OT: WAY WAY OT: Re: OT: Re: What? the clean-shaven

>>How do you know they've internalized it, as opposed to've felt that way
>>all the time? Given the variation of tastes you described in the rest of
>>you mail, one'd be surprised if there weren't a  subset of gays with such
>>tastes.
>
>True, but not all effeminate gays or men attracted to effeminate men are
>that way because they always felt like it. In my experience, those are
>rather rare actually. How do I know? Observation, and an ear well-placed
>during conversations (when you hear something like: "This guy is hot! Too
>bad he is so straight-looking", you can't make any other conclusion :)) ).
Interesting. I can't say that I've ever heard that phrase used, though I do
tend to hang with a more masculine crowd. I do know many gays who take great
offense at the phrase "straight acting".

>This is by no means a scientific survey, but in my experience, androgynous
>men and men attracted to them are found mostly in places where social
>pressure (both from straight people and other gay people) expects gay
>people to be like that (like in the Marais in Paris). This style of gay
>people is strongly dependent on social pressure, which is why I say that
>it's mostly internalised by people rather than a true taste.
For me, it's hard to evaluate this today - knowledge that there are gays and
lesbians is much more above-board and available today (growing up in the
60's and 70's, there was nothing available to me), and there are there are
the periodic androgynous fads.  I also know a few straight women who are
wild about androgynous men.

From my own experience, I do know there were exceedingy few if any
non-effeminate gay role models in the USA prior to the 70's.  This, more
than religious oppression*, affected my own identity: I knew I was atrtacted
to men, but if gays were only effemnitae, then I must be bi even though I'd
never been attracted sexually to a woman. Only in the 80's, after I moved to
a larger city, did this change for me. I'm ashamed to admit that I still
feel uncomfortible around effeminate men (this is one of my problems, not
one of theirs).

As I've always preferred older men (the illusion and allusion of wisdom?), I
can clearly remember more than one telling me how much he envied me as I had
more choices than he did re: my sexual identity.

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