Straight men, what's the weirdest thing you've been told you can't do because it's gay?

return2ozma@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 292 points –
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I've had a colleague say that tea is "homo water". I'm aro/ace, but most of my colleagues don't know that. Similarly a straight colleague of mine got mocked for wearing pink (but not feminine) shoes. After some of these incidents we've kinda started pushing back against this nonsense by deliberately triggering these people and calling them out, which has worked so far.

Being gay doesn't mean someone is somehow less masculine, which is the heart of what the "homo water" idiot is implying.

Was the British Empire, upon which the sun never set, somehow not masculine enough? One could argue it ran on tea. Morally questionable, absolutely, but not manly enough?

Were the samurai somehow compromised in their masculinity because they drank tea, sometimes in elaborate ceremonies?

And, apart from tea, were the Sacred Band, the elite warriors who died to a man fighting Alexander the Great's dad, somehow less manly because they were all gay?

I bet this colleague of yours also thinks straws are gay in this parlance, as if it's somehow more manly to put one's lips on the same glass rims touched by hundreds of others. I guess hygiene is not masculine or heterosexual.

And the thing is, even my rant here is problematic because it spawns from a lifetime of people equating gay with not being enough of a man, an attitude that infects my own thinking.

Shit, the most feminine of men is more of a man than these idiots if he stands up for his identity unapologetically.

Yeah this is kinda a point. People like this colleague seem to have gotten stuck in a highschool bully mindset ans never moved on. All of their jokes are about people who are different, their whole status seems to be based on their "masculinity". In my experience this is the largest portion of homo/transphobes here in the Netherlands. People who aren't violent or outright hateful, but rather just pushing outdated jokes and viewpoints and then getting annoyed by all the "woke bullshit" when they get called out.

My tactic so far is to not fully attack back, but rather staying friendly while showing my disappointment with this behaviour unless it goes too far. Most of these people are otherwise decent, and in my opinion may be swayed by someone "woke" who doesn't go "full crazy sjw" but does call them out. Making a joke about minorities is way easier of you don't know anyone well from those groups. They're not crazy Trump voters, so they may still be steered in the right direction

tea is homo water

The entire nations of Iran, England, and China would like to know the location of this little bitch