college, and there were plenty of people whom everyone "knew" was gay without it being that big a deal, but absolutely no one was affirmatively out as gay in high school. People weren't even out in the gay-straight alliance, of which I was a member; we were all officially just academically interested in gay rights or something.
This had entirely changed two years later, when my sister was at the same school. So I guess I was in almost the last class of no-one -is-out high school.
73: That's my high school. While it would have been absolutely uncool to be openly homophobic, there were boys (no girls I remember) who were jokingly gay-ish, but no one I remember was really out out until college, and some of the boys who came out in college were dating girls in high school. (I dated one, made out at a party with another. I try not to think of that as having any sort of causal connection.)
In HS, I was the test case for a friend who was pretty sure that she was gay. I really enjoyed our makeout session, after which she explained that, yes, she was still pretty sure that she was gay. I called her three days later to ask whether she had made up her mind.
(I dated one, made out at a party with another. I try not to think of that as having any sort of causal connection.)
Correlation is not causality . . .
Wasn't there a previous thread in which several male unfogged commenters talked about finding attractive women who presented in ways which were not traditionally feminine and how this ended up with various crushes on not-straight women?
[Pretend that syntax was less jumbled.]
In my high school (1988-1992) it was absolutely not OK to be out or even suspected, and homophobia was the default stance assumed of everyone and almost always accurately so. There were four or five of us whom everyone "knew" must be gay but none of us were open until one came out to his family my senior year and was immediately thrown out and was on his own for the remainder of the term. Let me tell you, it was extremely frustrating to go to college, come out, have word trickle back to the old homestead and then find out that my two biggest crushes were likewise closet cases, now out at other colleges, and all three of us had huge crushes on the other two for years. High school would have been way more fun with threesomes.
In contrast, the most popular guy in Rah's high school came out in the mid-'80s. This was also in NC, in a small, conservative city instead of a backwater like my town. The guy's personal charisma was so great that he overwhelmed the entrenched homophobia and retained his popularity, forever altering the culture of that one school. When his sister attended that school six or seven years later it was still okay for students to be out as queer in a way that was alien to all the other schools around them.
My HS (88-91), it felt like it would have been pretty uncomfortable or perhaps dangerous to be out. One guy a year ahead of me was, and another guy was widely thought to be his boyfriend and was indeed. I'm happy to say they both went on to be really successful and stuff. The semi-closeted one had the added advantage of being middle-eastern in Kentucky during the first gulf war, so you can see why he might not want to take on extra work.
Honestly, who knows. It's a college town after a fashion, and medium-sized (250K at the time maybe) and I think had one gay bar. Now it has a gay mayor, as my parents like to tell me, whereupon I always sarcastically say how I can't wait to move back. It might have been fine. I came out to 5-6 close friends, the openly gay guy, and my family senior year. Mostly I just hung out with a crowd of weirdos wherein it didn't seem especially conspicuous not to date, and had a female best friend [known to Thorn] who people with broken gaydar may have assumed was my special lady.
Not once in my entire life, somehow, did I have anyone react badly except a few WTF instances way later when I mentioned it casually to people who couldn't process it.
Ok this is long-winded but I feel like they're both slightly funny stories. Once I was talking to someone about names that aren't single-gender, and how sometimes there are couples who both have the name, and I said, "yeah, and I dated a [My First Name] once!" to which he said "a girl named [My First Name]?!" The other was just a middle school friend who looked me up, somewhat to my chagrin, when he moved to Austin, and at some point asked me where to meet attractive femalse. I said something like "I really can't help on that one" and he proceeded to not get it and not get it until finally I made it clear enough that he said "are you saying that you are a homosexual?!" This was in fucking 1997.
There were a couple of people who were out in my high school but otherwise it was I think a bit like Halford's situation; the gay-straight alliance was massively popular but it wasn't really clear which (if any) of the people in it were actually gay. I mean, presumably some were. Also I was presumably socially irrelevant enough that the gossip about who was out-ish or suspected to be gay wouldn't have come my way.
When a gay guy moved into the house where I was living in lieu of college a year or so later we sort of felt like aren't we cool urbanites now, a feeling only enhanced when a large, narcoleptic transexual prostitute moved in a while later.
I had a college housemate whom I (and everyone else) assumed was gay. We were very close friends and lived together for two years, and I often asked him if he was, we talked about gay rights, etc. He would deny it vigorously and occasionally have sex with girls, so after a while I just figured I was wrong and that all was cool. Then, immediately after leaving college (a college, by the way, with a super-supportive and active gay community, many of whom we were friends with) he came out. I still wonder sometimes if I was the asshole somehow who came across as homophobic or made it scary for him, but I've come round to figuring that it was mostly his issue and I can't be responsible for it. Still, to this day it makes me feel like a total jerk.
As far as I know(or recall), no one was out in my high school (1978-1981). There was certainly not a gay-straight alliance!
80: It sounds like he just had some extra hang up that was completely unrelated to you or your shared circumstances, and really there was nothing wrong with how you acted at all.
We were very close friends and lived together for two years, and I often asked him if he was, we talked about gay rights, etc.
You and your friend are now the Bert and Ernie puppets from Avenue Q in my head. (Like so.)
82: Exactly. Halford is a total jerk for reasons not related to homophobia but not limited to grains.
Resurfacing again: in my college career 1964-67 at Reed college, a very enlightened place for the time, there was a gay subculture but it was all half-secretive and there was LOT of rude, giggly, unpleasant (but not violent) homophobia. Lots of New Yorkers and Bay Area people there.
In those days faculty student relationships, including gay relationships, were tolerated as long as there was no scandal. I was approached by one faculty member and checked out by two others because I didn't seem very heterosexual, and there were only two categories in those days.
In my HS one kid was regarded as a sissy, the local euphemism, because he preferred girls games to boys. Oddly, he was a big, strong stoical guy. He later became a Hollywood therapist and expert in visualization (look up Bill Fezler). He died not long ago and everyone assumes it was AIDS, but no one knows because he cut off contact with everyone.
A second guy came out when he was in his 30s and had three kids. It was horrible and he ended up losing contact with his whole family except one niece. He recently died in the Philippines just barely after he made contact with people again. He had been the best athlete in the school, football basketball, tennis, and golf, and had a career as an athletic coach.
My mother had a gay cousin who was her favorite cousin who had migrated to NJ but she didn't want to know about it and he didn't tell her. He took her to London for theater when they were both about 75. She also had a possibly gay uncle who made a scandal at a family reunion with one cousin, details unknown.
In a later class there was a transsexual who still lives in town. She is tolerated but not really accepted. At her class reunion only three people sat with her as far as could see, and two of us weren't part of the class reunion. In general women have been more accepting than guys in all of these cases.
None of this was "out". The school did have policies in place to prevent the bullying of sissies, at least the kids of town leaders. Long aftyer the fact I realized that this explained a few things (sissies were encouraged to lift weights, for one thing). One of the things that made things easier is that Lutheran boys aren't supposed to be heterosexual either, so it was harder to tell. The gay athlete was more heterosexual in his behavior than about half the guys in the class.
Just thought I'd share some data from the archaic period.
"are you saying that you are a homosexual?!"
Yet more Story Time: last weekend I was in a tiny town in the depths of the Deep South and in the course of the visit I was taken by a straight friend to a benefit cocktail for a local charity. I had no idea what their focus might be and when I asked what they did the bartender didn't tell me right away. Instead he asked, very clinically, "Are you a homosexual?" I replied in the affirmative with enthusiasm and then he told me they work to connect HIV/AIDS patients with support services. It might have been a little flirty teasing on his part, I suppose, given how really obviously queer I am, but I was left with the impression he might actually have had a different answer had I replied that I were straight.
a large, narcoleptic transexual prostitute
The mind absolutely races with potential manifestations of these traits.
I'm wondering who wants a prostitute who falls asleep and if that could possibly be the sign of anything but a would-be serial killer who lacks only nerve.
I don't think she fell asleep while, you know, working. Mostly she would conk out while playing Nintendo, so you'd come home to a large, black figure in leather fetish gear snoring open-mouthed on the couch while the Zelda theme looped in the background.
I quite like the idea of an event that forces homophobes to self-identify as bigots, from a nudge-y Dan Kahneman point of view. Default options are powerful! Everyone looks better in the battered denim jeans of tolerance! It actually sounds like the point of NCOD wasn't to help the gays come out but the bigots.
At Knifecrime Grammar, I don't remember any of the guys being gay, but there were two girls in a lesbian relationship during the sixth form, who later broke up and both started sleeping with men. (I knew one of the girls quite well - unusually she was sort of femme-and-bohemian verging on manic pixie dream girl but also a Formula One racing obsessive. The other, well, if they asked you to pick the lesbian out of the class photo...although AFAIK motor racing wasn't an important part of her life. Love, love, love, eh..)
I have a bit of sympathy for the parents -- it must be very confusing for them.
Not that this is what you meant by confusing, but a bi friend of mine posted yesterday on FB about her frustration with people's confusion. That is, she is currently dating a man and so people conclude she was just confused when she dated those women in the past. Including some of those women, who conclude that they broke up because my friend must not really be into women after all. I see similar thinking from a close friend of mine whose family member recently broke up with a long-term GF, but was previously engaged to a man and has gone on a couple of dates with men since the break up. My friend expresses hopes of getting her relative back on "our team," which makes me sad, especially since the poor woman is still struggling with the fallout of the breakup. Anyway, it's all made me more aware of how anxious people are to put people on a team. Too bad if other people are confused, basically. People asked the relative, when she first came out about her relationship with the ex, whether that meant she was gay. She just shrugged and said more or less, "Call it whatever you want."
Including some of those women, who conclude that they broke up because my friend must not really be into women after all.
I have a friend who said that the conventional wisdom among he circle of lesbian friends (in NYC) was that bi women were trouble because it was likely that they would end up going back to dating men.
It was obvious both that this was the sort of stereotype which could develop from a relatively limited set of examples and also that it would be frustrating to have multiple experiences (either personally or one's friends) of dating women who identified as bi and who ended up seeming more interested in men than women.
None of which takes away from the sympathy for your friend; that does sound like a difficult process.
that it would be frustrating to have multiple experiences (either personally or one's friends) of dating women who identified as bi and who ended up seeming more interested in men than women.
Sure, but it's also frustrating to have multiple experiences dating men who identify as straight who end up seeming more interested in women who aren't me. Lots of people who date wind up going on to date other people.
Sometimes before the salad plates are removed.
Lots of people who date wind up going on to date other people.
I may have been unclear, but I actually agree with your original comment -- the pressure placed on people who identify as "bi" to pick "a team" is not a good thing, and is a reflection of the fact that being straight/queer is seen as a more significant choice than the choice of individuals that one dates.
I was confirming that (a) I've definitely heard about that prejudice, and (b) have some sympathy for it. But that isn't to dispute that it is a prejudice.
There was some kind of sweater or jacket that bi guys were supposed to wear stereotypically, but I'm blanking on it. Does anyone else remember this? Was this a thing?
I read your comment, thought "Nahh, I never heard of that" and then the words "Members Only" drifted through my head. Was that a thing? Or am I hallucinating again? And where did all these weasels come from?
97: I've looked at that site in previous years. The costumes are getting so bizarre it feels like trolling. Sexy Nemo was weird enough but now there's sexy Bert?!
Sexy Earnie has got it going on.
If sexy Bert is wrong, I don't want to be right.
On the blog, sexy Cookie Monster cracks my shit up.
94: Sorry if I was snippy. The idea of this pick a team prejudice is sort of new to me and so I'm newly pissed off that it exists.
71
(I was looking for the story in the archives, because I'm sure I've told it, but can't find it. Freshman year roommate, halfway through the year figured out she was gay by (mutually) falling for another housemate from a conservative Christian background. My roommate was freaking out, her new girlfriend was freaking out, I look calm and grew up in NYC so my job was to say soothing things like "No one's going to Hell, you don't have to tell your parents until you're ready, lots of people have been lesbians before you and it works out fine." I was faking it a bit -- I knew some gay boys but didn't actually know any lesbians yet so I was a tiny bit weirded out -- but I'm pretty sure I covered okay. But of course I wouldn't have known to be supportive if she hadn't been freaking out.)
Actually she may not have been gay if by that you mean exclusively attracted to women. Men who are attracted to other men generally aren't attracted to women but things are less definite for women. Which is how you get "lesbians" who date men.
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so we're now I think a home inspection away from buying a place. *pucker*
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You're coming into closets (unless it's a very old house).
109: I really think that's much too private to talk about.
But yes: yes, indeed.
N.b. My hippest anarchist friend informs me that no one but old fuddie-duddies identifies themselves as "bisexual" anymore. Rather, you are just supposed to say "queer" and let the chips fall where they may.
I've given Bonsaisue a lot of grief about her rage for a sfh, as opposed to a condo or an apartment. Still, I'm excited.
111: I understand this to be correct. A friend's daughter, who dated men in high school, then women in college and for a few years after (including living with a woman for 2-3 years), started dating a man last year and has just announced their engagement. Apparently she initially fretted about this that she really didn't want to give up her queer identity, though. She's 25, I think.
I'm not sure what she meant by that: she didn't want to be framed as a happy housewife in an apron? She didn't want to take his name in marriage, didn't want to subordinate herself to him? I'm not sure.
Sadly, to my ears, her father (my friend) says that women are much more malleable in their sexuality at a young age, more given to experimentation.
112: TJ, I stand with Bonsaisue: a single family home rocks if you can manage it.
It really is an incredible experience to be in your own home, turn up the stereo, stomp around, and not have to worry at all about anyone above or below you and to say "I own this." Now, is it worth the money or the premium over rent or the maintenance or the fact that, actually, the bank owns it? Maybe not, I'm still working all that out, but there's still something pretty awesome about owning a SFH.
And fifteen years later, my roommate has stuck with the lesbian plan. Not that some people don't experiment, but as far as I know, she never looked back.
Shorter 113: What is a "queer identity"? I mean, I sort of know what she might mean, but then again, the young woman I'm describing has gotten engaged to a man after dating him for not much more than 8 months. That's cool, they love one another and seem quite in sync in their life goals and whatnot ... I take it she's expressing a recognition that getting heterosexually marriage is so, y'know, traditional.
Sorry, that wasn't actually shorter.
On preview of LB's 115: What is a queer identity?
We're not detached--it is a townhouse, because that was the best we could do.
I think I must be broken, or too community-minded, or something. The whole "stomping, loud music playing" does nothing for me. I'm closer to Megan in that I'd rather be able to be naked whenever.
115
That kind of thing happens to men too, ...
I don't think it is as common at least in US culture.
119: Nah, tastes just differ, priorities differ. Nobody's broken in these matters.
122: I just wonder why the "American dream" of a detached SFH with a big yard has no valence for me. I mean I grew up in a semi-rural environment where we rented that consistently.
Like others, I feel that "pan" is more accurate than "bi," but at any rate I'm in that weird place of being queer but in a monogamous marriage with a member of the "opposite" sex.
Most of the time it's immaterial--who cares about the gender of people I'm actively choosing not to sleep with--but it can be awkward for identity politics-related reasons.
I do give my patents huge credit for how they handled my coming out. I think my mom said something like "okay, sure, and my dad said he had kinda figured as much.
123: I don't view it as an American Dream kind of thing; I don't like a detached SFH because it achieves some American Dream goal, but because I really do like the privacy and ability to have a garden, establish a compost heap, plant a special tree, and so on. If you're not into that stuff, you're not going to feel drawn to it.
Other people are, it's true, attracted to the American Dreaminess of the thing (that would be the white picket fence vision). No, that doesn't have any valence for me either.
Now that I see 118, if your friend's experience is like mine, the issue is that one appears straight to others, but doesn't feel straight, and doesn't want that assumed to be true. If my female friends and I are in the mood to ogle men's asses, I don't want it to be weird that I'm also ogling women (or something like that).
125: I did just that, planting a lovely fir when I was--I think, maybe 9? It grew to about 30 feet before the new owners cut it down. God knows why, it was a beautiful tree. It made a lovely contrast to the maple next to it and the juniper privacy hedge nearby. All of which they cut down. God they were assholes.
124, 126: Yes, thanks. I'm not sure why I was dense about this.
|| Public service announcement: Dog With a Blog, a new series, premieres at 9:40 tonight on the Disney Channel. We may finally find out what Ogged looks like.
From the promo it looks just as bad as you expect. ||
We should all send in pictures of our asses for J, Robot.
I planted a shitload of redwoods in Montclair with the boy scouts when I was 9. Now I can check on them with google maps, because I live on the future, and they look to be about 60 feet tall. Very satisfying.
We should all send in pictures of our asses for J, Robot.science.
To be fair, a fir tree is way more handsome than a redwood, 132.
131, 133, agreed. I have a great ass myself, and since I'm at the NY Comic Con I've been ogling many many others.
For those keeping track of historical trends + anecdata, I was 14 in 1995 when I first hooked up with another girl (who then be America notorious at our school for landing all of the hot straight chicks that the few straight guys around couldn't--it was an art school). Some people were out, some were semi-closeted and came out in college, and at least one friend transitioned F to M.
People who cut down beautiful trees are just assholes, I think we can agree. I planted some, uh, some kind of special flowering bulb plant, a lilac/white colored lily, at my last house: it was to take two years to implement itself, and it had just started to come up alongside the path to the front porch, when the new owners moved in and dug it up. They also yanked out the forsythia. That's wrong.
You know, though, the thing is, I don't spend a lot of time in my life ogling or mooning over the sexual appeal of random other people. Like, with friends. Is that weird?
I don't think it's weird at all. I just have some crazy, horny friends who are open to talking about these things. This may come up more frequently for others in discussions of, say, crush-worthy actors.
There are any number of circumstances though in which someone will incorrectly assume that I'm straight, and its that I always need to change that, but sometime I think it's important that I do. Marriage doesn't "fix" being queer, like some people assume, and when people day "oh, you're straight now," something really is being lost/disavowed/judged.
Let's all send on pictures of our feet in case that's what parsimon is into.
Good feet are good, it's true. Also hands.
If we send parsimon photos of our feet, is Joe Biden gonna talk about our feet? Because weird.
Feet have to be really good before they're hands.
If one toe nails has half fallen off because of running, that's probably a sign of a great foot regardless of how many of the other nails have fungus.
It certainly sounds like an athlete's foot.
Moby, you are an excellent person no matter what.
If you shoved the Matrix, the Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Dora the Explorer into a movie blender, you'd have "Snow.White and the Huntsman."
If you had a movie blender, you could make Bill & Ted's Excellent Titanic and many other instant classics.
Also, I just want to be clear that 138 was about talking about it with friends, not about actually noticing the sexual appeal of others. You know.
Put it this way: even in peak age, pre-40, when we (my friends and I) were all running around sleeping with people, and each other, we didn't actually *talk about*, relate, what was hot about one person or another. You just went about your business. The handful of times I did mention why someone was hot (to me), I was told that I was being kind of rude. You would absolutely not say that someone had a great ass or whatever, because that wasn't a good enough reason in itself.
This doesn't particularly have to do with being gay or straight -- the conversation seems to have migrated, I have no idea how.
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Shit. I hadn't checked 538 in a while, and now they're giving Romney a 40% chance of winning? Shit shit shit shit.
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154
Shit. I hadn't checked 538 in a while, and now they're giving Romney a 40% chance of winning? Shit shit shit shit.
38.9% to be precise (but 43.9% if the election were held today). Looks like I wasn't actually the only undecided (or weakly committed) voter out there.
Mitt Romney continues to surge in the FiveThirtyEight forecast, and Friday may have featured his best set of polls all year.
154: This map looks more soothing.
Also, have the media decided that the failure of the administration to protect diplomats in Benghazi is A Thing? And if it is A Thing for the media, will it be A Thing for the voters?
(It does sound like a cock up.)
156.1: Not really? It has Obama with 30-odd fewer votes than a week ago, doesn't it? Mostly because Florida flipped, I guess.
It didn't flip. It just got a little pinker. It will go away. Maybe Sarah Silverman will make another video about voting and her Nana and it will all be better.
Was it a cock up? I have yet to hear a clear criticism from someone who wasn't interested in it for partisan gain. The media has clearly decided it is a legitimate controversy.
Like, you know when you look in the mirror in the morning and your eye looks a little pink, and you think "ermahgerd, my kids gave me pink eye," but then you realize you are just a little hung over and it will go away by noon.
I have yet to hear a clear criticism from someone who wasn't interested in it for partisan gain.
Everyone living may well be dead before a disinterested party looks at this event.
So can we decide that we need to do more than cross our fingers here? Where are efforts best put? I'll look into this tomorrow.
Fivethirtyeight now has Florida at a 2/3 chance of going for Romney, so it sounds like a pretty thoroughly lost cause.
I told myself I wasn't going to knock on doors this time around for Obama, because of the drone strike thing. (I'm your base, you have failed to energize me.) I also said I wouldn't do it because it turns out that even 4 hours a week can totally fuck up my schedule.
I'm thinking of sending cash money to my pretend girlfriend Elizabeth Warren. But I've been told we are in a low liquidity situation until late November.
Fivethirtyeight now has Florida at a 2/3 chance of going for Romney, so it sounds like a pretty thoroughly lost cause.
2/3 is hardly a lock.
WTF is with Florida. Okay, how about Ohio? Help might be needed there. Cash help? Someone at Balloon Juice is pretty much on the ground in Ohio -- as I said, I'll see what she says about where any cash help might go. Tomorrow.
There's still time to sell Florida back to Spain.
165: hardly a lock, but also not something that could conceivably be turned into a safe Obama state either. At best it'll be a toss-up.
164: Are there other campaigns you could canvas for? I swallowed my centrist aversion and avoidant personality and gave some hours to my local embattled Senator.
You know what else you can do: put an Obama/Biden sign on your lawn or in your window or on your car. Don't back down. I mean that.
I'm strangely unanxious and resigned about the election, and I could barely muster any hatred in yesterday's most despised Republican thread. At this point, I'm sort of amused that we could very well elect a creature like Romney.
171: I feel the same way. But then I think about what a Romney victory would mean, and I get more agitated. Still, there's nothing any of us can do. It's all on Obama at this point. If he does well in the next debate, the numbers will look much, much better. If not, if he sucks ass again, then he really might lose (though even then, given what's happening in Ohio, I think the odds are probably still with him). It's all very weird.
I think the other reason that I've been feeling relatively calm is that I'm on huge doses of Vicodin and some muscle relaxant whose name I can't recall.
That'll help. As for me, I'm reading Stross's Laundry Files. I listen to the news and think, "Yeah, this seems about right."
172: Yay. Believe it or not, I think it really helps. I'm seeing far too many Romney/Ryan signs cropping upon lawns in the last couple of weeks, and virtually no Obama signs. I know Democrats tend not to be demonstrative, but people are lemmings, so counter the signs.
Does it make any difference if I don't vote in California? I have a mail-in ballot I'm thinking of just tossing into the shredder.
From my perspective, it would be really wonderful if you'd vote yes on 30. And if you want to be extra nice to me, you'd vote no on 32 and 38.
I got my new voter ID card in the mail today. I guess this means I should vote.
178: Good enough reasoning and better than that in the birdcage liners filling my mailbox every day.
I also recently received the Official Election Pamphlet. One of the ballot measures asks whether there should be a constitutional convention, not because anyone has particularly been pushing for one but because the current state constitution contains a provision mandating that the question be put to the voters every ten years.
I am also also drinking bourbon (Old Crow this time). Whee!
The CA propositions are written to deceive, as are the names of the connected organizations. You can almost count on "Citizens for Healthy Babies" being a coalition of companies pushing for mandatory Kevlar diapers in gang warfare territory.
163: But presumably they had it as leaning Obama a week ago. It's very much not a lots cause.
To the older topics, no one was out in my high school, and the high school was not that supportive of gay people in general, although certain subgroups would have been fine. Definitely no GSA club or anything. After high school a handful of people came out.
To nothing, we're at Austin City Limits festival this weekend. Yesterday's highlight was Teagen and Sara.
Oh hey my cousin is there. Say hi.
Hey Hawaii! Hokey Pokey! Want to come over here and play with some cymbals?
178:
Mind giving a short explanation about why to vote no on 38? I'm pretty uninformed, but my general view has been (a) it would have been better had 38 not been on the ballot, because it hurts 30's chances (b) Munger seems like a bit of a PITA and (c) all of that said, it would be better for 38 to pass than for it not to. Where did I go wrong here, in your view?
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LDS missionary work builds valuable skills.
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192
Don't know Von Wafer's reasoning but here is a LAT editorial taking the same position. Briefly if both pass only the one gettting the most votes goes into effect. So if you like 30 a lot more than 38 it may make sense to vote against 38 even if you think it is better than nothing. Of course if you think 38 is worse than nothing than it is easy to vote against it.
194 is correct, plus 38 does nothing for anything but k-12 education (and could end up hurting Cal State and the UC, and other stuff besides) plus Molly Munger should be chewed to death by weasels.
Or, put differently, 30 frees up desperately needed money for the state's general fund. 38 does not. Plus, chewed to death by weasels.
Yeah, 38 is yet another proposition raising always-earmarked funds, which strategy is part of why the budget is such a perpetual mess.
195: It's annoying she stayed out on her own when the "Millionaire's Tax" supporters were savvy enough to negotiate with Brown and combine propositions with him, and the new anti-30 ads are rather letting down the side, but that hardly seems mustelid-level despicable. Is there something I don't know about?
She's generally been kind of a local PITA for a while, plus attacking 30 as part of her current campaign is IMO completely unforgiveable -- she's willing to wreck the state out of stupidity, ego and the fact that her Dad made a lot of money. That's enough for death by weasel for me.
I agree that 30 is better than 38, and it'd be bad if they both passed but 38 got more votes. But if 30 fails, I'd rather have 38 than nothing. No?
200
I agree that 30 is better than 38, and it'd be bad if they both passed but 38 got more votes. But if 30 fails, I'd rather have 38 than nothing. No?
Then you have a problem where you have to decide how much you prefer 30 to 38 and how much you prefer 38 to nothing and how likely a vote for 38 is produce a better rather than a worse outcome (from your point of view). This sort of voting dilemna is fairly common such as when there are 3 candidates and you worry that voting for your most preferred candidate will just help your least preferred candidate win.
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Fucketa fuck. Today was my big bike ride into Cambridge and back to prove I was entirely over my heart attack, which I apparently am, but going through a ford (the watersplash, not the car) the bike decided to proceed on its side with me underneath, so I emerged bruised, scraped and soaking wet. Now I am dry but my ribs hurt. Thank you for your forbearance.
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200: Yes, in theory, but tax initiatives are always an uphill struggle ; there was never a real chance that 38 would win and outperform 30, just that it would take them both down together.
202. Well, if you will live in a partially reclaimed swamp...
Glad you're OK. If your ribs still hurt in the morning go to A&E and get them X-rayed.
re: 202
Erk. Good, though, to hear you are recovering/-ed from the heart attack.
No, I'm fine really; a bit achey. And I don't think I will bother getting the ribs X-rayed. There's nothing much they can do about cracked ribs anyway.
Also, Chris, the swamp is the bit north of Cambridge. Round here we're teetering 50m over sealevel.
Yikes. Seconding ttaM's "erk" and chris's concern.
Very glad to hear you're up and biking again, though, Werdna.